Classic Audiobook Collection - The Horla by Guy de Maupassant ~ Full Audiobook [horror]

Episode Date: November 27, 2025

The Horla by Guy de Maupassant audiobook. Genre: horror In The Horla, Guy de Maupassant delivers a chilling psychological tale told through the private journal of a well-to-do man living quietly in late 19th century France. At first, his days are filled with ordinary pleasures: his home, the river, passing ships, and the comfort of routine. Then small disturbances begin to intrude - restless nights, strange sensations, and an unsettling feeling that he is no longer alone. As the entries continue, the narrator becomes convinced that an invisible presence has attached itself to him, feeding on his strength and bending his will. Desperate to prove he is not imagining it, he turns to observation, medical advice, and the era's new language of science, only to find each explanation slipping through his grasp. His rational mind clashes with mounting terror as he tries to name and understand the thing he calls the Horla. Tense, intimate, and claustrophobic, this short classic explores obsession, the fragility of sanity, and the frightening possibility that the greatest monster might be the one no one else can see. For ad-free listening try our premium subscription Chapters (Approximate) (00:00:00) Chapter 01 (00:17:14) Chapter 02 (00:33:51) Chapter 03 (00:54:53) Chapter 04 (01:19:54) Chapter 05 (01:38:23) Chapter 06 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Horla by Guy de Mopassant, Part 1, May 8th. What a lovely day! I have spent all the morning lying on the grass in front of my house, under the enormous plantain tree, which covers and shades and shelters the whole of it. I like this part of the country. I am fond of living here. because I am attached to it by deep roots,

the profound and delicate roots which attach a man to the soil on which his ancestors were born and died, to their traditions, their usages, their food, the local expressions, the peculiar language of the peasants, the smell of the soil,

the hamlets, and to the atmosphere, itself. I love the house in which I grew up. From my windows I can see the saying, which flows by the side of my garden, on the other side of the road, almost through my grounds. The great and wide seine, which goes to Rouen and Avre, and which is covered with boats, passing to and fro. On the left, down yonder, lies Ruon, Populous Ruon, with its blue roofs massing under pointed Gothic towers. Innumerable are they, delicate or broad, dominated by the spire of the cathedral,

full of bells, which sound through the blue air on fine mornings, sending their sweet and distant iron clang to me. Their metallic sounds, now stronger and now weaker, according as the wind is strong or light. What a delicious morning it was! About eleven o'clock, a long line of boats, drawn by a steam tug as big as a fly, and which scarcely puffed, while immoral,

emitting its thick smoke, past my gate. After two English schooners, whose red flags fluttered toward the sky, there came a magnificent Brazilian three-master. It was perfectly white, and wonderfully clean and shining. I saluted it. I hardly know why, except that the sight of the vessel gave me great pleasure. May 12th, I have had a slight feverish attack for the last few days, and I feel ill, or rather I feel low-spirited. Whence come those mysterious influences which change our happiness into discouragement and our self-confidence into diffidence. One might almost say that the air, the invisible air, is full of unknowable forces, whose mysterious presence we have to endure.

I wake up in the best of spirits, with an inclination to sing in my heart. Why? I go down by the side of the water, and suddenly, after walking a short distance, I return home, wretched, as if some misfortune were awaiting me there. Why? Is it a cold shiver which, passing over my skin, has upset my nerves, and given me a fit of low spirits? Is it the form of the clouds, or the tints of the sky, or the colors of the surrounding objects? which are so changeable, which have troubled my thoughts as they passed before my eyes.

Who can tell? Everything that surrounds us, everything that we see without looking at it, everything that we touch without knowing it, everything that we handle without feeling it, everything that we meet without clearly distinguishing it, has a rapid, surprising, and inexplicable effect upon us and upon our organs, and through them on our ideas, and on our being itself. How profound that mystery of the invisible is!

We cannot fathom it with our miserable senses. Our eyes are unable to perceive what is either too small, or too great, too near to or too far from us. We can see neither the inhabitants of a star, nor of a drop of water. Our ears deceive us, for they transmit to us the vibrations of the air in sonorous tones. Our senses are fairies, who work the miracle of changing that movement into noise. And, by that metamorphosis, give birth to music, which makes the mute agitation of nature a harmony. So with our sense of smell, which is weaker than that of a dog.

And so with our sense of taste, which can scarcely distinguish the age of a wine. Oh, if we only had other organs, which could work other miracles in our face, What a number of fresh things we might discover around us. May 16th, I am ill, decidedly. I was so well last month. I am feverish, horribly feverish, or rather I am in a state of feverish enervation, which makes my mind so much.

suffer as much as my body. I have, without ceasing, the horrible sensation of some danger threatening me, the apprehension of some coming misfortune, or of approaching death. A presentment which is no doubt an attack of some illness, still unnamed, which germinates in the flesh, and in the blood. May 18th. I have just come from consulting my medical man, for I can no longer get any sleep. He found that my pulse was high, my eyes dilated, my nerves highly strong, but no alarming

symptoms. I must have a course of shower baths. and of bromide of potassium. May 25th. No change. My state is really very peculiar. As the evening comes on, an incomprehensible feeling of disquietude seizes me,

just as if night concealed some terrible menace toward me. I dine quickly, and then try to read, but I do not understand the words and can scarcely distinguish the letters. Then I walk up and down my drawing room, oppressed by a feeling of confused and irresistible fear, a fear of sleep, and a fear of my bed. About ten o'clock, I go up to my room.

As soon as I have entered, I lock and bolt the door. door. I am frightened. Of what? Up till the present time I have been frightened of nothing. I open my cupboards and look under my bed. I listen. I listen. To what? How strange it is that a simple feeling of discomfort, of impeded or heightened circulation, perhaps the irritation of a nervous center, a slight congestion, a small disturbance in the imperfect and delicate functions of our living machinery, can turn the most light-hearted of men into a melancholy one, and make a coward of the bravest.

