A fiend had snatched from me every hope of future happiness; no creature had ever been so miserable as I was; so frightful an event is single in the history of man.

But why should I dwell upon the incidents that followed this last overwhelming event?
Mine has been a tale of horrors; I have reached their acme, and what I must now relate can but be tedious to you.

Know that, one by one, my friends were snatched away; I was left desolate.

My own strength is exhausted, and I must tell, in a few words, what remains of my hideous narration.

I arrived at Geneva.