I cannot, now, remember her face, but that it was beautiful, more beautiful than any other woman I have known – more beautiful than any angel in Heaven.  Her beauty was of an Heavenly luminescence as if the very light called forth by the Creator on the First Day still shone from within her deep, golden eyes.  She was Cherubim, Seraphim and Angel combined.  Yet, for all this goodly praise, she was a very devil incarnate.

Sylvania!

How, now, that very name strikes a chord of terror in my breast!  The very rememberance of the last twelve hours un-nerves me and sets my hands a-trembling.  But it is over now – for Sylvania is dead – killed by these two trembling, shaking hands.

I have sat for the past day in this chair before the fire, drinking – perhaps, consuming would be a more apt description – vast quantities of brandy and am no longer sure that this recollection still bears all of the hallmarks of reality.  All I can safely say is this; that, of whatever I write now, I will, if anything, be too lenient in my narrative and, most likely therefore, will not convey the hideous thoughts that even now – especially now! – fill my mind.

Dear God!  I pray that Heaven’s great gates will open to receive me -  I have done no wrong!

She was my wife – betrothed to me by her family when but a child and I not much older.  But as we grew and marriage approached, she seemed composed and timeless in her beauty while I continued to age in the normal, natural way.  This I thought of as nothing – certainly, nothing to be concerned with – for what man would complain of the ongoing, incorruptible beauty of his young wife?  Certainly not I, but perhaps, I should have, at least if only in my heart, questioned the miraculous evidence which daily, year after year as the seasons passed, seemed to stare me in the face when we two woke each morning to a new day – I wish I had – God knows, I wish, now, that I had!  

Sylvania – God, what mistakes I have made in my life – what man has not?  Yet what man has stood idly by and allowed, permitted and even wilfully condoned the very devil himself to be lodger in his house?

It was this, her enduring beauty, rousing in my mind suspicion of a hideous portrait; this, which, like the Old Man’s ghastly but innocent eye, first caused me to lose my feelings of husbandly protection toward Sylvania.  This and the continued baiting of my good nature by her wilful and spiteful soul.  And so it was, one autumn morning, that I conceived of the plan to rid my house of this devil.  Thus it was I consigned myself to the crime of murder – only a crime under Man’s law – for which I am prepared to accept judgement and pay my duty to society – but, surely, this mercy cannot be accountable under God’s laws, for it was a release, a saving, a redemption of tortured souls which I achieved.  However, I cannot say, now, whose soul was in jeopardy and whose was saved – I would like to think that Sylvania was saved by my sacrifice, but I know, deep within my heart, that it was my fragile state of mind which was ultimately preserved by her death.  Is that selfish?  I do not know, but this I can attest to – that, had I not done what was necessary, there would have been two souls flying Heavenward this night – instead of just my own!  For Sylvania’s black, death-rotted soul surely now descends through the maelstrom to the fiery realms of Hell.  Thus have I saved Heaven and St Peter, for I have spared that blessed angel the damnation of another soul by mine actions this night.  I have saved Heaven from taint – I have saved God!  At least allow me, as your saviour, to sit in your presence – do not cast me down for more time with Sylvania.  This, at least, I demand!

My God!  

I see it still – the unearthly light in her dead eyes – for she lies, still, at my feet, her neck twisted and broken, her windpipe crushed.  This, then, was the method of her dispatch – suffocation at my hand, while I stared into her beautiful, dying eyes as she clawed ineffectively at my strong wrists.  And, as she died, the pretty colour left her cheeks and her body grew limp, as her black spirit flew toward its eternal rest.  But know this, looking down at her beautiful, yet twisted face, the tongue and eyes swollen and bloated in their hollows, the black marks around her neck and the awful drops of deep, red blood that ran from my lacerated wrists which now stain her pale cheeks, I see a strange thing – strange, indeed, for surely, she had been dead these twelve hours past, and this, therefore, cannot be!  How do her eyes glow again with that unholy pallor?  How does she seem to move beneath my feet?  How?  For she is dead!  DEAD!

My God, she moves - she comes toward me!

Brandy!  This is hallucination, must be; yet she moves – still she moves!

Sylvania!  Undying, despised Sylvania, what do you do?  Why do you not lie still?  

Take those baleful eyes from my heart and look not upon me again.

Leave me!

I cannot stand to see this face!  These eyes, anymore!

I must blot the sight from my mind!

How?

Glass, the brandy glass – the blood runs fresh again from my hand, as it did when Sylvania died the first time – I see her still!

Go, now, from my sight, my accursed sight – ahh, it is done!  The warm blood runs down my cheeks.

Darkness, darkness and release!

God, I am blinded – save your servant from damnation – I look no longer upon Satan!

Yet, I hear her moving still!

Is this not hallucination?  Help me!

SAVE ME!!