The Last Day of a Condemned Man by Victor Hugo EPUB & PDF – eBook Details Online
- Status: Available for Free Download
- Author Name: Victor Hugo
- Book Genre: Classics, Cultural, European Literature, Fiction, France, French Literature
- ISBN # 9781843910077
- Date of Publication: 1829–
- PDF File Size: 952 KB
- EPUB File Size: 992 KB
Bicêtre
CONDEMNED TO DIE!
For five weeks this thought has dwelt within me, and this alone, congealing
my blood, bearing me down beneath its weight!
Once, and it seems as if it were years and not weeks ago, I was like other
men. Each day, each hour, each moment, was full. My mind was young and
active, and it delighted in fancies.
One after another they unrolled before me,
and I saw the rough and scanty stuff of which life is made, with its
embroidery of never-ending arabesques. There were young girls, fine copes
belonging to bishops, battles won, theatres full of life and light, and then
young girls again, and nocturnal promenades beneath the kindly arms of
chestnut-trees. My fancy always pictured fêtes.
I could dream of what pleased
me, for I was free then. Now I am a captive. My body is in chains, in a
dungeon. My mind is imprisoned in an idea—a horrible, bloody, wild idea! I
have but one thought, one conviction, one certainty: I am condemned to die!
Whatever I do, this dread thought is ever with me, like a ghost at my side,
alone and jealous, chasing away all other thoughts, face to face with my
wretched self, and touching me with its icy hands when I turn away and close
my eyes. It glides along every path where my soul would hide, it mingles like
a frightful refrain with every word I hear, it clings to the hideous bars of my
prison, it pursues me awake, it spies my troubled sleep, and creeps into my
dreams under the form of a knife.
I waken with a start, still pursued by it; I cry: “Ah, it is nothing but a
dream!”—but scarcely are my heavy eyes half opened, before I see the dread
thought written on the horrible reality which surrounds me, on the damp,
close floor of my cell, in the pale rays of my night-lamp, in the coarse wool of
my garments, on the sombre figure of the sentinel, with his cartridge-box
gleaming through the bars. It seems to me that even now, a voice whispers in
my ear: Condemned to die!
It was a beautiful morning in August. For three days my trial had been going
on; for three days my name and my crime had called together a crowd of
spectators, who swooped down upon the benches of the court-room like so
many crows around a corpse; for three days the phantasmagoria of judges,
witnesses, lawyers, and public prosecutors had been coming and going before
me, now grotesque, now bloody, but always dark and dreadful
The first two
nights I had not been able to sleep from anxiety and fright; but weariness,
physical and mental, brought me rest on the third. At midnight I had left the
judges, who were to come to a decision. I was taken back to the straw of my
dungeon; and I fell into a deep sleep, a sleep of forgetfulness. That was the
first peaceful moment I had had for many a day.
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