Page:Martin Faber - the story of a criminal (IA martinfaber00simmrich).pdf/17

MARTIN FABER. Had not my arm been impelled—had not my mood been prompted by powers and an agency apart form my own, I had not struck the blow. The demon was not of me, though presiding over, and prevailing within, me. Let those who may think, when the blood is boiling in their temples, analyze its throbs and the source of its impulses. I cannot. I am a fatalist. Enough for me that it was written!

My name is Martin Faber. I am of good family—of German extraction—the only son. I was born in M—— village, and my parents were recognized as among the first in respectability and fortune of the place. The village was small—numbering some sixty families; and with a naturally strong and shrewd, and a somewhat improved mind, my father, Nicholas Faber, became the first man in it.