 The Avenger, Part 2 of the Locke & Key Library. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Mary Schneider. The Locke & Key Library, edited by Julian Hawthorne. The Avenger by Thomas DeQuincy, Part 2. Conceived then that three weeks have passed away, that the poor wise-houts have been laid in the narrow sanctuary which no murderer's voice will ever violate. Quiet has not returned to us, but the first flutterings of panic have subsided. People are beginning to respire freely again, and such another space of time would have cicatrised our wounds when hark a church bell rings out a loud alarm. The night is starlight and frosty. The iron notes are heard clear, solemn, but agitated. What could this mean? I hurried to a room over the porter's lodge, and opening the window I cried out to a man passing hastily below. What in God's name is the meaning of this? It was a watchman belonging to our district. I knew his voice, he knew mine, and he replied in great agitation. It is another murder, sir, at the Old Town Councilor's, Abernass, and this time they have made a clear house of it. God preserve us has a curse been pronounced upon this city. What can be done? What are the magistrates going to do? I don't know, sir. I have orders to run to the Black Friars where another meeting is gathering. Shall I say you will attend, sir? Yes. No, stop a little. No matter. You go on. I'll follow immediately. I went instantly to Maximilian's room. He was lying asleep on a sofa at which I was not surprised, for there had been a severe stag chase in the morning. Even at this moment I found myself arrested by two objects, and I paused to survey them. One was Maximilian himself, a person so mysterious, who took precedency of other interests even at a time like this, and especially by his features which composed in profound sleep as sometimes happens, assumed a new expression which arrested me chiefly by awaking some confused remembrance of the same features seen under other circumstances and in times long past. But where? This was what I could not recollect, though once before a thought of the same sort had crossed my mind, and the other object of my interest was a miniature which Maximilian was holding in his hand. He had gone to sleep apparently looking at this picture, and the hand which held it had slipped down upon the sofa so that it was in danger of falling. I released the miniature from his hand and surveyed it attentively. It represented a lady of sunny oriental expression and features the most noble that it is possible to conceive. One might have imagined such a lady with her raven locks and imperial eyes to be the favorite sultana of some or Marath or Muhammad. What was she to Maximilian? Or what had she been? For by the tear which I had once seen him drop upon this miniature when he believed himself unobserved, I conjectured that her dark tresses were already laid low and her name among the list of vanished things. Probably she was his mother, for the dress was rich with pearls and evidently that of a person in the highest rank of court beauties. I sighed as I thought of the stern melancholy of her son, if Maximilian were he, as connected probably with the fate and fortunes of this majestic beauty. Somewhat haughty perhaps in the expression of her fine features, but still noble, generous, confiding. Laying the picture on the table I awoke Maximilian and told him of the dreadful news. He listened attentively, made no remark, but proposed that we should go together to the meeting of our quarter at the Black Friars. He colored upon observing the miniature on the table and therefore I frankly told him in what situation I had found it and that I had taken the liberty of admiring it for a few moments. He pressed it tenderly to his lips, sighed heavily, and we walked away together. I pass over the frenzied state of feeling in which we found the meeting, fear or rather horror, did not promote harmony. Many quarreled with each other in discussing the suggestions brought forward and Maximilian was the only person attended to. He proposed a nightly mounted patrol for every district and in particular he offered as being himself a member of the university that the students should form themselves into a guard and go out by rotation to keep watch and ward from sunset to sunrise. Arrangements were made toward that object by the few people who retained possession of their senses and for the present we separated. Never, in fact, did any events so keenly try the difference between man and man. Some started up into heroes under the excitement. Some, alas, for the dignity of man, drooped into helpless imbecility. Women, in some cases, rose superior to men, but yet not so often as might have happened under a less mysterious danger. A woman is not unwomenly because she confronts danger boldly, but I have remarked with respect to female courage that it requires more than that of men to be sustained by hope and that it droops more certainly in the presence of a mysterious danger. The fancy of women is more active, if not stronger, and it influences more directly the physical nature. In this case few were the women who made even a show of defying the danger. On the contrary, with them fear took the form of sadness, while with many of the men it took that of wrath. And how did the Russian guardsmen conduct himself amidst this panic? Many were surprised at his behaviour, some complained of it, I did neither. He took a reasonable interest in each separate case, listened to the details with attention, and in the examination of persons able to furnish evidence never failed to suggest judicious questions. But still he manifested a coolness almost amounting to carelessness, which to many appeared revolting. But these people I desired to notice that all the other military students who had been long in the army felt exactly in the same way. In fact the military service of Christendom for the last ten years has been anything but a parade service, and to those therefore with every form of horrid butchery the mere outside horrors of death had lost much of their terror. In the recent murder there had not been much to call forth sympathy. The family consisted of two old bachelors, two sisters, and one grand-niece. The niece was absent on a visit, and the two old men were cynical misers to whom little personal interest attached. Still in this case, as in that of the Wisehouts, the same two-fold mystery confounded the public mind, the mystery of the Howe, and the profounder mystery of the Whye. Here again no atom of property was taken, though both the misers had hordes of dookats and English guineas in the very room where they died. Their bias, again, though of an unpopular character, had rather availed to make them unknown than to make them hateful. In one point this case differed memorably from the other, that, instead of falling helpless or flying victims as the Wisehouts had done, these old men, strong resolute and not so much taken by surprise, left proofs that they had made a desperate defense. The furniture was partly smashed to pieces, and the other details furnished evidence still more revolting of the acharnment with which the struggle had been maintained. In fact, with them a surprise must have been impracticable, as they admitted nobody into their house on visiting terms. It was thought singular that from each of these domestic tragedies a benefit of the same sort should result to young persons standing in nearly the same relation. The girl who gave the alarm at the ball, with two little sisters and a little orphan nephew, their cousin, provided the very large inheritance of the Wisehouts, and in this latter case the accumulated savings of two long lives are vested in the person of the amiable grand niece. But now, as if in mockery of all our anxious consultations and elaborate devices, three fresh murders took place on the two consecutive nights, succeeding these new arrangements. And in one case, as nearly as time could be noted, the mounted patrol must have been within call at the very moment when the awful work was going on. I shall not dwell much upon them, but a few circumstances are too interesting to pass over. The earliest case on the first of the two nights was that of a courier. He was fifty years old, not rich, but well off. His first wife was dead, and his daughters by her were married away from their father's house. Had married a second wife, but having no children by her and keeping no servants, it is probable that for an accident no third person would have been in the house at the time when the murderers got admittance. About seven o'clock a wayfaring man, a journeyman courier, who, according to our German system, was now in his wander-yard, entered the city from the forest. At the gate he made some inquiries about the couriers and tanners of our town, and agreeably to the information he received, made his way to this Mr. Heinberg. Mr. Heinberg refused to admit him until he mentioned his errand and pushed below the door a letter of recommendation from a Silesian correspondent, describing him as an excellent and steady workman. Wanting such a man and satisfied by the answers returned that he was what he represented himself, Mr. Heinberg unbolted his door and admitted him. Then, after slipping the bolt into its place, he bade him sit to the fire, brought him a glass of beer, conversed with him for ten minutes, and said you had better stay here tonight. I'll tell you why afterwards, but now I'll step upstairs and ask my wife whether she can make up a bed for you, and do you mind the door while