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 insure 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
county-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 allowed 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. I remember, as I quitted the prison, I heard one of the men say, “He may
be innocent of the murder, but he has certainly a bad conscience.” These
words struck me. A bad conscience! yes, surely I had one. William,
Justine, and Clerval, had died through my infernal machinations; “And
whose death,” cried I, “is to finish the tragedy? Ah! my father, do not
remain in this wretched country; take me where I may forget myself, my
existence, and all the world.”

My father easily acceded to my desire; and, after having taken leave of
Mr. Kirwin, we hastened to Dublin. I felt as if I was relieved from a
heavy weight, when the packet sailed with a fair wind from Ireland, and
I had quitted for ever the country which had been to me the scene of so
much misery. It was midnight. My father slept in the cabin; and 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 at the mad enthusiasm that hurried
me on to the creation of my hideous enemy, and I called to mind the
night during 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 took a double dose, 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 night-mare; I felt the fiend’s grasp in my neck,
and could not free myself from it; groans and cries rung in my ears. My
father, who was watching over me, perceiving my restlessness, awoke me,
and pointed to the port of Holyhead, which we were now entering. CHAPTER V.


We had resolved not to go to London, but to cross the country to
Portsmouth, and thence to embark for Havre. I preferred this plan
principally because I dreaded to see again those places in which I had
enjoyed a few moments of tranquillity with my beloved Clerval. I thought
with horror of seeing again those persons whom we had been accustomed to
visit together, and who might make inquiries concerning an event, the
very remembrance of which made me again feel the pang I endured when I
gazed on his lifeless form in the inn at ——. As for my father, his desires and exertions were bounded to the again
seeing me restored to health and peace of mind.