k about
them. One night, not having retired to bed at my usual hour, I was
seated at my desk occupied in examining some papers, when the door of
the apartment, which I never kept locked, opened, and I beheld the monk
enter in a state of profound somnambulism. His eyes were open, but
fixed; he had only his night-shirt on; in one hand he held his cell
lamp, in his other, a long and sharp bladed knife. He then advanced to
my bed, upon reaching which he put down the lamp, and felt and patted it
with his hand, to satisfy himself he was right, and then plunged the
knife, as if through my body, violently through the bed-clothes,
piercing even the mat which supplied, with us, the place of a mattress.
Having done this, he again took up his lamp and turned round to retrace
his steps, when I observed that his countenance, which was before
contracted and frowning, was lighted up with a peculiar expression of
satisfaction at the imaginary blow he had struck. The light of the two
lamps burning on my desk did not attract his notice; slowly and steadily
he walked back, carefully opening and shutting the double door of my
apartment, and quietly retired to his cell. You may imagine the state of
my feelings while I watched this terrible apparition; I shuddered with
horror at beholding the danger I had escaped, and offered up my prayers
and thanksgiving to the Almighty; but it was utterly impossible for me
to close my eyes for the remainder of the night.

"The next morning I sent for the somnambulist, and asked him, without
any apparent emotion, of what he had dreamt the preceding night? He was
agitated at the question, and answered, 'Father, I had a dream, so
strange, that it would give me the deepest pain were I to relate it to
you.' 'But I command you to do do; a dream is involuntary; it is a mere
illusion,' said I; 'tell it me without reserve.' 'Father,' continued he,
'no sooner had I fallen asleep than I dreamt that you had killed my
mother, and I thought that her outraged spirit appeared before me,
demanding satisfaction for the horrid deed. At beholding this, I was
transported with such fury, that--so it seemed to me--I hurried, like a
madman, into your apartment, and finding you in bed there, murdered you
with a knife. Thereupon I awoke in a fright, horrified at having made
such an attempt, and then thanked God it was only a dream, and that so
great a crime had not been committed.' 'That act has been committed,' I
then observed, 'f