He rolled out these words with a volubility and an enthusiasm that surprised me. It was clear that I had poisoned the mind of this poor man. I had stimulated and partly fed his appetite for horrors. Familiarity with fearful objects kills the terror, and sometimes raises in its place a morbid affection—a fact established in France at the end of the last century by an empirical test of a horrific character, but which no knowledge of man's mind could have dreamed of à priori. Why had I forgotten this matter of history, and allowed myself to be led astray by vain theories and partial experiments? What was I now to do? The man's appetite for the bloody narratives was so strong, that, even while I was thus cogitating, his greedy eye had again sought the page. It was necessary that I should conceal from him my apprehensions, and take up his words on a feigned construction.
"This kind of reading," said I, "interests you, I presume, because it fills your mind with a salutary disgust and terror—makes you loathe the act of the suicide—and mans your soul against the hateful purpose you entertained against your own life."
He looked to the door, and beckoned to me to see if it was shut. I went and satisfied him that it was, while I was myself assured that she whom he was so anxious to deceive was again at her post behind it.
"You ask me," he continued, "if this book has disgusted or terrified me against my purpose o' deein. Are we disgusted and terrified at what we love? I hae seen the day when thae stories had sma' attraction for me. But, alas! alas! I am a changed—a fearfully changed man. My soul now gloats owre tales o' crime and scenes o' blood. To me there is an interest, an indescribable, mysterious interest in this book, beyond the charm o' the miser's wealth, or the bridegroom's bride—ay, sir, or what I ance thocht was in life to the deein sinner. It is a medicine; but"—pausing, and eyeing me sorrowfully—"do you mean it to kill or cure?"
"To save you from self-destruction," said I—"the most fearful and the most cowardly of all the terminations of human life."
"If you could keep me readin this for ever," he said, "yer object would be served."
"I can give you no more of it," said I, conscious that, by indulging his morbid appetite for blood, I had been leading him to his ruin.
"Then I must read thae volumes owre, and owre, and owre again," said he; "and when I hae dune, I hae naething mair to interest me in this dark, bleak warld."
He fell now into one of his fits of dejection, assuming his accustomed attitude of folding his hands over his breast, and fixing his eyes on the bed, while deep sighs and groans were thrown from his heaving breast. It was necessary, I now saw, to take from him the book which had produced an effect the very opposite of what I had intended and expected. I took it up and placed it beside the other volume that was lying on a side-table, with a view to take them away with me—blaming myself sorely and deservedly for the injury I had done by experimenting so rashly on the life and eternal interests of a human being. As I moved away the volume, he observed me, and followed it wistfully and sorrowfully with his eye.
"Ye hae dune weel," he said—"ye hae whetted my appetite for my ain life; and it matters naething that the whetter and the whet-stane are taen awa when they're nae mair needed!"