My mother
appeared to me in my troubled dreams, and talked to me as in life. Many
times in my slumber, and in my waking fancies did I see her pale, troubled
face, with her pitying eyes looking on me as from that bed of pain and
death, and at such times I reached out my hands toward her in mute pleading
for forgiveness, forgetting or not knowing that she was dead. But the
moment soon came when the truth was flashed through the blackness of night
upon me, and then my misery was more than I could bear. For years before
her death I had lain in my bed and listened to her moaning in her troubled
sleep, to the sighs which escaped from her heart and that of my father, and
I promised the God of my hoped-for salvation that if he would only let me
live I would no more give them pain. Cold, clammy sweat broke out over my
face, and my heart beat so low, and slow, and weak, that in very terror I
felt that my eyeballs were bursting from my head. Again and again I begged,
and plead, and prayed that God would spare me and let me live until I could
convince my father and mother that I never would drink again. But my
prayers were not answered.
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