“For that matter,” replied the old woman, “if you mean about the gentleman you murdered,I believe that it were better for you if you were dead, for I fancy it will go hard with you!However, that’s none of my business; I am sent to nurse you and get you well;I do my duty with a safe conscience; it were well if everybody did the same.”
I turned with loathing from the woman who could utter so unfeeling a speech to a person just saved,on the very edge of death; but I felt languid and unable to reflect on all that had passed.The whole series of my life appeared to me as a dream;I sometimes doubted if indeed it were all true,for it never presented itself to my mind with the force of reality.
As the images that floated before me became more distinct, I grew feverish;a darkness pressed around me; no one was near me who soothed me with the gentle voice of love;no dear hand supported me. The physician came and prescribed medicines,and the old woman prepared them for me; but utter carelessness was visible in the first,and the expression of brutality was strongly marked in the visage of the second.Who could be interested in the fate of a murderer but the hangman who would gain his fee?
These were my first reflections, but I soon learned that Mr. Kirwin had shown me extreme kindness.He had caused the best room in the prison to be prepared for me (wretched indeed was the best);and it was he who had provided a physician and a nurse. It is true, he seldom came to see me,for although he ardently desired to relieve the sufferings of every human creature,he did not wish to be present at the agonies and miserable ravings of a murderer. He came,therefore, sometimes to see that I was not neglected,but his visits were short and with long intervals.
One day, while I was gradually recovering, I was seated in a chair,my eyes half open and my cheeks livid like those in death.I was overcome by gloom and misery and often reflected I had better seek death than desire to remain in a world which to me was replete with wretchedness.At one time I considered whether I should not declare myself guilty and suffer the penalty of the law,less innocent than poor Justine had been.Such were my thoughts when the door of my apartment was opened and Mr. Kirwin entered.His countenance expressed sympathy and compassion;he drew a chair close to mine and addressed me in French,
“I fear that this place is very shocking to you; can I do anything to make you more comfortable?”
“I thank you, but all that you mention is nothing to me;on the whole earth there is no comfort which I am capable of receiving.”
“I know that the sympathy of a stranger can be but of little relief to one borne down as you are by so strange a misfortune.But you will, I hope, soon quit this melancholy abode,for doubtless evidence can easily be brought to free you from the criminal charge.”
“That is my least concern; I am, by a course of strange events,become the most miserable of mortals. Persecuted and tortured as I am and have been, can death be any evil to me?”
“Nothing indeed could be more unfortunate and agonising than the strange chances that have lately occurred.You were thrown, by some surprising accident, on this shore, renowned for its hospitality,seized immediately, and charged with murder.The first sight that was presented to your eyes was the body of your friend,murdered in so unaccountable a manner and placed, as it were, by some fiend across your path.”
As Mr. Kirwin said this, notwithstanding the agitation I endured on this retrospect of my sufferings,I also felt considerable surprise at the knowledge he seemed to possess concerning me.I suppose some astonishment was exhibited in my countenance, for Mr. Kirwin hastened to say,
“Immediately upon your being taken ill, all the papers that were on your person were brought me,and I examined them that I might discover some trace by which I could send to your relations an account of your misfortune and illness.I found several letters, and, among others,one which I discovered from its commencement to be from your father. I instantly wrote to Geneva;nearly two months have elapsed since the departure of my letter. But you are ill;even now you tremble; you are unfit for agitation of any kind.”
“This suspense is a thousand times worse than the most horrible event;tell me what new scene of death has been acted, and whose murder I am now to lament?”
“Your family is perfectly well,” said Mr. Kirwin with gentleness; “and someone, a friend, is come to visit you.”
I know not by what chain of thought the idea presented itself,but it instantly darted into my mind that the murderer had come to mock at my misery and taunt me with the death of Clerval,as a new incitement for me to comply with his hellish desires. I put my hand before my eyes, and cried out in agony,
“Oh!Take him away!I cannot see him; for God’s sake, do not let him enter!”
Mr. Kirwin regarded me with a troubled countenance.He could not help regarding my exclamation as a presumption of my guilt and said in rather a severe tone,
“I should have thought, young man, that the presence of your father would have been welcome instead of inspiring such violent repugnance. ”
“My father!” cried I, while every feature and every muscle was relaxed from anguish to pleasure. “Is my father indeed come?How kind, how very kind!But where is he, why does he not hasten to me?”
My change of manner surprised and pleased the magistrate;perhaps he thought that my former exclamation was a momentary return of delirium,and now he instantly resumed his former benevolence. He rose and quitted the room with my nurse, and in a moment my father entered it.
