“I was straining my eyes to decipher the inscriptions, when I thought I heard, or rather felt a rustle behind me.  I took no notice, thinking a draft had lifted some curtain.  But a minute later, another movement, almost indistinct, sent a disagreeable little shiver over my skin.  It was so ridiculous to be moved thus even so slightly, that I would not turn round, being ashamed.  I had just discovered the second package I needed, and was on the point of reaching for the third, when a great and sorrowful sigh, close to my shoulder, made me give a mad leap two yards away.  In my spring I had turned round, my hand on the hilt of my sword, and surely had I not felt that, I should have fled like a coward.

“A tall woman, dressed in white, was facing me, standing behind the chair in which I had sat a second before.

“Such a shudder ran through me that I almost fell back!  Oh, no one who has not felt them can understand those gruesome and ridiculous terrors!  The soul melts; your heart seems to stop; your whole body becomes limp as a sponge, and your innermost parts seem collapsing.

“I do not believe in ghosts; and yet I broke down before the hideous fear of the dead; and I suffered, oh, I suffered more in a few minutes, in the irresistible anguish of supernatural dread, than I have suffered in all the rest of my life!

“If she had not spoken, I might have died.  But she did speak; she spoke in a soft and plaintive voice which set my nerves vibrating.  I could not say that I regained my self-control.  No, I was past knowing what I did; but the kind of pride I have in me, as well as a military pride, helped me to maintain, almost in spite of myself, an honorable countenance.  I was making a pose, a pose for myself, and for her, for her, whatever she was, woman, or phantom.  I realized this later, for at the time of the apparition, I could think of nothing.  I was afraid.

“She said: 

“‘Oh, you can be of great help to me, monsieur!’

“I tried to answer, but I was unable to utter one word.  A vague sound came from my throat.

“She continued: 

“’Will you?  You can save me, cure me.  I suffer terribly.  I always suffer.  I suffer, oh, I suffer!’

“And she sat down gently in my chair.  She looked at me.

“‘Will you?’

“I nodded my head, being still paralyzed.

“Then she handed me a woman’s comb of tortoise-shell, and murmured: 

“’Comb my hair!  Oh, comb my hair!  That will cure me.  Look at my head—­how I suffer!  And my hair—­how it hurts!’

“Her loose hair, very long, very black, it seemed to me, hung over the back of the chair, touching the floor.

“Why did I do it?  Why did I, shivering, accept that comb, and why did I take between my hands her long hair, which left on my skin a ghastly impression of cold, as if I had handled serpents?  I do not know.

“That feeling still clings about my fingers, and I shiver when I recall it.