"I still experience a violent irritation, but it is nothing to what I felt just now. I cling to life because the memory of Cecily is all my life." "But this memory kills, exhausts, consumes you." The notary did not hear his accomplice, who foresaw a new hallucination. In effect, Ferrand resumed, with a burst of convulsive and sardonic laughter: "To take Cecily from me! But they do not know that, by concentrating all the power of one's faculties on a single object, the impracticable is gained. Thus, directly, I am going to the chamber of Cecily, where I have not dared to go since her departure. Oh, to see, to touch the vestments which have belonged to her; the glass before which she dressed--it will be to see herself! Yes; by fixing my eyes on this glass, soon shall I see Cecily appear. It will not be an illusion--a mist; it will be she; I shall find her there, as the sculptor finds the statue in the block of marble." "Where are you going to?" said Polidori, hearing Jacques Ferrand getting up from his bed, for the most profound obscurity still reigned in the apartment. "I go to find Cecily." "You shall not go. The sight of her chamber will kill you." "Cecily awaits me there." "You shall not go--I hold you," said Polidori, seizing the notary by the arm. Jacques Ferrand, arrived at the last stage of weakness, could not struggle against Polidori, who held him with a vigorous hand. "You wish to prevent me from going to find Cecily?" "Yes; and, besides, there is a lamp lighted in the next room; you know what effect the light produced just now upon your sight!" "Cecily is there; she awaits me. I would traverse a blazing furnace to join her. Let me go. She told me I was her old tiger. Take care, my claws are sharp." "You shall not go. I will rather tie you on your bed as a madman." "Polidori, listen; I am not mad--I have all my reason. I know very well that Cecily is not materially there; but for me, the phantoms of my imagination are worth more than realities." "Silence!" cried Polidori, suddenly, listening; "just now I thought I heard a carriage stop at the door. I was not mistaken. I hear now the sound of voices in the court." "You wish to distract my thoughts. The trick is too plain." "I hear some one speak, I tell you, and I think I recognize---" "You wish to deceive me," said Ferrand, interrupting Polidori; "I am not your dupe." "But, wretch, listen then--listen. Ah! do you not hear?" "Let me go--Cecily is there--she calls me. Do not make me angry, in my turn, I tell you. Take care--do you understand? take care." "You shall not go out." "Take care---" "You shall not go out from here; it is my interest that you should remain." "You prevent me from going to find Cecily; my interest wills that you should die. Hold then!" said the notary, in a hollow voice. Polidori uttered a cry. "Scoundrel! you have stabbed me in the arm; but the wound is slight; you shall not escape me."