n. Several times he tried to
remove me from the fatal room, which I now looked upon as a scene
of misfortunes, but he could not succeed. I hoped at the time--and
I also thought that I too had a right--to die there, where my wife
and my son had breathed their last sighs. My tears refused to flow,
and even words failed me to express the full extent of my grief. An
ardent fever, which devoured me, was far too slow for the eagerness
of my wishes. In a moment of bewilderment, I was near committing
the greatest act of cowardice which man can perpetrate against his
Creator. I double-locked the door; I seized the poignard which I had
so often used to protect my life, and pointed it against myself. I
was already choosing the spot in which I should strike, in order by
one blow to terminate my miserable existence. My arm, strengthened by
delirium, was about to smite my breast, when one sudden thought came to
prevent me from consummating the crime which has no pardon--although
the crime of despair. My mother, my poor mother, whom I had so much
loved, my good mother presented herself to my mind, and said to me:
"Thou wouldst abandon me--I shall see thee no more!" I recollected
then the words of Anna: "Go, and see thy mother again!" This thought
changed my resolution completely. I threw the poniard aside with
horror, and fell on my bed quite exhausted. My eyes, which during many
days had been dry and burning, were once again overflowing with tears,
which removed the heavy weight from my lacerated heart.

The force of mind of which I stood so much in need was awakened again
within me: I no longer thought of death, but of fulfilling my rigorous
destiny. Calmed and relieved already by the abundant flow of tears,
I gave myself up wholly to the idea of embracing my mother and my
sisters. Then I wished to add the following pages to my journal. My
head was not thoroughly right. I shall translate what I then wrote
in Spanish, which was my adopted and familiar language, in preference
even to French, which I had scarcely spoken during twenty years:--

"How have I strength to take this pen? My poor boy!--my son!--my
beloved Henry!--is no more: his soul has flown to his Creator! Oh,
God! pardon this complaint in my distress. What have I done to be
thus cruelly afflicted? My boy!--my dear son!--my only hope!--my last
happiness!--I shall never again see thee! Formerly I was happy; I had
my good Anna and my dear child; but cruel fate soon tore my