"Upon my soul, gentlemen," the count said, motioning the two young men to sit down on a divan, "it is only because of that idiot Pastrini that I did not come to your rescue earlier! He told me nothing of your difficulty, even though he must have known that I, alone as I am here, wanted nothing better than to make the acquaintance of my neighbours. As soon as I knew that I could be of service to you, you can see how eagerly I grasped the opportunity to present my compliments."
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"Franz and I must thank you a thousand times, Count," said Albert. "You have truly spared us a great deal of irritation: we were inventing the most fantastic sorts of conveyance when we received your most kind invitation."
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The two young men bowed. Franz had not yet said a word; he had not been able to make up his mind and, since nothing indicated that the count either wished to recognize him or to be recognized by him, he did not know whether he should make any allusion to the past or leave time in the future for something new to arise. Moreover, while he was sure that it was the count who had been in the theatre on the previous evening, he could not be so sure that it was also the same person who had been in the Colosseum on the evening before, so he decided to let events take their course without himself making any direct reference to what had occurred. In addition, this gave him an advantage over the count, being the master of his secret, while he could have no hold over Franz, who had nothing to hide. However, he decided to lead the conversation towards a point which might, meanwhile, confirm a few of his suspicions.
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"Gentlemen," said the Count of Monte Cristo as he came in, "I apologize for allowing you to anticipate my call, but I was afraid that it might have been indiscreet of me to visit you any earlier than this. In any case, you informed me that you would come, so I have kept myself at your disposal."
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He reached out for the bell-pull, which he rang three times.
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"Yes, you are quite right," the count said in an offhand manner, not taking his eyes off Morcerf. "Is there not to be something like an execution in the Piazza del Popolo?"
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"Monsieur le Comte," he said, "you have offered us places in your carriage and at your windows in the Palazzo Rospoli; now can you tell us how we might obtain some posto -- as they say here in Italy -- overlooking the Piazza del Popolo?"
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"Please wait one moment. I believe that I told my steward yesterday to take care of that. Perhaps I can do you this further small service."
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"There is," Franz said, seeing that the conversation was turning of itself towards the point where he wished to bring it.
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"Have you ever paused to consider," he asked Franz, "how to save time and simplify the comings and goings of servants? I have studied the matter. When I ring once, it's for my valet; twice, for my butler; three times, for my steward. In this way, I do not waste time or words. Ah, here he is now."
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A man of between forty-five and fifty years of age came in; to Franz he was the spitting image of the smuggler who had shown him into the cave, but he gave not the slightest sign of recognition. He understood that the man was under orders.
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"Monsieur Bertuccio," the count said, "I asked you yesterday to obtain a window for me overlooking the Piazza del Popolo; did you take care of it?"
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"Yes, Excellency," the steward answered. "But we left it very late."
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"What!" the count said, raising an eyebrow. "Didn't I tell you that I wished to have one?"
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"Very good, very good, Monsieur Bertuccio, you may spare these gentlemen all the housekeeping details; you managed to obtain the window, which is all that matters. Give the address of the house to the coachman and be ready on the stairs to conduct us there. That's all; you may go."
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"And Your Excellency does have one, the same that was rented to Prince Lubaniev; but I was obliged to pay a hundred…"
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The steward bowed and took a step towards the door.
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"One moment!" the count said. "Be so good as to ask Pastrini if he has received the tavoletta and if he could send me the programme of the execution."
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"Splendid. In that case, Bertuccio, you may go, I shan't need you any more. Just get them to tell us when luncheon is served. Will these gentlemen," he asked, turning to the two friends, "do me the honour of taking lunch with me?"
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"Not at all, on the contrary, you would oblige me greatly; and one or other, or perhaps both of you, can return the favour one day in Paris. Monsieur Bertuccio, ask them to lay three places."
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"No need," said Franz, taking his notebook out of his pocket. "I have seen the tablet myself and copied it down: here it is."
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"But, Monsieur le Comte," said Albert, "that would really be imposing on you."
