e moments when I felt disposed to put an end to my existence
by a leap from the tower window. Again, then, this curse that hung
over me was in full force. Again had that fatal number raised itself
before me like an iron wall, interposed between me and all earthly
happiness. Wearied out at length by the storm within me, I fell
asleep.

"As may be supposed, I was followed in my troubled slumbers by the
recollection of my misery. Each hour that struck awoke me out of the
most hideous dreams to a scarce less hideous reality. When midnight
came, and the hammer clanged upon the great bell, a strange fancy took
possession of my mind that it would this night strike Thirteen, and
that at the thirteenth stroke the clock, the tower, the city, and the
whole world, would crumble into atoms. Again I fell asleep and dreamt.
I thought that my head was changed into a mighty bronze bell, and that
I hung in the tower and heard the clock beside me strike Thirteen.
Then came the old schoolmaster, who yet, at the same time, had the
features of Elizabeth's father; and, as he drew near me, I saw that
the hammer he held in his hand was no hammer, but a large silver-bound
Bible. In my despair I made frightful efforts to cry out and to tell
him that I was no bell, but a man, and that he should not strike me;
but my voice refused its service and my tongue clove to my palate. The
greyhaired old man came up to me, and struck thirteen times on my
forehead, till my brains gushed out at my eyes.

"By daybreak the next morning I was two leagues from Stralsund, having
left a few hurried ill-written lines in my room, pleading I know not
what urgent family affairs, and a dislike to leave-taking, as excuses
for my sudden departure. Over field and meadow, through rivers and
forests, on I went, as though hell were at my heels, flying from my
destiny. But the further I got from Stralsund the more did I regret
all I left there--my beautiful and affectionate mistress, her
kind-hearted father, the peaceful happy life I led on the top of the
old tower. The vow I had made to fly from the haunts of men, and seek
in some desert the repose which my evil fate denied me among my
fellows, that vow became daily more difficult to keep. And yet I went
on, dreading to depart from my determination, lest I should encounter
some of those bitter deceptions and cruel disappointments that had
hitherto been my lot in life. Shame, too, at the manner in which I had
left the tower,