I'm away? So saying he went out of the room, not one minute had been gone when there came a gentle knock at the door. It was raining heavily and being a stranger to the city, not dreaming that in any crowded town such a state of things could exist as really did in this. The young man without hesitation admitted the person knocking. He has declared since, but perhaps confounding the feelings gained for the better knowledge with the feelings of the moment, that from the moment he drew the bolt he had a misgiving that he had done wrong. A man entered in a horseman's cloak, and so muffled up that the journeyman could discover none of his features. In a low tone the stranger said, Where's Heinberg? Upstairs? Call him down, then. The journeyman went to the door by which Mr. Heinberg had left him and called Mr. Heinberg, Here's one wanting you. Mr. Heinberg heard him for the man could distinctly catch these words. God bless me, has the man opened the door, Oh, the traitor, I see it. Upon this he felt more and more consternation, though not knowing why. Just then he heard a sound of feet behind him. On turning around he beheld three more men in the room. One was fastening the outer door, one was drawing some arms from a cupboard, and two others were whispering together. He himself was disturbed and perplexed and felt that all was not right. Such was his confusion that either all the men's faces must have been muffled up or at least he remembered nothing distinctly but one fierce pair of eyes glaring upon him. Then before he could look around came a man from behind and threw a sack over his head, which was drawn tight about his waist, so as to confine his arms as well as impede his hearing in part and his voice altogether. He was then pushed into a room, but previously he had heard a rush upstairs and words like those of a person exalting and then a door closed. Once it opened and he could distinguish the words in one voice and for that to which another voice replied in tones that made his heart quake, I for that serve. And then the same voice went on rapidly to say, Oh, dawg, could you hope at which word the door closed again? Once he thought he heard a scuffle and he was sure that he heard the sound of feet as if rushing from one corner of a room to another. But then all was hushed and still for about six or seven minutes until a voice close to his ear said, Now wait quietly till some persons come in to release you. This will happen within half an hour. Accordingly, in less than that time he again heard the sound of feet within the house. His own bandages were liberated and he was brought to tell his story to the police office. Mr. Heinberg was found in his bedroom. He had died by strangulation and the cord was still tightened about his neck. During the whole dreadful scene his youthful wife had been locked in a closet where she heard and saw nothing. In the second case the object of vengeance was again an elderly man. Of the ordinary family all were absent at a country house except the master and a female servant. She was a woman of courage and blessed with the firmest nerves so that she might have been relied on for reporting accurately everything seen or heard. But things took another course. The first warning that she had of the murderer's presence was from their steps and voices already in the hall. She heard her master run hastily into the hall crying out, Lord Jesus, Mary, Mary, save me. The servant resolved to give what age she could, seized a large poker and was hurrying to his assistants when she found that they had nailed up the door of communication at the head of the stairs. What passed after this she could not tell for when the impulsive intrepid fidelity had been bulked she found that her own safety was provided for by means which made it impossible to aid a poor fellow creature who had just invoked her name. The generous hearted creature was overcome by anguish of mind and sank down on the stair where she lay unconscious of all that succeeded until she found herself raised in the arms of a mob who had entered the house and how came they to have entered in a way characteristically dreadful. The night was starlit, the patrols had perambulated the street without noticing anything suspicious when two foot passengers who were following in their rear observed a dark-colored stream traversing the causeway. One of them, at the same instant tracing the stream backward with his eyes, observed that it flowed from under the door of Mr. Munser and dipping his finger in the trickling fluid he held it up to the lamplight yelling out at the moment why it's blood. It was so indeed and it was yet warm. The other saw, heard, and like an arrow flew after the horse patrol then in the act of turning the corner. One cry full of meaning was sufficient for ears full of expectation. The horseman pulled up, wheeled, and in another moment rained up at Mr. Munser's door. The crowd, gathering like the drifting of snow, supplied implements which soon forced the chains of the door and all other obstacles. But the murderous party had escaped and all traces of their persons had vanished, as usual. Rarely did any one case occur without some peculiarity more or less interesting. In that which happened on the following night making the fifth in the series an impressive incident varied the monotony of horrors. In this case the parties aimed at were two elderly ladies who conducted a female boarding school. None of the pupils had as yet returned to school from their vacations, but two sisters, young girls of 13 and 16 coming from a distance had stayed at school through the Christmas holidays. It was the youngest of these who gave the only evidence of any value and one which added a new feature of alarm to the existing panic. Thus it was that her testimony was given. On the day before the murder she and her sister were sitting with the old ladies in a room fronting to the street. The elderly ladies were reading the younger one's drawing. Louisa, the youngest, never had her ear inattentive to the slightest sound and once it struck her that she heard the creaking of a foot upon the stairs. She said nothing but slipping out of the room she ascertained that the two female servants were in the kitchen and could not have been absent. But all the doors and windows by which ingress was possible were not only locked but bolded and barred. A fact which excluded all possibility of invasion by means of false keys. Still she felt persuaded that she had heard the sound of a heavy foot upon the stairs. It was, however, daylight and this gave her confidence so that without communicating her alarm to anybody she found courage to traverse the house in every direction and as nothing was either seen or heard she concluded that her ears had been too sensitively awake. Yet that night as she lay in bed dim terrors assailed her especially because she considered that in so large a house some closet or other might have been overlooked and in particular she did not remember to have examined one or two chests in which a man could have lain concealed. Through the greater part of the night she lay awake but as one of the town clocks struck four she dismissed her anxieties and fell asleep. The next day, wearied with this unusual watching, she proposed to her sister that they should go to bed earlier than usual. This they did and on their way upstairs Louisa happened to think suddenly of a heavy cloak which would improve the coverings of her bed against the severity of the night. The cloak was hanging up in a closet within a closet both leading off from a large room used as the young lady's dancing school. These closets she had examined on the previous day and therefore she felt no particular alarm at this moment. The cloak was the first article which met her sight. It was suspended from a hook in the wall and close to the door. She took it down but in doing so exposed part of the wall and of the floor which its folds had previously concealed. Turning away hastily the chances were that she had gone without making any discovery. In the act of turning however her light fell brightly on a man's foot and leg. Matchless was her presence of mind having previously been humming in air she continued to do so. But now came the trial. Her sister was bending her steps to the same door. If she suffered her to do so Lachyn would stumble on the same discovery and expire of fright. On the other hand, if she gave her a hint Lachyn would either fail to understand her or gaining but a glimpse of her meaning which reek aloud or by some equally decisive expression convey the fatal news to the assassin that he had been discovered. In this torturing dilemma fear prompted an expedient which to Lachyn appeared madness and to Louisa herself the act of a civil instinct with blind inspiration. Fear said she is our dancing room. When shall we all meet and dance again together? Saying which she commenced a wild dance whirling her candle round her head until the motion extinguished it. Then eddying round her sister in narrow circles she seized Lachyn's candle also blew it out and then interrupted her own singing to attempt a laugh. But the laugh was hysterical. The darkness however favored her to seize in her sister's arms she forced her along with spring Lachyn could not be so dull as entirely to misunderstand her. She suffered herself to be led up the first flight of stairs at the head of which was a room looking into the street. In this they would have gained an asylum for the door had a strong boat but as they were on the last steps of the landing they could