Nothing, at this moment, could have given me greater pleasure than the arrival of my father.I stretched out my hand to him and cried,
“Are you then safe—and Elizabeth—and Ernest?”
My father calmed me with assurances of their welfare and endeavoured,by dwelling on these subjects so interesting to my heart, to raise my desponding spirits;but he soon felt that a prison cannot be the abode of cheerfulness.“What a place is this that you inhabit, my son!” said he, looking mournfully at the barred windows and wretched appearance of the room.“You travelled to seek happiness, but a fatality seems to pursue you. And poor Clerval—”
The name of my unfortunate and murdered friend was an agitation too great to be endured in my weak state; I shed tears.
“Alas!Yes, my father,” replied I; “some destiny of the most horrible kind hangs over me,and I must live to fulfil it, or surely I should have died on the coffin of Henry.”
We were not allowed to converse for any length of time,for the precarious state of my health rendered every precaution necessary that could ensure tranquillity.Mr. Kirwin came in and insisted that my strength should not be exhausted by too much exertion.But the appearance of my father was to me like that of my good angel, and I gradually recovered my health.
As my sickness quitted me, I was absorbed by a gloomy and black melancholy that nothing could dissipate.The image of Clerval was for ever before me, ghastly and murdered.More than once the agitation into which these reflections threw me made my friends dread a dangerous relapse. Alas!Why did they preserve so miserable and detested a life?It was surely that I might fulfil my destiny, which is now drawing to a close. Soon, oh, very soon,will death extinguish these throbbings and relieve me from the mighty weight of anguish that bears me to the dust;and, in executing the award of justice, I shall also sink to rest.Then the appearance of death was distant, although the wish was ever present to my thoughts;and I often sat for hours motionless and speechless,wishing for some mighty revolution that might bury me and my destroyer in its ruins.
The season of the assizes approached. I had already been three months in prison,and although I was still weak and in continual danger of a relapse,I was obliged to travel nearly a hundred miles to the country town where the court was held. Mr.Kirwin charged himself with every care of collecting witnesses and arranging my defence.I was spared the disgrace of appearing publicly as a criminal,as the case was not brought before the court that decides on life and death.The grand jury rejected the bill, on its being proved that I was on the Orkney Islands at the hour the body of my friend was found;and a fortnight after my removal I was liberated from prison.
My father was enraptured on finding me freed from the vexations of a criminal charge,that I was again allowed to breathe the fresh atmosphere and permitted to return to my native country.I did not participate in these feelings,for to me the walls of a dungeon or a palace were alike hateful.The cup of life was poisoned for ever, and although the sun shone upon me,as upon the happy and gay of heart, I saw around me nothing but a dense and frightful darkness,penetrated by no light but the glimmer of two eyes that glared upon me.Sometimes they were the expressive eyes of Henry, languishing in death,the dark orbs nearly covered by the lids and the long black lashes that fringed them;sometimes it was the watery, clouded eyes of the monster,as I first saw them in my chamber at Ingolstadt.
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. My strength was gone.I was a mere skeleton, and fever night and day preyed upon my wasted frame.
Still, as I urged our leaving Ireland with such inquietude and impatience,my father thought it best to yield. We took our passage on board a vessel bound for Havre-de-Grace and sailed with a fair wind from the Irish shores.It was midnight. I lay on the deck looking at the stars and listening to the dashing of the waves.I hailed the darkness that shut Ireland from my sight,and my pulse beat with a feverish joy when I reflected that I should soon see Geneva.The past appeared to me in the light of a frightful dream; yet the vessel in which I was,the wind that blew me from the detested shore of Ireland, and the sea which surrounded me,told me too forcibly that I was deceived by no vision and that Clerval,my friend and dearest companion, had fallen a victim to me and the monster of my creation.I repassed, in my memory, my whole life;my quiet happiness while residing with my family in Geneva, the death of my mother,and my departure for Ingolstadt. I remembered, shuddering,the mad enthusiasm that hurried me on to the creation of my hideous enemy,and I called to mind the night in which he first lived.I was unable to pursue the train of thought; a thousand feelings pressed upon me, and I wept bitterly.
