第59章

I did not hate her, though I hated the boy she still wept for.I pitied--yes, I pitied--the wretched life to which her cold and selfish relations had doomed her.I knew that she could not live long, but the thought that before her death she might give birth to some ill-fated being, destined to hand down madness to its offspring, determined me.I resolved to kill her.

"For many weeks I thought of poison, and then of drowning, and then of fire.A fine sight the grand house in flames, and the madman's wife smouldering away to cinders.Think of the jest of a large reward, too, and of some sane man swinging in the wind for a deed he never did, and all through a madman's cunning! I thought often of this, but I gave it up at last.Oh! the pleasure of stropping the razor day after day, feeling the sharp edge, and thinking of the gash one stroke of its thin bright edge would make!

At last the old spirits who had been with me so often before whispered in my ear that the time was come, and thrust the open razor into my hand.

I grasped it firmly, rose softly from the bed, and leaned over my sleeping wife.Her face was buried in her hands.I withdrew them softly and they fell listlessly on her bosom.She had been weeping; for the traces of the tears were still wet upon her cheek.Her face was calm and placid; and even as I looked upon it, a tranquil smile lighted up her pale features.

I laid my hand softly on her shoulder.She started--it was only a passing dream.I leant forward again.She screamed, and woke.

"One motion of my hand, and she would never again have uttered cry or sound.But I was startled, and drew back.Her eyes were fixed on mine.

I know not how it was, but they cowed and frightened me; and I quailed beneath them.She rose from the bed, still gazing fixedly and steadily on me.I trembled; the razor was in my hand, but I could not move.She made towards the door.As she neared it, she turned, and withdrew her eyes from my face.The spell was broken.I bounded forward, and clutched her by the arm.Uttering shriek upon shriek, she sunk upon the ground.

"Now I could have killed her without a struggle; but the house was alarmed.

I heard the tread of footsteps on the stairs.I replaced the razor in its usual drawer, unfastened the door, and called loudly for assistance.

"They came, and raised her, and placed her on the bed.She lay bereft of animation for hours; and when life, look, and speech returned, her senses had deserted her, and she raved wildly and furiously.

"Doctors were called in--great men who rolled up to my door in easy carriages, with fine horses and gaudy servants.They were at her bed-side for weeks.They had a great meeting, and consulted together in low and solemn voices in another room.One, the cleverest and most celebrated among them, took me aside, and bidding me prepare for the worst, told me--me, the madman!--that my wife was mad.He stood close beside me at an open window, his eyes looking in my face, and his hand laid upon my arm.With one effort, I could have hurled him into the street beneath.It would have been rare sport to have done it; but my secret was at stake, and I let him go.A few days after, they told me I must place her under some restraint:

I must provide a keeper for her.I! I went into the open fields where none could hear me, and laughed till the air resounded with my shouts!

"She died next day.The white-headed old man followed her to the grave, and the proud brothers dropped a tear over the insensible corpse of her whose sufferings they had regarded in her lifetime with muscles of iron.

All this was food for my secret mirth, and I laughed behind the white handkerchief which I held up to my face, as we rode home, 'till the tears came into my eyes.

"But though I had carried my object and killed her, I was restless and disturbed, and I felt that before long my secret must be known.I could not hide the wild mirth and joy which boiled within me, and made me when I was alone, at home, jump and beat my hands together, and dance round and round, and roar aloud.When I went out, and saw the busy crowds hurrying about the streets; or to the theatre, and heard the sound of music, and beheld the people dancing, I felt such glee, that I could have rushed among them, and torn them to pieces limb from limb, and howled in transport.

But I ground my teeth, and struck my feet upon the floor, and drove my sharp nails into my hands.I kept it down; and no one knew I was a madman yet.

"I remember--though it's one of the last things I can remember:

for now I mix up realities with my dreams, and having so much to do, and being always hurried here, have no time to separate the two, from some strange confusion in which they get involved--I remember how I let it out at last.Ha! ha! I think I see their frightened looks now, and feel the ease with which I flung them from me, and dashed my clenched fist into their white faces, and then flew like the wind, and left them screaming and shouting far behind.The strength of a giant comes upon me when I think of it.There--see how this iron bar bends beneath my furious wrench.Icould snap it like a twig, only there are long galleries here with many doors--I don't think I could find my way along them; and even if I could, I know there are iron gates below which they keep locked and barred.They know what a clever madman I have been, and they are proud to have me here, to show.

"Let me see;--yes, I had been out.It was late at night when I reached home, and found the proudest of the three proud brothers waiting to see me--urgent business he said: I recollect it well.I hated that man with all a madman's hate.Many and many a time had my fingers longed to tear him.They told me he was there.I ran swiftly up-stairs.He had a word to say to me.I dismissed the servants.It was late, and we were alone together-- for the first time.

"I kept my eyes carefully from him at first, for I knew what he little thought--and I gloried in the knowledge--that the light of madness gleamed from them like fire.We sat in silence for a few minutes.He spoke at last.