Volume III, Chapter 4, Pages 150–155
1 Mr. Kirwin, on hearing this evidence, desired that I should be taken into the room where the body lay for interment, that it might be observed what effect the sight of it would produce upon me.
2 I entered the room where the corpse lay, and was led up to the coffin.
3 How can I describe my sensations on beholding it? The trial, 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.
4 “Have my murderous machinations deprived you also, my dearest Henry, of life?”
5 The human frame could no longer support the agonizing suffering that I endured, and I was carried out of the room in strong convulsions.
6 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.
7 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.
8 Why did I not die? How many 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.
9 But I was doomed to live; and, in two months, found myself in a prison, stretched on a wretched bed.
10 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.
11 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.
12 Who could be interested in the fate of a murderer, but the hangman who would gain his fee?
13 One day, when I was gradually recovering, I was seated, my eyes half open, and my cheeks livid like those in death.
14 I was overcome by gloom and misery. 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.
15 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—
16 “It was not until a day or two after your illness that I thought of examining your dress, 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.”
17 “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.”
18 “Your family is perfectly well, and some one, a friend, is come to visit you.”
19 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—
20 “Oh! take him away! I cannot see him; for God’s sake, do not let him enter!”
21 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—
22 “I should have thought, young man, that the presence of your father would have been welcome, instead of inspiring such violent repugnance.”
24 Nothing, at this moment, could have given me greater pleasure than the arrival of my father. I stretched out my hand to him.
25 “Are you then safe—and Elizabeth?”
26 My father calmed me with assurances of their welfare.
27 “What a place is this that you inhabit, my son! You travelled to seek happiness, but a fatality seems to pursue you. And poor Clerval—”
28 “Alas! yes, my father, some destiny of the most horrible kind hangs over me, and I must live to fulfil it.”
29 The appearance of my father was to me like that of my good angel.
30 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 county-town, where the court was held.
31 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.
32 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.
33 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 and allowed to return to my native country.
34 “He may be innocent of the murder, but he has certainly a bad conscience.”