Then I go to bed and I wait for sleep As a man might wait for the executioner I wait for its coming with dread And my heart beats and my legs tremble While my whole body shivers beneath the warmth of the bedclothes Until the moment when I suddenly fall asleep as a man throws himself into a pool of stagnant water in order to drown. I do not feel this perfidious sleep coming over me as I used to,

but a sleep which is close to me and watching me, which is going to seize me by the head to close my eyes and annihilate me. I sleep a long time, two or three hours perhaps, then a dream. No, a nightmare lays hold on me. I feel that I am in bed and asleep. I feel it and I know it. And I feel also that somebody is coming close to me, is looking at me, is looking at me. touching me, is getting onto my bed, is kneeling on my chest, is taking my neck between his hands

and squeezing it, squeezing it with all his might in order to strangle me. I struggle, bound by that terrible powerlessness which paralyzes us in our dreams. I try to cry out, but I cannot. I want to move. I cannot. I try with the most violent efforts and out of breath to turn over and throw off this being which is crushing and suffocating me.

I cannot. And then, suddenly, I wake up, shaken, and bathed in perspiration. I light a candle and find that I am alone, and, after that crisis, which occurs every night, I, at length, fall asleep and slumber tranquilly till morning. June 2nd. My state has grown worse.

What is the matter with me? The bromide does me no good, and the shower baths have no effect whatever. Sometimes, in order to tire myself out, though I am fatigued enough already, I go for a walk in the forest of Rumaire. I used to think, at first, that the fresh light and soft air

impregnated with the odor of herbs and leaves, would instill new life into my veins, and impart fresh energy to my heart. One day, I turned into a broad ride in the wood, and then I diverged toward La Bouille, through a narrow path between two rows of exceedingly tall trees, which placed a thick, Green, almost black roof between the sky and me.

A sudden shiver ran through me. Not a cold shiver, but a shiver of agony. And so I hastened my steps, uneasy at being alone in the wood. Frightened, stupidly, and without reason, at the profound solitude. Suddenly, it seemed as if I were being followed, that somebody was walking at my heels. Close, quite close to me, near enough to touch me. I turned round suddenly, but I was alone. I saw nothing behind me, except the straight, broad ride,

empty and bordered by high trees, horribly empty. On the other side also it extended until it was lost in the distance and looked just the same, terrible. I closed my eyes. Why? And then I began to turn round on one heel very quickly. just like a top. I nearly fell down

and opened my eyes. The trees were dancing round me and the earth heaved. I was obliged to sit down. Then, oh, I no longer remembered how I had come. What a strange idea. What a strange, strange idea!

I did not the least know. I started off to the right and got back into the avenue, which had led me into the middle of the forest. June 3rd, I have had a terrible night. I shall go away for a few weeks, for no doubt a journey will set me up again. End of Part 1 Part 2 of the Horla

by Guy de Mopassant. This Librevox recording is in the public domain. Part 2 July 2 I have come back, quite cured, and have had a most delightful trip into the bargain. I have been to Mont Saint-Michel, which I had not seen before.

What a sight when one arrives as I did at Avranche toward the end of the day. The town stands on a hill, and I was taken into the public garden at the extremity of the town. I uttered a cry of astonishment. An extraordinarily large bay lay extended before me, as far as much. my eyes could reach, between two hills which were lost to sight in the mist. And in the middle of this immense yellow bay, under a clear, golden sky, a peculiar hill rose up, somber and pointed, in the midst of the sand. The sun had just disappeared, and under the still flaming sky, stood out the outline of that fantastic rock, which bears on its summit a picturesque monument.

At daybreak I went to it. The tide was low as it had been the night before, and I saw that wonderful abbey rise up before me as I approached it. After several hours walking, I reached the enormous mass of rock, which supports the little town, dominated by the great church, having climbed the steep and narrow street, I entered the most wonderful Gothic building that has ever been erected to God on earth, large as a town, and full of low rooms, which seem buried beneath vaulted roofs, and of lofty gallery, supported by delicate columns. I entered this gigantic granite jewel,

which is as light in its effect as a bit of lace, and is covered with towers, with slender belfries, to which spiral staircases ascend. The flying buttresses raise strange heads that bristle with chimeras, with devils, with fantastic animals, with monstrous flowers,

and that are joined together by finely carved arches, to the blue sky by day, and to the black sky by night. When I had reached the summit, I said to the monk who accompanied me, Father, how happy you must be here! And he replied, It is very windy, monsieur. And so we began to talk while watching the rising tide,

which ran over the sand, and covered it with a steel cuirass. And then the monk told me stories, all the old stories belonging to the place. Legends. Nothing but legends. One of them struck me forcibly. The country people, those belonging to the Mornay, declare that at night one can hear talking going on, in the sand,

and also that two goats bleat, one with a strong, the other with a weak voice. Incredulous people declare that it is nothing but the screaming of the seabird. which occasionally resembles bleatings, and occasionally human lamentations. But belated fishermen swear that they have met an old shepherd whose cloak-covered head they can never see, wandering on the sand between two tides,

round the little town, placed so far out of the world, They declare he is guiding and walking before a he-goat with a man's face, and a she-goat with a woman's face, both with white hair, who talk incessantly, quarreling in a strange language, and then suddenly cease talking in order to bleat with all their might. Do you believe it? I asked the monk,

I scarcely know, he replied. And I continued, If there are other beings besides ourselves on this earth, how comes it that we have not known it for so long a time? Or why have you not seen them? How is it that I have not seen them? He replied, Do we see the hundred thousandth part of what exists?