hear the hard breathing and long strides of the murderer ascending behind them. He had watched them through a crevice and had been satisfied by the hysterical laugh of Louisa that she had seen him. In the darkness he could not follow fast from ignorance of the localities until he found himself upon the stairs. Louisa dragging her sister along felt strong as with the strength of lunacy but Lachyn hung like a weight of lead upon her. She rushed into the room but at the very entrance Lachyn fell. At that moment the assassin exchanged his stealthy pace for a loud clattering ascent. Already he was at the topmost stair. Already he was throwing himself at a bound against the door when Louisa having dragged her sister into the room closed the door and set the boat home in the very instant that the murderer's hand came into contact with the handle. Then from the violence of her emotions she fell down in a fit with her arm around her sister whom she had saved. How long they lay in that state neither ever knew. The two old ladies had rushed upstairs on hearing the tumult. Other persons had been concealed in other parts of the house. The servants found themselves suddenly locked in and were not sorry to be saved in a situation which involved so awful a danger. The old ladies had rushed side by side into the very centre of those who were seeking them. Retreat was impossible. Two persons at least were heard following them upstairs. Something like a shrieking expostulation and counter expostulation went on between the ladies and the murderers. Then came louder voices. There was an embarrassing shriek and then another and then a slow moaning and a dead silence. Shortly afterwards was heard the first crashing of the door inward by the mob but the murderers had fled upon the first alarm and to the astonishment of the servants had fled upward. Examination, however, explained this. From a window in the roof recently left empty and here as in other cases we had proof how apt people are in the midst of elaborate provisions against remote dangers to neglect those which are obvious. The reign of terror it may be supposed had now reached its acme. The two old ladies were both lying dead at different points on the staircase and as usual no conjecture could be made as to the nature of the offense which they had given but that the murder was a vindictive one. The usual evidence remained behind in the proofs that no robbery had been attempted. Two new features, however, were now brought forward in this system of horrors one of which riveted the sense of their insecurity to all families occupying extensive houses and the other raised ill blood between the city and the university such as required years to allay. The first arose out of the experience now first obtained that these assassins pursued the plan of secreting themselves within the house where they meditated a murder. All the care therefore previously directed to the securing of doors and windows after nightfall appeared nougatory. The other feature brought to light on this occasion was vouched for by one of the servants who declared that the moment before the door of the kitchen was fastened upon herself and fellow servant. She saw two men in the hall one on the point of ascending the stairs the other making toward the kitchen that she could not distinguish the faces of either but that both were dressed in the academic costume belonging to the students of the university. The consequences of such a declaration need scarcely be mentioned. Suspicion settled upon the students who were more numerous since the general peace in a much larger proportion military and less select or respectable than heretofore. Still no part of the mystery was cleared up by this discovery. Many of the students were poor enough to feel the temptation that might be offered by any lucrative system of outrage. Jealous and painful collusions were in the meantime produced and during the latter two months of this winter it may be said that our city exhibited the very anarchy of evil passions this condition of things lasted until the dawning of another spring. It will be supposed the communications were made to the supreme government of the land as soon as the murders in our city were understood to be no casual occurrences but links in a systematic series. Perhaps it might happen from some other business of a higher kind just then engaging the attention of our governors that our representations did not make the impression we had expected. We could not indeed complain of absolute neglect from the government. They sent down one or two of their most accomplished police officers and they suggested some councils especially that we should examine more strictly into the quality of the miscellaneous population who occupied our large suburb. But they more than hinted that no necessity was seen either for quartering troops upon us or for arming our local magistracy with ampler powers. This correspondence with the central government occupied the month of March and before that time the bloody system had ceased as abruptly as it began. The new police officer flattered himself that the terror of his name had wrought this effect but judicious people thought otherwise. However, it was quiet until the depth of summer when by way of hinting to us perhaps that the dreadful power which clothed itself with darkness had not expired but was only reposing from its labors. All at once the chief jailer of the city was missing. He had been in the habit of taking long rides in the forest his present situation being much of a sinecure. It was on the 1st of July when he was dismissed. In riding through the city gates that morning he had mentioned the direction which he meant to pursue and the last time he was seen alive was in one of the forest avenues about eight miles from the city leading toward the point he had indicated. This jailer was not a man to be regretted on his own account. His life had been a tissue of cruelty and brutal abuse of his powers in which he had been too much supported by the magistrates partly on the plea that it was their duty to back their own officers against all complainers, partly also from the necessities created by the turbulent times for a more summary exercise of their magisterial authority. No man, therefore, on his own separate account could more willingly have been spared than this brutal jailer. And it was a general remark that had the murderous band within our walls swept away this man only they would have heard the public gratitude of purifiers from a public nuisance. But was it certain that the jailer had died by the same hands as had so deeply afflicted the peace of our city during the winter or indeed that he had been murdered at all? The forest was too extensive to be searched and it was possible that he might have met with some fatal accident. His horse had returned to the city gates in the night and was found there in the morning. Nobody, however, for months could give information about his rider and it seemed probable that he would not be discovered until the autumn and the winter should again carry the sportsman into every thicket and dingle of this sylvan tract. One person only seemed to have more knowledge on the subject than others, and that was poor Ferdinand von Herelstein. He was now a mere ruin of what he had once been both as to intellect and moral feeling, and I observed him frequently smile when the jailer was mentioned. Wait, he would say, till the leaves begin to drop. Then you will see that fine fruit our forest bears. I did not repeat these expressions to anybody except one friend who agreed with me that the jailer had probably been hanged in some recess of the forest which summer veiled with its luxuriant umbrage and that man constantly wandering in the forest had discovered the body but we both acquitted him of having been an accomplice in the murder. Meantime the marriage between Margaret Liebenheim and Maximilian was understood to be drawing near. Yet one thing struck everybody with astonishment. As far as the young people were concerned nobody could doubt that all was arranged and never was happiness more perfect than that which seemed to unite them. Margaret was the impersonation of Maytime and youthful rapture. Even Maximilian in her presence seemed to forget his gloom and the worm which gnawed at his heart was charmed asleep by the music of her voice and the paradise of her smiles. But until the autumn came Margaret's grandfather had never ceased to frown upon this connection and to support the pretensions of Ferdinand. The dislike indeed seemed reciprocal between him and Maximilian. Each avoided the other's company and as to the old man he went so far as to speak sneeringly of Maximilian. Maximilian despised him too heartily to speak of him at all. When he could not avoid meeting him he treated him with a stern courtesy which distressed Margaret as often as she witnessed it. She felt that her grandfather had been her and she felt also that he did injustice to the merits of her lover. But she had a filial tenderness for the old man as the father of her sainted mother and on his account continually making more claims on her pity as the decay of his memory and a childish fretfulness growing upon him from day to day marked his increasing imbecility. Equally mysterious it seemed and about this time Miss Liebenheim began to receive anonymous letters written in the darkest and most menacing terms. Some of them she showed to me. I could not guess at their drift. Evidently they glanced at Maximilian and bade her beware of connection with him and