Пропустити текст статті
Chapter 22 The voyage came to an end . We landed , and proceeded to Paris . I soon found that I had overtaxed my strength and that I must repose before I could continue my journey . My father’s care and attentions were indefatigable , but he did not know the origin of my sufferings and sought erroneous methods to remedy the incurable ill . He wished me to seek amusement in society . I abhorred the face of man . Oh , not abhorred ! They were my brethren , my fellow beings , and I felt attracted even to the most repulsive among them , as to creatures of an angelic nature and celestial mechanism . But I felt that I had no right to share their intercourse . I had unchained an enemy among them whose joy it was to shed their blood and to revel in their groans . How they would , each and all , abhor me and hunt me from the world , did they know my unhallowed acts and the crimes which had their source in me ! My father yielded at length to my desire to avoid society and strove by various arguments to banish my despair . Sometimes he thought that I felt deeply the degradation of being obliged to answer a charge of murder , and he endeavoured to prove to me the futility of pride . “ Alas ! My father , ” said I , “ how little do you know me . Human beings , their feelings and passions , would indeed be degraded if such a wretch as I felt pride . Justine , poor unhappy Justine , was as innocent as I , and she suffered the same charge ; she died for it ; and I am the cause of this — I murdered her . William , Justine , and Henry — they all died by my hands . ” My father had often , during my imprisonment , heard me make the same assertion ; when I thus accused myself , he sometimes seemed to desire an explanation , and at others he appeared to consider it as the offspring of delirium , and that , during my illness , some idea of this kind had presented itself to my imagination , the remembrance of which I preserved in my convalescence . I avoided explanation and maintained a continual silence concerning the wretch I had created . I had a persuasion that I should be supposed mad , and this in itself would for ever have chained my tongue . But , besides , I could not bring myself to disclose a secret which would fill my hearer with consternation and make fear and unnatural horror the inmates of his breast . I checked , therefore , my impatient thirst for sympathy and was silent when I would have given the world to have confided the fatal secret . Yet , still , words like those I have recorded would burst uncontrollably from me . I could offer no explanation of them , but their truth in part relieved the burden of my mysterious woe . Upon this occasion my father said , with an expression of unbounded wonder , “ My dearest Victor , what infatuation is this ? My dear son , I entreat you never to make such an assertion again . ”
Назад Сторінка 122 з 150 Сторінка 122 з 150 Вперед Читайте далі з перекладом Створіть безкоштовний акаунт: 7 днів Pro, далі 20 перекладів слів на день або платний тариф.