Look here. There is the wind, which is the strongest force in nature. It knocks down men and blows down buildings, uproots trees, raises the sea into mountains of water, destroys cliffs and casts great ships onto the breakers. It kills, it whistles, it sighs, it roars. But have you ever seen it?

And can you see it? Yet it exists for all that. I was silent before this simile. simple reasoning. That man was a philosopher, or perhaps a fool. I could not say which, exactly, so I held my tongue. What he had said had often been in my own thoughts. July 3rd.

I have slept badly. Certainly there is some feverish interest. influence here, for my coachman is suffering in the same way as I am. When I went back home yesterday, I noticed his singular paleness, and I asked him, what is the matter with you, Jean? The matter is that I never get any rest, and my nights devour my days. Since your departure, monsieur, there has been a spell over me. However, the other servants are all well. But I am very frightened of having another attack myself. July 4th. I am decidedly taken again, for my old nightmares have returned. Last night,

I felt somebody leaning on me who was sucking my life from between my lips with his mouth. Yes, he was sucking it out of my neck like a leech would have done. Then he got up, satiated, and I woke up, so beaten, crushed and annihilated, that I could not move. If this continues for a few days, I shall certainly go away again. July 5th. Have I lost my reason?

What has happened? What I saw last night is so strange that my head wanders when I think of it. As I do now every evening, I had locked my door. then, being thirsty, I drank half a glass of water, and I accidentally noticed that the water bottle was full, up to the cut-glass stopper. Then I went to bed and fell into one of my terrible sleeps, from which I was aroused in about two hours by a still more terrible shock.

Picture to yourself, a sleeping man who is being murdered, who wakes up with a knife in his chest, a gurgling in his throat, is covered with blood, can no longer breathe, is going to die and does not understand anything at all about it. There you have it. Having recovered my senses, I was thirsty again, so I lighted a candle and went to the table on which my water bottle was. I lifted it up and tilted it over my glass, but nothing came out. It was empty. It was completely empty.

At first, I could not understand. understand it at all. Then, suddenly, I was seized by such a terrible feeling that I had to sit down, or rather fall into a chair. Then I sprang up with a bound to look about me. Then I sat down again, overcome by astonishment and fear, in front of the transparent, crystal bottle. I looked at it with fixed eyes, trying to solve the puzzle,

and my hands trembled. Somebody had drunk the water. But who? I? I, without any doubt. It could surely only be I.

In that case, I was a somnambulist, was living without knowing it, that double mysterious life, which makes us doubt whether there are not two beings in us, whether a strange, unknowable, and invisible being, does not, during our moments of mental and physical torpor, animate the inert body, forcing it to a more willing obedience than it yields to ourselves. Oh, who will understand my horrible agony? Who will understand the emotion of a man sound in mind, wide awake? full of sense, who looks in horror at the disappearance of a little water while he was asleep, through the glass of a water bottle.

And I remained sitting until it was daylight, without venturing to go to bed again. July 6th. I am going mad. Again, all the contents of my water bottle have been drunk. during the night. Or, rather, I have drunk it. But, is it I? Is it I?

Who could it be? Who? Oh, God. Am I going mad? Who will save me? July 10th. I have just been through some surprising ordeals.

Undoubtedly, I must be mad. And yet, on July 6th, before going to bed, I put some wine, milk, water, bread, and strawberries on my table. Somebody drank, I drank, all the water, and a little of the milk, But neither the wine, nor the bread, nor the strawberries were touched. On the 7th of July, I renewed the same experiment with the same results. And on July 8th, I left out the water and the milk, and nothing was touched. Lastly, on July 9th, I put only water and the milk.

and milk on my table, taking care to wrap up the bottles in white muslin, and to tie down the stoppers. Then I rubbed my lips, my beard, and my hands with pencil lead, and went to bed. Deep slumber seized me, soon followed by a terrible awakening. I had not moved, and my sheets were not marked. I rushed to the table. The muslin round the bottles remained intact. I undid the string, trembling with fear. All the water had been drunk.

And so had the milk. Oh, great God! I must start for Paris. immediately. End of Part 2. Part 3 of the Horla by Guy de Mopassant. This Libervox recording is in the public domain.

Part 3. July 12th. Paris. I must have lost my head during the last few days. I must be the plaything of my enervated imagination unless I really am a somnambulist, or I have been brought under the power of one of those influences, hypnotic suggestion, for example, which are known to exist, but have hitherto been inexplicable.

In any case, my mental state bordered on madness, and 24 hours of Paris sufficed to restore me to my equal Yesterday, after doing some business and paying some visits, which instilled fresh and invigorating mental air into me, I wound up my evening at the Teatro Francais. A drama by Alexander Dumas, the younger, was being acted, and his brilliant and powerful play completed my cure. Certainly, solitude is dangerous for active minds. We need men who can think and can talk around us. When we are alone for a long time, we people space with phantoms.

I returned along the boulevards to my hotel in excellent spirits. Amid the jostling of the crowd, I thought, not without irony, of my terrors and surmises of the previous week. Because I believed, yes, I believed, that an invisible being lived beneath my roof. How weak our mind is! How quickly it is terrified and unbalanced, as soon as we are confronted with a small, incomprehensible fact. Instead of dismissing the problem with

we do not understand because we cannot find the cause, we immediately imagine terrible mysteries and supernatural powers. July 14th, FET of the Republic. I walked through the streets, and the crackers and flags amused me like a child. Still, it is very foolish to make Mary on a set date by government decree. People are like a flock of sheep, now steadily patient, now in ferocious revolt.

Say to it, amuse yourself, and it amuses itself. Say to it, go and fight with your neighbor. and it goes and fights. Say to it, vote for the emperor. And it votes for the emperor. Then say to it, vote for the republic.

