"But, my dear count," said Albert, "we shall abuse your
kindness."
"Not at all; on the contrary, you will give me great pleasure.
You will, one or other of you, perhaps both, return it to me at
Paris. M. Bertuccio, lay covers for three." He then took Franz's
tablets out of his hand. "`We announce,' he read, in the same tone
with which he would have read a newspaper, `that to-day, the 23d of
February, will be executed Andrea Rondolo, guilty of murder on the
person of the respected and venerated Don Cesare Torlini, canon of
the church of St. John Lateran, and Peppino, called Rocca Priori,
convicted of complicity with the detestable bandit Luigi Vampa, and
the men of his band.' Hum! `The first will be mazzolato, the second
decapitato.' Yes," continued the count, "it was at first arranged
in this way; but I think since yesterday some change has taken
place in the order of the ceremony."
"Really?" said Franz.
"Yes, I passed the evening at the Cardinal Rospigliosi's, and
there mention was made of something like a pardon for one of the
two men."
"For Andrea Rondolo?" asked Franz.
"No," replied the count, carelessly; "for the other (he glanced
at the tablets as if to recall the name), for Peppino, called Rocca
Priori. You are thus deprived of seeing a man guillotined; but the
mazzuola still remains, which is a very curious punishment when
seen for the first time, and even the second, while the other, as
you must know, is very simple. The mandaia* never fails, never
trembles, never strikes thirty times ineffectually, like the
soldier who beheaded the Count of Chalais, and to whose tender
mercy Richelieu had doubtless recommended the sufferer. Ah," added
the count, in a contemptuous tone, "do not tell me of European
punishments, they are in the infancy, or rather the old age, of
cruelty."
(* Guillotine.)
"Really, count," replied Franz, "one would think that you had
studied the different tortures of all the nations of the
world."
"There are, at least, few that I have not seen," said the count
coldly.world."
"There are, at least, few that I have not seen," said the count
coldly.
"And you took pleasure in beholding these dreadful
spectacles?"
"My first sentiment was horror, the second indifference, the
third curiosity."
"Curiosity — that is a terrible word."
"Why so? In life, our greatest preoccupation is death; is it not
then, curious to study the different ways by which the soul and
body can part; and how, according to their different characters,
temperaments, and even the different customs of their countries,
different persons bear the transition from life to death, from
existence to annihilation? As for myself, I can assure you of one
thing, — the more men you see die, the easier it becomes to die
yourself; and in my opinion, death may be a torture, but it is not
an expiation."
"I do not quite understand you," replied Franz; "pray explain
your meaning, for you excite my curiosity to the highest
pitch."
"Listen," said the count, and deep hatred mounted to his face,
as the blood would to the face of any other. "If a man had by
unheard-of and excruciating tortures destroyed your father, your
mother, your betrothed, — a being who, when torn from you, left a
desolation, a wound that never closes, in your breast, — do you
think the reparation that society gives you is sufficient when it
interposes the knife of the guillotine between the base of the
occiput and the trapezal muscles of the murderer, and allows him
who has caused us years of moral sufferings to escape with a few
moments of physical pain?"
"Yes, I know," said Franz, "that human justice is insufficient
to console us; she can give blood in return for blood, that is all;
but you must demand from her only what it is in her power to
grant."
"I will put another case to you," continued the count; "that
where society, attacked by the death of a person, avenges death by
death. But are there not a thousand tortures by which a man may be
made to suffer without society taking the least cognizance of them,made to suffer without society taking the least cognizance of them,
or offering him even the insufficient means of vengeance, of which
we have just spoken? Are there not crimes for which the impalement
of the Turks, the augers of the Persians, the stake and the brand
of the Iroquois Indians, are inadequate tortures, and which are
unpunished by society? Answer me, do not these crimes exist?"
"Yes," answered Franz; "and it is to punish them that duelling
is tolerated."
"Ah, duelling," cried the count; "a pleasant manner, upon my
soul, of arriving at your end when that end is vengeance! A man has
carried off your mistress, a man has seduced your wife, a man has
dishonored your daughter; he has rendered the whole life of one who
had the right to expect from heaven that portion of happiness God
his promised to every one of his creatures, an existence of misery
and infamy; and you think you are avenged because you send a ball
through the head, or pass a sword through the breast, of that man
who has planted madness in your brain, and despair in your heart.
And remember, moreover, that it is often he who comes off
victorious from the strife, absolved of all crime in the eyes of
the world. No, no," continued the count, "had I to avenge myself,
it is not thus I would take revenge."
"Then you disapprove of duelling? You would not fight a duel?"
asked Albert in his turn, astonished at this strange theory.
"Oh, yes," replied the count; "understand me, I would fight a
duel for a trifle, for an insult, for a blow; and the more so that,
thanks to my skill in all bodily exercises, and the indifference to
danger I have gradually acquired, I should be almost certain to
kill my man. Oh, I would fight for such a cause; but in return for
a slow, profound, eternal torture, I would give back the same, were
it possible; an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, as the
Orientalists say, — our masters in everything, — those favored
creatures who have formed for themselves a life of dreams and a
paradise of realities."