صفحة 384 من 483

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.