unconscious necessity: had the assailant been my father, the consequence would have been the same; my understanding had been neutral. Could it be? In a space so short, was it possible that so tremendous a deed had been executed? Was I not deceived by some portentous vision? I had witnessed the convulsions and last agonies of Wiatte: he was no more, and I was his destroyer!
"Such was the state of my mind for some time after this dreadful event. Previously to it, I was calm, considerate, and self-collected; I marked the way that I was going; passing objects were observed; if I adverted to the series of my own reflections, my attention was not seized and fastened by them—I could disengage myself at pleasure, and could pass, without difficulty, from attention to the world within, to the contemplation of that without.
"Now my liberty in this respect was at an end; I was fettered, confounded, smitten with excess of thought, and laid prostrate with wonder! I no longer attended to my steps.
"When I emerged from my stupor, I found that I had trodden back the way which I had lately come, and had arrived within sight of the banker's door. I checked myself, and once more turned my steps homeward.
"This seemed to be a hint for entering into new reflections.—'The deed,' said I, 'is irretrievable—I have killed the brother of my patroness, the father of my love!'
"This suggestion was new: it instantly involved me in terror and perplexity.—'How shall I communicate the tidings? What effect will they produce? My lady's sagacity is obscured by the benevolence of her temper: her brother was sordidly wicked, a hoary ruffian, to whom the language of pity was as unintelligible as the gabble of monkeys; his heart was fortified against compunction by the atrocious habits of forty years; he lived only to interrupt her peace, to confute the promises of virtue, and convert to rancour and reproach the fair fame of fidelity.
"He was her brother still. As a human being, his depravity was never beyond the health-restoring power of repentance; his heart, so long as it beat, was accessible to