And it votes for the republic. Those who direct it are stupid too. But, instead of obeying men, they obey principles. a course which can only be foolish, ineffective, and false, for the very reason that principles are ideas which are considered as certain and unchangeable, whereas in this world one is certain of nothing,

since light is an illusion, and noise is deception. July 16th, I saw some things yesterday that troubled me very much. I was dining at my cousins, Madame Sabley, whose husband is colonel of the 76th Chasseur at Limoges. There were two young women there, one of whom had married a medical man, Dr. Parenth,

who devotes himself a great deal to nervous diseases and to the extraordinary manifestations which just now, experiments in hypnotism and suggestion, are producing. He related to us at some length the enormous results obtained by English scientists and the doctors of the medical school at Nancey.

And the facts which he adduced appeared to me so strange that I declared that I was altogether incredulous. We are, he declared, on the point of discovering one of the most important secrets of nature. I mean to say, one of its most important secrets on this earth. For assuredly, there are some up in the stars, yonder, of a different kind of importance.

Ever since man has thought, since he has been able to express and write down his thoughts, he has felt himself close to a mystery which is impenishable to his coarse and imperfect senses. And he endeavors to supplement the feeble penetration of his organs by the efforts of his intellect, as long as that intellect remained in its elementary stage, this intercourse with invisible spirits assumed forms which were commonplace, though terrifying. Thence sprang the popular belief in the supernatural, the legends of wandering spirits, of fairies, of gnomes, of ghosts. I might even say, the conception of the conception of,

God. For our ideas of the workman creator, from whatever religion they may have come down to us, are certainly the most mediocre, the stupidest, and the most unacceptable inventions that ever sprang from the frightened brain of any human creature. Nothing is truer than what Voltaire says. if God made man in his own image, man has certainly paid him back again. But for rather more than a century, men seem to have had a presentiment of something new. Mesmer and some others have put us on an unexpected track,

and within the last two or three years, we have arrived at results really surprising. My cousin, who is also very incredulous, smiled. And Dr. Paran said to her, Would you like me to try and send you to sleep, Madame? Yes, certainly. She sat down in an easy chair, and he began to look at her fixedly,

as if to fascinate her. I suddenly felt myself somewhat discomposed. My heart beat rapidly, and I had a choking feeling in my throat. I saw that Madame Sabley's eyes were growing heavy. Her mouth twitched, and her bosom heaved,

and at the end of ten minutes, She was asleep. Go behind her, the doctor said to me. So I took a seat behind her. He put a visiting card into her hands and said to her, This is a looking glass. What do you see in it? She replied,

I see my cousin. What is he? doing? He is twisting his mustache. And now, he is taking a photograph out of his pocket. Whose photograph is it? His own. That was true, for the photograph had been given me that same evening at the hotel. What is his attitude in this portrait? He is standing up with his hat. in his hand. She saw these things in that card, in that piece of white pasteboard, as if she had seen them in a looking-glass. The young women were frightened, and exclaimed, That is quite enough. Quite, quite enough. But the doctor said to her, authoritatively,

you will get up at 8 o'clock tomorrow morning. Then you will go and call on your cousin at his hotel and ask him to lend you the 5,000 francs which your husband asks of you and which he will ask for when he sets out on his coming journey. Then he woke her up. On returning to my hotel, I thought over this curiously.

seance, and I was assailed by doubts, not as to my cousin's absolute and undoubted good faith, for I had known her as well as if she had been my own sister, ever since she was a child. But as to a possible trick on the doctor's part, had not he, perhaps, kept a glass hidden in his hand, which he showed to the young woman in her sleep. At the same time as he did the card, professional conjurers do things which are just as singular. However, I went to bed, and, this morning, at about half past eight,

I was awakened by my footman, who said to me, Madame Sabley has asked to see you immediately, I dressed hastily and went to her. She sat down in some agitation with her eyes on the floor, and without raising her veil, said to me, My dear cousin, I am going to ask a great favor of you. What is it, cousin?

I do not like to tell you, and yet, I must. I am in absolute want of five thousand francs. What? You? Yes, I, or rather my husband, who has asked me to procure them for him. I was so stupefied that I hesitated to answer.

I asked myself whether she had not really been making fun of me with Dr. Paran. If it were not merely a very well-acted farce, which had been got up beforehand, on looking at her attentively, however, my doubts disappeared. She was trembling with grief, so painful was this step to her. and I was sure that her throat was full of sobs. I knew that she was very rich, and so I continued, What? Has not your husband five thousand francs at his disposal?

Come, think. Are you sure that he commissioned you to ask me for them? She hesitated for a few seconds, as if she were making a great effort to search her memory. And then she replied, Yes, yes, I am quite sure of it. He has written to you? She hesitated again and reflected,

and I guessed the torture of her thoughts. She did not know. She only knew that she was to borrow 5,000 francs of me, for her husband. So she told a lie. Yes, he has written to me. When, pray. You did not mention it to me yesterday.

I received his letter this morning. Can you show it to me? No. No, no, it contained private matters, things too personal to ourselves. I burned it. So your husband runs into debt? She hesitated again, and then murmured,

I do not know. Thereupon, I said bluntly, I have not five thousand francs at my disposal at this moment, my dear cousin. She uttered a cry, as if she were in pain, and said, Oh, oh, I beseech you. I beseech you to get them for me. She got excited and clasped her hands

as if she were praying to me. I heard her voice change its tone. She wept and sobbed, harassed and dominated by the irresistible order that she had received. Oh, oh, I beg you to... If you knew what I'm suffering, I want them today. I had pity on her.

