“There is my whole adventure. But the worst
part of it is that I am now madly in love with her.
I can’t see a woman without thinking of her.
All the others disgust me, unless they remind me of
her. I cannot kiss a woman without seeing her
face before me, and without suffering the torture
of unsatisfied desire. She is always with me,
always there, dressed or nude, my true love.
She is there, beside the other one, visible but intangible.
I am almost willing to believe that she was bewitched,
and carried a talisman between her shoulders.
“Who is she? I don’t know yet.
I have met her once or twice since. I bowed,
but she pretended not to recognize me. Who is
she? An Oriental? Yes, doubtless an oriental
Jewess! I believe that she must be a Jewess!
But why? Why? I don’t know!”
The subject of sequestration of the person came up
in speaking of a recent lawsuit, and each of us had
a story to tell—a true story, he said.
We had been spending the evening together at an old
family mansion in the Rue de Grenelle, just a party
of intimate friends. The old Marquis de la Tour-Samuel,
who was eighty-two, rose, and, leaning his elbow on
the mantelpiece, said in his somewhat shaky voice:
“I also know of something strange, so strange
that it has haunted me all my life. It is now
fifty-six years since the incident occurred, and yet
not a month passes that I do not see it again in a
dream, so great is the impression of fear it has left
on my mind. For ten minutes I experienced such
horrible fright that ever since then a sort of constant
terror has remained with me. Sudden noises startle
me violently, and objects imperfectly distinguished
at night inspire me with a mad desire to flee from
them. In short, I am afraid of the dark!
“But I would not have acknowledged that before
I reached my present age. Now I can say anything.
I have never receded before real danger, ladies.
It is, therefore, permissible, at eighty-two years
of age, not to be brave in presence of imaginary danger.
“That affair so completely upset me, caused
me such deep and mysterious and terrible distress,
that I never spoke of it to any one. I will now
tell it to you exactly as it happened, without any
attempt at explanation.
“In July, 1827, I was stationed at Rouen.
One day as I was walking along the quay I met a man
whom I thought I recognized without being able to
recall exactly who he was. Instinctively I made
a movement to stop. The stranger perceived it
and at once extended his hand.
“He was a friend to whom I had been deeply attached
as a youth. For five years I had not seen him;
he seemed to have aged half a century. His hair
was quite white and he walked bent over as though completely
exhausted. He apparently understood my surprise,
and he told me of the misfortune which had shattered
his life.
