The Horla Read Online Free Page A

certain that I was going to find, in my house, some piece of bad news, a letter or a telegram. There was nothing there, yet I was more surprised and anxious than if I had had another fantastic vision.
    August 8
. I had a frightful evening yesterday. It no longer manifests itself, but I feel it close to me, spyingon me, watching me, penetrating me, dominating me, being all the more dreadful by hiding itself than if it gave some sign of its invisible and constant presence by means of supernatural phenomena.
    Yet I slept.
    August 9
. Nothing, but I am afraid.
    August 10
. Nothing. What will happen tomorrow?
    August 11
. Still nothing. I can no longer remain at home with this fear and this thought always in my soul. I am going to go away.
    August 12
, 10 o’clock in the evening. All day I wanted to leave, but I could not. I wanted to perform this act of freedom that is so easy, so simple—going out—climbing into my carriage to go to Rouen—but I could not. Why?
    August 13
. When one is stricken with certain illnesses, all the resources of the physical being seem to be destroyed, all energies annihilated, all muscles limp. The bones seem to have become soft as flesh, and the flesh liquid as water. I am experiencing exactly that in my moral fiber in a strange and distressing way. I have lost all strength, all courage, all self-control, even all power to put my will in motion. I can no longer want anything; but someone wants for me; and I obey.
    August 14
. I am lost. Someone possesses my soul and governs it. Someone controls all my actions, all my movements, all my thoughts. I am nothing inside, nothing but a slave spectator, terrified of all the things I do. I want to go out. I cannot. It doesn’t want to, so I remain, distraught, trembling, in the armchair where it is keeping me seated. I just want to get up, to stand up, just to believe I am still master of myself. I can’t. I am riveted to my chair; my chair sticks to the floor, so that no strength can raise us.
    Then all of a sudden, I must, I must go to the back of my garden to pick strawberries and eat them. And I go. I pick strawberries and I eat them! Oh my God! My God! Is there a God? If there is, set me free, save me! Help me! Forgive me! Have pity on me! Mercy! Save me! Save me from this suffering—this torture—this horror!
    August 15
. Surely this is how my poor cousin was possessed and dominated, when she came to borrow five thousand francs from me. She was undergoing a strange will that had entered her, like another soul, like a parasitic and dominating soul. Is the world about to end?
    But the one that is governing me, what is it, this invisible thing? This unknowable thing, this prowler from a supernatural race?
    So Invisible Beings do exist! But why haven’t they ever revealed themselves in a clear way since thebeginning of the world, as they are doing for me? I have never read anything that resembles what has been going on in my house. If only I could leave it, if only I could go out, flee and not come back, I would be saved. But I cannot.
    August 16
. I was able to escape today for two hours, like a prisoner who finds the door of his dungeon left open by chance. I felt I was free all of a sudden, and that he was far away. I ordered the carriage to be harnessed quickly, and I reached Rouen. What joy it was to be able to say to someone who obeys: “Go to Rouen!”
    I had him stop in front of the library, and I asked them to lend me the great treatise by Dr. Hermann Herestauss on the unknown inhabitants of the ancient and modern world.
    Then, as I was climbing back into my carriage, I wanted to say, “To the train station!” but I shouted—not said, but shouted—in such a loud voice that a passersby turned around, “Home,” and I fell, stricken with anguish, onto the cushion of my car. He had found me and recaptured me.
    August 17
. What a night! What a night! And yet it feels as if I should rejoice. Until one in the morning, I read. Hermann