Ever since my recovery from the fever, I had been in the custom of taking every night a small quantity of laudanum,for it was by means of this drug only that I was enabled to gain the rest necessary for the preservation of life.Oppressed by the recollection of my various misfortunes,I now swallowed double my usual quantity and soon slept profoundly.But sleep did not afford me respite from thought and misery;my dreams presented a thousand objects that scared me.Towards morning I was possessed by a kind of nightmare;I felt the fiend’s grasp in my neck and could not free myself from it;groans and cries rang in my ears. My father, who was watching over me, perceiving my restlessness,awoke me; the dashing waves were around, the cloudy sky above, the fiend was not here:a sense of security, a feeling that a truce was established between the present hour and the irresistible,disastrous future imparted to me a kind of calm forgetfulness,of which the human mind is by its structure peculiarly susceptible.
Chapter 22
The voyage came to an end. We landed, and proceeded to Paris.I soon found that I had overtaxed my strength and that I must repose before I could continue my journey.My father’s care and attentions were indefatigable,but he did not know the origin of my sufferings and sought erroneous methods to remedy the incurable ill.He wished me to seek amusement in society. I abhorred the face of man. Oh, not abhorred!They were my brethren, my fellow beings, and I felt attracted even to the most repulsive among them,as to creatures of an angelic nature and celestial mechanism.But I felt that I had no right to share their intercourse.I had unchained an enemy among them whose joy it was to shed their blood and to revel in their groans.How they would, each and all, abhor me and hunt me from the world,did they know my unhallowed acts and the crimes which had their source in me!
My father yielded at length to my desire to avoid society and strove by various arguments to banish my despair.Sometimes he thought that I felt deeply the degradation of being obliged to answer a charge of murder,and he endeavoured to prove to me the futility of pride.
“Alas!My father,” said I, “how little do you know me. Human beings, their feelings and passions,would indeed be degraded if such a wretch as I felt pride. Justine, poor unhappy Justine,was as innocent as I, and she suffered the same charge; she died for it;and I am the cause of this—I murdered her. William, Justine, and Henry—they all died by my hands.”
My father had often, during my imprisonment, heard me make the same assertion;when I thus accused myself, he sometimes seemed to desire an explanation,and at others he appeared to consider it as the offspring of delirium, and that, during my illness,some idea of this kind had presented itself to my imagination,the remembrance of which I preserved in my convalescence.I avoided explanation and maintained a continual silence concerning the wretch I had created.I had a persuasion that I should be supposed mad,and this in itself would for ever have chained my tongue. But, besides,I could not bring myself to disclose a secret which would fill my hearer with consternation and make fear and unnatural horror the inmates of his breast.I checked, therefore, my impatient thirst for sympathy and was silent when I would have given the world to have confided the fatal secret.Yet, still, words like those I have recorded would burst uncontrollably from me.I could offer no explanation of them, but their truth in part relieved the burden of my mysterious woe.
Upon this occasion my father said, with an expression of unbounded wonder, “My dearest Victor, what infatuation is this?My dear son, I entreat you never to make such an assertion again.”
“I am not mad,” I cried energetically; “the sun and the heavens, who have viewed my operations,can bear witness of my truth. I am the assassin of those most innocent victims;they died by my machinations. A thousand times would I have shed my own blood, drop by drop,to have saved their lives; but I could not, my father,indeed I could not sacrifice the whole human race.”
The conclusion of this speech convinced my father that my ideas were deranged,and he instantly changed the subject of our conversation and endeavoured to alter the course of my thoughts.He wished as much as possible to obliterate the memory of the scenes that had taken place in Ireland and never alluded to them or suffered me to speak of my misfortunes.
As time passed away I became more calm; misery had her dwelling in my heart,but I no longer talked in the same incoherent manner of my own crimes;sufficient for me was the consciousness of them.By the utmost self-violence I curbed the imperious voice of wretchedness,which sometimes desired to declare itself to the whole world,and my manners were calmer and more composed than they had ever been since my journey to the sea of ice.
A few days before we left Paris on our way to Switzerland,I received the following letter from Elizabeth:
“My dear Friend,
“It gave me the greatest pleasure to receive a letter from my uncle dated at Paris;you are no longer at a formidable distance, and I may hope to see you in less than a fortnight.My poor cousin, how much you must have suffered!I expect to see you looking even more ill than when you quitted Geneva.This winter has been passed most miserably, tortured as I have been by anxious suspense;yet I hope to see peace in your countenance and to find that your heart is not totally void of comfort and tranquillity.
“Yet I fear that the same feelings now exist that made you so miserable a year ago,even perhaps augmented by time. I would not disturb you at this period,when so many misfortunes weigh upon you,but a conversation that I had with my uncle previous to his departure renders some explanation necessary before we meet.
