The Pickwick Papers
in which my 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 overreached 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--I should 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 up 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; but 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. 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 leaned 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
knew 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 sank 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 bedside
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 up 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. I could 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 upstairs. 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. My recent dissipation, and strange remarks, made so soon
after his sister’s death, were an insult to her memory. Coupling
together many circumstances which had at first escaped his observation,
he thought I had not treated her well. He wished to know whether he was
right in inferring that I meant to cast a reproach upon her memory, and
a disrespect upon her family. It was due to the uniform he wore, to
demand this explanation.
‘This man had a commission in the army--a commission, purchased with my
money, and his sister’s misery! This was the man who had been foremost
in the plot to ensnare me, and grasp my wealth. This was the man who had
been the main instrument in forcing his sister to wed me; well knowing
that her heart was given to that puling boy. Due to his uniform! The
livery of his degradation! I turned my eyes upon him--I could not help
it--but I spoke not a word.