The next day the steward told his adventure to the farm-people, who, on hearing the description of the spectre, declared that it was their old master. The matter did not end there: if M. Livoret looked behind him in a wood, he saw the ghost; if he had to climb over a stile in a field, the shade set itself astride the stile. One day, the unhappy haunted man venturing to say, "Monsieur de Chateaubourg, leave me," the ghost replied, "No." M. Livoret, a cold and practical man, possessed of very little imagination, repeated his story as often as he was asked, always in the same way and with the same conviction. [Sidenote: A visit to Normandy.] A little later I accompanied to Normandy a brave officer attacked with brain-fever. We were lodged in a farm-house: an old tapestry, lent by the lord of the manor, separated my bed from the invalid's. Behind this hanging the patient was bled: to relieve him of his sufferings, they plunged him into ice-baths; he shivered under this torture, with his nails turned blue, his violet face haggard, and his teeth clenched. His head was shaven, and a long beard which came down from his pointed chin served to clothe his bare, wet, lean chest. When the invalid had a fit of crying, he opened an umbrella, thinking that he was sheltering himself from his tears: if this were a sure protection against weeping, a statue should be raised to the inventor. My only happy moments were those at which I went to wander in the grave-yard of the village church, built upon a mound. My companions were the dead, a few birds, and the setting sun. I dreamed of Paris society, of my early years, of my phantom, of the Combourg woods, to which I was so near in point of space, though so far removed in point of time. I returned to my poor sick man: it was the blind leading the blind. Alas, let a blow, a fall, a moral suffering deprive Homer, Newton, Bossuet of their genius, and those divine men, instead of exciting profound pity, bitter and eternal regret, would be the object of a smile! Many people whom I have known and loved have seen their reason troubled while about me, as though I bore with me the germ of the contagion. I can explain Cervantes' masterpiece and its cruel gaiety only by a sad reflection: when one considers existence as a whole, and weighs its good and evil, one feels tempted to long for any accident that brings forgetfulness with it, as a means of escaping from one's self; a joyful drunkard is a happy being. Putting religion aside, happiness lies in not knowing one's self and in reaching death without having felt life. I brought my friend back completely cured. *