Explanation!You may possibly say, What can Elizabeth have to explain?If you really say this, my questions are answered and all my doubts satisfied.But you are distant from me, and it is possible that you may dread and yet be pleased with this explanation;and in a probability of this being the case, I dare not any longer postpone writing what,during your absence, I have often wished to express to you but have never had the courage to begin.
“You well know, Victor, that our union had been the favourite plan of your parents ever since our infancy.We were told this when young, and taught to look forward to it as an event that would certainly take place.We were affectionate playfellows during childhood, and, I believe,dear and valued friends to one another as we grew older.But as brother and sister often entertain a lively affection towards each other without desiring a more intimate union, may not such also be our case?Tell me, dearest Victor. Answer me, I conjure you by our mutual happiness,with simple truth—Do you not love another?
“You have travelled; you have spent several years of your life at Ingolstadt; and I confess to you,my friend, that when I saw you last autumn so unhappy,flying to solitude from the society of every creature,I could not help supposing that you might regret our connection and believe yourself bound in honour to fulfil the wishes of your parents,although they opposed themselves to your inclinations. But this is false reasoning.I confess to you, my friend, that I love you and that in my airy dreams of futurity you have been my constant friend and companion.But it is your happiness I desire as well as my own when I declare to you that our marriage would render me eternally miserable unless it were the dictate of your own free choice. Even now I weep to think that, borne down as you are by the cruellest misfortunes, you may stifle, by the word _honour_, all hope of that love and happiness which would alone restore you to yourself. I, who have so disinterested an affection for you, may increase your miseries tenfold by being an obstacle to your wishes. Ah!Victor, be assured that your cousin and playmate has too sincere a love for you not to be made miserable by this supposition.Be happy, my friend; and if you obey me in this one request,remain satisfied that nothing on earth will have the power to interrupt my tranquillity.
“Do not let this letter disturb you; do not answer tomorrow, or the next day,or even until you come, if it will give you pain. My uncle will send me news of your health,and if I see but one smile on your lips when we meet,occasioned by this or any other exertion of mine, I shall need no other happiness.
“Elizabeth Lavenza.
“Geneva, May 18th, 17—”
This letter revived in my memory what I had before forgotten,the threat of the fiend—“_I will be with you on your wedding-night!_” Such was my sentence, and on that night would the dæmon employ every art to destroy me and tear me from the glimpse of happiness which promised partly to console my sufferings. On that night he had determined to consummate his crimes by my death. Well, be it so; a deadly struggle would then assuredly take place, in which if he were victorious I should be at peace and his power over me be at an end. If he were vanquished, I should be a free man. Alas!What freedom?Such as the peasant enjoys when his family have been massacred before his eyes, his cottage burnt,his lands laid waste, and he is turned adrift, homeless, penniless, and alone, but free.Such would be my liberty except that in my Elizabeth I possessed a treasure, alas,balanced by those horrors of remorse and guilt which would pursue me until death.
Sweet and beloved Elizabeth!I read and reread her letter, and some softened feelings stole into my heart and dared to whisper paradisiacal dreams of love and joy;but the apple was already eaten, and the angel’s arm bared to drive me from all hope.Yet I would die to make her happy. If the monster executed his threat, death was inevitable; yet,again, I considered whether my marriage would hasten my fate.My destruction might indeed arrive a few months sooner,but if my torturer should suspect that I postponed it, influenced by his menaces,he would surely find other and perhaps more dreadful means of revenge.He had vowed _to be with me on my wedding-night_,yet he did not consider that threat as binding him to peace in the meantime,for as if to show me that he was not yet satiated with blood,he had murdered Clerval immediately after the enunciation of his threats. I resolved, therefore,that if my immediate union with my cousin would conduce either to hers or my father’s happiness,my adversary’s designs against my life should not retard it a single hour.
In this state of mind I wrote to Elizabeth. My letter was calm and affectionate. “I fear,my beloved girl,” I said, “little happiness remains for us on earth;yet all that I may one day enjoy is centred in you. Chase away your idle fears;to you alone do I consecrate my life and my endeavours for contentment. I have one secret,Elizabeth, a dreadful one; when revealed to you, it will chill your frame with horror, and then,far from being surprised at my misery, you will only wonder that I survive what I have endured.I will confide this tale of misery and terror to you the day after our marriage shall take place,for, my sweet cousin, there must be perfect confidence between us. But until then, I conjure you,do not mention or allude to it. This I most earnestly entreat, and I know you will comply.”
In about a week after the arrival of Elizabeth’s letter we returned to Geneva.The sweet girl welcomed me with warm affection,yet tears were in her eyes as she beheld my emaciated frame and feverish cheeks.I saw a change in her also. She was thinner and had lost much of that heavenly vivacity that had before charmed me;but her gentleness and soft looks of compassion made her a more fit companion for one blasted and miserable as I was.
