I don’t feel it coming, as I used to, this treacherous sleep, hidden beside me, that lies in wait for me, that is about to seize me by the head, close my eyes, annihilate me.

I sleep—for a long time—two or three hours—then a dream—no—a nightmare grips me. I am fully aware that I am lying down and sleeping.… I feel it and I know it … and I also feel that someone is approaching me, looking at me, feeling me, is climbing into my bed, kneeling on my chest, taking my neck in his hands and squeezing … squeezing … with all his strength, to strangle me.

And I struggle with myself, bound by the atrocious powerlessness that paralyzes us in dreams. I want to cry out—I cannot. I want to move—I cannot. I try, with terrible efforts, gasping for breath, to turn over, to throw off this being that is crushing me and suffocating me—I can’t!

And all of a sudden, I wake up, panic-stricken, covered with sweat. I light a candle. I am alone.

After this crisis, which is renewed every night, I finally sleep, calmly, until dawn.

June 2. My condition has become even worse. What do I have? The bromide does nothing for it; the showers do nothing. This afternoon, in order to tire out my body (which was weary to begin with), I went to the forest of Roumare for a walk. First I thought that the fresh air, gentle and sweet, full of the fragrance of grass and leaves, would imbue my veins with a new blood, my heart with a new energy. I took a broad avenue we use for hunting, then turned towards La Bouille by a narrow path between two armies of unusually tall trees that set a thick, green, almost black roof between the sky and me.

Suddenly I was seized by a shiver, but not of cold—a strange shiver of anxiety.

I quickened my step, uneasy at being alone in this wood, frightened for no reason, stupidly, because of the profound solitude. All of a sudden, it seemed to me I was being followed, that someone was walking just behind me, very close, very close, close enough to touch me.

I turned around suddenly. I was alone. Behind me I saw only the straight, wide lane, empty, high, terribly empty; and in the other direction it also stretched away out of sight, exactly the same, terrifying.

I closed my eyes. Why? And I began to spin on one heel, very quickly, like a top. I almost fell; I opened my eyes again; the trees were dancing; the earth was floating; I had to sit down. And then, I no longer knew how I had gotten there! Strange idea! Strange! Strange idea! I didn’t know anymore. I left by the path that was at my right, and I returned to the avenue that had brought me to the middle of the forest.

June 3. The night was horrible. I am going to go away for a few weeks. A little journey will surely set me to rights.

July 2. I have returned. I am cured. And I’ve had a delightful excursion, too. I visited Mont Saint-Michel, which I’d never seen before.

What a vision, when you arrive, as I did, in Avranches, towards the end of day! The city is on a hill; and I was led into the public garden, on the edge of the city. I let out a cry of astonishment. A vast bay stretched out in front of me, as far as the eye could see, between two coasts far apart from each other, disappearing in the distance into the mist; and in the middle of this immense yellow bay, beneath a luminous golden sky, there rose up, dark and sharp-pointed, a strange mountain, in the middle of the sands. The sun had just disappeared, and on the still blazing horizon the outline of this fantastic rock stood out, bearing on its summit a fantastic monument.

At dawn, I went towards it. The sea was low, as it had been the night before, and I watched the surprising abbey rise before me as I approached it.