It seemed to me that
under the mutilations which the scalpel had inflicted on the body, I
should find the answer to more than one enigma--might solve some of the
secrets of life.
The prospect of this visit had the charm of a pleasure party to me. I
made it a holiday and awaited the hour with impatience.
But, on arriving, when I found myself in that place chill and gloomy as
the tomb; when I felt choked by the mephitic gases that arose from this
seat of infection; when I found myself in the presence of a heap of
corpses mutilated by the scalpel, disfigured by putrefaction and
partially devoured by rats and worms; when, beneath tables laden with
these horrible remains, I saw mean tubs filled with human entrails
mingled with limbs and heads severed from their trunks; when I felt
fragments of flesh reduced to the state of filthy mud, clinging to my
feet, my heart throbbed violently, and I was overcome by an
indescribable sense of repulsion.
"What," I said to myself, "those shapeless and putrifying masses have
lived! They have thought, they have loved! And, who would believe it
from the horror and disgust that they inspire, they have been loved,
cherished, perhaps adored! Ah! if, as some think, the soul is not
immortal, if so many aspirations, so many schemes, so many hopes are to
end here--what is man?"
But yet more lamentable food for thought was reserved for me: the
spectacle of a ruin yet more profound than those which my eyes could
scarce endure, was to appear before me in all its hideousness.
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