12 MAY

GOD SAVE ME! I HARDLY KNOW WHETHER I AM AWAKE OR asleep! Why do I see and hear things that are not real? Is it the solitude? Is it because everything here is so different from what I am used to? It was probably just a dream, but God grant that I never have such a nightmare again.

The Count told me that he found me fully clothed and fast asleep in my bed when he came home, and that it seemed as if I’d had a nightmare. He said that I’d been mumbling and tossing wildly around in my sleep, so he had woken me up. My first thought was to believe he would report correctly,¹⁹⁴ for I had indeed woken up in the middle of the night, lying on my bed, fully clothed, with a light burning on the table and the Count standing next to me, glowering at me with his black eyes. I was exhausted, as if I’d drunk sleeping medicine, so I silently obeyed him when he told me to take off my clothes. I must have fallen asleep directly thereafter, as from that point on, I was dead to the world around me until quite late the next day.