MAS.

Auckland Star, Volume XIX, Issue 142, 16 June 1888, Page 1 (Supplement)

MAS.

By 0. E. Hugo.

[Socrates, when he looked upon a handsome youth, exclaimed: "Say something, that I may see you," for he judged the soul to he in the voice.]

I was judged to have been a madman ere I became a murderer, and hence I escaped the scaffold for a worse fate—that of being incarcerated in a madhouse. My faculties are perfectly sound, and I can reason a good deal more correctly than the learned doctor who shakes his heal in the most imbecile manner whenever I attempt to convince him of my sanity. Monomania they call it, but may not this often mean that certain ideas and faculties are more acute and highly developed than they are in the rest of mankind 1 May it not be the monomaniac sees more and further, or remembers more clearly, than others ? Because I possess a vividness and distinctness of recollections— which in the minds of others are^-vague and undefined—l am termed mad.

Have not most men and women at certain times in their life looked upon scenes which seemed — even in the minutest details — strikingly familiar to them, and yet they know perfectly well they have never during existence seen them before ? Here the thread is lost. The gap between the present and the past experience is unbridgeable; but in my case the memory of facts and events which transpired in a former existence is as vivid as that of my childhood's joys. Intervening ages of forgetfulness—centuries of sleep, connect the tragis events of a former existence with the events which led to my present fate.

Mr Haviland was a constant guest ab our house. My wife, being very musical, took a great pleasure in his society, for he was a thorough musician. I always received him coldly, for I could not overcome a strong dislike to him—a dislike that sometimes grew to a wild ferocious rage, so that at times I felt compelled to leave the room, or else I would have leaped upon him like a wild beast and torn him to pieces. Often I thought how delicious it would be to tear his throat asunder with my teeth. •

I was not jealous—no ; not in any way. It was his voice that maddened me. •Grattez le Russe et vous trouverez le Tar tare,' and with equal truth it may be said that beneath the veneer of polish produced by ages of civilisation there lies in all of us the savage barbarism of our brutal progenitors, ready to manifest itself whenever circumstances tend to call it forth ; and the voice of Haviland —as it cut my nerves like the sound of the tearing of calico—aroused all the bloodthirsty desires of the tiger-nature slumbering within. One day when Haviland was playing, one of those ferocious fits came over me and compelled me to leave. I went to my library and took down a book. It was Catullus. I have always been fond of the Latin poets. I began reading the wild passionate poem, " De Atye," and reached the words "Sedubi oris aurei Sol radientibus oculis." Here a flood of memories rushed upon me ; I remembered the whole course of a life I had lived long, long ago when the Roman eagle spread its wings over the world.

At times during abnormal conditions of the mind our usual conceptions of time are completely altered. Indeed, what is time but the sequence of mental operations 1 Drowning people see their whole life pass in review before them, and years are compressed into seconds. De Quincey passed centuries during his opium-sleep; so I passed through the whole period of a former life ere the piece I had heard started by Haviland when I left the room ceased,

I shall not describe in detail the remembrance of my childhood and youth in the eternal seven-hilled city, then in its height of architectural glory. One thing strikes me as peculiar—l was never ambitious. When walking among the statues of the mightydead, no emulation stirred my heart. My ideal of happiness—from the time I began to form an ideal—was a life of repose and tranquillity, among green fields and umbrageous foliage, surrounded by faces dear to me and reflecting a reciprocal goodwill to me. When I married the beautiful woman who, ever since I had known her, made the world seem more beautiful in my eyes, I thought that I was entering upon the realisation of this ideal.

We were very happy in our villa, far away from the bustle of the great city, the very air of which filled the mind with a restlessness like the sea's moaning for Sleep that never comes.

We were very happy during the two first years of our mai-ried life ; so happy that I often shuddered to contemplate it, for I knew that the gods do not wish men to be too happy. I knew that the magnitude of a present joy is proportionate to the depth of approaching sorrow ; that the radiance of a sunny day bespeaks subsequent clouds and storms.

The end came,

Sulplicius Galerius returned from Athens, and as a friend of my boyhood, he became a frequent guest in my house. It is strange that I am unable to recall to mind what his features were like. Whenever I see him in my mind's eye he appears to wear a cloud-veil over his face. I remember only his voice, and it was that of Haviland.

Why should I dwell too long upon the description of my sufferings'-? Why minutely retrace the current of events which carriedme over the precipice? Enough to say that that happened which in ages before and in ages after has happened so often. The friend repaid hospitality by blighting the life of the man who showed him this hospitality. The guUty couple fled together. I eon-

eluded that they had gone to Nola, where Galerius had an estate. With my brain on fire and my dagger sharpened, I set out in pursuit of them. It was late in the evening when I reached ; the place. Upon inquiring from one of tha, slaves I ascertained that his master and mistress had arrived the same day, and had retired, weary after the journey. Representing thab I had a message which concerned the life of his master, and which rendered it necessary that I should see him at once without being announced, the slave brought me to the bed-room door, where ha left v' on my order. lo ed the door. The room was dark, but tut- iioavy breathing guided me to the ; bed. It took less than a second to thrust the dagger into the heart's of both. I struck a light that my eyes might feasb ■ upon the sight of the gory corpses. The flickering " sulphurata " cast its light upon the two pale faces. Inexorable fates ! I thought I should go mad. The faces were strange to me. I had killed the wrong persons.

It was afterwards made plain to me. Galerius had a brother in Gaul, who, on a journey to Rome with his young wife, had stayed at his brothers'.

I passed through these horrible scenes in less than a quarter of an hour. Haviland had not yet finished playing his piece when I arose from my reverie and returned to consciousness of presentsurroundings. The look of my face frightened me as I saw its reflection in the mirror. I heard Havilana laughing. That accursed voice awakened the fury that had slumbered for nearly twenty centuries.

"This time, I muttered, ceed in silencing it." I went into the yard, snatched an axe and rushed into the room where Haviland was sitting on the sofa beside my wife. The axe descended on his head directed with all the strength of jay rage, and the sound of the crushing of the skull was the sweetest music that ever fell upon my ear.

" I shall sue