CHAPTER IX.
Nothing is more painful to the human mind, than, after the feelings havebeen worked up by a quick succession of events, the dead calmness ofinaction and certainty which follows, and deprives the soul both of hopeand fear. Justine died; she rested; and I was alive. The blood flowedfreely in my veins, but a weight of despair and remorse pressed on myheart, which nothing could remove. Sleep fled from my eyes; I wanderedlike an evil spirit, for I had committed deeds of mischief beyonddescription horrible, and more, much more (I persuaded myself), was yetbehind. Yet my heart overflowed with kindness, and the love of virtue. Ihad begun life with benevolent intentions, and thirsted for the momentwhen I should put them in practice, and make myself useful to myfellow-beings. Now all was blasted: instead of that serenity ofconscience, which allowed me to look back upon the past withself-satisfaction, and from thence to gather promise of new hopes, I wasseized by remorse and the sense of guilt, which hurried me away to ahell of intense tortures, such as no language can describe.
This state of mind preyed upon my health, which had perhaps neverentirely recovered from the first shock it had sustained. I shunned theface of man; all sound of joy or complacency was torture to me; solitudewas my only consolation--deep, dark, deathlike solitude.
My father observed with pain the alteration perceptible in mydisposition and habits, and endeavoured by arguments deduced from thefeelings of his serene conscience and guiltless life, to inspire me withfortitude, and awaken in me the courage to dispel the dark cloud whichbrooded over me. "Do you think, Victor," said he, "that I do not sufferalso? No one could love a child more than I loved your brother;" (tearscame into his eyes as he spoke;) "but is it not a duty to the survivors,that we should refrain from augmenting their unhappiness by anappearance of immoderate grief? It is also a duty owed to yourself; forexcessive sorrow prevents improvement or enjoyment, or even thedischarge of daily usefulness, without which no man is fit for society."
This advice, although good, was totally inapplicable to my case; Ishould have been the first to hide my grief, and console my friends, ifremorse had not mingled its bitterness, and terror its alarm with myother sensations. Now I could only answer my father with a look ofdespair, and endeavour to hide myself from his view.
About this time we retired to our house at Belrive. This change wasparticularly agreeable to me. The shutting of the gates regularly at teno'clock, and the impossibility of remaining on the lake after that hour,had rendered our residence within the walls of Geneva very irksome tome. I was now free. Often, after the rest of the family had retired forthe night, I took the boat, and passed many hours upon the water.Sometimes, with my sails set, I was carried by the wind; and sometimes,after rowing into the middle of the lake, I left the boat to pursue itsown course, and gave way to my own miserable reflections. I was oftentempted, when all was at peace around me, and I the only unquiet thingthat wandered restless in a scene so beautiful and heavenly--if I exceptsome bat, or the frogs, whose harsh and interrupted croaking was heardonly when I approached the shore--often, I say, I was tempted to plungeinto the silent lake, that the waters might close over me and mycalamities for ever. But I was restrained, when I thought of the heroicand suffering Elizabeth, whom I tenderly loved, and whose existence wasbound up in mine. I thought also of my father, and surviving brother:should I by my base desertion leave them exposed and unprotected to themalice of the fiend whom I had let loose among them?
At these moments I wept bitterly, and wished that peace would revisit mymind only that I might afford them consolation and happiness. But thatcould not be. Remorse extinguished every hope. I had been the author ofunalterable evils; and I lived in daily fear, lest the monster whom Ihad created should perpetrate some new wickedness. I had an obscurefeeling that all was not over, and that he would still commit somesignal crime, which by its enormity should almost efface therecollection of the past. There was always scope for fear, so long asany thing I loved remained behind. My abhorrence of this fiend cannot beconceived. When I thought of him, I gnashed my teeth, my eyes becameinflamed, and I ardently wished to extinguish that life which I had sothoughtlessly bestowed. When I reflected on his crimes and malice, myhatred and revenge burst all bounds of moderation. I would have made apilgrimage to the highest peak of the Andes, could I, when there, haveprecipitated him to their base. I wished to see him again, that I mightwreak the utmost extent of abhorrence on his head, and avenge the deathsof William and Justine.
Our house was the house of mourning. My father's health was deeplyshaken by the horror of the recent events. Elizabeth was sad anddesponding; she no longer took delight in her ordinary occupations; allpleasure seemed to her sacrilege toward the dead; eternal woe and tearsshe then thought was the just tribute she should pay to innocence soblasted and destroyed. She was no longer that happy creature, who inearlier youth wandered with me on the banks of the lake, and talked withecstasy of our future prospects. The first of those sorrows which aresent to wean us from the earth, had visited her, and its dimminginfluence quenched her dearest smiles.
