“But you are free now?”
“Am I?” said Nicholas, with savage meaning.
“You do me too much honor,” said Lemoinne sarcastically, “in believing my power to be supernatural. Shall I tell you who I am, and what was both my object and the secret of my influence?”
“You can tell what lies you like.”
“I dare say your superstition is greater than my falsehood,” said the man with a smile; “and if I told you, you would be convinced against your will and still remain of the same opinion. Well, you are free now, and show your freedom by throwing away the very gift you sold yourself to obtain.”
“If I could undo the past ten years,” said Nicholas, “I would give up not my organ only, but my art. But as it is, I shall never be free while I live, and I will do nothing that may save or lengthen my horrible life—a mockery, indeed, of freedom!”
“If that is your last decision, I will say no more,” said Lemoinne; “but remember, though our pact is over, I am still your friend, and, should you wish anything between this and death which your jailers would deny you, send me word.”
Nicholas looked at him in surprise and suspicion.
“Yes, they know me here by the same name as you do, and I can generally find means to do what I wish. It is not the first time I have been here or made a like offer to a condemned man.”
“I believe you,” said Nicholas shortly, and his visitor left him. Two days elapsed before the threat was carried into execution, but the prisoner, full of his own trouble, hardly dwelt upon the coming trial. He prayed wildly that the red-hot iron which was to take away his bodily sight would blot out his phantom companions from his mental vision; the horrors of his disturbed brain appalled him more than any earthly punishment, and his half-description or hints of it to one person who visited him constantly was such that the latter compassionately got leave for one of his jailers to sleep with him in his dungeon. The day of the horribly unskilful torture came, and with common iron rods, heated red-hot, the famous artist’s eyes were put out. He writhed and moaned, but the bodily pain was only a faint image of the agony of his mind. Was it madness? Was it possession? Were all the learned men wrong, and he alone right, in thinking that he carried hell within his brain? There was no peace from the gnawing remorse of his betrayal of friendship; no assurance that his repentance was of avail comforted him; no obstinate affirmations could make him feel that the unholy fetters of his bond were in truth broken. It was not his blindness that was killing him; it was his mania. He felt life ebbing, and was fiercely glad, yet at times furious that, with such gifts as his, he should go prematurely to the grave. A chaos of schemes floated through his brain and maddened him yet more: he saw a long array of the works he might have accomplished before he died—Masses, antiphons, fugues; the improvements in the organ-stops and the internal machinery of the instrument; a school he might have founded—if he had been content to rely upon his own industry and the slow path of trust in Providence. He had sold his birthright, and what was the farce of a ten years’ contract, when he knew that at this present moment even the wreck that was left of him was not his own? “If I am still his, at least he shall help me once more,” he thought suddenly, as Lemoinne’s offer occurred to his mind. “I will end this suspense at once.” He asked the man who brought him his meals to tell Lemoinne that he wanted him; and as he began the message he watched with fear and curiosity to see how it would affect the bearer of it. Strange! nothing but a common assent; evidently the request was not a novel one. Lemoinne came that very evening, and Nicholas asked him for a sharp knife. He produced his own, which Nicholas felt all over and took, saying: