now such a splintering pang of guilt shot through me! I glanced up at my
Conscience. Plainly, my heavy heart was affecting him. His body was
drooping forward; he seemed about to fall from the bookcase. My aunt
continued:
“And think how you have neglected my poor protege at the almshouse, you
dear, hard-hearted promise-breaker!” I blushed scarlet, and my tongue
was tied. As the sense of my guilty negligence waxed sharper and
stronger, my Conscience began to sway heavily back and forth; and when my
aunt, after a little pause, said in a grieved tone, “Since you never once
went to see her, maybe it will not distress you now to know that that
poor child died, months ago, utterly friendless and forsaken!”
My Conscience could no longer bear up under the weight of my sufferings,
but tumbled headlong from his high perch and struck the floor with a
dull, leaden thump. He lay there writhing with pain and quaking with
apprehension, but straining every muscle in frantic efforts to get up.
In a fever of expectancy I sprang to the door, locked it, placed my back
against it, and bent a watchful gaze upon my struggling master. Already
my fingers were itching to begin their murderous work.
“Oh, what can be the matter!” exclaimed by aunt, shrinking from me, and
following with her frightened eyes the direction of mine. My breath was
coming in short, quick gasps now, and my excitement was almost
uncontrollable. My aunt cried out:
“Oh, do not look so! You appal me! Oh, what can the matter be? What is
it you see? Why do you stare so? Why do you work your fingers like
that?”
“Peace, woman!” I said, in a hoarse whisper. “Look elsewhere; pay no
attention to me; it is nothing–nothing. I am often this way. It will
pass in a moment. It comes from smoking too much.”
My injured lord was up, wild-eyed with terror, and trying to hobble
toward the door. I could hardly breathe, I was so wrought up. My aunt
wrung her hands, and said:
“Oh, I knew how it would be; I knew it would come to this at last!
Oh, I implore you to crush out that fatal habit while it may yet be time!
You must not, you shall not be deaf to my supplications longer!”
My struggling Conscience showed sudden signs of weariness! “Oh, promise
me you will throw off this hateful slavery of tobacco!” My Conscience
began to reel drowsily, and grope with his hands–enchanting spectacle!
“I beg you, I beseech you, I implore you! Your reason is deserting you!
There is madness in your eye! It flames with frenzy! Oh, hear me, hear
me, and be saved! See, I plead with you on my very knees!” As she sank
before me my Conscience reeled again, and then drooped languidly to the
floor, blinking toward me a last supplication for mercy, with heavy eyes.
“Oh, promise, or you are lost! Promise, and be redeemed! Promise!
Promise and live!” With a long-drawn sigh my conquered Conscience closed
his eyes and fell fast asleep!
With an exultant shout I sprang past my aunt, and in an instant I had my
lifelong foe by the throat. After so many years of waiting and longing,
he was mine at last. I tore him to shreds and fragments. I rent the
fragments to bits. I cast the bleeding rubbish into the fire, and drew
into my nostrils the grateful incense of my burnt-offering. At last, and
forever, my Conscience was dead!
I was a free man! I turned upon my poor aunt, who was almost petrified
with terror, and shouted:
“Out of this with your paupers, your charities, your reforms, your
pestilent morals! You behold before you a man whose life-conflict is
done, whose soul is at peace; a man whose heart is dead to sorrow, dead
to suffering, dead to remorse; a man WITHOUT A CONSCIENCE! In my joy I
spare you, though I could throttle you and never feel a pang! Fly!”
She fled. Since that day my life is all bliss. Bliss, unalloyed bliss.
Nothing in all the world could persuade me to have a conscience again.