On Murder (Oxford World's Classics)

by Thomas De Quincey

  Then came—But enough! From pity, from sympathy, from counsel, and from consolation, and from scorn—from each of these alike the poor stricken deer* ‘recoiled into the wilderness;’* he fled for days together into solitary parts of the forest; fled, as I still hoped and prayed, in good earnest and for a long farewell; but, alas! no: still he returned to the haunts of his ruined happiness and his buried hopes, at each return looking more like the wreck of his former self; and once I heard a penetrating monk observe, whose convent stood near to the city gates—‘There goes one ready equally for doing or suffering,* and of whom we shall soon hear that he is involved in some great catastrophe—it may be, of deep calamity—it may be, of memorable guilt.’

  So stood matters amongst us; January was drawing to its close; the weather was growing more and more winterly; high winds, piercingly cold, were raving through our narrow streets; and still the spirit of social festivity bade defiance to the storms which sang through our ancient forests. From the accident of our magistracy being selected from the tradesmen of the city, the hospitalities of the place were far more extensive than would otherwise have happened; for every member of the Corporation gave two annual entertainments in his official character. And such was the rivalship which prevailed, that often one quarter of the year’s income was spent upon these galas. Nor was any ridicule thus incurred; for the costliness of the entertainment was understood to be an expression of official pride, done in honour of the city, not as an effort of personal display. It followed, from the spirit in which these half-yearly dances originated, that, being given on the part of the city, every stranger of rank was marked out as a privileged guest, and the hospitality of the community would have been equally affronted by failing to offer or by failing to accept the invitation.

  Hence it had happened the Russian guardsman had been introduced into many a family which otherwise could not have hoped for such a distinction. Upon the evening at which I am now arrived, the 22d of January, 1816, the whole city, in its wealthier classes, was assembled beneath the roof of a tradesman who had the heart of a prince. In every point our entertainment was superb; and I remarked that the music was the finest I had heard for years. Our host was in joyous spirits; proud to survey the splendid company he had gathered under his roof; happy to witness their happiness; elated in their elation. Joyous was the dance—joyous were all faces that I saw—up to midnight, very soon after which time supper was announced; and that also, I think, was the most joyous of all the banquets I ever witnessed. The accomplished guardsman outshone himself in brilliancy; even his melancholy relaxed. In fact, how could it be otherwise? near to him sate Margaret Liebenheim—hanging upon his words—more lustrous and bewitching than ever I had beheld her. There she had been placed by the host; and every body knew why. That is one of the luxuries attached to love; all men cede their places with pleasure; women make way; even she herself knew, though not obliged to know, why she was seated in that neighbourhood; and took her place—if with a rosy suffusion upon her cheeks—yet with fulness of happiness at her heart.

  The guardsman pressed forward to claim Miss Liebenheim’s hand for the next dance; a movement which she was quick to favour, by retreating behind one or two parties from a person who seemed coming towards her. The music again began to pour its voluptuous tides through the bounding pulses of the youthful company. Again the flying feet of the dancers began to respond to the measures; again the mounting spirit of delight began to fill the sails of the hurrying night with steady inspiration. All went happily. Already had one dance finished; some were pacing up and down, leaning on the arms of their partners; some were reposing from their exertions; when——Oh Heavens! what a shriek! what a gathering tumult!

  Every eye was bent towards the doors—every eye strained forwards to discover what was passing. But there, every moment, less and less could be seen, for the gathering crowd more and more intercepted the view; so much the more was the ear at leisure for the shrieks redoubled upon shrieks. Miss Liebenheim had moved downwards to the crowd. From her superior height she overlooked all the ladies at the point where she stood. In the centre stood a rustic girl, whose features had been familiar to her for some months. She had recently come into the city, and had lived with her uncle, a tradesman, not ten doors from Margaret’s own residence, partly on the terms of a kinswoman, partly as a servant on trial. At this moment she was exhausted with excitement and the nature of the shock she had sustained. Mere panic seemed to have mastered her; and she was leaning, unconscious and weeping, upon the shoulder of some gentleman who was endeavouring to soothe her. A silence of horror seemed to possess the company, most of whom were still unacquainted with the cause of the alarming interruption. A few, however, who had heard her first agitated words, finding that they waited in vain for a fuller explanation, now rushed tumultuously out of the ball-room to satisfy themselves on the spot. The distance was not great; and within five minutes several persons returned hastily, and cried out to the crowd of ladies that all was true which the young girl had said. ‘What was true?’ That her uncle Mr Weishaupt’s family had been murdered; that not one member of the family had been spared—viz.:—Mr Weishaupt himself and his wife, neither of them much above sixty, but both infirm beyond their years; two maiden sisters of Mr Weishaupt, from forty to forty-six years of age; and an elderly female domestic.

