I cannot do justice to the sensations that now took possession of my mind. It was not the deadly calm of despair, for I still expected every moment when Bethlem Gabor would appear. I believed than he would, and I believed that he would not, leave me to perish. I listened with eager attention to every sound, and my soul floated on the howling winds. In vain! nothing came of it; there was no alteration in the sound, or only those vicissitudes to which the howling of the wind is unavoidably subject. I then turned away in anguish; I cursed; I stamped with my feet; I smote my forehead with my closed hand; I tore my hair. Anon another sound arrested my attention; it was a different howling; it seemed to be like a human voice; my fancy created to me the tread of a human foot. I listened with more intentness of soul than ever. It was again in vain!
No, no; he will not come! he will never come. Why should I agitate myself to no purpose? Let me lie down and die!—I reasoned with myself. Why should I wish to live? I am nothing to any human being: I am alone in the boundless universe; I have no tie to existence. St. Leon has no wife; St. Leon has no child; he has neither connection nor friend in the world. Even in this wretched vision of the philosopher’s stone, have I not tried it enough? have I any hopes from it? is it not time that I should throw away that and existence together?—My meditations were ineffectual. I suppose it is the case with all men thus violently thrust out of life in the full possession of their faculties—I know it was the case with me,—the more peremptory was my summoner, the more obstinately I clung to the worthless toy.
At length I laid myself down on the floor; and, if I occasionally listened, I no longer ran to the walls and the doors to catch the uncertain sounds. The gnawings I now felt within were intolerable. They were at one period so severe, that I can compare them to nothing, but the sensation of having swallowed a glowing ember. Afterwards, the weakness of nature would no longer feed this excruciating pain, and it subsided into a starting and convulsive throb; the pain was diversified with intervals of a death-like and insupportable sickness.—But, no; I will not attempt to describe the horrors of hunger sublimed by despair, where the torture of the mind gives new pungency and uproar to the corporeal anguish. The image, as it now presents itself to my recollection, is too dreadful.
At last I sunk into a state of insensibility; and the agony I had suffered seemed drawn to its final close. The busy turmoil, the feverish dream of human existence was at an end. I shut my eyes, and I believed I should open them no more.
CHAPTER XLI.
How long I endured this suspension of the vital faculties I cannot tell. The next impression on my sensorium, subsequent to those I have described, was a sort of external twitching and violence that seemed to persecute me. It was an importunity from which I felt desirous to escape; I longed to be undisturbed and at rest. The intruder on my quiet would not leave me; and I at length roused myself, as if to put away my cause of molestation. My thoughts were all confounded and obscure; I knew not where, I could scarcely be said to know who, I was. A little more effort brought with it a further capacity of perception; I saw before me, what was now the chief object of my mortal aversion, the figure of Bethlem Gabor. It was some time longer, before I became aware that he had been employed in taking up my apparently lifeless corpse, placing it on a stone-bench in the side of the cave, and chaining it to the wall. He observed the motions that indicated in me returning life: he remarked the stare of my glassy and rayless eyes; he now spoke with a stern and unpitying voice—“There is food; there is a light; eat!” Having thus said, he left me.
What a cruel and remorseless treatment! He cared not for my life; he disdained to make the slightest exertion to restore me; he left it to chance whether I should revive or perish. The figure of a dying man that I presented, did not make one fibre of his bosom bend or quiver.
I revived; I ate. By degrees I recovered from the deadly languor which had invaded my senses. In about twelve hours longer Bethlem Gabor returned with a new supply of sustenance. I was now strong enough to be able to converse with him. I heard the heavy sound of opening locks and removing bolts before he entered, and I summoned my faculties to expostulate with him.
“Why am I here? What is the meaning of the unworthy way in which you treat me?”