observed monsieur looking poorly as we came out
together, and asked monsieur, with her wondering
little eyebrows prettily raised, if there were
anything the matter? Faintly replying in the
negative, monsieur crossed the road to a wine-
shop, got some brandy, and resolved to freshen
himself with a dip in the great floating bath on
the river.

The bath was crowded in the usual airy
manner, by a male population in striped drawers
of various gay colours, who walked up and down
arm in arm, drank coffee, smoked cigars, sat at
little tables, conversed politely with the damsels
who dispensed the towels, and every now and
then pitched themselves into the river head
foremost, and came out again to repeat this
social routine. I made haste to participate in
the water part of the entertainments, and was in
the full enjoyment of a delightful bath, when all
in a moment I was seized by an unreasonable
idea that the large dark body was floating
straight at me.

I was out of the river, and dressing instantly.
In the shock I had taken some water into my
mouth, and it turned me sick, for I fancied that
the contamination of the creature was in it. I
had got back to my cool darkened room in the
hotel, and was lying on a sofa there, before I
began to reason with myself.

Of course, I knew perfectly well that the
large dark creature was stone dead, and that I
should no more come upon him out of the place
where I had seen him dead, than I should come
upon the cathedral of Notre-Dame in an
entirely new situation. What troubled me was
the picture of the creature; and that had so
curiously and strongly painted itself upon my
brain, that I could not get rid of it until it was
worn out.

I noticed the peculiarities of this possession,
while it was a real discomfort to me. That
very day, at dinner, some morsel on my plate
looked like a piece of him, and I was glad to
get up and go out. Later in the evening, I was
walking along the Rue St. Honoré, when I
saw a bill at a public room there, announcing
small-sword exercise, broad-sword exercise,
wrestling, and other such feats. I went in, and,
some of the sword play being very skilful,
remained. A specimen of our own national sport,
The British Boaxe, was announced to be given
at the close of the evening. In an evil hour,
I determined to wait for this Boaxe, as
became a Briton. It was a clumsy specimen
(executed by two English grooms out of place),
but, one of the combatants, receiving a straight
right-hander with the glove between his eyes,
did exactly what the large dark creature in the
Morgue had seemed going to do—and finished
me for that night.

There was a rather sickly smell (not at all an
unusual fragrance in Paris) in the little anteroom
of my apartment at the hotel. The large
dark creature in the Morgue was by no direct
experience associated with my sense of smell,
because, when I came to the knowledge of him,
he lay behind a wall of thick plate-glass, as good
as a wall of steel or marble for that matter.
Yet the whiff of the room never failed to
reproduce him. What was more curious was the
capriciousness with which his portrait seemed to
light itself up in my mind, elsewhere; I might be
walking in the Palais Royal, lazily enjoying the
shop windows, and might be regaling myself with
one of the ready-made clothes shops that are set
out there. My eyes, wandering over impossible-
waisted dressing-gowns and luminous waistcoats,
would fall upon the master, or the shopman,
or even the very dummy at the door, and
would suggest to me, "Something like him!"
—and instantly I was sickened again.

This would happen at the theatre, in the same
manner. Often, it would happen in the street,
when I certainly was not looking for the likeness,
and when probably there was no likeness
there. It was not because the creature was
dead that I was so haunted, because I know that
I might have been (and I know it because I have
been) equally attended by the image of a living
aversion. This lasted about a week. The picture
did not fade by degrees, in the sense that
it became a whit less forcible and distinct, but
in the sense that it obtruded itself less and less
frequently. The experience may be worth
considering by some who have the care of children.
It would be difficult to overstate the intensity
and accuracy of an intelligent child's observation.
At that impressible time of life, it must
sometimes produce a fixed impression. If the
fixed impression be of an object terrible to the
child, it will be (for want of reasoning upon)
inseparable from great fear. Force the child at
such a time, be Spartan with it, send it into the
dark against its will, leave it in a lonely bedroom
against its will, and you had better
murder it.

On a bright morning I rattled away from
Paris, in the German chariot, and left the large
dark creature behind me for good. I ought to
confess, though, that I had been drawn back to
the Morgue, after he was put under ground, to
look at his clothes, and that I found them frightfully
like him—particularly his boots. However,
I rattled away for Switzerland, looking
forward and not backward, and so we parted
company.

Welcome again, the long long spell of France,
with the queer country inns, full of vases of
flowers and clocks, in the dull little towns, and
with the little population not at all dull on the
little Boulevard in the evening, under the little
trees! Welcome Monsieur the Curé walking
alone in the early morning a short way out of the
town, reading that eternal Breviary of yours,
which surely might be almost read, without book,
by this time? Welcome Monsieur the Curé, later
in the day, jolting through the highway dust (as
if you had already ascended to the cloudy
region), in a very big-headed cabriolet, with the
dried mud of a dozen winters on it. Welcome
again Monsieur the Curé, as we exchange
salutations: you, straightening your back to look
at the German chariot, while picking in your
little village garden a vegetable or two for