The Horla

Story 1/31: The Horla, or Modern Ghosts

by Henri René Albert Guy de Maupassant

Listening time: 1 Hour 15 minutes

Quote:

“I believed...yes, I believed an invisible being lived under my roof! How weak our head is! And how quickly it is terrified and goes astray as soon as we are struck by a small, incomprehensible fact! Instead of concluding with these simple words “I do not understand because the cause escapes me," we immediately imagine supernatural mysteries and terrible powers.”

Link: http://librivox.bookdesign.biz/book/3073 (in two parts)

Themes: Mesmerism and Insanity.

Monsieur Maupassant re-wrote this story twice. Once as “Letter of a Madman” and afterwards as this version; which reads as a series of journal entries. Presumably the two different versions are about the same person.

In the years following the original publication of this story, Monsieur Maupassant was committed to an institution, where he died. There is a lot of speculation about this story and whither or not it deals with some of the feelings and struggles that the author dealt with on a daily basis.

(As you can imagine, it's pretty dark.)

When I first read the story, I assumed “Horla” was a made up word that didn't have any meaning, but it does. In French it means something like “alien” or “outsider”. The story is also sub-titled “Modern Ghosts”.

The story starts out with the guy at his home in the country feeling completely in his element. He's full of goodwill and appreciative of all he has.

Later on we see him in the city, which is definitely NOT his element. He's of a completely different nature there: very, very cynical and pessimistic and goes on a little rant about how horrible society is and how it will never amount to anything.

It's like watching a soft, fluffy kitty transform into Grumpy Cat.

I like to think that this personality-transformation isn't due to anything “The Horla” did, it's a part of his personality. He's kind of a grumpy man, an individualist, and smart. 

He thinks up these experiments to see if someone, beside himself, is moving moving things around his room at night. He also investigates while he's in the city. He meets a hypnotist and witnesses the powers of subliminal suggestion and concludes that a similarly toxic influence has happened to him. He is even able to trace where his horla came from, and how it ended up in his house.

(It ends up being really innocuous. Reminds me of all those hyperbolic articles on the internet about the dangers of doing perfectly innocent things: “Three Ways You Didn't Know You Were Killing Your Child” and such crap that people buy into. There really isn't any way he could have prevented this situation, which makes him feel even more powerless and oppressed. )

The most chilling part for me is when he actually “catches” the creature. And he does this twice:

Once while he's in a garden smelling loverly roses, as you do, and he sees a rose beside him bend at an unnatural angle and snap. It's as if someone beside him saw him smelling the flowers and decided to try it, too.

Another time he actually sees it; he's in his study he feels it standing right behind his chair. But he plays it cool long enough to get it to stand in front of the mirror in the room. Then he whiplashes around and can't see his reflection!

The guy purports that the horla are clearly trying to take over the world and make us their livestock. It's unclear if his assertions are the supposed to be the horla talking to him or paranoia turning into psychosis. His particular horla is possessive, but not particularly ambitious: the most it wants is for the guy to stay at home with it, to leave out plenty of drink at night, to cuddle up with it while he sleeps and let it suck the life energy from his mouth.

(Is that too much to ask)

The Horla's “world dominion” seems very mundane.

The guy cites a variety of paranormal phenomena in folklore that can be attributable to these invisible aliens: Vampires, ghosts, elves etc.

And at that point it became clear to me: “The Horla” is not an alien and it's not from outer space. 

“Aliens” with mind-control powers that have apparently lived on earth for hundreds and hundreds of years, and are hell-bent on world dominion, wouldn't target an ordinary guy and tell him to stay at home. This cenario only works if "The Horla" have already obtained world dominion...

The Horla is clearly a primordial djinn. 

The saddest part of the story is, while he's dealing with this invisible toxic influence, his inclination is to want to deal with the problem himself. He's not really look around and see if other people around him are going through the same thing; or trying to seek help.

Which is really unfortunate because it's pretty clear that all of his servants had the same phenomena going on in their lives. And instead of teaming up with them to exorcise  their house the guy...

Well...I won't spoil the ending too much here.

Sufficeth to say, he's in the mad house for a reason.

The narrator doesn't have a name (Well he might have one, but he never tells us what it is)

I call him Guy. He looks kind of like this:

Except he's French, not Italian