I knew that madness was mixed up with my very blood, and the marrow of my bones! that one generation had passed away without the pestilence appearing among them, and that I was the first in whom it would revive.

I knew it must be so: that so it always had been, and so it ever would be: and when I cowered in some obscure corner of a crowded room, and saw men whisper, and point, and turn their eyes towards me, I knew they were telling each other of the doomed madman; and I slunk away again to mope in solitude.
'I did this for years; long, long years they were.

The nights here are long sometimes--very long; but they are nothing to the restless nights, and dreadful dreams I had at that time.

It makes me cold to remember them.

Large dusky forms with sly and jeering faces crouched in the corners of the room, and bent over my bed at night, tempting me to madness.