  An incident happened during the recital of these horrors, and of the details which followed, that furnished matter for conversation even in these hours when so thrilling interest had possession of all minds. Many ladies fainted; amongst them Miss Liebenheim; and she would have fallen to the ground but for Maximilian, who sprang forward and caught her in his arms. She was long of returning to herself; and during the agony of his suspense he stooped and kissed her pallid lips. That sight was more than could be borne by one who stood a little behind the group. He rushed forward, with eyes glaring like a tiger’s, and levelled a blow at Maximilian. It was poor maniacal Von Harrelstein, who had been absent in the forest for a week. Many people stepped forward and checked his arm, uplifted for a repetition of this outrage. One or two had some influence with him, and led him away from the spot; whilst, as to Maximilian, so absorbed was he that he had not so much as perceived the affront offered to himself. Margaret, on reviving, was confounded at finding herself so situated amidst a great crowd; and yet the prudes complained that there was a look of love exchanged between herself and Maximilian that ought not to have escaped her in such a situation. If they meant, by such a situation, one so public, it must be also recollected that it was a situation of excessive agitation; but if they alluded to the horrors of the moment, no situation more naturally opens the heart to affection and confiding love than the recoil from scenes of exquisite terror.

  An examination went on that night before the magistrates, but all was dark; although suspicion attached to a negro, named Aaron, who had occasionally been employed in menial services by the family, and had been in the house immediately before the murder. The circumstances were such as to leave every man in utter perplexity as to the presumption for and against him. His mode of defending himself, and his general deportment, were marked by the coolest, nay, the most sneering indifference. The first thing he did, on being acquainted with the suspicions against himself, was, to laugh ferociously, and, to all appearance, most cordially and unaffectedly. He demanded whether a poor man, like himself, would have left so much wealth as lay scattered abroad in that house, gold repeaters, massy plate, gold snuff boxes, untouched? That argument, certainly, weighed much in his favour. And yet again it was turned against him—for a magistrate asked him how he happened to know already that nothing had been touched. True it was, and a fact which had puzzled, no less than it had awed the magistrates, that upon their examination of the premises many rich articles of bijouterie,* jewellery, and personal ornaments had been found lying underanged, and apparently in their usual situations; articles so portable that in the very hastiest flight some might have been carried off. In particular
there was a crucifix of gold, enriched with jewels so large and rare, that of itself it would have constituted a prize of great magnitude. Yet this was left untouched, though suspended in a little oratory that had been magnificently adorned by the elder of the maiden sisters: there was an altar, in itself a splendid object, furnished with every article of the most costly material and workmanship, for the private celebration of mass. This crucifix, as well as every thing else in the little closet, must have been seen by one, at least, of the murderous party; for hither had one of the ladies fled; hither had one of the murderers pursued; she had clasped the golden pillars which supported the altar; had turned perhaps her dying looks upon the crucifix; for there, with one arm still wreathed about the altar foot, though in her agony she had turned round upon her face, did the elder sister lie when the magistrates first broke open the street-door. And upon the beautiful parquet, or inlaid floor which ran round the room, were still impressed the footsteps of the murderer. These, it was hoped, might furnish a clue to the discovery of one at least among the murderous band. They were rather difficult to trace accurately; those parts of the traces which lay upon the black tessellae* being less distinct in the outline than the others upon the white or coloured. Most unquestionably, so far as this went, it furnished a negative circumstance in favour of the negro, for the footsteps were very different in outline from his, and smaller, for Aaron was a man of colossal build. And as to his knowledge of the state in which the premises had been found, and his having so familiarly relied upon the fact of no robbery having taken place as an argument on his own behalf—he contended that he had himself been amongst the crowd that pushed into the house along with the magistrates; that, from his previous acquaintance with the rooms and their ordinary condition, a glance of the eye had been sufficient for him to ascertain the undisturbed condition of all the valuable property most obvious to the grasp of a robber; that, in fact, he had seen enough for his argument before he and the rest of the mob had been ejected by the magistrates; but finally, that, independently of all this, he had heard both the officers, as they conducted him, and all the tumultuous gatherings of people in the street, arguing for the mysteriousness of the bloody transaction upon that very circumstance of so much gold, silver, and jewels being left behind untouched.

  In six weeks or less from the date of this terrific event, the negro was set at liberty by a majority of voices amongst the magistrates. In that short interval other events had occurred, no less terrific and mysterious. In this first murder, though the motive was dark and unintelligible, yet the agency was not so; ordinary assassins apparently, and with ordinary means, had assailed a helpless and an unprepared family; had separated them; attacked them singly in flight (for in this first case all but one of the murdered persons appeared to have been making for the street-door); and in all this there was no subject for wonder, except the original one as to the motive. But now came a series of cases destined to fling this earliest murder into the shade. Nobody could now be unprepared; and yet the tragedies, henceforwards, which passed before us, one by one, in sad, leisurely, or in terrific groups, seemed to argue a lethargy like that of apoplexy in the victims, one and all. The very midnight of mysterious awe fell upon all minds.