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"So, we were saying…" he continued in the same tone of voice as though he were reading the personal column, "that 'on Tuesday the twenty-second of February, the first day of carnival, by order of the Court of La Rota, the sentence of death will be carried out in the Piazza del Popolo on Andrea Rondolo, guilty of murder against the most respectable and venerated person of don Cesare Terlini, Canon of the Church of Saint John Lateran, and Peppino, alias Rocca Priori, found guilty of complicity with the abominable bandit Luigi Vampa and his followers…' Hum! 'The first will be mazzolato, the second decapitato.'"
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He took the notebook from Franz's hand.
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"Yes, this is what was originally intended, but I think that since yesterday there has been a change in the order and conduct of the ceremony."
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"To Andrea Rondolo?" asked Franz.
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"Huh!" said Franz.
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"No…" the count replied casually. "To the other…" (he looked at the notebook as if to remind himself of the name) "… to Peppino, alias Rocca Priori. That means you will be denied a guillotining, but you still have the mazzolata, which is a very curious form of torture when you see it for the first time -- or even the second; while the other, which in any case you must know, is too simple, too unvaried. There is nothing unexpected in it. The mandaïa makes no mistakes, its hand doesn't shake, it doesn't miss and it doesn't make thirty attempts before succeeding, like the soldier who beheaded the Comte de Chalais and who had perhaps been particularly chosen for this victim by Richelieu. Ah, come now," said the count in a scornful tone, "don't talk to me about Europeans where torture is concerned. They understand nothing about it. With them, cruelty is in its infancy -- or perhaps its old age."
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"Yes, I spent the evening yesterday with Cardinal Rospigliosi and they were speaking of some kind of stay of execution having been granted to one of the two condemned men."
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"There are very few types at least that I have not seen," the count replied coldly.
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"Truly, Monsieur le Comte," said Franz, "anyone would think you had made a comparative study of executions in different parts of the world."
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"Did it please you to witness these horrible spectacles?"
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"Curiosity! The idea is terrible, isn't it?"
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"My first feeling was repulsion, my second, indifference, and my third, curiosity."
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"Why? There is only one serious matter to be considered in life, and that is death. So! Isn't it worth one's curiosity to study the different ways that the soul may leave the body and how, according to the character, the temperament, or even the local customs of a country, individuals face up to that supreme journey from being to nothingness? As for me, I can assure you of one thing: the more you have seen others die, the easier it becomes to die oneself. So, in my opinion, death may be a torment, but it is not an expiation."
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"I am not sure that I understand," said Franz. "Please explain. I can't tell you how interested I am in what you say."
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"Listen," said the count, his face flushing with the gall of hatred as another face might be coloured with blood. "If a man had murdered your father, your mother, your mistress, or any of those beings who, when they are torn from your heart, leave an eternal void and a wound that can never be staunched, and if he had subjected them to unspeakable torture and endless torment, would you consider that society had accorded you sufficient reparation just because the blade of the guillotine had travelled between the base of the murderer's occipital and his trapezius muscles, and because the person who had caused you to feel years of moral suffering had experienced a few seconds of physical pain?"
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"I know," Franz said. "Human justice is inadequate as a consolation: it can spill blood for blood, that's all. But one must only ask it for what is possible, not for anything more."
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"Moreover, the example that I give you is a material one," the count went on; "one where society, attacked by the death of an individual among the mass of individuals which composes it, avenges that death by another. But are there not millions of sufferings which can rend the entrails of a man without society taking the slightest heed of them or providing even the inadequate means of reparation that we spoke of just now? Are there not crimes for which impalement à la turque, or Persian burial alive, or the whips of the Iraqis would be too mild a torment, but which society in its indifference leaves unpunished? Answer me: are there no such crimes?"
