The Trial [215]
period, and it is plain that I must think of nothing that needs nerve or presence of mind!' he added, in a tone of quiet dejection. 'You are hardly in a state to judge of your nerve, after sleepless nights and the loss of your teeth. Besides, there is a difference between the real and imaginary, as you have found; you who, in the terrible time of real anticipation, were a marvel in that very point of physical resolution.' 'I could keep thoughts out _then_,' he said; 'I was master of myself.' 'You mean that the solitude unhinged you? Yet I always found you brave and cheerful.' 'The sight of you made me so. Nay, the very sight or sound of any human being made a difference! And now you all treat me as if I had borne it well, but I did not. It was all that was left me to do, but indeed I did not.' 'What do you mean by bearing it well?' said the Doctor, in the tone in which he would have questioned a patient. 'Living--as--as I thought I should when I made up my mind to life instead of death,' said Leonard; 'but all that went away. I let it slip, and instead came everything possible of cowardice, and hatred, and bitterness. I lost my hold of certainty what I had done or what I had not, and the horror, the malice, the rebellion that used to come on me in that frightful light white silent place, were unutterable! I wish you would not have me among you all, when I know there can hardly be a wicked thought that did not surge over me.' 'To be conquered.' 'To conquer me,' he said, in utter lassitude. 'Stay. Did they ever make you offend wilfully?' 'There was nothing I could offend in.' 'Your tasks of work, for instance.' 'I often had a savage frantic abhorrence of it, but I always brought myself to do it, and it did me good; it would have done more if it had been less mechanical. But it often was only the instinct of not degrading myself like the lowest prisoners.' 'Well, there was your conduct to the officials.' 'Oh! one could not help being amenable to them, they were so kind. Besides, these demons never came over me except when I was alone.' 'And one thing more, Leonard; did these demons, as you well call them, invade your devotions?' 'Never,' he answered readily; then recalling himself--'not at the set times I mean, though they often made me think the comfort I had there mere hypocrisy and delusion, and be nearly ready to give over what depended on myself. Chapel was always joy; it brought change and the presence of others, if nothing else; and that would in itself have been enough to banish the hauntings.' 'And they did not interfere with your own readings?' said the Doctor, preferring this to the word that he meant. 'I could not let them,' said Leonard. 'There was always refreshment; it was only before and after that all would seem mockery, profanation, or worse still, delusion and superstition--as if my very condition proved that there was none to hear.' 'The hobgoblin had all but struck the book out of Christian's hand,' said Dr. May, pressing his grasp on Leonard's shuddering arm. 'You are only telling me that you have been in the valley of the shadow of death; you have not told me that you lost the rod and staff.' 'No, I must have been helped, or I should not have my senses now.' And perhaps it was the repressed tremor of voice and frame rather than the actual words that induced the Doctor to reply--'That is the very point, Leonard. It is the temptation to us doctors to ascribe too much to the physical and too little to the moral; and perhaps you would be more convinced by Mr. Wilmot than by me; but I do verily believe that all the anguish you describe could and would have been insanity if grace had not been given you to conquer it. It was a tottering of the mind upon its balance; and, humanly speaking, it was the self-control that enabled you to force yourself to your duties, and find relief in them, which saved you. I should just as soon call David conquered because the "deep waters had come in over his soul."' 'You can never know how true those verses are,' said Leonard, with another shiver. 'At least I