第18章

Thus, making his own actual serpent- if a serpent there actuallywas in his bosom- the type of each man's fatal error, or hoardedsin, or unquiet conscience, and striking his sting so unremorsefullyinto the sorest spot, we may well imagine that Roderick became thepest of the city. Nobody could elude him; none could withstand him. Hegrappled with the ugliest truth that he could lay his hand on, andcompelled his adversary to do the same. Strange spectacle in humanlife, where it is the instinctive effort of one and all to hidethose sad realities, and leave them undisturbed beneath a heap ofsuperficial topics, which constitute the materials of intercoursebetween man and man! It was not to be tolerated that Roderick Ellistonshould break through the tacit compact, by which the world has doneits best to secure repose, without relinquishing evil. The victimsof his malicious remarks, it is true, had brothers enough to keep themin countenance; for, by Roderick's theory, every mortal bosom harboredeither a brood of small serpents, or one overgrown monster, that haddevoured all the rest. Still, the city could not bear this newapostle. It was demanded by nearly all, and particularly by the mostrespectable inhabitants, that Roderick should no longer be permittedto violate the received rules of decorum, by obtruding his ownbosom-serpent to the public gaze, and dragging those of decentpeople from their lurking-places.

Accordingly, his relatives interfered, and placed him in aprivate asylum for the insane. When the news was noised abroad, it wasobserved that many persons walked the streets with freer countenances,and covered their breasts less carefully with their hands.

His confinement, however, although it contributed not a little tothe peace of the town, operated unfavorably upon Roderick himself.

In solitude, his melancholy grew more black and sullen. He spent wholedays- indeed, it was his sole occupation- in communing with theserpent. A conversation was sustained, in which, as it seemed, thehidden monster bore a part, though unintelligibly to the listeners,and inaudible, except in a hiss. Singular as it may appear, thesufferer had now contracted a sort of affection for his tormentor;mingled, however, with the intensest loathing and horror. Nor weresuch discordant emotions incompatible; each, on the contrary, impartedstrength and poignancy to its opposite. Horrible love- horribleantipathy- embracing one another in his bosom, and bothconcentrating themselves upon a being that had crept into hisvitals, or been engendered there, and which was nourished with hisfood, and lived upon his life, and was as intimate with him as his ownheart, and yet was the foulest of all created things! But not the lesswas it the true type of a morbid nature.

Sometimes, in his moments of rage and bitter hatred against thesnake and himself, Roderick determined to be the death of him, even atthe expense of his own life. Once he attempted it by starvation.

But, while the wretched man was on the point of famishing, the monsterseemed to feed upon his heart, and to thrive and wax gamesome, as ifit were his sweetest and most congenial diet. Then he privily took adose of active poison, imagining that it would not fail to kill eitherhimself, or the devil that possessed him, or both together. Anothermistake; for if Roderick had not yet been destroyed by his ownpoisoned heart, nor the snake by gnawing it, they had little to fearfrom arsenic or corrosive sublimate. Indeed, the venomous pestappeared to operate as an antidote against all other poisons. Thephysicians tried to suffocate the fiend with tobacco-smoke. Hebreathed it as freely as if it were his native atmosphere. Again, theydrugged their patient with opium, and drenched him with intoxicatingliquors, hoping that the snake might thus be reduced to stupor, andperhaps be ejected from the stomach. They succeeded in renderingRoderick insensible; but, placing their hands upon his breast, theywere inexpressibly horror-stricken to feel the monster wriggling,twining, and darting to and fro, within his narrow limits, evidentlyenlivened by the opium or alcohol, and incited to unusual feats ofactivity. Thenceforth, they gave up all attempts at cure orpalliation. The doomed sufferer submitted to his fate, resumed hisformer loathsome affection for the bosom-fiend, and spent wholemiserable days before a looking-glass, with his mouth wide open,watching, in hope and horror, to catch a glimpse of the snake'shead, far down within his throat. It is supposed that he succeeded;for the attendants once heard a frenzied shout, and rushing into theroom, found Roderick lifeless upon the floor.

He was kept but little longer under restraint. After minuteinvestigation, the medical directors of the asylum decided that hismental disease did not amount to insanity, nor would warrant hisconfinement; especially as its influence upon his spirits wasunfavorable, and might produce the evil which it was meant toremedy. His eccentricities were doubtless great- he had habituallyviolated many of the customs and prejudices of society; but theworld was not, without surer ground, entitled to treat him as amadman. On this decision of such competent authority, Roderick wasreleased, and had returned to his native city, the very day before hisencounter with George Herkimer.