You shall have them by and by, I swear to you. Oh, thank you, thank you. How kind you are. I continued, Do you remember what took place at your house last night? Yes. Do you remember that Dr. Perron sent you to sleep? Yes.

Oh, very well then. He ordered you to come to me this morning, to borrow 5,000 francs. And at this moment, you are obeying that suggestion. She considered for a few moments, and then replied, But as it is my husband who, wants them, for a whole hour I tried to convince her, but could not succeed.

And when she had gone, I went to the doctor. He was just going out, and he listened to me with a smile, and said, Do you believe now? Yes, I cannot help it. Let us go to your cousins. She was already resting on a couch, overcome with fatigue. The doctor felt her pulse, looked at her for some time, with one hand raised toward her eyes, which she closed by degrees under the irresistible power of this magnetic influence.

When she was asleep, he said, your husband does not require the 5,000 francs any longer. You must, therefore, forget that you asked your cousin to lend them to you. And if he speaks to you about it, you will not understand him. Then he woke her up. And I took out a pocketbook and said, here is what you asked me for this morning, my dear cousin. But she was so surprised that I did not venture to persist.

Nevertheless, I tried to recall the circumstance to her, but she denied it vigorously, thought that I was making fun of her, and, in the end, very nearly lost her temper, There, I have just come back, and I have not been able to eat any lunch, for this experiment has altogether upset me. July 19th. Many people to whom I have told the adventure have laughed at me. I no longer know what to think.

The wise man says, perhaps, July 21st. I dined at Bougival, and then I spent the evening at a boatman's ball. Decidedly everything depends on place and surroundings. It would be the height of folly to believe in the supernatural, on the Isle de la Grenuillère, but on the top of Mont Saint-Michel, or in India, we are terribly under the influence, of our surroundings.

I shall return home next week. End of Part 3. Part 4 of The Horla by Guy de Mopassant. This Librevox recording is in the public domain. Part 4. July 30th. I came back to my own house yesterday. Everything is going on well. August 2nd.

Nothing fresh. It is splendid weather, and I spend my days in watching the seine flow past. August 4th. Quarrels among my servants. They declare that the glasses are broken in the cupboards at night. The footman accuses the cook. She accuses the needlewoman, and the latter. accuses the other two. Who is the culprit? It would take a clever person to tell. August 6th.

This time I am not mad. I have seen. I have seen. I have seen. I have seen. I can doubt no longer. I have seen it. I was walking. I was walking. at two o'clock among my rose trees in the full sunlight, in the walk bordered by autumn roses, which are beginning to fall. As I stopped to look at a geon de batai, which had three splendid blooms, I distinctly saw the stalk of one of the roses bend close to me, as if an invisible hand had bent it, and then break, as if that hand had picked it. Then the flower raised itself, following the curve which a hand would have described, in carrying it toward a mouth, and remained suspended in the transparent air,

alone and motionless, a terrible rote. A terrible rome. red spot, three yards from my eyes. In desperation, I rushed at it to take it. I found nothing. It had disappeared. Then I was seized with furious rage against myself, for it is not wholesome for a reasonable and serious man to have such hallucinations.

But, was it a hallucination? I turned to look for the stalk, and I found it immediately, under the bush, freshly broken, between the two other roses, which remained on the branch. I returned home, then, with a much disturbed mind.

For I am, certain now, certain as I am of the alternation of day and night, that there exists, close to me, an invisible being, who lives on milk and on water, who can touch objects, take them and change their places, who is, consequently, endowed with a material nature. though imperceptible to sense, and who lives as I do, under my roof. August 7th I slept tranquilly. He drank the water out of my decanter, but did not disturb my sleep. I ask myself whether I am mad. As I was walking just now in the sun, by the riverside, doubts as to my own sanity arose in me.

Not vague doubts, such as I have had hitherto, but precise and absolute doubts. I have seen mad people, and I have known some who were quite intelligent, lucid, even clear-sighted in every concern of life, except on one point. They could speak clearly, readily, profoundly on everything, till their thoughts were caught in the breakers of their delusions, and went to pieces there, were dispersed and swamped in that furious and terror, and terrible sea of fogs and squalls, which is called madness.

I certainly should think that I was mad, absolutely mad, if I were not conscious that I knew my state, if I could not fathom it and analyze it with the most complete lucidity. I should, in fact, be a reason. man, laboring under a hallucination. Some unknown disturbance must have been excited in my brain. One of those disturbances which physiologists of the present day try to note and to fix precisely. And that disturbance must have caused a profound gulf in my mind, and in the order and

and logic of my ideas. Similar phenomena occur in dreams, and lead us through the most unlikely phantasmagoria without causing us any surprise, because our verifying apparatus and our sense of control have gone to sleep, while our imaginative faculty wakes and works.

Was it not possible that one of the imperceptible keys of the cerebral fingerboard had been paralyzed in me? Some men lose the recollection

of proper names or of verbs or of numbers or merely of dates in consequence of an accident. The localization of all the avenues of thought has been accomplished nowadays. What, then, would there be surprising in the fact that my faculty of controlling the unreality of certain hallucinations should be destroyed for the time being?

I thought of all this as I walked by the side of the water. The sun was shining brightly on the river, and made earth delightful, while it filled me with love for life. For the swallows, whose swift agility is always delightful in my eyes, for the plants by the riverside, whose rustling is a pleasure to my ears, by degrees, however, an inexplicable feeling of discomfort seized me. It seemed to me as if some unknown force were numbing and stopping me, were preventing me from going further, and were calling me back. I felt that painful wish to return, which comes on you,

when you have left a beloved invalid at home, and are seized by a presentiment, that he is worse. I therefore returned, in spite of myself, feeling certain that I should find some bad news awaiting me, a letter or a telegram. There was nothing, however, and I was surprised,

and uneasy, more so than if I had had another fantastic vision. August 8th. I spent a terrible evening yesterday. He does not show himself anymore, but I feel that he is near me, watching me, looking at me, penetrating me, dominating me, and more terrible to me when he hides himself thus than if he were to manifest his constant and invisible presence by supernatural phenomena.

