. . .ired by his contemporaries and popular wherever he came. But one day he committed an act directly forbidden by his conscience. Since then nothing could give him peace. After a long period of mental torture his body also succumbed, while his spiritual crisis was intensified. Every day he realised the fresh advance of an imaginary disease, and at last he seemed to undergo death agonies. Then he thought he really was dead, and heard in all corners of the house the hammering of coffins. When he read the paper, for his mind remained clear, he expected to see the report of his own burial. At the same time his body seemed to suffer dissolution and exhaled a corpse-like odour, which frightened the attendants away from his bed, and alarmed him himself. Moreover a change seemed to take place even in his personality, for though he was formerly religiously minded in his way he was now attacked by doubts. One of his illusions, which he remembered afterwards, was that his attendants h. . . Read More