Page:The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club.djvu/160

110 110 POSTHUMOUS PAPKRS OF

" Doctors were called in — great men ^^llo rolled up to my door in easy carnages, with fine horses and gaudy servants. They were at her bed- side for weeks. They had a great meeting, and consulted together in low and solemn voices in another room. One, the cleverest and most celebrated among them, took me aside, and bidding me prepare for the worst, told me — me, the madman I — that my wife was mad. He stood close beside me at an open window, his eyes looking in my face, and his hand laid upon my arm. With one effort, I could have hurled him into the street beneath. It would have been rare sport to have done it; but ray secret was at stake, and I let him go. A few days after, they told me I must place her under some restraint : I must provide a keeper for her. //I went into the open fields where none could hear me, and laughed till the air resounded with my shouts !

" She died next day. The white-headed old man followed her to the grave, and the proud brothers dropped a tear over the insensible corpse of her, whose sufferings they had regarded in her life-time with muscles of iron. All this was food for my secret mirth, and I laughed behind the white handkerchief which I held up to my face, as we rode home, 'till the tears came into my eyes.

" But though I had carried my object and killed her, I was restless and disturbed, and I felt that before long, my secret must be known. I could not hide the wild mirth and joy which boiled within me, and made me when I was alone, at home, jump up and beat my hands together, and dance round and round, and roar aloud. When I went out, and saw the busy crowds hurrying about the streets : or to the theatre, and heard the sound of music, and beheld the people dancing, I felt such glee, that I could have rushed among them, and torn them to pieces limb from limb, and howled in transport. But I ground my teeth, and struck my feet upon the floor, and drove my sharp nails into my hands. I kept it down ; and no one knew I was a madman yet.

" I remember — though it's one of the last things I can remember : for now I mix realities with my dreams, and having so much to do, and being always hurried here, have no time to separate the two, from some strange confusion in which they get involved — I remember how I let it out at last. Ha ! ha ! I think I see their frightened looks now, and feel the ease with which I flung them from me, and dashed my clenched fist into their white faces, and then flew like the wind, and left them screaming and shouting far behind. The strength of a giant comes upon me when I think of it. There — see how this iron bar bends beneath my furious wrench. I could snap it like a twig, only there are long galleries here with many doors — I don't think I could find my way along them : and even if I could, I know there are iron gates below which they keep locked and barred. They know what a clever madman I have been, and they are proud to have me here, to show.

'' Let me see ; — yes, I had been out. It was late at night when I reached home, and found the proudest of the three proud brothers, wait- ing to see me — urgent business he said : I recollect it well. 1 hated that man with all a madman's hate. Many and many a time had my fingers longed to tear him. They told me he was there. I ran swiftly

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