I put on my martial cloak, boots and cap again, determined to lie down dressed and ready to die like a brave warrior who despises life and challenges death. About eleven o'clock the air in the room begins to grow dense, and a deadly fear masters my courageous heart. I open the window. The draught threatens to blow out the lamp. I close it again. The lamp begins to make a sound between a sigh and a moan; then all is still again.
A dog in the village howls. According to popular superstition, this is a sign of death. I look out of the window; only the Great Bear is visible. Down there in the poorhouse a light is burning; an old woman is sitting bent over her work, as though she were waiting for her release; perhaps she fears sleep and its dreams. Weary, I lie down again on the bed, and try to sleep. At once the old game recommences. An electric stream seeks my heart; my lungs cease to work; I must rise or die. I sit down on a chair, but am too exhausted to be able to read, and spend half an hour thus in listless vacancy. Then I resolve to go for a walk till daybreak. I leave the house. The night is dark and the village asleep, but the dogs are not. One attacks me, and then the whole band surrounds me; their wide-open jaws and fiery eyes compel me to retreat.
When I open the door of my room and enter, it seems to me as though it were full of hostile living creatures through whom I must force my way in order to reach my bed. Resigned, and resolved to die, I throw myself upon it. But at the last moment, when the invisible vulture is about to stifle me under its wings, someone lifts me up, and the pursuit of the furies is at an end. Conquered, hurled to the earth, beaten down, I quit the scene of an unequal battle and yield to the invisible. I knock at the door on the other side of the passage. My mother-in-law, who is still at prayer, opens the door. The expression of her face as she looks at me makes me feel afraid of myself.
"I wish to die, and then to be burnt, or rather, burn me alive!"
She does not answer. She has understood me, and sympathy and pity conquer her fear, so that she prepares the sofa for me with her own hand. Then she retires to her own room where she sleeps with the child. Through a chance--always this Satanic chance!--the sofa stands opposite the window, and the same chance has willed that it has no curtains, so that the black window opening gapes at me. Moreover, it is the very same window through which the wind gust came when we were at supper. With all my powers exhausted, I sink on the sofa. I curse this ever-present, unavoidable "chance" which persecutes me with the obvious purpose of making me fall a victim to persecution-mania. For five minutes I have rest, while my eyes are fastened on the black square of the window; then an invisible something glides over my body, and I stand up. I remain standing in the middle of the room like a statue for hours, half-conscious, turned to stone, I know not whether awake or asleep.