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"Ah, duelling!" exclaimed the count. "There's a fine way, I must say, to achieve one's end, when the end is vengeance! A man has stolen your mistress, a man has seduced your wife, a man has dishonoured your daughter. He has taken an entire life, a life that had the right to expect from God the share of happiness that He promises to every human being in creating us, and turned it into a mere existence of pain, misery and infamy; and you consider yourself revenged because you have run this man through with your sword or put a bullet in his head, after he has turned your mind to delirium and your heart to despair? Come, come! Even without considering that he is often the one who comes out of this contest on top, purged in the eyes of the world and in some respect pardoned by God… No, no," the count went on, "if I ever had to take my revenge, that is not how I should do it."
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"Yes," Franz replied. "It is precisely to punish them that we tolerate duelling."
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"You mean, you disapprove of duelling? You mean, you wouldn't fight a duel?" Albert asked, joining the conversation and astonished at hearing anyone express such an odd point of view.
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"Oh, certainly!" said the count. "Make no mistake: I should fight a duel for a trifle, an insult, a contradiction, a slap -- and all the more merrily for knowing that, thanks to the skill I have acquired in all physical exercises and long experience of danger, I should be more or less certain of killing my opponent. Oh, yes, indeed! I should fight a duel for any of these things; but in return for a slow, deep, infinite, eternal pain, I should return as nearly as possible a pain equivalent to the one inflicted on me. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, as they say in the East, those men who are the elect of creation, and who have learnt to make a life of dreams and a paradise of reality."
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"But, with such an outlook," Franz told the count, "which makes you judge and executioner in your own case, it would be hard for you to confine yourself to actions that would leave you forever immune to the power of the law. Hatred is blind and anger deaf: the one who pours himself a cup of vengeance is likely to drink a bitter draught."
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A servant had opened one of the four doors of the drawing-room and at this pronounced the sacramental words: "Al suo commando!" The two young men got up and went through to the dining-room.
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"Yes, if he is poor and clumsy; no, if he is a millionaire and adroit. In any case, if the worst comes to the worst, he can only suffer the ultimate penalty which we mentioned just now: the one that the philanthropic French Revolution put in place of quartering and the wheel. Well, then! What does the penalty matter if he is avenged? In truth, I am almost irritated at the fact that, quite probably, this miserable Peppino will not be decapitato, as they say; you'd see how long it takes, and whether it's really worth bothering about. But, gentlemen, this is indeed an odd topic of discussion for carnival time. How did we get round to it? Ah, yes, I remember! You asked for a seat at my window. Very well, yes, you shall have one. But first, let's eat: I see that they have come to tell us we are served."
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During lunch, which was excellent and served with the greatest refinement, Franz tried to read in Albert's eyes the impression that he was sure their host's words would have left on him. But, whether it was that, with his habitual insouciance, he had not paid great attention to them, or that the Count of Monte Cristo's concession on the matter of duelling had reconciled him to the man, or finally that prior events which we have related, and which were known only to Franz, had doubled the effect that the count's theories had on him, he did not perceive that his friend was in the slightest concerned. On the contrary, he was paying the meal the compliment one would expect from a man who has been condemned for four or five months to suffer Italian cooking (which is among the worst in the world). As for the count, he barely touched each dish: one would think that courtesy alone had induced him to sit down with his guests and that he was waiting for them to leave, to have himself brought some rare or special delicacy.
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"In front of the scaffold?"
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"Of course: after, during, before… as you wish."
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"Excuse me, Count," said Franz, "I've been thinking. I am most grateful to you for your generosity to us, and I shall be happy to accept a place in your carriage and a seat at the window of the Palazzo Rospoli, and you can feel free to give my place at the window in the Piazza del Popolo to someone else."
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"We have no disguises, and today a disguise is obligatory."
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"After the execution?" Franz cried.
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"What matters?"
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"Don't worry about that. I believe that we have a private room at the Piazza del Popolo. I shall have any costumes that you require brought there and we shall put on our masks as we go."
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"The scaffold is part of the entertainment."
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Franz was involuntarily reminded of the terror that the count had inspired in the Contessa G --, and her unshakeable conviction that the man whom he had shown her in the opposite box at the theatre was a vampire.
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When lunch was finished, Franz took out his watch.
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"You must excuse us, Monsieur le Comte," Franz replied, "but we still have a thousand matters to attend to."
