The Last Vision 

...The Abbe and I left the presbytery and made our way along the highroad. I was leading my horse by the bridle, as one might expect. Already we were like two shadows. 

Five minutes after our departure, a soaking drizzIe, a very fine and very cold rain, driven by a fearful blast of wind lashed our hands and faces. 

I stopped short. 

" No, my good friend," said I to the Abbé, "decidedly not! I shall not allow this. Your existence is precious and this icy downpour is most dangerous. Go home. I say it again, this rain might give you a most perilous drenching. Go back, I pray you." 
 

A moment, and the Abbé, thinking of his parishioners, yielded to my appeal. " I take back your promise with me, my dear friend, do I? " he said. 

And as I held out my hand, he added: 

"One moment: you have a long way to go, I think, and this drizzle is really very penetrating!" 

He shivered. We were close beside each other, motionless, looking fixedly at each other, like two hurried travellers. 

And at that moment the moon rose up over the pine trees, behind the hills, lighting up the sandy plains and the woods on the horizon. Unbidden, it bathed us in its pale and mournful light, with its pale and desolate flame. The silhouettes of the horse an d of ourselves were outlined, enormous, on the roadway.-And from the direction of the old ruined stone crosses which rise, in this canton of Brittany, in the copses where perch the mournful birds escaped from the wood of the Dying-I heard, afar off, a fri ghtful cry, a sharp, startling falsetto. An owl with its phosphorescent eyes, their gleam quivering on the great branch of a holm-oak, took wing and passed between us, drawing out this same cry. 

" Come," went on the Abbé Maucombe, " I shall be home in a moment. So take-take this cloak. I am very fond of it! Very fond! " he added in an unforgettable tone. " You can send it back to me by the man from the inn; he comes to the village every day.... I pray you." 

And with these words, the Abbé held out his black cloak to me. I did not see his face, on account of the shadow cast by his broad three-cornered hat; but I could distinguish his eyes, gazing upon me with solemn, fixed stare. 

He flung the cloak over my shoulders, and fixed its clasps with an air of tenderness and concern, while I closed my eyelids in a kind of weariness. And taking advantage of my silence, he hurried off towards his home. At the turning of the road he disappe ared. 

With returned presence of mind, and also partly mechanically, I mounted my horse. Then I remained motionless. 

I was now alone on the highroad. I could hear the myriad noises of the countryside. Opening my eyes again, I saw the vast, livid sky, crossed by a multitude of leaden clouds that hid the moon-all the solitude of nature. None the less, I held myself straight and firm, though I must have been white as a sheet. 

"Come, be calm! " said I to myself. " I am feverish, and I am a sleep-walker. That is all." 

I forced myself to shrug my shoulders; but a hidden weight seemed to prevent me. 

And now, coming from the recesses of the far horizon, from the depths of those ill-omened woods, a flight of ospreys came across with a great noise of wings, and crying horrible unfamiliar calls as they flew over my head. They passed, and alighted on the roof of the presbytery and on the church-tower, away in the distance, and the wind bore down to me their melancholy crying. Upon my word, I felt afraid! And why? Who will ever define it for me exactly? I have been under fire; I have touched more swords than one with my own; my nerves are better tempered, perhaps, than those either of the most phlegmatic or the most cowardly natures, but I declare none the less, in all humility, that I was afraid there-and afraid in good earnest. 

And so in silence I drew blood from the flanks of the poor horse, and, with tight-closed eyes, with loosened reins, and with my fingers twisted in the mane and my cloak flying straight out behind me' I felt the gallop of my horse as headlong as it could be. She was going hell-for-leather. From time to time my indistinct muttering in her ear inspired her, surely and instinctively, with the superstitious horror which was making me shudder despite myself. And in this way we arrived in less than half an hour. The rattle of the stone causeway of the outskirts made me raise my head-and breathe again! 

At last! I saw houses! Lighted shops! The faces of my fellows behind the panes! I saw passers-by-I was leaving the land of nightmares behind me!