TRUE! nervous, very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but why WILL 你 say that I am mad? The disease had sharpened my senses, not destroyed, not dulled them. Above all was the sense of hearing acute. I heard all things in the heaven and in the earth. I heard many things in hell. How then am I mad? Hearken! and observe how healthily, how calmly, I can tell 你 the whole story.

It is impossible to say how first the idea entered my brain, but, once conceived, it haunted me 日 and night. Object there was none. Passion there was none. I loved the old man. He had never wronged me. He...