XII + 

I had been in bed a quarter of an hour and, contrary to my usual habit, was still awake. The saddest reflections had succeeded the idea of my dedication; my candle, which was nearly finished, threw only an unsteady and doleful light from the bottom of the candlestick, and my room looked as funereal as a tomb. Suddenly a gust of wind blew open the window and put out the candle and banged the door to violently. The gloomy cast of my thoughts deepened in the darkness. + 

All my past pleasures, all my present troubles, rushed at once to my breast and filled it with bitter sorrow. + 

Although I make continued efforts to forget my troubles and drive them away, it sometimes happens, when I am not on my guard, that they rush suddenly into my recollection as if a floodgate had been opened. Then I have no alternative but to abandon myself to the torrent on which I am borne; my thoughts then become so gloomy, and everything seems so mournful, that I generally end by laughing at my own folly, so that the remedy proceeds from the very extremity of the disease. + 

I was still in the midst of one of these melancholy attacks, when part of the gust of wind, which had blown open my window and banged the door to as it went by, after taking several turns round my room, scattering the leaves of my books, and causing a leaf of “The Voyage” to flutter to the ground, finally got into my curtains and died away on my face. I felt the sweet coolness of the night, and, taking this as an invitation, I immediately got up and ascended my staircase to enjoy the repose of nature. + 