bones had come out through the flesh. She did not complain, and
merely said, with admirable resignation: 'I am punished, well punished!'

"I sent for assistance and for the workgirl's friends and told them a
made-up story of a runaway carriage which had knocked her down and
lamed her, outside my door. They believed me, and the gendarmes for a
whole month tried in vain to find the author of this accident.

"That is all! Now I say that this woman was a heroine, and had the
fiber of those who accomplish the grandest deeds in history.

"That was her only love affair, and she died a virgin. She was a
martyr, a noble soul, a sublimely devoted woman! And if I did not
absolutely admire her, I should not have told you this story, which I
would never tell anyone during her life: you understand why."

The doctor ceased; mamma cried and papa said some words which I did not
catch; then they left the room, and I remained on my knees in the
armchair and sobbed, while I heard a strange noise of heavy footsteps
and something knocking against the side of the staircase.

They were carrying away Clochette's body.

WHO KNOWS?

My God! My God! I am going to write down at last what has happened to
me. But how can I? How dare I? The thing is so bizarre, so
inexplicable, so incomprehensible, so silly!

If I were not perfectly sure of what I have seen, sure that there was
not in my reasoning any defect, any error in my declarations, any
lacuna in the inflexible sequence of my observations, I should believe
myself to be the dupe of a simple hallucination, the sport of a
singular vision. After all, who knows?

Yesterday I was in a private asylum, but I went there voluntarily, out
of prudence and fear. Only one single human being knows my history, and
that is the doctor of the said asylum. I am going to write to him. I
really do not know why? To disembarrass myself? Yea, I feel as though
weighed down by an intolerable nightmare.

Let me explain.

I have always been a recluse, a dreamer, a kind of isolated
philosopher, easy-going, content with but little, harboring ill-feeling
against no man, and without even a grudge against heaven. I have
constantly lived alone; consequently, a kind of torture takes hold of
me when I find myself in the presence of others. How is this to be
explained? I do not know. I am not averse to going out into the world,
to conversation, to dining with friends, but when they are near me for
any length of tim