But, the butterfly you will say, a flying flower!  I dream of one that should be as large as a hundred worlds, with wings whose shape, beauty, colors, and motion I cannot even express.  But I see it ... it flutters from star to star, refreshing them and perfuming them with the light and harmonious breath of its flight!...  And the people up there look at it as it passes in an ecstasy of delight!...

* * * * *

What is the matter with me?  It is he, the Horla who haunts me, and who makes me think of these foolish things!  He is within me, he is becoming my soul; I shall kill him!

August 19th. I shall kill him.  I have seen him!  Yesterday I sat down at my table and pretended to write very assiduously.  I knew quite well that he would come prowling round me, quite close to me, so close that I might perhaps be able to touch him, to seize him.  And then!... then I should have the strength of desperation; I should have my hands, my knees, my chest, my forehead, my teeth to strangle him, to crush him, to bite him, to tear him to pieces.  And I watched for him with all my overexcited organs.

I had lighted my two lamps and the eight wax candles on my mantelpiece, as if by this light I could have discovered him.

My bed, my old oak bed with its columns, was opposite to me; on my right was the fireplace; on my left the door which was carefully closed, after I had left it open for some time, in order to attract him; behind me was a very high wardrobe with a looking-glass in it, which served me to make my toilet every day, and in which I was in the habit of looking at myself from head to foot every time I passed it.

So I pretended to be writing in order to deceive him, for he also was watching me, and suddenly I felt, I was certain that he was reading over my shoulder, that he was there, almost touching my ear.

I got up so quickly, with my hands extended, that I almost fell.  Eh! well?...  It was as bright as at midday, but I did not see myself in the glass!...  It was empty, clear, profound, full of light!  But my figure was not reflected in it ... and I, I was opposite to it!  I saw the large, clear glass from top to bottom, and I looked at it with unsteady eyes; and I did not dare to advance; I did not venture to make a movement, nevertheless, feeling perfectly that he was there, but that he would escape me again, he whose imperceptible body had absorbed my reflection.

How frightened I was!  And then suddenly I began to see myself through a mist in the depths of the looking-glass, in a mist as it were through a sheet of water; and it seemed to me as if this water were flowing slowly from left to right, and making my figure clearer every moment.  It was like the end of an eclipse.  Whatever it was that hid me, did not appear to possess any clearly defined outlines, but a sort of opaque transparency, which gradually grew clearer.