Bound ever more closely to my phantom, unable to enjoy what did not exist, I was like those mutilated men who contemplate a state of bliss to them unattainable and conjure up dreams whose pleasures rival the tortures of hell. I had, moreover, a presentiment of the misery of my future lot; ingenious in the fabrication of sufferings, I had placed myself between two forms of despair: sometimes I thought myself a mere nullity, incapable of rising above the vulgar herd; sometimes I seemed to feel within myself qualities which would never be appreciated. A secret instinct warned me that, as I moved onward through the world, I should find no part of that which I sought. Everything furnished food for the bitterness of my disgust: Lucile was unhappy; my mother did not console me; my father made me feel the terrors of life. His moroseness increased with years; old age stiffened his soul as it did his body; he constantly spied upon me to chide me. When I returned from my wild rounds and saw him sitting on the steps, one might have killed me rather than make me enter the castle. Yet this but postponed my torture: obliged as I was to appear at supper, I sat down sheepishly upon the edge of my chair, my cheeks wet with the rain, my hair entangled. I sat motionless beneath my father's glances, and the perspiration stood upon my brow: the last glimmer of reason escaped me. [Sidenote: I attempt my life.] I now come to a moment when I shall need some strength to confess my weakness. The man who attempts to take his own life displays less the vigor of his soul than the exhaustion of his nature. I owned a fowling-piece whose worn trigger often went off when uncocked. I loaded this gun with three bullets, and went to a remote part of the Great Mall. I cocked the gun, placed the muzzle of the barrel in my mouth, and struck the butt-end against the ground; I several times repeated the ordeal; the charge did not go off; the appearance of a keeper stopped my resolve. Involuntary and unconscious fatalist that I was, I presumed that my hour had not come, and I deferred the execution of my project to another day. Had I killed myself, all that I have been would have been buried with me; none would have known of the history that led to my catastrophe; I should have swelled the crowd of nameless unfortunates, I should not have let myself be followed by the traces of my sorrows as a wounded man is followed by the traces of his blood. Those who might be troubled by these descriptions and tempted to imitate these follies, those who might attach themselves to my memory through my illusions, must remember that they are listening only to a dead man's voice. Reader, whom I shall never know, nothing remains: nought is left of me save that I am in the hands of the living God who has judged me.