My father tried to awaken in me the feelings of affection. He talked
of Geneva, which I should soon visit, of Elizabeth and Ernest; but
these words only drew deep groans from me. Sometimes, indeed, I felt a
wish for happiness and thought with melancholy delight of my beloved
cousin or longed, with a devouring maladie du pays, to see once more
the blue lake and rapid Rhone, that had been so dear to me in early
childhood; but my general state of feeling was a torpor in which a
prison was as welcome a residence as the divinest scene in nature; and
these fits were seldom interrupted but by paroxysms of anguish and
despair. At these moments I often endeavoured to put an end to the
existence I loathed, and it required unceasing attendance and vigilance
to restrain me from committing some dreadful act of violence.
Yet one duty remained to me, the recollection of which finally
triumphed over my selfish despair. It was necessary that I should
return without delay to Geneva, there to watch over the lives of those
I so fondly loved and to lie in wait for the murderer, that if any
chance led me to the place of his concealment, or if he dared again to
blast me by his presence, I might, with unfailing aim, put an end to
the existence of the monstrous image which I had endued with the
mockery of a soul still more monstrous. My father still desired to
delay our departure, fearful that I could not sustain the fatigues of a
journey, for I was a shattered wreck--the shadow of a human being.
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