s small, fair, and stout; so, of course, the day after
to-morrow I shall ardently wish for a tall, dark, thin woman.

She is not rich, and belongs to the middle classes. She is a girl such
as you may find by the gross, well adapted for matrimony, without any
apparent faults, and with no particularly striking qualities. People say
of her:

"Mlle. Lajolle is a very nice girl," and tomorrow they will say: "What
a very nice woman Madame Raymon is." She belongs, in a word, to that
immense number of girls whom one is glad to have for one's wife, till
the moment comes when one discovers that one happens to prefer all other
women to that particular woman whom one has married.

"Well," you will say to me, "what on earth did you get married for?"

I hardly like to tell you the strange and seemingly improbable reason
that urged me on to this senseless act; the fact, however, is that I am
afraid of being alone.

I don't know how to tell you or to make you understand me, but my state
of mind is so wretched that you will pity me and despise me.

I do not want to be alone any longer at night. I want to feel that there
is some one close to me, touching me, a being who can speak and say
something, no matter what it be.

I wish to be able to awaken somebody by my side, so that I may be able
to ask some sudden question, a stupid question even, if I feel inclined,
so that I may hear a human voice, and feel that there is some waking
soul close to me, some one whose reason is at work; so that when
I hastily light the candle I may see some human face by my
side--because--because--I am ashamed to confess it--because I am afraid
of being alone.

Oh, you don't understand me yet.

I am not afraid of any danger; if a man were to come into the room, I
should kill him without trembling. I am not afraid of ghosts, nor do
I believe in the supernatural. I am not afraid of dead people, for I
believe in the total annihilation of every being that disappears from
the face of this earth.

Well--yes, well, it must be told: I am afraid of myself, afraid of that
horrible sensation of incomprehensible fear.

You may laugh, if you like. It is terrible, and I cannot get over it. I
am afraid of the walls, of the furniture, of the familiar objects; which
are animated, as far as I am concerned, by a kind of animal life. Above
all, I am afraid of my own dreadful thoughts, of my reason, which
seems as if it were about to leave me, driven away by a mysteri