The Horla
“LETTER FROM A MADMAN” WAS FIRST PUBLISHED IN 1885.
THE FIRST VERSION OF “THE HORLA” WAS PUBLISHED IN 1886;
THE FINAL VERSION WAS PUBLISHED IN 1887.
TRANSLATION ©2005 CHARLOTTE MANDELL
MELVILLE HOUSE PUBLISHING
145 PLYMOUTH STREET
BROOKLYN, NY 11201
WWW.MHPBOOKS.COM
THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS HAS CATALOGED THE PAPERBACK EDITION AS FOLLOWS:
Maupassant, Guy de, 1850-1893.
[Horla. English]
The horla / Guy de Maupassant; translated by Charlotte Mandell.
p. cm.
eISBN: 978-1-61219-246-8
I. Mandell, Charlotte. II. Title.
PQ2349.H713 2005
843′.8—dc22
2005010708
v3.1
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
THE HORLA
LETTER FROM A MADMAN
THE HORLA (1886)
TRANSLATOR’S NOTE
Other Books in the Series
THE HORLA
May 8. What a wonderful day! I spent all morning stretched out on the grass in front of my house, beneath the huge plane tree that completely covers, shelters, and shades the lawn. I love the country here, and I love living here because this is where I have my roots, those profound and delicate roots that attach a man to the land where his ancestors were born and died, and that attach him to what one should think and what one should eat; to customs as well as to foods; to local idioms and peasant intonations; to the smells of the earth, of the villages, of the air itself.
I love my house, I grew up in it. From my windows, I can see the Seine flowing along the whole length of my garden, behind the road, almost in my back yard, the great, wide Seine, which goes from Rouen to Le Havre, covered with boats passing by.
To the left, over there, Rouen, the vast blue-roofed city, beneath the peaked crowd of Gothic bell towers. They are countless, slender or broad, dominated by the iron spire of the cathedral, and full of bells that ring in the blue air on fine mornings, carrying towards me their gentle, distant metal drone, their bronze song the breeze carries to me, now stronger, now weaker, depending on whether the wind is awakening or growing drowsy.
How fine it was this morning!
Around eleven o’clock, a long procession of ships, pulled by a tugboat fat as a fly, groaning from the effort and vomiting a thick plume of smoke, filed past my gate.
After two English schooners, whose red flags rippled on the sky, came a superb Brazilian three-master, all white, admirably clean and gleaming. I saluted it, I don’t know why, it made me so happy to see this ship.
May 11. I’ve been a little feverish for a few days now. I feel unwell, or rather I feel sad.
Where do these mysterious influences come from that change our happiness into despondency and our confidence into distress? You might say that the air, the invisible air, is full of unknowable Powers, from whose mysterious closeness we suffer. I wake up full of joy, with songs welling up in my throat. Why? I go down to the water; and suddenly, after a short walk, I come back disheartened, as if some misfortune were awaiting me at home. Why? Is it a shiver of cold that, brushing against my skin, has affected my nerves and darkened my soul? Is it the shape of the clouds, or the color of the daylight, the color of things, so changeable, that, passing in front of my eyes, has disturbed my thoughts? How can we know? Everything that surrounds us, everything we see without looking at it, everything we brush against without recognizing it, everything we touch without feeling it, everything we encounter without discerning it, everything has on us, on our organs, and, through them, on our ideas, on our heart itself, swift, surprising, and inexplicable effects.
How profound this mystery of the Invisible is! We cannot fathom it with our wretched senses, with our eyes that don’t know how to perceive either the too-small or the too-big, the too-close or the too-far, the inhabitants of a star or the inhabitants of a drop of water … with our ears that deceive us, for they transmit to us the vibrations of the air as ringing tones. They are fairies that perform the miracle of changing this movement into a sound, and by this metamorphosis, give birth to music, which makes the mute agitation of nature into a song … with our sense of smell, weaker than a dog’s … with our sense of taste, which can scarcely tell the age of a wine.
If only we had other organs that could work other miracles for us, how many things we could then discover around us!
May 16. I am sick, no doubt about it—and I was feeling so healthy last month! I have a fever, a terrible fever, or rather a feverish nervous exhaustion, which makes my soul as sick as my body. I keep having this terrifying feeling of some danger threatening, this apprehension of a misfortune on the way, or of death approaching, this premonition that must be the onset of a sickness still unknown, germinating in the blood and the flesh.
May 18. I’ve just gone to consult my doctor, since I could no longer sleep. He found my pulse was rapid, my eyes dilated, my nerves vibrating, but without any alarming symptom. I must submit to taking showers and drinking potassium bromide.
May 25. No change. Really, I am in a strange condition. As evening approaches, an incomprehensible anxiety invades me, as if night hid a terrible threat for me. I dine quickly, then I try to read; but I do not understand the words. I can scarcely make out the letters. Then I walk back and forth in my living room, under the oppression of a confused and irresistible fear, the fear of sleep and fear of my bed.
Around ten o’clock, I climb up to my bedroom. As soon as I’m inside, I turn the key twice and bolt the locks; I am afraid … of what?… I never feared anything till now.… I open my wardrobes, look under my bed, listen … listen … for what? Is it strange that a simple illness, a circulatory disorder perhaps, an irritated nerve ending, a little congestion, a tiny perturbation in the all too imperfect and delicate functioning of our living mechanism, can turn the happiest of men into a melancholic, and the bravest into a coward? Then I go to bed, and I wait for sleep like someone waiting for the executioner. I wait for it, with terror at its arrival; and my heart beats, my legs tremble; and my whole body trembles in the warmth of the bedclothes, till the moment I suddenly fall into repose, the way one drowns oneself, dropping into an abyss of stagnant water.
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