The tranquillity which I now enjoyed did not endure. Memory brought madness with it,and when I thought of what had passed, a real insanity possessed me;sometimes I was furious and burnt with rage, sometimes low and despondent.I neither spoke nor looked at anyone, but sat motionless,bewildered by the multitude of miseries that overcame me.
Elizabeth alone had the power to draw me from these fits;her gentle voice would soothe me when transported by passion and inspire me with human feelings when sunk in torpor.She wept with me and for me. When reason returned,she would remonstrate and endeavour to inspire me with resignation. Ah!It is well for the unfortunate to be resigned, but for the guilty there is no peace.The agonies of remorse poison the luxury there is otherwise sometimes found in indulging the excess of grief.
Soon after my arrival my father spoke of my immediate marriage with Elizabeth. I remained silent.
“Have you, then, some other attachment?”
“None on earth. I love Elizabeth and look forward to our union with delight.Let the day therefore be fixed; and on it I will consecrate myself, in life or death, to the happiness of my cousin.”
“My dear Victor, do not speak thus. Heavy misfortunes have befallen us,but let us only cling closer to what remains and transfer our love for those whom we have lost to those who yet live.Our circle will be small but bound close by the ties of affection and mutual misfortune.And when time shall have softened your despair,new and dear objects of care will be born to replace those of whom we have been so cruelly deprived. ”
Such were the lessons of my father. But to me the remembrance of the threat returned;nor can you wonder that, omnipotent as the fiend had yet been in his deeds of blood,I should almost regard him as invincible,and that when he had pronounced the words “_I shall be with you on your wedding-night_,” I should regard the threatened fate as unavoidable.But death was no evil to me if the loss of Elizabeth were balanced with it, and I therefore,with a contented and even cheerful countenance,agreed with my father that if my cousin would consent, the ceremony should take place in ten days,and thus put, as I imagined, the seal to my fate.
Great God!If for one instant I had thought what might be the hellish intention of my fiendish adversary,I would rather have banished myself for ever from my native country and wandered a friendless outcast over the earth than have consented to this miserable marriage. But, as if possessed of magic powers, the monster had blinded me to his real intentions; and when I thought that I had prepared only my own death, I hastened that of a far dearer victim.
As the period fixed for our marriage drew nearer, whether from cowardice or a prophetic feeling,I felt my heart sink within me. But I concealed my feelings by an appearance of hilarity that brought smiles and joy to the countenance of my father,but hardly deceived the ever-watchful and nicer eye of Elizabeth.She looked forward to our union with placid contentment, not unmingled with a little fear,which past misfortunes had impressed, that what now appeared certain and tangible happiness might soon dissipate into an airy dream and leave no trace but deep and everlasting regret.
Preparations were made for the event, congratulatory visits were received,and all wore a smiling appearance. I shut up, as well as I could,in my own heart the anxiety that preyed there and entered with seeming earnestness into the plans of my father,although they might only serve as the decorations of my tragedy.Through my father’s exertions a part of the inheritance of Elizabeth had been restored to her by the Austrian government.A small possession on the shores of Como belonged to her. It was agreed that,immediately after our union, we should proceed to Villa Lavenza and spend our first days of happiness beside the beautiful lake near which it stood.
In the meantime I took every precaution to defend my person in case the fiend should openly attack me.I carried pistols and a dagger constantly about me and was ever on the watch to prevent artifice,and by these means gained a greater degree of tranquillity. Indeed, as the period approached,the threat appeared more as a delusion, not to be regarded as worthy to disturb my peace,while the happiness I hoped for in my marriage wore a greater appearance of certainty as the day fixed for its solemnisation drew nearer and I heard it continually spoken of as an occurrence which no accident could possibly prevent.
Elizabeth seemed happy; my tranquil demeanour contributed greatly to calm her mind.But on the day that was to fulfil my wishes and my destiny, she was melancholy,and a presentiment of evil pervaded her;and perhaps also she thought of the dreadful secret which I had promised to reveal to her on the following day.My father was in the meantime overjoyed, and, in the bustle of preparation,only recognised in the melancholy of his niece the diffidence of a bride.
After the ceremony was performed a large party assembled at my father’s,but it was agreed that Elizabeth and I should commence our journey by water,sleeping that night at Evian and continuing our voyage on the following day. The day was fair,the wind favourable; all smiled on our nuptial embarkation.