I know not why I felt a mixed
sensation of despair and tenderness, excepting that, ever called
a bastard, a bastard appeared to me an object of the greatest
compassion in creation.
"I communicated this dreadful circumstance to my master, who
was almost equally alarmed at the intelligence; for he feared his
wife, and public censure at the meeting. After some weeks of
deliberation had elapsed, I in continual fear that my altered shape
would be noticed, my master gave me a medicine in a phial, which
he desired me to take, telling me, without any circumlocution, for
what purpose it was designed. I burst into tears, I thought it
was killing myself--yet was such a self as I worth preserving?
He cursed me for a fool, and left me to my own reflections.
I could not resolve to take this infernal potion; but I
wrapped it up in an old gown, and hid it in a corner of my box.
"Nobody yet suspected me, because they had been accustomed to
view me as a creature of another species. But the threatening
storm at last broke over my devoted head--never shall I forget it!
One Sunday evening when I was left, as usual, to take care of the
house, my master came home intoxicated, and I became the prey of
his brutal appetite.
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