The Horla Read Online Free PDF

outline of a being that could become intelligent and superb.
    There are just a few of us in this world, so few species between oysters and men. Why not one more entity, now that the era is over when all the various species appeared in orderly succession?
    Why not one more? And why not other trees with immense, dazzling flowers, perfuming entire regions? Why not other elements besides fire, air, earth, and water?—There are four of them, just four, those fosterparents of beings! What a pity! Why aren’t there forty elements instead, or four hundred, or four thousand? How paltry everything is, how miserly, how wretched! Stingily given, aridly invented, heavily made! Look at the elephant, the hippopotamus—such grace! The camel, such elegance!
    But you’ll say, what about the butterfly? A flower that flies! I dream of one that would be as large as a hundred universes, with wings whose shape, beauty, color, and movement I cannot even describe. But I can see it … it goes from star to star, refreshing them and soothing them with the harmonious and light breath of its journey!… And the peoples up there, ecstatic and ravished, watch it go by!

    What is wrong with me? It is he, the Horla, who is haunting me, making me think these mad thoughts! He is inside me, he is becoming my soul; I will kill him!
    August 19
. I will kill him. I have seen him! I had sat down at my table last night, and I pretended to write with great concentration. I was well aware that he would come prowl around me, quite close, so close that I might perhaps be able to touch him, to seizehim.… And then … then, I would have the strength of the desperate. I would have my hands, my knees, my chest, my forehead, my teeth to strangle him, crush him, bite him, tear him apart.
    And I watched for him with all my overexcited organs.
    I had lit both my lamps, along with the eight candles on my mantelpiece, as if, in this brightness, I might expose him.
    Opposite me, my bed, an old oaken four-poster; to my right, my fireplace; to my left, my door, which I had carefully shut, after having left it open for a long time, in order to lure him in; behind me, a very high wardrobe with a mirror, which I used every day to shave and dress, and in which I had the habit of looking at myself, from head to foot, every time I passed in front of it.
    I was just pretending to write in order to trick him, for he too was spying on me; and suddenly, I felt, I was sure, that he was reading over my shoulder, that he was there, grazing my ear.
    I stood up with my hands outstretched, turning around so quickly that I almost fell down. And? Everything there was clear as in full daylight, but I could not see myself in my mirror—it was empty, clear, profound, full of light! My image was not inside it … yet I myself was facing it! I could see the large clear glass from top to bottom. I looked at it withterrified eyes, but dared not move forward. I did not dare to make any movement, fully aware that he was there, but that he would escape me again, he whose imperceptible body had devoured my reflection.
    I was terrified. Then suddenly I began to see myself in a mist, in the depths of the mirror, in a mist as if through a sheet of water. It seemed to me that this water shimmered from left to right, slowly, making my image more precise, from second to second. It was like the end of an eclipse. Whatever was obscuring me seemed not to possess any clearly defined outlines, but just a sort of opaque transparency, little by little becoming clearer.
    Finally I could distinguish myself completely, just as I do every day when I look at myself.
    I had seen him! The terror of it has remained with me, and makes me tremble still.
    August 20
. How can I kill him, if I cannot touch him? Poison? But he would see me mixing it in the water; and besides, will our poisons even have any effect on an imperceptible body? No … no … they cannot.… What then?
    August 21
. I have had a locksmith come