You say you cannot possibly understand it, and I believe you. You think I am losing my
mind? Perhaps I am, but for other reasons than those you imagine, my dear friend.
Yes, I am going to be married, and will tell you what has led me to take that step.
I may add that I know very little of the girl who is going to become my wife to-morrow; I
have only seen her four or five times. I know that there is nothing unpleasing about her,
and that is enough for my purpose. She is small, fair, and stout; so, of course, the day
after to-morrow I shall ardently wish for a tall, dark, thin woman.
She is not rich, and belongs to the middle classes. She is a girl such as you may find by
the gross, well adapted for matrimony, without any apparent faults, and with no
particularly striking qualities. People say of her:
"Mlle. Lajolle is a very nice girl," and tomorrow they will say: "What a very nice woman
Madame Raymon is." She belongs, in a word, to that immense number of girls whom one
is glad to have for one's wife, till the moment comes when one discovers that one
happens to prefer all other women to that particular woman whom one has married.
"Well," you will say to me, "what on earth did you get married for?"
I hardly like to tell you the strange and seemingly improbable reason that urged me on to
this senseless act; the fact, however, is that I am afraid of being alone.
I don't know how to tell you or to make you understand me, but my state of mind is so
wretched that you will pity me and despise me.
I do not want to be alone any longer at night. I want to feel that there is some one close to
me, touching me, a being who can speak and say something, no matter what it be.
I wish to be able to awaken somebody by my side, so that I may be able to ask some
sudden question, a stupid question even, if I feel inclined, so that I may hear a human
voice, and feel that there is some waking soul close to me, some one whose reason is at
work; so that when I hastily light the candle I may see some human face by my side--
because--because --I am ashamed to confess it--because I am afraid of being alone.
Oh, you don't understand me yet.
I am not afraid of any danger; if a man were to come into the room, I should kill him
without trembling. I am not afraid of ghosts, nor do I believe in the supernatural. I am not
afraid of dead people, for I believe in the total annihilation of every being that disappears
from the face of this earth.
