I think I shall have to spend the remainder of my life in America or the East.

The consciousness of being continually hunted, that at any moment I may be confronted with a murderer and perchance be murdered, is too trying for a man of my age.

To tell the truth, I am beginning to feel that I have nerves; though my elixir delays death, it does not insure perpetual youth; and propitiating these people is out of the question--I have tried it.
Three years after my return from Venezuela, Guiseppe, son of the man whom I killed at Caracas, tried to kill me at Amsterdam, fired at me point-blank with a duelling pistol, and so nearly succeeded that the bullet grazed my cheek and cut a piece out of my ear.

Yet I not only pardoned him, but bribed the police to let him go, and gave him money.
Well, seven years later he repeated the attempt at Naples, waylaid me at night and attacked me with a dagger, but I also happened to be armed, and Guiseppi Griscelli died.
At Paris, too--indeed, while the empire lasted--I found it expedient to shun France altogether.

At that time Corsicans were greatly in favor; several members of the Griscelli family belonged to the secret police and had great influence, and as I never took an _alias_ and my name is not common, I was tracked like a criminal.