第58章

"I remember days when I was afraid of being mad; when I used to start from my sleep, and fall upon my knees, and pray to be spared from the curse of my race; when I rushed from the sight of merriment or happiness, to hide myself in some lonely place, and spend the weary hours in watching the progress of the fever that was to consume my brain.I knew that madness was mixed up with my very blood, and the marrow of my bones; that one generation had passed away without the pestilence appearing among them, and that Iwas the first in whom it would revive.I knew it must be so: that so it always had been, and so it ever would be: and when I cowered in some obscure corner of a crowded room, and saw men whisper, and point, and turn their eyes towards me, I knew they were telling each other of the doomed madman; and I slunk away again to mope in solitude.

"I did this for years; long, long years they were.The nights here are long sometimes--very long; but they are nothing to the restless nights, and dreadful dreams I had at that time.It makes me cold to remember them.

Large dusky forms with sly and jeering faces crouched in the corners of the room, and bent over my bed at night, tempting me to madness.They told me in low whispers, that the floor of the old house in which my father's father died, was stained with his own blood, shed by his own hand in raging madness.I drove my fingers into my ears, but they screamed into my head till the room rang with it, that in one generation before him the madness slumbered, but that his grandfather had lived for years with his hands fettered to the ground, to prevent his tearing himself to pieces.I knew they told the truth--I knew it well.I had found it out years before, though they had tried to keep it from me.Ha! ha! I was too cunning for them, madman as they thought me.

"At last it came upon me, and I wondered how I could ever have feared it.I could go into the world now, and laugh and shout with the best among them.I knew I was mad, but they did not even suspect it.How I used to hug myself with delight, when I thought of the fine trick I was playing them after their old pointing and leering, when I was not mad, but only dreading that I might one day become so! And how I used to laugh for joy, when I was alone, and thought how well I kept my secret, and how quickly my kind friends would have fallen from me, if they had known the truth.

I could have screamed with ecstasy when I dined alone with some fine roaring fellow, to think how pale he would have turned, and how fast he would have run, if he had known that the dear friend who sat close to him, sharpening a bright glittering knife, was a madman with all the power, and half the will, to plunge it in his heart.Oh, it was a merry life!

"Riches became mine, wealth poured in upon me, and I rioted in pleasures enhanced a thousandfold to me by the consciousness of my well-kept secret.

I inherited an estate.The law--the eagle-eyed law itself--had been deceived, and had handed over disputed thousands to a madman's hands.Where was the wit of the sharp-sighted men of sound mind? Where the dexterity of the lawyers, eager to discover a flaw? The madman's cunning had over-reached them all.

"I had money.How I was courted! I spent it profusely.How I was praised!

How those three proud overbearing brothers humbled themselves before me!

The old white-headed father, too--such deference--such respect--such devoted friendship--he worshipped me! The old man had a daughter, and the young men a sister; and all the five were poor.I was rich; and when I married the girl, I saw a smile of triumph play upon the faces of her needy relatives, as they thought of their well-planned scheme, and their fine prize.It was for me to smile.To smile! To laugh outright, and tear my hair, and roll upon the ground with shrieks of merriment.They little thought they had married her to a madman.

"Stay.If they had known it, would they have saved her? A sister's happiness against her husband's gold.The lightest feather I blow into the air, against the gay chain that ornaments my body!

"In one thing I was deceived with all my cunning.If I had not been mad--for though we madmen are sharp-witted enough, we get bewildered sometimes--Ishould have known that the girl would rather have been placed, stiff and cold in a dull leaden coffin, than borne an envied bride to my rich, glittering house.I should have known that her heart was with the dark-eyed boy whose name I once heard her breathe in her troubled sleep; and that she had been sacrificed to me, to relieve the poverty of the old white-headed man, and the haughty brothers.

"I don't remember forms or faces now, but I know the girl was beautiful.

I know she was; for in the bright moonlight nights, when I start from my sleep, and all is quiet about me, I see, standing still and motionless in one corner of this cell, a slight and wasted figure with long black hair, which streaming down her back, stirs with no earthly wind, and eyes that fix their gaze on me, and never wink or close.Hush! the blood chills at my heart as I write it down--that form is her's ; the face is very pale, and the eyes are glassy bright; but I know them well.That figure never moves; it never frowns and mouths as others do, that fill this place sometimes; but it is much more dreadful to me, even than the spirits that tempted me many years ago--it comes fresh from the grave; and is so very death-like.

"For nearly a year I saw that face grow paler; for nearly a year I saw the tears steal down the mournful cheeks, and never knew the cause.I found it out at last though.They could not keep it from me long.She had never liked me; I had never thought she did: she despised my wealth, and hated the splendour in which she lived;--I had not expected that.She loved another.

This I had never thought of.Strange feelings came over me, and thoughts, forced upon me by some secret power, whirled round and round my brain.