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"What are you doing?" the count asked.
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"You will tell me about it afterwards," Franz went on. "I am certain that the story will impress me almost as much from your mouth as it would if I were to see the events myself. In any case, I have more than once thought about watching an execution, but I have never been able to make up my mind to it. What about you, Albert?"
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"I did once," said the vicomte. "I saw them execute Castaing, but I think I was a little drunk that day. It was on my last day at school, and we spent the night in some cabaret or other."
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"But I must warn you, you will be missing something well worth seeing," the count replied.
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"Come now, just because you have not done something in Paris, that is no reason for not doing it abroad. When one travels, one does so to learn: a change of place should mean a change of scenery. Imagine how you will look when people ask you: 'How do they execute criminals in Rome?' and you have to answer: 'I don't know.' Then, they say that the condemned man is an infamous rogue, a maniac who took a gridiron and beat to death a good priest who had brought him up as his own son. Just think! When you kill a man of the cloth, you should at least use a more appropriate implement than a gridiron, especially when this priest could be your father. If you were travelling through Spain, you would go and see a bullfight, wouldn't you? Well, imagine that we are going to see a fight; imagine the Ancient Romans and their Circus, those wild-beast hunts in which they killed three hundred lions and a hundred men. Remember the eighty thousand spectators clapping their hands, the virtuous matrons who would take their unmarried daughters, and those delightful Vestal Virgins whose pure white hands would give a charming little sign with the thumb that meant: 'Come on, don't be lazy! Finish him off, that man who is already three-quarters dead!'"
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The two young men got up and went out through one door while the count, after excusing himself again, went out of the other. Albert, who was a keen smoker and considered it no small sacrifice, since he had come to Italy, to have been deprived of the cigars that he smoked in Paris, went over to the table and exclaimed with joy on discovering some genuine puros.
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"On foot we can, but not in the carriage."
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"Then let's go by the Corso and send the carriage by the Strada del Babuino, to wait for us in the Piazza del Popolo. As it happens, I shall not be sorry to go down the Corso, to see if some orders I gave have been carried out."
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"Certainly, my dear fellow. I was like you, but the count's eloquence has convinced me."
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"Yes, there is something there I need to see."
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"Are you going, Albert?" Franz asked.
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"Well, then, let's go, if that's what you want," Franz said. "But on my way to the Piazza del Popolo, I want to go by the Corso. Can we do that, Count?"
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"In that case, I'll go on foot."
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"Excellency," the servant said, opening the door, "a man dressed as a penitent has come to see you."
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"Ah, yes," said the count. "I know who that is. Gentlemen, pray go back into the drawing-room, where you will find some excellent Havana cigars on the table. I shall join you shortly."
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"Do you have to go via the Corso?"
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"How closely he looks at you."
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This was Albert's opinion; and, since Franz knew that Albert claimed not to form any opinion on either men or things except after giving it deep thought, he did not try to change this one. "But," he said, "have you noticed something unusual?"
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"What do I think!" Albert said, clearly astonished that his friend should even ask such a question. "I think he is a charming man, a wonderful host, someone who has seen a lot, studied a lot and thought a lot, who belongs like Brutus to the Stoic school, and --" he added, allowing a voluptuous puff of smoke to escape from his lips and spiral up towards the ceiling, "someone who, in addition to all that, has the most excellent cigars."
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"So," Franz asked him, "what do you think of the Count of Monte Cristo?"
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"At me?"
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Albert thought for a moment.
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"What's that?"
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"Ah!" he said, with a sigh. "There's nothing surprising about that. I have been away from Paris for nearly a year and I must be dressed in the most outlandish fashion. I expect the count mistook me for a provincial: please take the first opportunity, I beg you, to tell him that this is not so."
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"Yes, at you."
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A moment later the count came back. "Here I am, gentlemen," he said, "entirely at your disposal. I've given the orders: the carriage will go to the Piazza del Popolo by its route and we by ours, along the Corso, if you wish. Please help yourself to some of those cigars, Monsieur de Morcerf."
