“I always knew,” answered I, “your general hatred of mankind; but your manners and your behaviour persuaded me that you exempted me from the general censure.”
“I wished to do so; you made the attempt impossible. You told me, that you had suffered the same misfortunes which I had; that you, by the injustice and persecutions of men, had also lost your wife and your children. I hailed you as a brother; in my heart I swore to you eternal friendship; I said, we will carry on this holy warfare together. We communicated to each other our mutual sorrows; with you, and you only, I found moments of consolation.
“Soon I discovered my mistake. Instead of, like me, seeking occasions of glorious mischief and vengeance, you took upon yourself to be the benefactor and parent of mankind. What vocation had you to the task? With the spirit of a slave who, the more he is beaten, becomes the more servile and submissive, you remunerated injuries with benefits. I found that there was not within you one atom of generous sentiment, one honest glow of fervent indignation. Chicken-hearted wretch! poor, soulless poltroon! to say the best of you, to your insensate heart it was the same whether you were treated with reverence or scorn. I saw you hunted, hooted at, and pursued by the people you fed; you held on your course, and fed them still. I was compelled to witness or to hear of your senseless liberalities every day I lived. Could I submit to this torment, and not endeavour to remove it? I hate the man in whom kindness produces no responsive affection, and injustice no swell, no glow of resentment. I hated you the more, because, having suffered what I had suffered, your feelings and conduct on the occasion have been the reverse of mine. Your character, I thank God! is of all beings the most opposite to that of Bethlem Gabor.
“At length you filled up the measure of the various thwartings with which you daily insulted me. There was one native of Hungary between whom and me there subsisted an open and eternal war. I relate in no human ear the cause of my animosity to that man. Suffice it, that it was deep, immeasurable, inexpiable. With a refinement of cruelty and insult difficult to conceive, you chose that man for one of the objects of your beneficence. Would I consent to see my name joined in pension list with my mortal enemy? The injury you inflicted on me would have been less if you had stabbed me to the heart. Less? That would have been a blessing. I impose on myself the task of living for my revenge: but never shall I deem that man my foe, who should rid me of all this tumult of passions, and this insupportable load of existence together.
“You have heard my motives. You may wonder at, you may censure them: but they are human. I have nothing further to say to you now: you have no need to recur to expostulation; expostulation never moved the heart of Bethlem Gabor. Hereafter you shall hear more!”
Thus speaking, he left me; and I must confess, with whatever disgrace to my sagacity, he opened upon me a new world. I conceived not, till now, the faintest suspicion of what had been labouring in his bosom. Amidst all my experience of the varieties of human character, this was a species that had never fallen under my observation before. What a painful and mortifying occurrence is it in human life, when we have lived with a man from day to day, when we have conversed with him familiarly, and seen him in all the changes of circumstance, and when we flatter ourselves we have penetrated all the recesses of his heart, suddenly to start upon something portentous that brooded there, of which to that moment we had not the lightest suspicion! I am not the only individual to whom this event has occurred.
In a subsequent visit of Bethlem Gabor to my cell (for he only attended me with provisions, he would intrust the secret of my confinement to no other mortal), I intreated him to inform me with what intention he retained me a prisoner, and to fix a price on my ransom. To this overture he appeared to yield some degree of attention. He made no explicit answer, but asked with an inquisitive and severe tone, in what manner I imagined I could procure money in my dungeon?
“Let us agree upon the terms, and set me at large. You have never found me deceitful, and you shall not find me deceitful now.”
“Do not hope I will consent to that. I ask you again, in what manner do you imagine you can procure money in your dungeon?”
I reflected for a moment. Liberty is ineffably sweet; and whatever followed, upon the present overture, I was determined not to neglect the faintest prospect that led to a termination of my confinement.