I saw clearly the doom which had been prepared for me, and congratulated myself upon the timely accident by which I had escaped.
Another step before my fall, and the world had seen me no more and the death just avoided was of that very character which I had regarded as fabulous and frivolous in the tales respecting the Inquisition. To the victims of its tyranny, there was the choice of death with its direst physical agonies, or death with its most hideous moral horrors. I had been reserved for the latter. By long suffering my nerves had been unstrung, until I trembled at the sound of my own voice, and had become in every respect a fitting subject for the species of torture which awaited me. Which excerpt portrays the narrator’s madness best? “I saw clearly the doom which had been prepared for me . . . .”“By long suffering my nerves had been unstrung, until I trembled at the sound of my own voice . . . .”“Another step before my fall, and the world had seen me no more . . . .”“[T]here was the choice of death with its direst physical agonies, or death with its most hideous moral horrors.”
<span>“By
long suffering my nerves had been unstrung, until I trembled at the
sound of my own voice . . . .”
His nerves are unstrung, he trembled at the sound of his own voice, this could mean many things however it is likely he is Saying (or Thinking) things that scare him when snapping back to reality, like a man who was about to commit suicide but then remembers reality and he fears his own mind of what he was thinking.
“Another step before my fall, and the
world had seen me no more . . . .” sounds cool, but is too vague. </span> <span>“[T]here was the choice of death with its direst physical agonies, or death with its most hideous moral horrors.” This is close to the first one, he sees how far he is to madness, but is still on the edge and not insane Yet. However it's not as clear as the first one I listed
</span> <span>“I saw clearly the doom which had been prepared for me . . . .” displays nothing.</span>
