University of Virginia Library

3. CHAPTER III.

A BLOW. This was the blasting thought which filled
Claude's mind as he bent his steps he scarce knew
whither. He was in a state of agitation which he had
never experienced before. He had no longer any
power over his reason. His thoughts were tossed to
and fro by a whirlwind. He felt, for the moment, that
he would commit any crime, could he but tear the
heart out of Elkington's bosom! He did not recognise

himself. He appeared in his own eyes a demon,
so dreadfully does unrestrained passion metamorphose
even the most rational. All his calm grandeur—his
sense of right—his reasoning powers—his resolutions
of duty—his dependance on God—they were all gone.
There was the same difference between his mind then,
and as it usually was in its peaceful moments, as between
the tall and gently advancing ship, with sails set,
each rope in its place, obedient to the helm, and rising
and falling on the summer waves; and the same
vessel in a fearful tempest, its sails rent to pieces,
its masts down, its rudder broken, and its deck swept
by huge waves which threaten instant destruction.
He could only think one thought — he could only
breathe one word—A blow!

He thought to seek Elkington and sacrifice him on
the spot.

He resolved to destroy himself instantly.

He found himself at length at home. He went to
his room, he flung himself on his bed, but it heaved
beneath him, and fire flashed from his eyes and temples,
and faces of a laughing crowd jeered and grinned
around, and the finger of the scornful Elkington pointed
at him, and people shouted in his ear in all sorts of
tones, “A blow! a blow!” The voice of hate muttered
it; it was shrieked as if by despair; friendship
seemed to utter it with an inflection of inquiry and incredulity;
it came to him with the laugh of childhood
and from the scornful lips of women—“A blow! a
blow!”

“It is a dream!” he murmured, and he arose from
his bed. The heat in his body was intolerable. The
very air he breathed seemed hot and burning. He
threw off his coat, his vest; he unloosed his cravat and
shirt-collar, and sat down by the open window. But
he could not sit still—he could not lie—he could not
walk. The narrow room oppressed him by its limits;
and he strided to and fro, turning against the walls as
a wearied and enraged lion paces the small floor of

his iron cage, with a tread and a heart that should be
upon the burning desert, or the unexplored, unbounded
wood. At length he threw himself upon the naked
floor, conscious that movement only fanned the fire
within him.

“A blow—a blow! Let me think of it!”

And, for a moment, the whirl and tumult of his mind
subsided a little, and gave place to something like continuous
reflection.

“No,” he thought, “it is a dream—that blasting
stroke upon my brow—a dream?” He raised his hand
to his face. He became conscious of a dim sense of
pain now for the first time, and, on passing his fingers
over it, he found the eye much swollen. He closed
the other, and looked out of the window with that
one injured. It was nearly deprived of sight. A vague
appearance of light was all he could distinguish. The
beautiful transparent air—the bending sky—the moon
riding calmly over all the shocks of earth—they were
lost and fused together, without beauty or separate distinctness.
The idea struck him that perhaps the wound
was irreparable; perhaps the eye was blind. No!
no! it was no dream! It was a bitter, deliberate,
public, burning insult. It was the most blighting act
of scorn and shame—the fullest of humiliation—the
most palpable and memorable—that which could be
the least overlooked, or pardoned, or forgotten by mankind—of
all the wrongs that one human being could
inflict upon another. It was irreparable. He who bestowed
it could not undo it. Time—distance—virtue
—could not wash it out. It was a stain eternal. All
great Neptune's ocean could not clean its blackened
traces—there was but one thing—

He started to his feet.

It was blood. It was that great, mysterious, sacred
specific, the touch of which blasts ordinary hands—
the very half-forgotten stain of which betrays ancientest
crime—drags the murderer to light—raises the very
dead out of their fleshless graves, till vengeance has

had her banquet. The spot upon his forehead could
only be effaced—the flame in his heart could only be
quenched—by blood!

And he sat down and rested his elbows on a table,
and leaned his throbbing temples on his fists.

“Oh God!” he suddenly exclaimed, dropping on
his knee; “teach me—guide me—save me—my heart
is wild—my hand is lifted—give me some sign!”

He strove to pray—as was his custom on occasions
where his own sense of right wavered. But his heaving
imagination could form no address to the Supreme
Being. That serene power that sits above the clouds
seemed itself to have deserted him in his deep degradation.
He could not utter a prayer, or conceive one.
Strange things flitted before his eyes, and flapped their
wings in his face; and laughter, and shrieks, and hisses
rose once more around him, till the dark room seemed
crowded with evil spirits, in the full ecstasy of their orgies
over a lost one. He leaned again his forehead
upon the table, when suddenly a voice, as if of one of
these fiends, seemed to say,

“Yes, you are a coward! It is craven fear that
holds your hand. You are a canting, trembling hypocrite.
You deceive yourself with names of virtue
and illusions of religion—abject—disgraced—wretched
creature! No one else is deceived. Elkington is a
gallant fellow. You injured him like a scoundrel, and
then fled from him like a coward. You are afraid to
fight a duel. An unmanly sensibility and womanish
effeminacy is the secret of your convenient principles
—your puny virtue. Who made you a judge—a reformer—a
prophet? Who gave you light to see, what
none of the wise—the brave—the great can see? Who
teaches you to distinguish between what is right and
what is not—between what God commands and what
he forbids? Why not fight a duel? It is the custom!
It is a good custom. It is brave and manly. It
unmasks cowards and sneaking hypocrites. Fool!
look into your own heart, and see what its honest dictates

tell you of a blow. Every fibre of your trembling
frame quivered with it. Every faculty of your shrinking
soul fainted at it. Nature rose against it. A
blow! Since time began it is the badge of insult—the
mark of shame. It is a curse full of the accumulated
infamy of ages. The very beast turns at it. Its bodily
pain is but a type and faint shadow of its moral
ruin. Bear this one, and you will receive another—and
another—and another. Who hereafter will honour
you? who will love you? Outcast! the blood in your
veins is water—your heart is faint — you are not a
man—you have borne a blow!”