However, I slept. August 9th. Nothing. But I am afraid. August 10th. Nothing. But what will happen tomorrow? August 11th.

Still nothing. I cannot stop at home with this fear hanging over me and these thoughts in my mind. I shall go away. August 12th. 10 o'clock at night. All day long, I have been trying to get away and have not been able.

I contemplated a simple and easy act of liberty, a carriage ride to Rouen. And I have not been able to do it. What is the reason? August 13th. When one is attacked by certain maladies, the spring of our physical being seem broken. Our energies destroyed.

Our muscles relaxed. Our bones to be as soft as our flesh. And our blood as liquid as water. I am experiencing the same in my moral being. In a strange and

distressing manner. I have no longer any strength, any courage, any self-control, nor even any power to set my own will in motion. I have no power left to will anything. But someone does it for me, and I obey August 14th. I am lost. Somebody possesses my soul and governs it. Somebody orders all my acts, all my movements, all my thoughts. I am no longer master of myself.

Nothing except an enslaved and terrified spectator of all the things which I do. I wish to go out. I cannot. He does not wish to, and so I remain, trembling and distracted in the armchair, in which he keeps me sitting. I merely wish to get up, and to rouse myself, so as to think that I am still master of myself. I cannot. I am riveted to my chair. and my chair adheres to the floor in such a manner that no force of mine can move us. Then, suddenly, I must, I must, go to the foot of my garden to pick some strawberries and eat them. And I go there.

I pick the strawberries, and I eat them. Oh, my God. My God. Is there a God? If there be one, deliver me. Save me. Sucker me.

Pardon. Pity. Mercy. Save me. Oh, what sufferings. What torture. What horror. August 15th.

Certainly, this is the way in which my poor cousin was possessed and swayed when she came to borrow five thousand francs of me. She was under the power of a strange will which had entered into her, like another soul, a parasitic and ruling soul. Is the world coming to an end? but who is he? This invisible being that rules me, this unknowable being, this rover of a supernatural race. Invisible beings exist then.

How is it then that since the beginning of the world, they have never manifested themselves in such a manner as they do to me? I have never read anything that resembles what goes on in my house. Oh, if I could only leave it. If I could only go away and flee and never return, I should be saved. But I cannot. August 16th.

I managed to escape today for two hours, like a prisoner who finds the door of his dungeon accidentally open. I suddenly felt that I was free and that he was far away. And so I gave orders to put the horses in as quickly as possible, and I drove to Rouen. Oh, how delightful to be able to say to my coachman, Go to Rouen. I made him pull up before the library, and I begged them to lend me Dr. Hermann Herastaus' treatise on the unknown inhabitants of the ancient and modern world.

Then, as I was getting into my carriage, I intended to say to the railway station. But instead of this, I shouted, I did not speak, but I shouted, in such a loud voice that all the passers-by turned round. Home! And I fell back, onto the cushion of my carriage, overcome by mental agony.

He had found me out and regained possession of me. August 17th. Oh, what a night, what a night. And yet, it seems to me that I ought to rejoice. I read until one o'clock in the morning. Harastouse, Doctor of Philosophy and Theogony, wrote the history and the manifestation of all those invisible beings which hover around man, or of whom he dreams. He describes their origin, their domains, their power, but none of them resembles, the one which haunts me.

One might say that man, ever since he has thought, has had a foreboding and a fear of a new being stronger than himself, his successor in this world, and that, feeling him nearer, and not being able to foretell the nature of the unseen one, He has, in his terror, created the whole race of hidden beings, vague phantoms, born of fear.

Having, therefore, read until one o'clock in the morning, I went and sat down at the open window in order to cool my forehead and my thoughts in the calm night air. It was very pleasant and warm. How I should have enjoyed such a night, formerly. There was no moon, but the stars darted out their rays in the dark heavens. Who inhabits those worlds? What forms? What living beings? What animals are there?

Yonder, do those who are thinkers in those distant worlds know more than we do? What can they do more than we? What do they see, which we do not? Will not one of them, someday or other, traversing space, appear on our earth to conquer it? just as formerly the Norsemen crossing the sea in order to subjugate nations feebler than themselves. We are so weak, so powerless, so ignorant, so small. We, who live on this particle of mud, which revolves in liquid air,

I fell asleep, dreaming thus in the cool night air. And then, having slept for about three-quarters of an hour, I opened my eyes without moving, awakened by an indescribably confused and strange sensation. At first I saw nothing, and then, suddenly, it appeared to me as if a page of the book, which had remained open on my table, turned over of its own accord. Not a breath of air had come in at my window, and I was surprised, and waited. In about four minutes, I saw, I saw.

Yes, I saw with my own eyes another page, lift itself up and fall down on the others, as if a finger had turned it over. My armchair was empty, appeared empty, but I knew that he was there. He, and sitting in my place, and that he was really, With a furious bound, the bound of an enraged wild beast that wishes to disembowl its tamer, I crossed my room to seize him, to strangle him, to kill him. But before I could reach it, my chair fell over, as if somebody had run away from me. My table rocked.

My lamp fell and went out. my window closed, as if some thief had been surprised, and had fled out into the night, shutting it behind him. So, he had run away. He had been afraid. He afraid of me. So, tomorrow, or later, someday or other, I should be able. I should be able to be able to be to hold him in my clutches, and crush him against the ground. Do not dogs occasionally bite and strangle their masters? August 18th, I have been thinking the whole day long. Oh, yes, I will obey him. follow his impulses, fulfill all his wishes. Show myself humble, submissive, a coward.

