Page:The genius - Carl Grosse tr Joseph Trapp 1796.djvu/349

 brains blown out, on the victim of his infernal lust!

Adela laid beneath him in a deep swoon. In the first ebullition of my fury I was not satisfied with shooting one; I went and shook Adela: "Accursed woman!" cried I with a thundering voice, "awake, awake to thy punishment!" She gave several signs of returning reason. I then pressed the bloody corpse of her guilty paramour closely into her arms, and went out to pacify those of the servants, whom the report of the piece might have drawn into the outer apartments.

I met some of them with candles in their hands. I told them, that my gun had only gone off by accident, and hurt my thumb a little. The women, especially the marchioness's confidential Abigail, wanted to force their way into the apartment of their mistress: but I sent them all back to their room, where I ordered them to be locked up. Having got my thumb dressed, I ordered the men down stairs with my valet, to whom I gave orders to take a gun and shoot the first fellow