o my throat again, my blood ran in my veins like a river
in flood. I need not say that I resisted this transport of the nerves
with all my might. As the night grew slowly into morning my power of
resistance increased; I turned my back, so to speak, upon my
recollections, and said to myself, with growing firmness, that all
sensations of the body must have their origin in the body. Some
derangement of the system easily explainable, no doubt, if one but held
the clue--must have produced the impression which otherwise it would be
impossible to explain. As I turned this over and over in my mind,
carefully avoiding all temptations to excitement--which is the only
wise course in the case of a strong impression on the nerves--I
gradually became able to believe that this was the cause. It is one of
the penalties, I said to myself, which one has to pay for an
organisation more finely tempered than that of the crowd.

This long struggle with myself made the night less tedious, though,
perhaps, more terrible; and when at length I was overpowered by sleep,
the short interval of unconsciousness restored me like a cordial. I woke
in the early morning, feeling almost able to smile at the terrors of the
night. When one can assure oneself that the day has really begun, even
while it is yet dark, there is a change of sensation, an increase of
strength and courage. One by one the dark hours went on. I heard them
pealing from the Cathedral clock--four, five, six, seven--all dark,
dark. I had got up and dressed before the last, but found no one else
awake when I went out--no one stirring in the house,--no one moving in
the street. The Cathedral doors were shut fast, a thing I have never
seen before since I remember. Get up early who will, Pere Laserques the
sacristan is always up still earlier. He is a good old man, and I have
often heard him say God's house should be open first of all houses, in
case there might be any miserable ones about who had found no shelter in
the dwellings of men. But the darkness had cheated even Pere Laserques.
To see those great doors closed which stood always open gave me a
shiver, I cannot well tell why. Had they been open, there was an
inclination in my mind to have gone in, though I cannot tell why; for I
am not in the habit of attending mass, save on Sunday to set an example.
There were no shops open, not a sound about. I went out upon the
ramparts to the Mont St. Lambert, where the band plays on Sundays. In