He is the stronger. But an hour will come. End of Part 4. Part 5 of The Horla by Guy de Mopassant. This Librevox recording is in the public domain. Part 5 August 19th I know, I know, I know, I know all.

I have just read the following in the Revue de Mont Scientifices. A curious piece of news comes to us from Rio de Janeiro. Madness, an episode. epidemic of madness, which may be compared to that contagious madness which attacked the people of Europe in the Middle Ages, is at this moment raging in the province of San Paulo. The frightened inhabitants are leaving their houses, deserting their villages, abandoning their land, saying that they are pursued, possessed, governed like human cattle, by invisible, though tangible beings, by a species of vampire, which feeds on their life while they are asleep,

and which, besides, drinks water and milk without appearing to touch any other nourishment. Professor Don Pedro Enriquez, accompanied by several medical savants, has gone to the province of San Paolo in order to study the origin and the manifestations of this surprising madness on the spot, and to propose such measures to the emperor as may appear to him to be most fitted to restore the mad population to reason. Ah, ah, I remember now that fine Brazilian three-master, which passed in front of my windows as it was going up the same on the 8th of last May. I thought it looked so pretty, so white and bright.

That being was on board of her, coming from there, where its race sprang from, And it saw me, it saw my house, which was also white, and he sprang from the ship onto the land. Oh, good heavens! Now I know I can divine. The reign of man is over, and he has come. He, whom disquieted priests exorcised, whom sorcerers evoked on dark nights without seeing him appear. He, to whom the imaginations of the transient masters of the world,

lent all the monstrous or graceful forms of gnomes, spirits, genie, fairies, and familiar spirits. After the coarse conceptions of primitive fear, Men more enlightened gave him a truer form. Mesmer divined him, and ten years ago, physicians accurately discovered the nature of his power, even before he exercised it himself. They played with that weapon of their new lord,

the sway of a mysterious will over the human soul, which had become enslaved, They called it mesmerism, hypnotism, suggestion, I know not what. I have seen them diverting themselves like rash children with this horrible power. Woe to us. Woe to man! He has come. The...

The... What does he call himself? The... I fancy that he is shouting out his name to me, and I do not hear him. The... Yes, he is shouting it out. I am listening.

I cannot repeat it. Horla. I have heard. The horla. It is he, the horla. the horla. He has come. Ah, the vulture has eaten the pigeon.

The wolf has eaten the lamb. The lion has devoured the sharp-horned buffalo. Man has killed the lion with an arrow, with a spear, with gunpowder. But the horla will make of man. What man has been made. made of the horse and of the ox, his chattel, his slave, and his food, by the mere power of his will. Woe to us, but, nevertheless, sometimes the animal rebels and kills the man who has subjugated it.

I should also like, I shall be able to, but I must know him, touch him, see him. Lerned men say that eyes of animals, as they differ from ours, do not distinguish as hours do. And my eye cannot distinguish this newcomer who is oppressing me. Why? Oh, now I remember the words of the monk at Mont Saint-Michel. Can we see the hundred-thousandth part of what exists? Listen, there is the wind. which is the strongest force in nature. It knocks men down, blows down buildings, uproots trees, raises the sea into mountains of water,

destroys cliffs, and casts great ships onto the breakers. It kills, it whistles, it sighs, it roars. Have you ever seen? it? And can you see it? It exists for all that, however. And I went on thinking, My eyes are so weak, so imperfect, that they do not even distinguish hard bodies if they are as transparent as glass. If a glass without quicksilver behind it were to bar my way, I should run into it, just like a bird which has flown into a room breaks its head against the window-pains. A thousand things, moreover, deceive a man and lead him astray.

How then is it surprising that he cannot perceive a new body which is penetrated and pervaded by the light? A new being. Why not? It was assuredly bound to come. Why should we be the last? We do not distinguish it, like all the others created before us.

The reason is that its nature is more delicate, its body finer and more finished than ours. Our makeup is so weak, so awkwardly conceived. Our body is encumbered with organs that are always tired, always being strained like locks that are too complicated. It lives like a plant and like an animal, nourishing itself with difficulty on air, herbs and flesh. It is a brute machine which is a prey to maladies, to malformations, to decay.

It is broken-winded, badly regulated, simple and eccentric, ingeniously yet badly made. A coarse and yet a delicate mechanism. In brief, the outline of a being which must must be. become intelligent and great. There are only a few, so few, stages of development in this world from the oyster up to man. Why should there not be one more,

when once that period is accomplished, which separates the successive products one from the other? Why not one more? Why not also other trees with immense splendid flowers, perfuming whole regions? Why not other elements besides fire, air, earth, and water? There are four, only four, nursing fathers of various beings. What a pity. Why should there not be 40, 400, 4,000?

How poor everything is. How mean and wretched. Grudgingly given, poorly invented, clumsily made. Ah, the elephant and the hippopotamus, what power! And the camel? What's... suppleness, but the butterfly, you will say, a flying flower. I dream of one that should be as large as a hundred worlds, with wings whose shape, beauty, colors, and motion I cannot even express.

But I see it. It flutters from star to star, refreshing. Refresh. them and perfuming them with the light and harmonious breath of its flight. And the people up there gaze at it as it passes in an ecstasy of delight. What is the matter with me? It is he, the horla, who haunts me, and who makes me think of these foolish things. He is within me. He is becoming my soul. I shall kill him.

August 20th. I shall kill him. I have seen him. Yesterday, I sat down at my table and pretended to write very assiduously. I knew quite well that he would come prowling round me, quite close to me, so close to me, so close. that I might, perhaps, be able to touch him, to seize him. And then, then I should have the strength of desperation.

