Cursed, cursed be the fiend that brought misery on his grey hairs and
doomed him to waste in wretchedness! He could not live under the
horrors that were accumulated around him; the springs of existence
suddenly gave way; he was unable to rise from his bed, and in a few
days he died in my arms.
What then became of me? I know not; I lost sensation, and chains and
darkness were the only objects that pressed upon me. Sometimes,
indeed, I dreamt that I wandered in flowery meadows and pleasant vales
with the friends of my youth, but I awoke and found myself in a
dungeon. Melancholy followed, but by degrees I gained a clear
conception of my miseries and situation and was then released from my
prison. For they had called me mad, and during many months, as I
understood, a solitary cell had been my habitation.
Liberty, however, had been a useless gift to me, had I not, as I
awakened to reason, at the same time awakened to revenge. As the
memory of past misfortunes pressed upon me, I began to reflect on their
cause--the monster whom I had created, the miserable daemon whom I had
sent abroad into the world for my destruction. I was possessed by a
maddening rage when I thought of him, and desired and ardently prayed
that I might have him within my grasp to wreak a great and signal
revenge on his cursed head.
Nor did my hate long confine itself to useless wishes; I began to
reflect on the best means of securing him; and for this purpose, about
a month after my release, I repaired to a criminal judge in the town
and told him that I had an accusation to make, that I knew the
destroyer of my family, and that I required him to exert his whole
authority for the apprehension of the murderer.
Pages:
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262