dreadful things were insinuated about him. Could these letters be written by Ferdinand? Written they were not but could they be dictated by him? Much I feared that they were and the more so for one reason. All at once and most inexplicably Margaret's grandfather showed a total change of opinion in his views as to her marriage. Instead of favoring Harrelstein's petitions as he had hitherto done he now threw the feeble weight of his encouragement into Maximilian's scale. Though from the situation of all the parties nobody attached any practical importance to the change in Mr. Liebenheim's way of thinking. Nobody is that true. No one person did attach the greatest weight to the change. Poor ruined Ferdinand. He so long as there was one person to take his part so long as the grandfather of Margaret showed countenance to himself had still felt his situation not utterly desperate. Thus were things situated when in November all the leaves daily blowing off from the woods and leaving bare the most secret haunts of the thickets the body of the jailer was left exposed in the forest but not as I and my friend had conjectured hanged no he had died apparently by a more horrid death by that of crucifixion. The tree a remarkable one bore upon a part of its trunk this brief but savage inscription T. H. the jailer crucified July 1 1816 A great deal of talk went on throughout the city upon this discovery. Nobody uttered one word of regret on account of the wretched jailer. On the contrary the voice of vengeance rising up in many a cottage reached my ears in every direction as I walked the hatred in itself seemed horrid and un-Christian and still more so after the man's death but though horrid and fiendish for itself it was much more impressive considered as the measure and exponent of the damnable oppression which must have existed to produce it. At first when the absence of the jailer was a recent occurrence in the presence of the murderers among us was in consequence revived to our anxious thoughts it was an event which few alluded to without fear but matters were changed now the jailer had been dead for months and this interval during which the murderers hand had slept encouraged everybody to hope that the storm had passed over our city that peace had returned to our hearts and that henceforth weakness might sleep in safety and innocence without anxiety once more we had peace within our walls and tranquility by our firesides again the child went to bed in cheerfulness and the old man set his prayers in serenity confidence was restored peace was re-established and once again the sanctity of human life became the rule and principle for all human hands among us great was joy the happiness was universal O heavens by what a thunderbolt were we awakened from barren security on the night of the 27th of December half an hour it might be after 12 o'clock an alarm was given that all was not right in the house of Mr. Liebenheim vast was the crowd which soon collected in breathless agitation in two minutes a man who had gone round by the back of the house was heard unbarring Mr. Liebenheim's door he was incapable of uttering a word but his gestures as he threw the door open and beckoned to the crowd were quite enough in the hall of the further extremity and as if arrested in the act of making for the back door lay the bodies of old Mr. Liebenheim and one of his sisters an aged widow on the stair lay another sister younger and unmarried but upward of sixty the hall and lower flight of stairs were floating with blood where then was Mr. Liebenheim the granddaughter that was the universal question for she was beloved as generally as she was admired had the infernal murderers been devilish enough to break into that temple of innocence and happy life everyone asked the question and everyone held his breath to listen but for a few moments no one dared to advance for the silence of the house was ominous everyone cried out that Mr. Liebenheim had that day gone upon a visit to a friend whose house was forty miles distant in the forest I replied another she had settled to go but I heard that something had stopped her the suspense was now at its height and the crowd passed from room to room but found no traces of Mr. Liebenheim at length they ascended the stair and in the very first room was at a bourgeois lay Margaret with her dress soiled hideously with blood the first impression was that she also had been murdered but on a nearer approach she appeared to be unwounded and was manifestly alive life had not departed for her breath sent a haze over a mirror but it was suspended and she was laboring in some kind of fit the first act of the crowd was to tear into the house of a friend on the opposite side of the street by which time medical assistants had crowded to the spot their attentions to Mr. Liebenheim had naturally deranged the condition of things in the little room but not before many people found time to remark that one of the murderers must have carried her with his bloody hands to the sofa on which she lay for water had been sprinkled profusely over her face and throat and water had been placed ready to her hand when she might happen to recover upon a low footstool by the side of the sofa on the following morning Maximilian who had been upon a hunting party in the forest returned to the city and immediately learned the news I did not see him for some hours after but he then appeared to me thoroughly agitated for the first time I had known him to be so in the evening another perplexing piece of intelligence transpired with regard to Mr. Liebenheim which at first afflicted every friend of that young lady it was that she had been seized with the pains of childbirth and delivered of a son who however being born prematurely did not live many hours scandal however was not allowed long to baton upon this imaginary triumph for within two hours after the circulation of this first rumor followed a second authenticated announcing that Maximilian had appeared with the confessor of the Liebenheim family at the residence of the chief magistrate and there produced satisfactory proofs of his marriage with Miss Liebenheim which had been duly celebrated though with great secrecy nearly eight months prior in our city as in all the cities of our country clandestine marriages witnessed perhaps by two friends only of the parties besides the officiating priest are exceedingly common in the mere fact therefore taken separately there was nothing to surprise us but taken in connection with the general position of the parties it did surprise us all nor could we conjecture the reason for a step apparently so needless for that Maximilian could have thought at any point of prudence or necessity to secure the hand of Marbet Liebenheim by a private marriage against the final opposition of her grandfather nobody who knew the parties who knew the perfect love which possessed Miss Liebenheim the growing imbecility of her grandfather or the utter contempt with which Maximilian regarded him could for a moment believe altogether the matter was one of profound mystery meantime it rejoiced me that poor Margaret's name had been thus rescued from the ruins of the scandal mongers these harpies had their prey torn from them at the very moment when they were setting down to the unhollowed banquet for this I rejoiced but else there was little subject for rejoicing in anything which concerned poor Margaret long she lay in deep insensibility taking no notice of anything rarely opening her eyes and apparently unconscious of the revolutions as they succeeded of mourning or evening light or darkness yesterday or today great was the agitation which convulsed the heart of Maximilian during this period he walked up and down in the cathedral nearly all day long and the ravages which anxiety was working in his physical system might be read in his face people felt it an intrusion upon the sanctity of his grief to look at him too narrowly and the whole town empathized with his situation at length the change took place in Margaret but one which the medical men announced to Maximilian as voting ill for her recovery the wanderings of her mind did not depart but they altered their character she became more agitated she would start up suddenly and strain her eyesight after some figure which she seemed to see then she would apostrify some person in the most piteous terms beseeching him with streaming eyes to spare her old grandfather look look she would cry out look at his gray hair oh sir he is but a child he does not know what he says but he will soon be out of the way in his grave and very soon sir he will give you no more trouble then again she would mutter indistinctly for hours together sometimes she would cry out sadly and say things which terrified the bystanders and which the physicians would solemnly caution them how they repeated then she would weep and invoke Maximilian to come and aid her but seldom indeed did that name pass her lips that she did not again begin to strain her eyeballs and start up in bed to watch some phantom of her poor fevered heart as if it seemed vanishing into some mighty distance end of the avenger part two the avenger part three of the lock and key library this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by Mary Schneider the lock and key library edited by Julian Hawthorne the avenger by Thomas de Quincy part three after nearly seven weeks past in this agitating state suddenly on one morning the earliest and the loveliest of dawning spring a change was announced to us all as having taken place in Margaret but it was