"When I reflect, my dear cousin," said she, "on the miserable death ofJustine Moritz, I no longer see the world and its works as they beforeappeared to me. Before, I looked upon the accounts of vice andinjustice, that I read in books or heard from others, as tales ofancient days, or imaginary evils; at least they were remote, and morefamiliar to reason than to the imagination; but now misery has comehome, and men appear to me as monsters thirsting for each other's blood.Yet I am certainly unjust. Every body believed that poor girl to beguilty; and if she could have committed the crime for which shesuffered, assuredly she would have been the most depraved of humancreatures. For the sake of a few jewels, to have murdered the son of herbenefactor and friend, a child whom she had nursed from its birth, andappeared to love as if it had been her own! I could not consent to thedeath of any human being; but certainly I should have thought such acreature unfit to remain in the society of men. But she was innocent. Iknow, I feel she was innocent; you are of the same opinion, and thatconfirms me. Alas! Victor, when falsehood can look so like the truth,who can assure themselves of certain happiness? I feel as if I werewalking on the edge of a precipice, towards which thousands arecrowding, and endeavouring to plunge me into the abyss. William andJustine were assassinated, and the murderer escapes; he walks about theworld free, and perhaps respected. But even if I were condemned tosuffer on the scaffold for the same crimes, I would not change placeswith such a wretch."
I listened to this discourse with the extremest agony. I, not in deed,but in effect, was the true murderer. Elizabeth read my anguish in mycountenance, and kindly taking my hand, said, "My dearest friend, youmust calm yourself. These events have affected me, God knows how deeply;but I am not so wretched as you are. There is an expression of despair,and sometimes of revenge, in your countenance, that makes me tremble.Dear Victor, banish these dark passions. Remember the friends aroundyou, who centre all their hopes in you. Have we lost the power ofrendering you happy? Ah! while we love--while we are true to each other,here in this land of peace and beauty, your native country, we may reapevery tranquil blessing,--what can disturb our peace?"
And could not such words from her whom I fondly prized before everyother gift of fortune, suffice to chase away the fiend that lurked in myheart? Even as she spoke I drew near to her, as if in terror; lest atthat very moment the destroyer had been near to rob me of her.
Thus not the tenderness of friendship, nor the beauty of earth, nor ofheaven, could redeem my soul from woe: the very accents of love wereineffectual. I was encompassed by a cloud which no beneficial influencecould penetrate. The wounded deer dragging its fainting limbs to someuntrodden brake, there to gaze upon the arrow which had pierced it, andto die--was but a type of me.
Sometimes I could cope with the sullen despair that overwhelmed me: butsometimes the whirlwind passions of my soul drove me to seek, by bodilyexercise and by change of place, some relief from my intolerablesensations. It was during an a
ccess of this kind that I suddenly left myhome, and bending my steps towards the near Alpine valleys, sought inthe magnificence, the eternity of such scenes, to forget myself and myephemeral, because human, sorrows. My wanderings were directed towardsthe valley of Chamounix. I had visited it frequently during my boyhood.Six years had passed since then: _I_ was a wreck--but nought had changedin those savage and enduring scenes.
I performed the first part of my journey on horseback. I afterwardshired a mule, as the more sure-footed, and least liable to receiveinjury on these rugged roads. The weather was fine: it was about themiddle of the month of August, nearly two months after the death ofJustine; that miserable epoch from which I dated all my woe. The weightupon my spirit was sensibly lightened as I plunged yet deeper in theravine of Arve. The immense mountains and precipices that overhung me onevery side--the sound of the river raging among the rocks, and thedashing of the waterfalls around, spoke of a power mighty asOmnipotence--and I ceased to fear, or to bend before any being lessalmighty than that which had created and ruled the elements, heredisplayed in their most terrific guise. Still, as I ascended higher, thevalley assumed a more magnificent and astonishing character. Ruinedcastles hanging on the precipices of piny mountains; the impetuousArve, and cottages every here and there peeping forth from among thetrees, formed a scene of singular beauty. But it was augmented andrendered sublime by the mighty Alps, whose white and shining pyramidsand domes towered above all, as belonging to another earth, thehabitations of another race of beings.
I passed the bridge of Pelissier, where the ravine, which the riverforms, opened before me, and I began to ascend the mountain thatoverhangs it. Soon after I entered the valley of Chamounix. This valleyis more wonderful and sublime, but not so beautiful and picturesque, asthat of Servox, through which I had just passed. The high and snowymountains were its immediate boundaries; but I saw no more ruinedcastles and fertile fields. Immense glaciers approached the road; Iheard the rumbling thunder of the falling avalanche, and marked thesmoke of its passage. Mont Blanc, the supreme and magnificent MontBlanc, raised itself from the surrounding _aiguilles_, and itstremendous _dome_ overlooked the valley.
A tingling long-lost sense of pleasure often came across me during thisjourney. Some turn in the road, some new object suddenly perceived andrecognised, reminded me of days gone by, and were associated with thelight-hearted gaiety of boyhood. The very winds whispered in soothingaccents, and maternal nature bade me weep no more. Then again the kindlyinfluence ceased to act--I found myself fettered again to grief, andindulging in all the misery of reflection. Then I spurred on my animal,striving so to forget the world, my fears, and, more than all,myself--or, in a more desperate fashion, I alighted, and threw myself onthe grass, weighed down by horror and despair.
At length I arrived at the village of Chamounix. Exhaustion succeeded tothe extreme fatigue both of body and of mind which I had endured. For ashort space of time I remained at the window, watching the pallidlightnings that played above Mont Blanc, and listening to the rushing ofthe Arve, which pursued its noisy way beneath. The same lulling soundsacted as a lullaby to my too keen sensations: when I placed my head uponmy pillow, sleep crept over me; I felt it as it came, and blest thegiver of oblivion.