Page:The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club.djvu/157

107 THE PICKWICK Cl.LB. 107

A MADMAN'S MANUSCUIPT.

" Yes ! — ft madman's ! How that word would hiive struck to my heart, many years ago I How it would have roused tlie terror that used to come upon me sometimes; sending the blood hissing and tingling- through my veins, 'till the cold dew of fear stood in large drops upon my skin, and my knees knocked together with fright I 1 like it now though. It's a fine niinie. Shew me the monarch whose angry frown was ever feared like the glare of a madman's eye — whoso cord and axe, were ever half so sure as a madman's gripe. Hoi hoi It's a grand thing to be mad I to be peeped at like a wild lion through the iron bars — to gnash one's teeth and howl, through the long f^till night, to the merry ring of a heavy chain — and to roll and twine among the straw, transported with such brave music. Hurrah for the madhouse I Oh t's a rare place !

" 1 reraembec days when I was afraid of being mad ; when I used to start from my sleep, and fall upon my knees, and pray to be spared from the curse of my race ; when I rushed from the sight of merriment or happiness, to hide myself in some lonely place, and spend the weary hours in watching the progress of the fever that was to consume my brain. I knew that madness was mixed up with my very blood, and the marrow of my bones ; that one generation had passed away without the pestilence appearing among them, and that I was the first in whom it would revive. I knew it mttst he so : that so it always had been, and io it ever would be ; and when I cowered in some obscure corner of a crowded room, and saw men whisper, and point, and turn their eyes towards me, I knew they were telling each other of the doomed mad- man ; and I slunk away again to mope in solitude.

'* I did this for years ; long, long years they were. The nights here are long sometimes — very long ; but they are nothing to the restless nights, and dreadful dreams I had at that time. It makes me cold to remember them. Large dusky forms with sly and jeering faces crouched in the corners of the room, and bent over my bed at night, tempting me to madness. They told me in low whispers, that the floor of the old house in which my father's 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 I was too cunning for them, madman as they thought me.

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
 * At last it came upon me, and I wondered how I could ever have