a change alas that ushered in the last great change of all the conflict which had for so long a period raged within her and overthrown her reason the strife was over and nature was settling into an everlasting rest in the course of the night she had recovered her senses when the morning light penetrated through her curtain she recognized her attendance made inquiries as to the month and the day of the month and then sensible that she could not outlive the day she requested that her confesser might be summoned about an hour and a half the confesser remained alone with her at the end of that time he came out and hastily summoned the attendance for Margaret he said was sinking into a fainting fit the confesser himself might have passed through many a fit so much was he changed by the results of this interview I crossed him coming out of the house I spoke to him, I called to him but he heard me not he saw me not he saw nobody onward he strode to the cathedral and was sure to be found pacing upon the graves him he seized by the arm whispered something into his ear and then both retired into one of the many sequestered chapels in which lights are continually burning there they had some conversation but not very long for within five minutes Maximilian strode away to the house in which his young wife was dying one step seemed to carry him upstairs the attendance according to the directions they had received from the physicians mustered at the head of the stairs to oppose him but that was idle before the rites which he held as a lover and a husband before the still more sacred rites of grief which he carried in his countenance and all opposition fled like a dream there was besides a fury in his eye a motion of his hand waved them off like summer flies he entered the room and once again last time he was in company with his beloved what past who could pretend to guess something more than two hours had elapsed during which Margaret had been able to talk occasionally which was known because at times the attendance heard the sound of Maximilian's voice evidently in tones of reply to something which she had said at the end of that time a little bell placed near the bedside was rung hastily a fainting fit had seized Margaret but she recovered almost before her women applied the usual remedies they lingered however a little looking at the youthful couple with an interest which no restraints availed to check their hands were locked together and in Margaret's eyes there gleamed a farewell light of love which settled upon Maximilian and seemed to indicate that she was becoming speechless just at this moment she made a feeble effort to draw Maximilian toward her he bent forward and kissed her with an anguish that made the most callous weep and then he whispered something into her ear upon which the attendance retired taking this as a proof that their presence was a hindrance to a free communication but they heard no more talking and in less than ten minutes they returned Maximilian and Margaret still retained their former position their hands were fast locked together the same parting ray of affection the same farewell light of love was in the eye of Margaret and still it settled upon Maximilian but her eyes were beginning to grow dim mists were rapidly stealing over them Maximilian who sat stupefied and like one not in his right mind now at the gentle request of the women resigned his seat for the hand which had clasped his had already relaxed its hold the farewell gleam of love had departed one of the women closed her eyes and there fell asleep forever the loveliest flower that our city had reared for generations the funeral took place on the fourth day after her death in the morning of that day from strong affection having known her from an infant I begged permission to see the corpse she was in her coffin snow drops and crocuses were laid upon her innocent bosom and roses of that sort which the season allowed over her person these and other lovely symbols of youth of springtime and of resurrection caught my eye for the first time but in the next it fell upon her face my god what a change what a transfiguration still indeed there was the same innocent sweetness still there was something of the same loveliness the expression still remained but for the features ultraceous flesh seemed to have vanished mere outline of bony structure remained mere pencilings and shadowings of what she once had been this is indeed, I exclaimed dust to dust ashes to ashes max million to the astonishment of everybody attended the funeral it was celebrated in the cathedral all made way for him and at times he seemed collected at times he reeled like one who was drunk he heard as one who hears not he saw as one in a dream the whole ceremony went on by torchlight and toward the close he stood like a pillar motionless, torpid, frozen but the great burst of the choir and the mighty Blair ascending from our vast organ at the closing of the grave recalled him to himself and he strode rapidly homeward half an hour after I returned I was summoned to his bedroom he was in bed calm and collected what he said to me I remember as if it had been yesterday and the very tone with which he said it although more than twenty years have passed since then he began thus I have not long to live and when he saw me smart suddenly awakened into a consciousness that perhaps he had taken poison and meant to intimate as much he continued you fancy I have taken poison no matter whether I have or not if I have the poison is such that no antidote will now avail or if they would you well know that some griefs are of a kind which leave no opening to any hope what difference therefore can it make whether I leave this earth today tomorrow or the next day be assured of this that whatever I have determined to do is past all power of being affected by a human opposition occupy yourself not with any fruitless attempts but calmly listen to me else I know what to do seeing a suppressed fury in his eye not withstanding I saw also some change stealing over his features some subtle poison beginning to work upon his frame all struck I consented to listen and sat still it is well that you do so for my time is short here is my will legally drawn up and you will see that I have committed an immense property to your discretion here again is a paper still more important in my eyes it is also testamentary and binds you to duties which may not be so easy to execute as the disposal of my property but now listen to something else which concerns neither of these papers promise me in the first place solemnly that whenever I die you will see me buried in the same grave as my wife from whose funeral we are just returned promise I promised swear I swore finally promise me that when you read this second paper which I have put into your hands whatsoever you may think of it you will say nothing publish nothing to the world until three years shall have passed I promised and now farewell for three hours come to me about ten o'clock and take a glass of wine in memory of old times this he said laughingly but even then a dark spasm crossed his face yet thinking that this might be working of a mental anguish within him I complied with his desire and retired feeling however but little at ease I devised an excuse for looking in upon him about one hour and a half after I had left him I knocked gently at the door there was no answer I knocked louder still no answer I went in the light of day was gone and I could see nothing I listened earnestly but not a breath could be heard I rushed back hastily into the hall for a lamp I returned I looked in upon this marvel of manly beauty and the first glance informed me that he and all his splendid endowments had departed forever he had died probably soon after I left him and had dismissed me from some growing instinct which informed him that his last agonies were at hand I took up his two testamentary documents both were dressed in the shape of letters to myself the first was a rapid though distinct appropriation of his enormous property general rules were laid down upon which property was to be distributed but the details were left to my discretion and to the guidance of circumstances as they should happen to emerge from the various inquiries which it would become necessary to set on foot this first document I soon laid aside both because I found that its provisions were dependent for their meaning upon the second and because to this second document I looked with confidence for a solution of many mysteries of the profound sadness which had from the first of my acquaintance with him possessed a man so gorgeously endowed as the favorite of nature and fortune of his motives for huddling up in manner that connection which formed the glory of his life and possibly but then I hesitated of the late unintelligible murders which still lay under as profound a cloud as ever much of this would be unveiled all might be and there and then with the corpse lying beside me of the gifted and mysterious writer I seated myself and read the following statement March 26 1817 my trial is finished my conscience, my duty, my honor are liberated my warfare is accomplished Margaret my innocent young wife I have seen for the last time her the crown that might have been of my earthly felicity her the one temptation to put aside the bitter cup which awaited me her soul seductress from the stern duties which my fate had imposed upon me her even her I have sacrificed before I go partly less the innocent should be brought into question for acts almost exclusively mine but