“Monsieur, I had greater hopes of my own magnetic resources and of your powers of resistance. I cannot say I regret having done what I did.... I did my duty.... Our security, our peace of mind, our probable immortality could be conserved in no other way. Those at any rate are now adequately safe-guarded, at the price simply of a somewhat greater effort. But I should be much better satisfied had the experiment cost you a fatigue as great as mine, without drawing so deeply on your vital reserves. To be sure, I warned you that what we were about to do might prove extremely dangerous. I feared for your life especially when the moment would necessarily come for breaking the magnetic bond that connected you with the Being I derived from your substance. I foresaw also a great and cruel suffering on your part when I should kill, as I was obliged to kill, this newly created Being. Now those two shocks you withstood marvelously, Monsieur; but only to fall quite unexpectedly for us, into the particular state of languor and exhaustion in which I see you now. Monsieur, I am immensely, immensely sorry; and I trust you will understand that, had it been within my power, I would have been only too glad to leave you in a much stronger and sturdier state of health!”

A pause ... I drew back a step, with the idea of returning to my room. But the voice began again, in a slower and more solemn tone.

“Monsieur, since things are as they are, the simplest course for you is to bow to the inevitable. But I venture to point out that the present situation, bad as it is, is not without its advantage for you. The objections we were obliged to put forward originally to your immediate release obtain no longer. A favor we could not think of granting to the man you were yesterday at this hour—a man robust of body and vigorous of will, we are only too happy to accord to the man you are today—an aged invalid, broken in body and weak from more weaknesses than one.... Monsieur, you are, from this moment, free, a freedom without any qualifications or restrictions whatsoever. As soon as you choose to say so, my grandson will have the honor of showing you to our door. You may go anywhere you wish. We ask only that you refrain from mentioning to any living soul the things that you have seen during your stay in this House. I am sure you will decide to say nothing of them.”

Still I stood there listening. Somehow I was not at all surprised at this offer of my freedom however unexpected. I stood there listening; and I could feel the words I had heard sinking deeply into me, eating their way into the substance of my brain to remain there with indelible fixity.... I stood there listening....

Ah yes! I understand, I understand! From what I have been through, my will, my intelligence, my reason, have all been rarefied, depleted. My head is half emptied, as it were; and these sentences that are being addressed to me, these orders that are being given me, this password of silence that is being graven eternally upon my memory, all dictated by another will, another intelligence, another reason, are to be substituted in my brain by what is no longer there, for what has been taken away, and made to fill the intolerable hollowness of my skull!...

The falsetto voice concluded:

“For the rest you have our promise ... Madame de X.... the girl you love, left our abode last night.... She will never again be recalled to us....”

Madame de X....? The girl I love?... I love? Ah yes, yes, yes! I had forgotten! You see, I’m an old old man and my heart is empty too ... sucked dry, impoverished! I’m an old old man! Many things have changed in me.... Madame de X....? Ah yes!... Madeleine! Madeleine will never be recalled! Yes, of course. She will never come back here again.... As we agreed.

The falsetto voice fell silent with two words:

“Farewell, Monsieur!”