In the present
impetuosity of my thoughts, I was almost dubious whether the pit
into which my brother had endeavored to entice me, and the voice
that talked through the lattice, were not parts of the same dream.
I remembered, likewise, the charge of secrecy, and the penalty
denounced if I should rashly divulge what I had heard. For these
reasons I was silent on that subject, and, shutting myself in my
chamber, delivered myself up to contemplation.
What I have related will, no doubt, appear to you a fable. You
will believe that calamity has subverted my reason, and that I am
amusing you with the chimeras of my brain instead of facts that
have really happened. I shall not be surprised or offended if
these be your suspicions. I know not, indeed, how you can deny
them admission. For, if to me, the immediate witness, they were
fertile of perplexity and doubt, how must they affect another to
whom they are recommended only by my testimony? It was only by
subsequent events that I was fully and incontestably assured of the
veracity of my senses.
Meanwhile, what was I to think? I had been assured that a design
had been formed against my life.
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