The Inferno

With a feeling of wild joy I returned from the northern railway station, where I had said goodbye to my wife. She was going to our child, who was ill in a distant place. The sacrifice of my heart was then fulfilled. Her last words, “When shall we meet again?” and my answer, “Soon!” echoed in my ears, like falsehoods which one is unwilling to confess. A foreboding said to me “Never!” And, as a matter of fact, these parting words which we exchanged in November, 1894, were our last, for to this present time, May, 1897, I have not seen my dear wife again.

As I entered the Café de la Régence, I placed myself at the table where I used to sit with my wife, my beautiful jail-keeper, who watched my soul day and night, guessed my secret thoughts, marked the course of my ideas, and was jealous of my investigations into the unknown.

My newly-won freedom gave me a feeling of expansion and elevation above the petty cares of life in the great capital. In this arena of intellectual warfare I had just gained a victory, which, although worthless in itself, signified a great deal to me. It was the fulfilment of a youthful dream which all my countrymen had dreamed, but which had been realised by me alone, to have a play of one’s own performed in a Paris theatre. Now the theatre repelled me, as everything does when one has reached it, and science attracted me.

One evening, as I sat alone before my microscope, an occurrence happened which made all the deeper impression on me because I did not understand it. For four days I had let a nut germinate, and now detached the germ. This had the shape of a heart, not much larger than the core of a pear. Standing between two cotyledons it looked like a diminutive human brain. One may imagine my surprise when I saw on the glass-slide of the microscope two tiny hands, white as alabaster, folded as if in prayer. Was it a vision, an hallucination? Oh, no! It was a crushing reality which made me shudder. The little hands were stretched out towards me, immovable, as if adjuring me. I could count the five fingers, the thumb shorter than the others⁠—real woman’s or child’s hands.

I made a friend, who surprised me watching this astonishing sight, witness it also. He required to be no clairvoyant in order to see two clasped hands which besought the sympathy of the beholder.

What was it? Nothing but the two first rudimentary leaves of a walnut tree, the Juglans regia⁠—nothing else. Yet the fact was undeniable that ten human fingers were clasped in a beseeching gesture as if expressing, “De profundis clamavi ad te.” But as a still too incredulous empiric, I passed by the occurrence callously.

At the beginning of July the house is empty; the students have gone for their holidays. All the more is my curiosity aroused by a stranger who has taken the room on that side of mine where my writing-table is placed. The Unknown never speaks; he appears to be occupied in writing on the other side of the wall which divides us. Curiously enough, whenever I move my chair, he moves his also, and, in general, imitates all my movements as though he wished to annoy me. Thus it goes on for three days. On the fourth day I make the following observations: If I prepare to go to sleep, he also prepares to go to sleep in the next room; when I lie down in bed, I hear him lie down on the bed by my wall. I hear him stretch himself out parallel with me; he turns over the pages of a book, then puts out the lamp, breathes loud, turns himself on his side, and goes to sleep. He apparently occupies the rooms on both sides of me, and it is unpleasant to be beset on two sides at once. Absolutely alone, I take my midday meal in my room, and I eat so little that the waiter pities me. For eight days I have not heard the sound of my own voice, which begins to grow feeble for want of exercise. I haven’t a sou left, and my tobacco and postage stamps run out. Then I rally my will power for a last attempt: I will make gold, by the dry process. I manage to borrow some money and procure the necessary apparatus: an oven, smelting-saucepans, wood-coals, bellows, and tongs.

I wake up. A clock strikes two; a door is fastened, and⁠—I am out of bed, as though someone had applied an air-pump to my heart and drawn me out so. At the same time an electric stream strikes my neck, and presses me to the ground. I rise again, seize my clothes and rush, my heart beating violently, into the garden. When I have dressed myself, my first clear thought is to go to the police and have the house searched. But the front door is shut, and so is the porter’s box. I grope my way on, open a door on the right, and step into the kitchen, in which a lamp is burning. I upset it, and stand in pitch darkness.

Fear restores me to my senses, and I return to my room with the thought: “If I make a mistake, I am lost.” I drag a chair out into the garden, and, sitting under the starry sky, I reflect on what is happening. Am I ill? Impossible: for until I disclosed my incognito, I was quite well. Is it an attack? Yes, because I saw the preparations for it going on. For the rest, I feel better here outside in the garden beyond the power of my enemies, and my heart beats quite regularly. While reflecting thus, I hear someone cough in the room adjoining mine. It is at once answered by a low cough from the room on the other side. Doubtless it is a signal, just like the one I heard my last night in the Pension Orfila.