The sudden outbreak of so many tongues in that dumb chamber staggered
him. He began to bestir himself, going to and fro with the candle,
beleaguered by moving shadows, and startled to the soul by chance
reflections. In many rich mirrors, some of home designs, some from
Venice or Amsterdam, he saw his face repeated and repeated, as it were
an army of spies; his own eyes met and detected him; and the sound of
his own steps, lightly as they fell, vexed the surrounding quiet. And
still as he continued to fill his pockets, his mind accused him, with
a sickening iteration[7], of the thousand faults of his design. He
should have chosen a more quiet hour; he should have prepared an
alibi; he should not have used a knife; he should have been more
cautious, and only bound and gagged the dealer, and not killed him; he
should have been more bold, and killed the servant also; he should
have done all things otherwise; poignant regrets, weary, incessant
toiling of the mind to change what was unchangeable, to plan what was
now useless, to be the architect of the irrevocable past. Meanwhile,
and behind all this activity, brute terrors, like the scurrying of
rats in a deserted attic, filled the more remote chambers of his brain
with riot; the hand of the constable would fall heavy on his shoulder,
and his nerves would jerk like a hooked fish; or he beheld, in
galloping defile, the dock, the prison, the gallows, and the black
coffin.
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