sensations, I came to the enclosure of
the graveyard, and walked up the wooden steps. I felt a momentary
pleasure in the sound of the weeping willow lashing the tombstones
which they overhung. At last, stiff with cold, shaking at every
unexpected noise, I reached the village and walked past the houses,
which shone feebly in the dark, to the hotel.

As soon as I had arrived in my room I sent off a telegram to the Baron,
informing him of my sudden illness and enforced landing. Then I drew
up for him a full statement of my mental condition, mentioning my
former attacks, and asking him to keep the matter quiet. I gave him to
understand that my illness was caused by the conduct of my unfaithful
love, whose publicly announced engagement had robbed me of all hope.

I went to bed exhausted, certain of having contracted a fatal fever.
Then I rang for the servant and asked her to send for a doctor. On
her reply that no doctor was available, I begged her to send for a
clergyman, so that I could make my last wishes known to him.

And from that moment I was prepared to die or go out of my mind.

The clergyman appeared almost immediately. He was a man about thirty,
and looked like a farm laborer in Sunday clothes. Red-haired and
freckled, with a half-vacant look in his eyes, he did not inspire me
with sympathy; for a long time I could find no words, for I did not
know what to say to this man, who possessed neither education, the
wisdom of age, nor a knowledge of the human heart.

He remained standing in the centre of the room, self-conscious, like a
provincial in the presence of the inhabitant of a large city, until I
motioned him to take a chair.

Then he began his cross-examination.

"You have sent for me, sir? You are in trouble?"

"Yes."

"There is no happiness but in Jesus."

Although I was hankering after quite another sort of happiness, I did
not contradict him, and the evangelist rambled on, uninterruptedly,
monotonously, verbosely. The old tenets of the catechism lulled me
gently to sleep, and the presence of a human 