Short Fiction by Xavier de Maistre (digital e reader txt) 📕

God, and prayer brings to my soul something of its wonted peace.

The Officer

And thus, poor sufferer, you have to endure at the same time mental and bodily torments!

The Leper

And my bodily sufferings are not the hardest to bear.

The Officer

Are they mitigated then at times?

The Leper

Every month they increase and diminish with the course of the moon. At the new moon I generally suffer most; the malady then diminishes, and its character seems to change. My skin grows dry and white, and I scarcely feel anything more of my affliction; indeed it would always be tolerable were it not for the dreadful, sleepless nights it causes.

The Officer

What! Does sleep even forsake you?

The Leper

Ah, sir! those nights! those sleepless nights! You cannot imagine how long and sad is a whole night which a wretched man passes without even closing his eyes, and with a mind intent upon a position which has no hopeful future before it. No, no one can conceive what this is. As the night wears on my restlessness increases; and at its close my agitation is such that I do not know what to do with myself. My thoughts become disordered, and I am the prey of an extraordinary sensation that I never experience except at these sad times. At one moment an irresistible power drags me into a bottomless abyss; at another I see black spots before my eyes; but while I watch them they dart aside as quick as lightning, and then, growing bigger and bigger as they approach me, become mountains which crush me beneath their weight. At other times I see clouds rise out of the earth like swelling waves, which gather around me, threatening to overwhelm me. When I try to rise, and so turn the current of my thoughts, I feel held down by invisible chains, which render me quite helpless⁠ ⁠… You think that these are mere dreams. But no; I am wide awake at such moments. I see the same objects repeatedly; and the sense of horror they cause exceeds all the other evils I suffer.

The Officer

Possibly you are feverish during these cruel hours of unrest, which would be quite sufficient to explain this sort of delirium.

The Leper

You think that may be enough to cause it? Would that it might be so! I have always feared that the visions were a sign of madness, and I confess that the thought troubled me much. Would to God it were indeed the effect of fever!

The Officer

You interest me greatly. I could never have conceived such a position as yours. But it must, I should think, have been less sad when your sister was alive.

The Leper

God only knows what I lost by my sister’s death. But do you not fear being so near me? Sit here, on this stone, and I will place myself behind the branches; and then we can converse without seeing one another.

The Officer

Why move? No, do not stir from my side. Sit here by me. (As he spoke, the traveller made an involuntary attempt to take the Leper by the hand, who quickly withdrew it.)

The Leper

How could you be so imprudent! You were about to grasp my hand.

The Officer

Yes, and I should have pressed it heartily.

The Leper

It would have been the first time such a kindness had been shown me. No one has ever pressed my hand.

The Officer

What! with the exception of the sister of whom you have spoken, you have formed no acquaintance, you have never been beloved by any fellow creature?

The Leper

Fortunately for humanity, there is no one whom I can regard as my fellow.

The Officer

Your words shock me!

The Leper

Pardon me, compassionate stranger! The wretched, as you know, love to talk of their misfortunes.

The Officer

Go on, go on; you interest me much! You were telling me that a sister once lived with you, who helped you to endure your sufferings.

The Leper

This was the sole tie that still bound me to the rest of humanity. It pleased God to break it, and to leave me all alone in the world. Her soul was worthy of the heaven it inhabits, and her example bore me up against the despair which, since her death, so often overwhelms me. Ours was not, however, that delightful intimacy which I picture to myself, and which should unite friends in affliction. The nature of our misfortunes deprived us of that consolation. Even when we drew together to offer up our prayers to God, we mutually avoided looking one another in the face, lest the spectacle of our calamity should disturb our meditations⁠ ⁠… After our prayers, my sister generally withdrew to her cell, or to the shelter of the hazel trees at the end of the garden. We lived almost always apart from one another.

The Officer

But why did you subject yourselves to this hard constraint?

The Leper

When my sister was attacked by the contagious disease to which all the members of our family have been victims, and she came to share my retreat, we had never seen one another. The shock was great when she saw me for the first time; and the fear of distressing her, and the still greater fear of increasing her malady through my presence, compelled me to adopt this sad arrangement. The leprosy had attacked her chest only; and I had some hope of her recovery. You see what is left of the trellis which I have allowed to fall into neglect. It was a hedge of hops that I trained with care, and which divided the garden into two parts. I had shaped on each side a narrow path, along which we could walk and talk together, without seeing one another, or approaching one another too nearly.

The Officer

It would seem as if Heaven had delighted in poisoning what sad solace it left you.

The Leper

But at least I was not then alone. My sister’s presence gave life to this