“When I got home again I felt an irresistible longing to see my singular treasure, and I took it out and, as I touched it, I felt a shiver go all through me.

“For some days, however, I was in my ordinary condition, although the thought of that tress of hair was always present to my mind.

“Whenever I came into the house I had to see it and take it in my, hands.  I turned the key of the cabinet with the same hesitation that one opens the door leading to one’s beloved, for in my hands and my heart I felt a confused, singular, constant sensual longing to plunge my hands in the enchanting golden flood of those dead tresses.

“Then, after I had finished caressing it and had locked the cabinet I felt as if it were a living thing, shut up in there, imprisoned; and I longed to see it again.  I felt again the imperious desire to take it in my hands, to touch it, to even feel uncomfortable at the cold, slippery, irritating, bewildering contact.

“I lived thus for a month or two, I forget how long.  It obsessed me, haunted me.  I was happy and tormented by turns, as when one falls in love, and after the first vows have been exchanged.

“I shut myself in the room with it to feel it on my skin, to bury my lips in it, to kiss it.  I wound it round my face, covered my eyes with the golden flood so as to see the day gleam through its gold.

“I loved it!  Yes, I loved it.  I could not be without it nor pass an hour without looking at it.

“And I waited—­I waited—­for what?  I do not know—­For her!

“One night I woke up suddenly, feeling as though I were not alone in my room.

“I was alone, nevertheless, but I could not go to sleep again, and, as I was tossing about feverishly, I got up to look at the golden tress.  It seemed softer than usual, more life-like.  Do the dead come back?  I almost lost consciousness as I kissed it.  I took it back with me to bed and pressed it to my lips as if it were my sweetheart.

“Do the dead come back?  She came back.  Yes, I saw her; I held her in my arms, just as she was in life, tall, fair and round.  She came back every evening—­the dead woman, the beautiful, adorable, mysterious unknown.

“My happiness was so great that I could not conceal it.  No lover ever tasted such intense, terrible enjoyment.  I loved her so well that I could not be separated from her.  I took her with me always and everywhere.  I walked about the town with her as if she were my wife, and took her to the theatre, always to a private box.  But they saw her—­they guessed—­they arrested me.  They put me in prison like a criminal.  They took her.  Oh, misery!”

Here the manuscript stopped.  And as I suddenly raised my astonished eyes to the doctor a terrific cry, a howl of impotent rage and of exasperated longing resounded through the asylum.

“Listen,” said the doctor.  “We have to douse the obscene madman with water five times a day.  Sergeant Bertrand was the only one who was in love with the dead.”