Every where his industry was unwearied
to create for me new distress. Rest I had none: relief I had none: never could I
count upon an instant's security: never could I wrap myself for a moment in the
shroud of oblivion. The minutes in which I did not actually perceive him, were
contaminated and blasted with the certain expectation of his speedy
interference. In my first retreat I had passed a few weeks of delusive
tranquillity, but never after was I happy enough to attain so much as that
shadowy gratification. I spent some years in this dreadful vicissitude of pain.
My sensations at certain periods amounted to insanity.
    I pursued in every succeeding instance the conduct I had adopted at first. I
determined never to enter into a contest of accusation and defence with the
execrable Gines. If I could have submitted to it in other respects, what purpose
would it answer? I should have but an imperfect and mutilated story to tell.
This story had succeeded with persons already prepossessed in my favour by
personal intercourse; but could it succeed with strangers? It had succeeded so
long as I was able to hide myself from my pursuers; but could it succeed, now
that this appeared impracticable, and that they proceeded by arming against me a
whole vicinity at once?
    It is inconceivable the mischiefs that this kind of existence included. Why
should I insist upon such aggravations as hunger, beggary and external
wretchedness? These were an inevitable consequence. It was by the desertion of
mankind that, in each successive instance, I was made acquainted with my fate.
Delay in such a moment served but to increase the evil; and, when I fled,
meagreness and penury were the ordinary attendants of my course. But this was a
small consideration. Indignation at one time, and unconquerable perseverance at
another, sustained me where humanity, left to itself, would probably have sunk.
    It has already appeared that I was not of a temper to endure calamity
without endeavouring by every means I could devise to elude and disarm it.
Recollecting, as I was habituated to do, the various projects by which my
situation could be meliorated, the question occurred to me: Why should I be
harassed by the pursuit of this Gines; why, man to man, may I not by the powers
of my mind attain the ascendancy over him? at present he appears to be the
persecutor and I the persecuted: is not this difference the mere creature of the
imagination? may I not employ my ingenuity to vex him with difficulties and
laugh at the endless labour to which he will be condemned?
    Alas, this is