ught
that I was making fun of her, and in the end very nearly lost her
temper.

* * * * *

There! I have just come back, and I have not been able to eat any
lunch, for this experiment has altogether upset me.

_July 19th._ Many people to whom I have told the adventure have laughed
at me. I no longer know what to think. The wise man says: Perhaps?

_July 21st._ I dined at Bougival, and then I spent the evening at
a boatmen's ball. Decidedly everything depends on place and
surroundings. It would be the height of folly to believe in the
supernatural on the _ile de la Grenouilliere_[1] ... but on the top
of Mont Saint-Michel? ... and in India? We are terribly under the
influence of our surroundings. I shall return home next week.

[1] Frog-island.

_July 30th._ I came back to my own house yesterday. Everything is going
on well.

_August 2d._ Nothing fresh; it is splendid weather, and I spend my days
in watching the Seine flow past.

_August 4th._ Quarrels among my servants. They declare that the glasses
are broken in the cupboards at night. The footman accuses the cook, who
accuses the needlewoman, who accuses the other two. Who is the culprit?
A clever person, to be able to tell.

_August 6th._ This time I am not mad. I have seen ... I have seen ... I
have seen!... I can doubt no longer ... I have seen it!...

I was walking at two o'clock among my rose trees, in the full sunlight ...
in the walk bordered by autumn roses which are beginning to fall. As I
stopped to look at a _Geant de Bataille_, which had three splendid
blooms, I distinctly saw the stalk of one of the roses bend, close to
me, as if an invisible hand had bent it, and then break, as if that
hand had picked it! Then the flower raised itself, following the curve
which a hand would have described in carrying it toward a mouth, and it
remained suspended in the transparent air, all alone and motionless, a
terrible red spot, three yards from my eyes. In desperation I rushed at
it to take it! I found nothing; it had disappeared. Then I was seized
with furious rage against myself, for it is not allowable for a
reasonable and serious man to have such hallucinations.

But was it a hallucination? I turned round to look for the stalk, and I
found it immediately under the bush, freshly broken, between two other
roses which remained on the branch, and I returned home then, with a
much disturbed mind; for I am certain now, as c