Page:Gesta Romanorum - Swan - Wright - 2.djvu/439

Rh my remembrance, be rather judged it to be the former. Struck with so amazing a phenomenon as this, there remained hardly any life in him; so that he sunk down in the arm-chair in which he sat, and continued, he knew not exactly how long, insensible, (which was one circumstance that made me several times take the liberty to suggest that he might possibly be all this while asleep.) But however that were, he quickly after opened his eyes, and saw nothing more than usual.

"It may easily be supposed he was in no condition to make any observation upon the time in which he had remained in an insensible state; nor did he, throughout all the remainder of the night, once recollect that criminal and detestable assignation which had before engrossed all his thoughts. He rose in a tumult of passions not to be conceived, and walked to and fro in his chamber, till he was ready to drop down, in unutterable astonishment and agony of heart, appearing to himself the vilest monster in the creation of God, who had all his lifetime been crucifying Christ afresh by his sins, and now saw, as he assuredly believed, by a miraculous vision, the horror of what he had done. With this was connected such a view both of the majesty and goodness of God, as caused him to loathe and abhor himself, and to repent as in dust