still more less the lesson in the warning which God by my hand has written in blood upon your guilty walls should perish for want of its authentic exposition hear my last dying avow that the murders which have desolated so many families within your walls and made the household hearth no sanctuary age no charter of protection are all due originally to my head if not always to my hand as the minister of a dreadful retribution that account of my history and my prospects which you received from the Russian diplomatist among some eras of little importance is essentially correct my father was not so immediately connected with English blood as is there represented however it is true that he claimed dissent from an English family of even higher distinction than that which is assigned in the Russian statement he was proud of this English dissent and the more so as the war with revolutionary France brought out more prominently than ever the moral and civil grandeur of England this pride was generous but it was imprudent in his situation his immediate progenitors had been settled in Italy at Rome first but later at Milan and his whole property large and scattered came by the progress of the revolution to stand under French domination many spoliation he suffered but still he was too rich to be seriously injured but he foresaw in the progress of events still greater perils menacing his most capital resources many of the states or princes in Italy were deeply in his debt and in great convulsions which threatened his country he saw that both the contending parties would find a colourable excuse for absolving themselves from engagements which pressed unpleasantly upon their finances in this embarrassment he formed an intimacy with a French officer of high rank and high principle my father's friend saw his danger and advised him to enter the French service in his young days my father had served extensively under many princes and had found in every other military service a spirit of honour governing the conduct of the officers here only and for the first time he found ruffian manners and universal rapacity he could not draw his sword in company with such men nor in such a cause but at length under the pressure of necessity he accepted and together bought with an immense bribe the place of a commissary to the French forces in Italy with this one resource eventually he succeeded in making good the whole of his public claims upon the Italian states these vast sums he remitted through various channels to England where he became proprietor in the funds to an immense amount in cautiously however something of this transpired and the result was doubly unfortunate for while his intentions were thus made known as finally pointing to England which of itself made him an object of hatred and suspicion it also diminished his means of bribery these considerations along with another made some French officers of high rank and influence the bitter enemies of my father my mother whom he had married when holding a brigadier general's commission in the Austrian service was by birth and by religion a Jewish she was of exquisite beauty and had been sought in Morganatic marriage by an Archduke of the Austrian family but she had relied upon his plea that hers was the purest and noblest blood among all Jewish families that her family traced themselves by tradition in a vast series of attestations under the hands of the Jewish high priests to the Maccabees and to the royal houses of Judea for her it would be a degradation to accept even a sovereign prince on the terms of such marriage this was no vain pretension of ostentatious vanity it was one which had been admitted as valid from time immemorial in Transylvania and adjacent countries where my mother's family were rich and honored and took their seat among the dignitaries of the land the French officers I have alluded to without capacity for anything so dignified as a deep passion but merely in pursuit of a vagrant fancy that would on the next day have given place to another equally fleeting had dared to insult my mother with proposals the most licentious proposals as much below her rank and birth as at any rate they would have been below her dignity of mind and her purity these she had communicated to my father who bitterly resented the chains of subordination which tied up his hands from avenging his injuries still his eye told a tale which his superiors could brook as little as they could the disdainful neglect of his wife more than one had been concerned in the injuries to my father and mother more than one were interested in obtaining revenge things could be done in German towns and by favor of old German laws or usages which even in France could not have been tolerated this my father's enemies well knew but this my father also knew and he endeavored to lay down his office of commissary that however was a favor which he could not obtain he was compelled to serve on the German campaign then commencing and on the subsequent one in Friedland and Elow here he was caught in some one of the snares laid for him first triphanned into an act which violated some rule of the service and then provoked into a breach of discipline against the general officer who had thus triphanned him now was the long sought opportunity gained and in that very quarter of Germany best fitted for improving it my father was thrown into prison in your city subjected to the atrocious oppression of your jailer and the more detestable oppression of your local laws the charges against him were thought even to affect his life and he was humbled into suing for permission to send for his wife Karen already to his proud spirit it was punishment enough that he should be reduced to sue for favor to one of his bitterest foes but it was no part of their plan to refuse that by way of expediting my mother's arrival a military courier with every facility for the journey was forwarded to her without delay my mother her two daughters and myself were then residing in Venice I had through the aid of my father's connections in Austria been appointed in the imperial service and held a high commission for my age but on my father's marching northward with the French army I had been recalled as an indispensable support to my mother not that my years could have made me such for I had barely accomplished my twelfth year but my premature growth in my military station had given me considerable knowledge of the world and presence of mind our journey I pass over but as I approach your city that supple cure of honor and happiness to my poor family my heart beats with frantic emotions never do I see that venerable dome of your minster from the forest but I curse its form which reminds me of what we then surveyed for many a mile as we traversed the forest for leagues before we approached the city this object lay before us in relief upon the frosty blue sky and still it seemed never to increase such was the complaint of my little sister Miriam most innocent child with that it never had increased for thy eyes but remained forever at a distance that same hour began the series of monstrous indignities which terminated the career of my ill-fated family as we drew up to the city gates the officer inspected the passports finding my mother and sisters described as Jewish's which in my mother's ears reared in a region where Jews are not dishonored always sounded a title of distinction summoned a subordinate agent who in coarse terms demanded his toll we presumed this to be a road tax for the carriage and the horses and we were quickly undeceived a small sum was demanded for each of my sisters and my mother as for so many head of cattle I fancying some mistakes spoke to the man temperately and to do him justice he did not seem desirous of insulting me but he produced a printed board on which along with the vilest animals Jews and Jewish's were rated at so much ahead while we were debating the point the officers of the gate were a sneering smile upon their faces the postillions were laughing together and this too in the presence of three creatures whose exquisite beauty in different styles agreeably to their different ages would have caused noblemen to have fallen down and worshipped my mother who had never yet met with any flagrant insult on account of her national distinctions was too much shocked to be able to speak I whispered to her a few words recalling her to her native dignity of mind my mother and my mother had no money and we drove to the prison but the hour was past at which we could be admitted and as Jewish's my mother and sisters could not be allowed to stay in this city there were to go into the Jewish quarter a part of the suburb set apart for Jews in which it was scarcely possible to obtain a lodging tolerably clean my father on the next day we found to our horror to me he told that driven to madness by the insults offered to him he had operated the court martial with their corrupt propensities and had even mentioned that overtures had been made to him for quashing the proceedings in return for a sum of two millions of francs and that his sole reason for not entertaining the proposal was his distrust of those who made it it would have taken the money said he and then found a pretext for putting me to death that I might tell no secrets this was too near the truth to be tolerated in concert with the local authorities the military enemies of my father conspired against him witnesses were suborned and finally under some antiquated law of the place he was subjected in secret to a mode of torture which still lingers in the east