"He no longer knew what to say.
""Then, monsieur, I will show you the way."
""Show me the stairs and leave me alone. I can find it without your help."
""But-still-monsieur--"
"Then I lost my temper.
""Now be quiet! Else you"ll be sorry!"
"I roughly pushed him aside and went into the house.
"I first went through the kitchen, then crossed two small rooms occupied by the man and his wife. From there I stepped into a large hall. I went up the stairs, and I recognized the door my friend had described to me.
"I opened it with ease and went in.
"The room was so dark that at first I could not distinguish anything. I paused, arrested by that moldy and stale odor peculiar to deserted and condemned rooms, of dead rooms. Then gradually my eyes grew accustomed to the gloom, and I saw rather clearly a great room in disorder, a bed without sheets having still its mattresses and pillows, one of which bore the deep print of an elbow or a head, as if someone had just been resting on it.
"The chairs seemed all in confusion. I noticed that a door, probably that of a closet, had remained ajar.
"I first went to the window and opened it to get some light, but the hinges of the outside shutters were so rusted that I could not loosen them.
"I even tried to break them with my sword, but did not succeed. As those fruitless attempts irritated me, and as my eyes were by now adjusted to the dim light, I gave up hope of getting more light and went toward the writing-desk.
"I sat down in an arm-chair, folded back the top, and opened the drawer. It was full to the edge. I needed but three packages, which I knew how to distinguish, and I started looking for them.
"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-sh.e.l.l, 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.
"I combed her, I handled, I know not how, that hair of ice. I bound and unbound it; I plaited it as one plaits a horse"s mane. She sighed, bent her head, seemed happy.
"Suddenly she said, "Thank you!" tore the comb from my hands, and fled through the door which I had noticed was half opened.
"Left alone, I had for a few seconds the hazy feeling one feels in waking up from a nightmare. Then I recovered myself. I ran to the window and broke the shutters by my furious a.s.sault.
"A stream of light poured in. I rushed to the door through which that being had gone. I found it locked and immovable.
"Then a fever of flight seized on me, a panic, the true panic of battle. I quickly grasped the three packages of letters from the open desk; I crossed the room running, I took the steps of the stairway four at a time. I found myself outside, I don"t know how, and seeing my horse close by, I mounted in one leap and left at a full gallop.
"I didn"t stop till I reached Rouen and drew up in front of my house. Having thrown the reins to my orderly, I flew to my room and locked myself in to think.
"Then for an hour I asked myself whether I had not been the victim of an hallucination. Certainly I must have had one of those nervous shocks, one of those brain disorders such as give rise to miracles, to which the supernatural owes its strength.
"And I had almost concluded that it was a vision, an illusion of my senses, when I came near to the window. My eyes by chance looked down. My tunic was covered with hairs, long woman"s hairs which had entangled themselves around the b.u.t.tons!
"I took them off one by one and threw them out of the window with trembling fingers.
"I then called my orderly. I felt too perturbed, too moved, to go and see my friend on that day. Besides, I needed to think over what I should tell him.
"I had his letters delivered to him. He gave a receipt to the soldier. He inquired after me and was told that I was not well. I had had a sunstroke, or something. He seemed distressed.
"I went to see him the next day, early in the morning, bent on telling him the truth. He had gone out the evening before and had not come back.
"I returned the same day, but he had not been seen. I waited a week. He did not come back. I notified the police. They searched for him everywhere, but no one could find any trace of his pa.s.sing or of his retreat.
"A careful search was made in the deserted manor. No suspicious clue was discovered.
"There was no sign that a woman had been concealed there.
"The inquest gave no result, and so the search went no further.
"And in fifty-six years I have learned nothing more. I never found out the truth."