I should have my hands, my knees, my chest, my forehead, my teeth, to strangle him, to crush him, to bite him, to tear him to pieces. and I watched for him with all my over-excited nerves. I had lighted my two lamps and the eight wax candles on my mantelpiece, as if by this light I should discover him. My bed, my old oak bed with its columns, was opposite to me. On my right was the fireplace. On my left, the door, which was carefully closed.

After I had left it open for some time, in order to attract him, behind me was a very high wardrobe with a looking-glass in it, which served me to dress by every day, and in which I was in the habit of inspecting myself from his room. head to foot every time I passed it. So, I pretended to be writing in order to deceive him, for he also was watching me. And suddenly I felt I was certain that he was reading over my shoulder, that he was there, almost touching my ear.

I got up so quickly with my hands extended that I almost fell. Horror! It was as bright as at midday, but I did not see myself in the glass. It was empty, clear, profound, full of light. But my figure was not reflected in it. and I, I was opposite to it. I saw the large, clear glass from top to bottom, and I looked at it with unsteady eyes.

I did not dare advance, I did not venture to make a movement, feeling certain, nevertheless, that he was there, but that he would escape me again, he whose imperceptible body had absorbed my reflection. How frightened I was! And then, suddenly, I began to see myself through a mist

in the depths of the looking-glass, in a mist, as it were, or through a veil of water. And it seemed to me as if this water were flowing slowly from left to right, and making my figure clearer every moment. It was like the end of an eclipse. Whatever hid me did not appear to possess any clueless, any clearly defined outlines, but was a sort of opaque transparency, which gradually grew clearer. At last, I was able to distinguish myself completely, as I do every day when I look at myself.

I had seen him, and the horror of it remained with me. and makes me shudder even now, August 21st. How could I kill him, since I could not get hold of him? Poison? But he would see me mix it with the water. And then would our poisons have any effect on his impalpable body? No. No.

about the matter. Then, then, August 22nd, I sent for a blacksmith from Rouen, and ordered iron shutters of him for my room, such as some private hotels in Paris have on the ground floor for fear of thieves. And he is going to make me a similar door as well. I have made myself out a coward, but I do not care about that. End of Part 5. Part 6 of The Horla. This Librevox recording is in the public domain. Part 6

September 10th Rouen, Hotel Continental. It is done. It is done. But is he dead? My mind is thoroughly upset by what I have seen. Well then, yesterday, the locksmith having put on the iron shutters and door, I left everything open until midnight, although it was getting cold.

Suddenly, I felt that he was there. and joy, mad, joy took possession of me. I got up softly, and I walked to the right and left for some time, so that he might not guess anything. Then I took off my boots and put on my slippers carelessly. Then I fastened the iron shutters, and going back to the door quickly,

I double-locked it with a padlock, putting the key into my pocket. Suddenly I noticed that he was moving restlessly round me, that in his turn he was frightened and was ordering me to let him out. I nearly yielded, though I did not. quite. But putting my back to the door, I half opened it just enough to allow me to go out backward. And as I am very tall, my head touched the lintel. I was sure that he had not been

able to escape, and I shut him up quite alone, quite alone. What happiness! I had him. I had him, fast. Then I ran downstairs into the drawing room, which was under my bedroom. I took the two lamps and poured all the oil onto the carpet, the furniture everywhere. Then I set fire to it, and made my escape, after having carefully double-locked the door. I went and hid myself at the bottom of the garden in a clump of laurel bushes. How long it was! How long it was! Everything was dark, silent, motionless,

not a breath of air, and not a star, but heavy banks of clouds which one could not see, but which weighed, oh, so heavily on my soul. I looked at my house and waited. How long it was! I already began to think that the fire had gone out of its own accord, or that he had extinguished it, when one of the lower windows gave way under the violence of the flames,

and a long, soft, caressing sheet of red, flame mounted up the white wall and kissed it as high as the roof. The light fell onto the trees, the branches and the leaves, and a shiver of fear pervaded them also. The birds awoke. A dog began to howl, and it seemed to me as if the day were breaking. Almost immediately two other windows flew into fragments, and I saw that the whole of the lower part of my house was nothing but a terrible furnace. But a cry, a horrible, shrill, heart-rending cry, a woman's cry, sounded through the night, and two garret windows were opened.

I had forgotten the servants. I saw the terror-struck faces and the frantic waving of their arms. Then, overwhelmed with horror, I ran off to the village, shouting, Help! Help! Fire! Fire! Meeting some people who were already coming, coming on to the scene, I went back with them to see. By this time, the house was nothing but a horrible and magnificent funeral pile. A monstrous pyre which lit up the whole country.

A pyre where men were burning. And where he was burning also. He. He, my prisoner. That new being, the new master, the Horla, suddenly the whole roof fell in between the walls, and a volcano of flames darted up to the sky. Through all the windows which opened onto that furnace, I saw the flames darting, and I reflected that he was there.

in that kiln. Dead? Dead? Perhaps. His body? Was not his body, which was transparent, indestructible by such means as would kill ours? If he were not dead?

Perhaps time alone has power over that invisible and redoubtable being. Why this transparent, unrecognizable body, this body belonging to a spirit, if it also had to fear ills, infirmities, and premature destruction? Premature destruction? All human terror springs from that. After man, the horla, after he, after he, him who can die every day, at any hour, at any moment, by any accident, he came. He who was only to die at his own proper hour and minute, because he had touched the limits of his existence. No. No, there is no doubt about it. He is not dead.

Then. Then, I suppose I must kill myself. End of Part 6. End of the Horla. By Guy de Mopassant.