He told himself that it was the enmity of man, and not the vengeance of heaven, that had thus plunged him into the deepest misery.
He consigned his unknown persecutors to the most horrible tortures he could imagine, and found them all insufficient, because after torture came death, and after death, if not repose, at least the boon of unconsciousness.
By dint of constantly dwelling on the idea that tranquillity was death, and if punishment were the end in view other tortures than death must be invented, he began to reflect on suicide.

Unhappy he, who, on the brink of misfortune, broods over ideas like these! Before him is a dead sea that stretches in azure calm before the eye; but he who unwarily ventures within its embrace finds himself struggling with a monster that would drag him down to perdition.

Once thus ensnared, unless the protecting hand of God snatch him thence, all is over, and his struggles but tend to hasten his destruction.

This state of mental anguish is, however, less terrible than the sufferings that precede or the punishment that possibly will follow.

There is a sort of consolation at the contemplation of the yawning abyss, at the bottom of which lie darkness and obscurity.
Edmond found some solace in these ideas.