AS I WAITED FOR Édmonde’s next missive, I continued—between bouts of neuralgia, when I was too debilitated by laudanum to even pick up my pen—to write the words you have been reading. Despite the pain I was suffering, I felt a kind of ecstatic serenity that was hitherto unknown to me. My nightmares, which had tortured me throughout my life, were no longer a tribulation. They were replaced by dreams that were at once lucid and consoling. My body and my soul were detaching from each other. The one was racked with pain, dying, while the other was beginning to look forward to its next journey.

Édmonde had advised me to avoid all visitors, for fear that I would betray our plans. But when Auguste knocked unexpectedly on my door one morning I could not turn him away, knowing it was perhaps the last time I would see him. He entered, saw me lying in bed weakened with pain and laudanum, and frowned.

“Are you unwell?”

“Oh, it is nothing new, my friend,” I replied. “Simply the neuralgia that has plagued me all these years.”

“Do you have enough laudanum?”

I smiled and nodded drowsily.

He wandered over to the writing table where sheafs of paper were spread, the ones you are reading at this moment, and began to cast an eye over them.

“What’s this?” he asked. He took the title page. “A story? ‘The Education of a Monster.’”

I somehow managed to rise from my bed and take the page from his hand, gathering all the pages together and slipping them into a drawer. “It’s not ready.”

“Have you started writing again?”

“I have, but no one can read it.” He eyed me curiously. “Not until it’s finished.”

Auguste’s eyes narrowed. “What’s the matter, Charles? You’re not usually so timid about your work.”

I slumped back onto my bed while he sat in the only chair in the room. “Nothing is the matter, I assure you. I will show you in due course and you will be very impressed. Long have you urged me to write stories. I have taken your advice. This one is sure to change our fortunes.”

He smiled a little sadly. He’d heard this kind of talk before. “I’m very glad to hear it, Charles.”

I could not bear to see him one last time without bidding him adieu. “I … I am about to go on a journey, Auguste.” I could not disguise a tremor in my voice.

“Where to?”

I hadn’t considered that. Where was I traveling to? “The tropics.”

“Whatever for?”

“I’ve been wanting to go for many years, as you know.”

I could see that my friend did not believe me, but was indulging me as if I had finally taken leave of my senses. “I see,” he said. “And when will you be leaving?”

“Any day now.”