How can I describe my sensations on
beholding it? I feel yet parched with horror, nor can I reflect on
that terrible moment without shuddering and agony. The examination,
the presence of the magistrate and witnesses, passed like a dream from
my memory when I saw the lifeless form of Henry Clerval stretched
before me. I gasped for breath, and throwing myself on the body, I
exclaimed, "Have my murderous machinations deprived you also, my
dearest Henry, of life? Two I have already destroyed; other victims
await their destiny; but you, Clerval, my friend, my benefactor--"
The human frame could no longer support the agonies that I endured, and
I was carried out of the room in strong convulsions. A fever succeeded
to this. I lay for two months on the point of death; my ravings, as I
afterwards heard, were frightful; I called myself the murderer of
William, of Justine, and of Clerval. Sometimes I entreated my
attendants to assist me in the destruction of the fiend by whom I was
tormented; and at others I felt the fingers of the monster already
grasping my neck, and screamed aloud with agony and terror.
Fortunately, as I spoke my native language, Mr. Kirwin alone understood
me; but my gestures and bitter cries were sufficient to affright the
other witnesses. Why did I not die? More miserable than man ever was
before, why did I not sink into forgetfulness and rest? Death snatches
away many blooming children, the only hopes of their doting parents;
how many brides and youthful lovers have been one day in the bloom of
health and hope, and the next a prey for worms and the decay of the
tomb! Of what materials was I made that I could thus resist so many
shocks, which, like the turning of the wheel, continually renewed the
torture?
But I was doomed to live and in two months found myself as awaking from
a dream, in a prison, stretched on a wretched bed, surrounded by
jailers, turnkeys, bolts, and all the miserable apparatus of a
dungeon.
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