Then the paroxysm sometimes ceased
for a few moments, and I would sink back on my pallet, drenched with
perspiration, utterly exhausted, and feeling a dreadful certainty of
the renewal of my torments.
By the mercy of God I survived this awful seizure; and when I rose, a
weak, broken-down man, and surveyed my ghastly features in a glass, I
thought of my mother, and asked myself how I had obeyed the
instructions I had received from her lips, and to what advantage I had
turned the lessons she had taught me. I remembered her prayers and
tears, thought of what I had been but a few short months before, and
contrasted my situation with what it then was. Oh! how keen were my
own rebukes; and in the excitement of the moment I resolved to lead a
better life, and abstain from the accursed cup.
For about a month, terrified by what I had suffered, I adhered to my
resolution, then my wife came home, and in my joy at her return I flung
my good resolutions to the wind, and foolishly fancying that I could
now restrain my appetite, which had for a whole month remained in
subjection, I took a glass of brandy. That glass aroused the
slumbering demon, who would not be satisfied by so tiny a libation.
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