sible man. I did not want to understand at that
time that such a marriage was natural on the part of a young, healthy,
and beautiful girl. But, alas! we all forget our natural science when we
are deceived by the woman we love--may this little jest be forgiven me!
At the present time Mme. N. is a happy and respected mother, and this
proves better than anything else how wise and entirely in accordance
with the demands of nature and life was her marriage at that time, which
vexed me so painfully.

I must confess, however, that at that time I was not at all calm. Her
exceedingly amiable and kind letter in which she notified me of her
marriage, expressing profound regret that changed circumstances and a
suddenly awakened love compelled her to break her promise to me--that
amiable, truthful letter, scented with perfume, bearing the traces of
her tender fingers, seemed to me a message from the devil himself.

The letters of fire burned my exhausted brains, and in a wild ecstasy I
shook the doors of my cell and called violently:

"Come! Let me look into your lying eyes! Let me hear your lying voice!
Let me but touch with my fingers your tender throat and pour into your
death rattle my last bitter laugh!"

From this quotation my indulgent reader will see how right were the
judges who convicted me for murder; they had really foreseen in me a
murderer.

My gloomy view of life at the time was aggravated by several other
events. Two years after the marriage of my fiancee, consequently three
years after the first day of my imprisonment, my mother died--she died,
as I learned, of profound grief for me. However strange it may seem, she
remained firmly convinced to the end of her days that I had committed
the monstrous crime. Evidently this conviction was an inexhaustible
source of grief to her, the chief cause of the gloomy melancholy which
fettered her lips in silence and caused her death through paralysis of
the heart. As I was told, she never mentioned my name nor the names of
those who died so tragically, and she bequeathed the entire enormous
fortune, which was supposed to have served as the motive for the murder,
to various charitable organisations. It is characteristic that even
under such terrible conditions her motherly instinct did not forsake her
altogether; in a postscript to the will she left me a considerable sum,
which secures my existence whether I am in prison or at large.

Now I understand that, however great he