of Europe he sank under the torture and the degradation I too thoughtlessly but by a natural movement of filial indignation suffered the truth to escape me in conversing with my mother and she but I will preserve the regular succession of things my father died but he had taken such measures in concert with me that his enemies should never benefit by his property meantime my mother and sisters had closed my father's eyes had attended his remains to the grave and in every act connected with this last sad right had met with the insults and degradations too mighty for human patience my mother now became incapable of self command in the fury of her righteous grief publicly and in court denounced the conduct of the magistracy taxed some of them with the vilest proposals to herself taxed them as a body with having used instruments of torture upon my father and finally accused them of collusion with the French military oppressors of the district this last was a charge under which they quailed for by that time the French had made themselves odys to all who retained a spark a patriotic feeling my heart sank within me when I looked up at the bench this tribunal of tyrants all purple or livid with rage when I looked at them alternately and at my noble mother with her weeping daughters these so powerless these so basely vindictive and locally so omnipotent willingly I would have sacrificed all my wealth for a simple permission to quit this infernal city with my poor female relations safe and undishonored but far other were the intentions of that incensed magistracy my mother was arrested charged with some offense equal to petty treason or scandalous magnatum or the sowing of sedition and though what she said was true where alas was she to look for evidence here was seen the want of gentlemen gentlemen had they been even equally tyrannical would have recoiled with shame from taking vengeance on a woman and what a vengeance oh heavenly powers that I should live to mention such a thing man that is born of woman to inflict upon woman personal scourging on the bareback and through the streets at noon day even for Christian women the punishment was severe which the laws assigned to the offense in question but for juices by one of the ancient laws against that persecuted people far heavier and more degrading punishments were annexed to almost every offense what else could we looked for in a city which welcomed its Jewish guests by valuing them at the gates as brute beasts sentence was passed and the punishment was to be inflicted on two separate days with an interval between each doubtless to prolong the tortures of mind but under a vile pretense of alleviating the physical torture three days after would come the first day of punishment my mother spent the time in reading her native scriptures she spent it in prayer and amusing while her daughters clung and wept around her day and night groveling on the ground at the feet of any people in authority that entered their mother's cell that same interval how was it passed by me now mark my friend every man in office or that could be presumed to bear the slightest influence every wife, mother, sister, daughter of such men I besieged morning noon and night I wearied them with my supplications I humbled myself to the dust I, the haughtiest of God's creatures, knelt and prayed to them for the sake of my mother I besought them that I might undergo the punishment ten times over in her stead and once or twice I did obtain the encouragement of a few natural tears given more however as I was told to my piety than to my mother's desserts I rarely was I heard out with patience and from some houses repelled with personal indignities the day came I saw my mother half undressed by the base officials I heard the prison gates expand I heard the trumpets of the magistrate's sound she had warned me what to do I had warned myself would I sacrifice a retribution sacred and comprehensive for the momentary triumph over an individual if not let me forbear to look out of doors for I felt that in the self-same moment in which I saw the dog of an executioner raise his accursed hand against my mother swifter than the lightning would my dagger search his heart when I heard the roar of the cruel mob I paused endured for bore I stole out by by lanes of the city from my poor exhausted sisters whom I left sleeping in each other's innocent arms into the forest there I listened to the shouting populace there even I fancied that I could trace my poor mother's route by the course of the triumphant cries there even then even then I made a silent forest thou hurtst me when I made a vow that I have kept to faithfully mother thou art avenged sleep daughters of Jerusalem for at length the oppressor sleeps with thee and thy poor son has paid in discharge of his vow the forfeit of his own happiness of a paradise opening upon earth of a heart as innocent as thine and a face as fair I returned and found my mother returned she slept by starts but she was feverish and agitated and when she awoke and first saw me she blushed as if I could think that real degradation had settled upon her then it was that I told her of my vow her eyes were lambent with fierce light for a moment but when I went on more eagerly to speak of my hopes and projects she called me to her kissed me and whispered oh not so my son think not of me think not of vengeance think only of poor Baranese and Miriam I thought was startling yet this magnanimous and forbearing mother as I knew by the report of one faithful female servant had in the morning during her bitter trial behaved as might have become a daughter of Judas Maccabeus she had looked serenely upon the vile mob and awed them by her serenity she had disdained to utter a shriek when the cruel lash fell upon her fair skin there is a point that makes the triumph over natural feelings of pain easy or not easy the degree to which we count upon the sympathy of the bystanders my mother had it not in the beginning but long before the end her celestial beauty the divinity of injured innocence the pleading of common womanhood in the minds of the lowest class and the reaction of manly feeling in the men had worked a great change on the mob some began now to threaten those who had been active in insulting her the silence of awe and respect succeeded to noise and uproar and feelings which they scarcely understood mastered the rude rabble as they witnessed more and more the patient fortitude of the sufferer menaces began to rise toward the executioner things were such an aspect that the magistrates put a sudden scene that day we received permission to go home to our poor house in the Jewish quarter I know not whether you are learned enough in Jewish usages to be aware that in every Jewish house where old traditions are kept up there was one room consecrated to confusion a room always locked up and sequestered from vulgar use except on occasions of memorable affliction where everything is purposely in disorder broken shattered mutilated to typify by symbols appalling to the eye the desolation which has so long trampled on Jerusalem and the ravages of the boar within the vineyards of Judea my mother as a Hebrew princess maintained all traditional customs even in this wretched suburb she had her chamber of desolation there it was that I and my sisters heard her last words the rest of her sentence was to be carried into effect within a week she mean time had disdain to utter any word of fear but that energy of self control had made the suffering the more bitter fever and dreadful agitation had succeeded her dreams showed sufficiently to us who watched her couch that terror for the future mingled with a sense of degradation for the past nature asserted her rights but the more she shrank from the suffering the more did she proclaim how severe it had been and consequently how noble the self conquest yet as her weakness increased so did her terror until I besought her to take comfort assuring her that in case any attempt should be made to force her out again to public exposure I would kill the man who came to execute the order that we would all die together and there would be a common end to her injuries and her fears assured by what I told her of my belief that no future attempt would be made upon her she slept more tranquilly but her fever increased and slowly she slept away into the everlasting sleep which knows of no tomorrow here came a crisis in my fate should I stay and attempt to protect my sisters but alas what power had I to do so among our enemies Rachel and I consulted in many a scheme we planned even while we consulted and the very night after my mother had been committed to the Jewish bearing ground came an officer bearing an order for me to repair to Vienna some officer in the French army having watched the transaction respecting my parents was filled with shame and grief he wrote a statement of the whole to an Austrian officer of rank my father's friend the emperor in order claiming me as a page of his own and an officer in the household service oh heavens what a neglect that it did not include my sisters however the next best thing was that I should use my influence at the imperial court to get them past to Vienna this I did to the utmost of my power but seven months elapsed before I saw the emperor if my applications ever met his eye he might readily suppose that your city my friend was as safe a place as another for my sisters nor did I myself know all its dangers at length with the emperor's leave of absence I returned and what did I find eight months had passed and