  Three weeks had passed since the murder at Mr Weishaupt’s—three weeks the most agitated that had been known in this sequestered city. We felt ourselves solitary, and thrown upon our own resources; all combination with other towns being unavailing from their great distance. Our situation was no ordinary one. Had there been some mysterious robbers amongst us, the chances of a visit, divided amongst so many, would have been too small to distress the most timid; whilst to young and high-spirited people, with courage to spare for ordinary trials, such a state of expectation would have sent pulses of pleasurable anxiety amongst the nerves. But murderers! exterminating murderers!—clothed in mystery and utter darkness—these were objects too terrific for any family to contemplate with fortitude. Had these very murderers added to their functions those of robbery, they would have become less terrific; nine out of every ten would have found themselves discharged, as it were, from the roll of those who were liable to a visit; while such as knew themselves liable would have had warning of their danger in the fact of being rich; and would, from the very riches which constituted that danger, have derived the means of repelling it. But, as things were, no man could guess what it was that must make him obnoxious to the murderers. Imagination exhausted itself in vain guesses at the causes which could by possibility have made the poor Weishaupts objects of such hatred to any man. True, they were bigoted in a degree which indicated feebleness of intellect; but that wounded no man in particular, whilst to many it recommended them. True, their charity was narrow and exclusive, but to those of their own religious body it expanded munificently; and, being rich beyond their wants, or any means of employing wealth which their gloomy asceticism allowed, they had the power of doing a great deal of good amongst the indigent Papists of the suburbs. As to the old gentleman and his wife, their infirmities confined them to the house. Nobody remembered to have seen them abroad for years. How, therefore, or when, could they have made an enemy? And, with respect to the maiden sisters of Mr Weishaupt, they were simply weak-minded persons, now and then too censorious, but not placed in a situation to incur serious anger from any quarter, and too little heard of in society to occupy much of any body’s attention.

  Conceive, then, that three weeks have passed away, that the poor Weishaupts have been laid in that narrow sanctuary which no murderer’s voice will ever violate. Quiet has not returned to us, but the first flutterings of panic have subsided. People are beginning to respire freely again; and such another space of time would have cicatrised our wounds—when, hark! a church-bell rings out a loud alarm;—the night is starlight and frosty—the iron notes are heard clear, solemn, but agitated. What could this mean? I hurried to a room over the porter’s lodge, and, opening the window, I cried out to a man passing hastily below—‘What, in God’s name, is the meaning of this?’ It was a watchman belonging to our district. I knew his voice, he knew mine, and he replied in great agitation,—

  ‘It is another murder, sir, at the old town councillor’s, Albernass; and this time they have made a clear house of it.’

  ‘God preserve us! Has a curse been pronounced upon this city? What can be done? What are the magistrates going to do?’

  ‘I don’t know, sir. I have orders to run to the Black Friars, where another meeting is gathering. Shall I say you will attend, sir?’

  ‘Yes—no—stop a little. No matter, you may go on; I’ll follow immediately.’

  I went instantly to Maximilian’s room. He was lying asleep on a sofa, at which I was not surprised, for there had been a severe stag-chase in the morning. Even at this moment, I found myself arrested by two objects, and I paused to survey them. One was Maximilian himself. A person so mysterious took precedency of other interests even at a time like this; and especially by his features, which, composed in profound sleep, as sometimes happens, assumed a new expression—which arrested me chiefly by awaking some confused remembrance of the same features seen under other circumstances and in times long past; but where? This was what I could not recollect, though once before a thought of the same sort had crossed my mind. The other object of my interest was a miniature, which Maximilian was holding in his hand. He had gone to sleep apparently looking at this picture; and the hand which held it had slipped down upon the sofa, so that it was in danger of falling. I released the miniature from his hand, and surveyed it attentively; it represented a lady of sunny Oriental complexion, and features the most noble that it is possible to conceive. One might have imagined such a lady, with her raven locks and imperial eyes, to be the favourite sultana of some Amurath or Mahomet.* What was she to Maximilian, or what had she been? For, by the tear which I had once seen him drop upon this miniature when he believed himself unobserved, I conjectured that her dark tresses were already laid low, and her name among the list of vanishe
d things. Probably she was his mother, for the dress was rich with pearls, and evidently that of a person in the highest rank of court beauties. I sighed as I thought of the stern melancholy of her son, if Maximilian were he, as connected, probably, with the fate and fortunes of this majestic beauty; somewhat haughty, perhaps, in the expression of her fine features, but still noble—generous—confiding. Laying the picture on the table, I awoke Maximilian and told him of the dreadful news. He listened attentively, made no remark, but proposed that we should go together to the meeting of our quarter at the Black Friars. He coloured upon observing the miniature on the table, and, therefore, I frankly told him in what situation I had found it, and that I had taken the liberty of admiring it for a few moments. He pressed it tenderly to his lips, sighed heavily, and we walked away together.