The Facts Concerning The Recent Carnival of Crime in Connecticut | Page 6

had disloyally allowed
old friends to be traduced in my hearing, and been too craven to utter a
word in their defense. He reminded me of many dishonest things which
I had done; of many which I had procured to be done by children and
other irresponsible persons; of some which I had planned, thought upon,
and longed to do, and been kept from the performance by fear of
consequences only. With exquisite cruelty he recalled to my mind, item

by item, wrongs and unkindnesses I had inflicted and humiliations I
had put upon friends since dead, "who died thinking of those injuries,
maybe, and grieving over them," he added, by way of poison to the
stab.
"For instance," said he, "take the case of your younger brother, when
you two were boys together, many a long year ago. He always lovingly
trusted in you with a fidelity that your manifold treacheries were not
able to shake. He followed you about like a dog, content to suffer
wrong and abuse if he might only be with you; patient under these
injuries so long as it was your hand that inflicted them. The latest
picture you have of him in health and strength must be such a comfort
to you! You pledged your honor that if he would let you blindfold him
no harm should come to him; and then, giggling and choking over the
rare fun of the joke, you led him to a brook thinly glazed with ice, and
pushed him in; and how you did laugh! Man, you will never forget the
gentle, reproachful look he gave you as he struggled shivering out, if
you live a thousand years! Oh! you see it now, you see it now!"
"Beast, I have seen it a million times, and shall see it a million more!
and may you rot away piecemeal, and suffer till doomsday what I suffer
now, for bringing it back to me again!"
The dwarf chuckled contentedly, and went on with his accusing history
of my career. I dropped into a moody, vengeful state, and suffered in
silence under the merciless lash. At last this remark of his gave me a
sudden rouse:
"Two months ago, on a Tuesday, you woke up, away in the night, and
fell to thinking, with shame, about a peculiarly mean and pitiful act of
yours toward a poor ignorant Indian in the wilds of the Rocky
Mountains in the winter of eighteen hundred and--"
"Stop a moment, devil! Stop! Do you mean to tell me that even my
very thoughts are not hidden from you?"
"It seems to look like that. Didn't you think the thoughts I have just
mentioned?"
"If I didn't, I wish I may never breathe again! Look here, friend--look
me in the eye. Who are you?"
"Well, who do you think?"
"I think you are Satan himself. I think you are the devil."
"No."

"No? Then who can you be?"
"Would you really like to know?"
"Indeed I would."
"Well, I am your Conscience!"
In an instant I was in a blaze of joy and exultation. I sprang at the
creature, roaring:
"Curse you, I have wished a hundred million times that you were
tangible, and that I could get my hands on your throat once! Oh, but I
will wreak a deadly vengeance on--"
Folly! Lightning does not move more quickly than my Conscience did!
He darted aloft so suddenly that in the moment my fingers clutched the
empty air he was already perched on the top of the high bookcase, with
his thumb at his nose in token of derision. I flung the poker at him, and
missed. I fired the bootjack. In a blind rage I flew from place to place,
and snatched and hurled any missile that came handy; the storm of
books, inkstands, and chunks of coal gloomed the air and beat about the
manikin's perch relentlessly, but all to no purpose; the nimble figure
dodged every shot; and not only that, but burst into a cackle of sarcastic
and triumphant laughter as I sat down exhausted. While I puffed and
gasped with fatigue and excitement, my Conscience talked to this
effect:
"My good slave, you are curiously witless--no, I mean
characteristically so. In truth, you are always consistent, always
yourself, always an ass. Other wise it must have occurred to you that if
you attempted this murder with a sad heart and a heavy conscience, I
would droop under the burdening in influence instantly. Fool, I should
have weighed a ton, and could not have budged from the floor; but
instead, you are so cheerfully anxious to kill me that your conscience is
as light as a feather; hence I am away up here out of your reach. I can
almost respect a