
who has no thought nor sense of joy, except as it is mirrored also in your dear
countenances - who would fill the air with blessings, and spend his life in
serving you - he bids you weep - to shed countless tears; happy beyond his
hopes, if thus inexorable fate be satisfied, and if the destruction pause before
the peace of the grave have succeeded to your sad torments!
    Thus spoke my prophetic soul, as, torn by remorse, horror, and despair, I
beheld those I loved spend vain sorrow upon the graves of William and Justine,
the first hapless victims to my unhallowed arts.
 

                                   Chapter IX

Nothing is more painful to the human mind, than, after the feelings have been
worked up by a quick succession of events, the dead calmness of inaction and
certainty which follows, and deprives the soul both of hope and fear. Justine
died; she rested; and I was alive. The blood flowed freely in my veins, but a
weight of despair and remorse pressed on my heart, which nothing could remove.
Sleep fled from my eyes; I wandered like an evil spirit, for I had committed
deeds of mischief beyond description horrible, and more, much more (I persuaded
myself), was yet behind. Yet my heart overflowed with kindness, and the love of
virtue. I had begun life with benevolent intentions, and thirsted for the moment
when I should put them in practice, and make myself useful to my fellow-beings.
Now all was blasted: instead of that serenity of conscience, which allowed me to
look back upon the past with self-satisfaction, and from thence to gather
promise of new hopes, I was seized by remorse and the sense of guilt, which
hurried me away to a hell of intense tortures, such as no language can describe.
    This state of mind preyed upon my health, which had perhaps never entirely
recovered from the first shock it had sustained. I shunned the face of man; all
sound of joy or complacency was torture to me; solitude was my only consolation
- deep, dark, deathlike solitude.
    My father observed with pain the alteration perceptible in my disposition
and habits, and endeavoured by arguments deduced from the feelings of his serene
conscience and guiltless life, to inspire me with fortitude, and awaken in me
the courage to dispel the dark cloud which brooded over me. »Do you think,
Victor,« said he, »that I do not suffer also? No one could love a child more
than I loved your brother;« (tears came into his eyes as he spoke;) »