the faithful Rachel had died the poor sisters clinging together but utterly bereft of friends knew not which way to turn in this abandonment they fell into the insidious hands of the ruffian jailer my eldest sister Baranese the statelyest and noblest of beauties had attracted this ruffian's admiration while she was in prison with her mother and when I returned to your city armed with the imperial passports for all I found that Baranese had died in the villains custody nor could I obtain anything beyond a legal certificate of her death and finally the blooming laughing Miriam she had also died and of affliction for the loss of her sister you my friend had been absent upon your travels during the calamitous history I have recited you had seen neither my father nor my mother but you came in time to take under your protection from the abhorred wretch the jailer my little brokenhearted Miriam and when sometimes you fancy that you had seen me under other circumstances in her it was my dear friend and in her features that you saw mine now was the world desert to me I cared little in the way of love which way I turned but in the way of hatred I cared everything I transferred myself to the Russian service with the view of gaining some the Polish frontier which might put it in my power to execute my vow of destroying all the magistrates of your city war however raged and carried me into far other regions it ceased and there was little prospect that another generation would see it relighted for the disturber of peace was a prisoner forever and all nations were exhausted now then it became necessary that I should adopt for executing my vengeance and the more so because annually some were dying of those whom it was my mission to punish a voice ascended to me day and night from the graves of my father and mother calling for vengeance before it should be too late I took my measures thus many Jews were present at Waterloo from among these all irritated against Napoleon for the expectations he had raised only to disappoint by his great assembly of Jews at Paris I selected eight whom I knew familiarly as men heartened by military experience against the movements of pity with these as my beagles I hunted for some time in your forest before opening my regular campaign and I am surprised that you did not hear of the death which met the executioner him I mean who dared to lift his hand against my mother this man I met by accident in the forest and I slew him I talked with a wretch as a stranger at first upon the memorable case of the Jewish lady had he relented had he expressed compunction I might have relented but far otherwise the dog not dreaming to whom he spoke exalted he but why repeat the villains words I cut him to pieces next I did this my agents I caused to matriculate separately at the college they assumed the college dress and now mark the solution of that mystery which caused such perplexity simply as students we all had an unsuspected admission to any house just then there was a common practice as you will remember among the younger students of going out I'm asking that is of entering houses in the academic dress and with the face masked this practice subsisted even during the most intense alarm from the murders for the dress of the students was supposed to bring protection along with it but even after suspicion had connected itself with this dress it was sufficient that I should appear unmasked at the head of the maskers to ensure them a friendly reception hence the facility with which death was inflicted and that unaccountable absence of any motion toward an alarm I took hold of my victim and he looked at me with smiling security our weapons were hid under our academic robes and even when we drew them out and at the moment of applying them to the threat they still supposed our gestures to be part of the pantomime we were performing did I relish this abuse of personal confidence in myself no I loathed it and I grieved for its necessity for my mother a phantom not seen with bodily eyes but ever present in my mind continually ascended before me and still I shouted aloud to my astounded victim this comes from the Jewish hound of hounds do you remember the Jewish whom you dishonored and the oaths which you broke in order that you might dishonor her and the righteous law which you violated and the cry of anguish from her son which you scoffed at who I was, what I avenged and whom I made every man aware and every woman before I punished them the details of the cases I need not repeat one or two I was obliged at the beginning to commit to my Jews the suspicion was thus from the first turned aside by the notoriety of my presence elsewhere but I took care that none suffered who had not either been upon the guilty list of magistrates who condemned the mother or of those who turned away with mockery from the supplication of the son it pleased God however to place a mighty temptation in my path which might have persuaded me to forego all thoughts of vengeance to forget my vow to forget the voices which invoked me from the grave this was Margaret Liebenheim oh how terrific appeared my duty of bloody retribution after her angels face and angels voice had calmed me with respect to her grandfather strange it is to mention that never did my innocent wife appear so lovely as precisely in the relation of granddaughter so beautiful was her goodness to the old man and so divine was the childlike innocence on her part contrasted with the guilty recollections associated with him for he was among the guiltiest toward my mother still I delayed his punishment to the last and for his child's sake I would have pardoned him nay I had resolved to do so when a fierce Jew who had a deep malignity toward this man swore that he would accomplish his vengeance at all events and perhaps might be obliged to include Margaret in the ruin and my side adhered to the original scheme then I yielded for circumstances this man with momentary power but the night fixed on was one in which I had reason to know that my wife would be absent for so I had myself arranged with her and the unhappy counter arrangement I do not yet understand let me add that the sole purpose of my clandestine marriage was to sting her grandfather's mind with the belief that his family had been dishonored even as he had dishonored mine he learned as I took care that he should that his granddaughter carried about with her the promises of a mother and did not know that she had the sanction of a wife this discovery made him in one day become eager for the marriage he had previously opposed and the discovery also embittered the misery of his death at that moment I attempted to think only of my mother's wrongs but in spite of all I could do this old man appeared to me in the light of Margaret's grandfather and had I been left to myself he would have been saved as it was never was horror equal to mine when I met her flying to his sucker I had relied upon her absence in the misery of that moment when her eye fell upon me in the very act of seizing her grandfather far transcended all else that I have suffered in these terrific scenes she fainted in my arms and I and another carried her upstairs in procured water meantime her grandfather had been murdered even while Margaret fainted I had however under the fear of discovery though never anticipating a re-encounter with herself forstalled the explanation requisite in such a case to make my conduct intelligible I had told her under feigned names the story of my mother and my sisters she knew their wrongs she had heard me contend for the right of vengeance consequently in our parting interview one word only was required to place myself in a new position to her thoughts I needed only to say I was that son that unhappy mother so miserably degraded and outraged was mine as to the jailer he was met by a party of us not suspecting that any of us could be connected with the family to talk of the most hideous details with regard to my poor bear niece the child had not as he had insinuated aided her own degradation but had nobly sustained the dignity of her sex and her family such advantages as the monster pretended to have gained over her sick, desolate and laterally delirious were by his own confession not obtained without violence that was too much 40,000 lives had he possessed them could not have gratified my thirst for revenge yet had he but showed courage he should have died the death of a soldier but the wretch showed cowardice the most abject in but you know his fate now then all is finished and human nature is avenged yet if you complain of the bloodshed and the terror think of the wrongs which created my rights think of the sacrifice by which I gave a tenfold strength to those rights think of the necessity for a dreadful concussion and shock to society in order to carry my lesson into the councils of princes this will now have been affected and ye victims of dishonor will be glorified in your deaths you will not have suffered in vain without a monument sleep therefore sister berenice sleep gentle marion in peace and thou noble mother let the outrageous sown in thy dishonor rise again and blossom in wild harvests of honour for the women of thy afflicted race sleep daughters of Jerusalem in the sanctity of your sufferings now if it be possible even more beloved daughter of a christian fold whose company was too soon denied to him in life upon thy grave to receive him who in the hour of death wishes to remember no title which he wore on earth but that of thy chosen and adoring lover max million end of the avenger