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Franz smiled.
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"I shall not refuse your invitation. I hope to go to Paris one day and, since you give me leave to do so, I shall knock on your door. Now, Messieurs, come, we have no time to lose. It is half-past twelve. Let's be going."
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"By gad, yes, with great pleasure," said Albert. "Because those Italian cigars of yours are even worse than the ones sold by the state monopoly at home. When you come to Paris, I shall have the opportunity to repay you for all this."
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All three went downstairs. There the coachman took his master's latest orders and set off down the Via del Babuino, while the pedestrians went up through the Piazza di Spagna and along the Via Frattina, which led them directly between the Palazzo Fiano and the Palazzo Rospoli. Franz kept looking at the windows of the latter: he had not forgotten the signal agreed in the Colosseum between the man in the cloak and the Trasteveran.
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"Which windows are yours?" he asked the count in the most natural manner he could.
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"The last three," he replied, with an entirely unaffected lack of concern, for he could not have guessed the reason for the question.
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Franz immediately looked at the windows. Those on each side were hung with yellow damask and the one in the middle in white damask with a red cross. The man in the cloak had kept his word to the other, and there was no longer any doubt: the man in the cloak was the count.
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The three windows were still empty.
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Meanwhile on all sides preparations were being made, chairs were being set out, scaffolding put up and windows decorated. The masks could appear and the carriages start to drive around only at the sound of a bell, but you could sense the masks behind every window and the carriages behind every door.
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Franz, Albert and the count continued on their way down the Corso. As they approached the Piazza del Popolo, the crowd became more dense and, above the heads of the people, they could see two things: the obelisk, surmounted by a cross, that stands in the centre of the square, and, in front of the obelisk, precisely at the point where the lines of sight of the three streets, Babuino, Corso and Ripetta, meet, the two highest beams of the scaffold with, burning between them, the rounded blade of the mandaïa.
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They met the count's steward at the corner of the street, waiting for his master. The window that had been hired at what was doubtless an exorbitant price (which the count had not wished to communicate to his guests) was on the second floor of the great palazzo, between the Via del Babuino and the Monte Pincio. It was a sort of dressing-room opening on to a bedroom. By closing the bedroom door, the inhabitants of the dressing-room could be on their own. Clowns' costumes in white and blue satin, most elegantly cut, had been laid across the chairs.
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"As you left the choice of costumes to me," the count told the two friends, "I had these made for you. Firstly, they are the best that will be worn this year, and then they are the most convenient design for confetti, because flour doesn't show up on them."
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Franz took in what the count was saying only very partially and may not have appreciated this new mark of courtesy at its true value, for all his attention was drawn by the spectacle of the Piazza del Popolo and the awful implement that on this occasion was its chief ornament.
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It was the first time that Franz had seen a guillotine -- we say guillotine, because the Roman mandaïa is constructed on more or less the same pattern as our instrument of death, the only difference being that the knife is shaped like a crescent, cutting with the convex part of the blade, and falls from less of a height.
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Just looking at them, Franz felt the sweat burst out at the roots of his hair.
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Two men, seated on the tipping plank on which the condemned person lies, were waiting and eating a lunch that, as far as Franz could make out, consisted of bread and sausage. One of them lifted the plank and brought out a flagon of wine from under it, took a drink and passed it to his companion. These two men were the executioner's assistants!
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The condemned prisoners had been brought, the previous evening, from the Carceri Nuove to the little church of Santa Maria del Popolo and had spent the night, each attended by two priests, in a chapel of rest, secured with an iron grating and in front of which sentries marched, being relieved every hour.
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So what the count said was true: there is no more interesting spectacle in life than the spectacle of death.
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A double row of carabinieri extended from each side of the church door to the scaffold, widening out on reaching it to leave a path some ten feet across and, around the guillotine, a clear space of some hundred yards in circumference. The whole of the rest of the square was carpeted with the heads of men and women. Many of the women had children seated on their shoulders. These children, who were a good head and shoulders above the rest of the crowd, would have an excellent view.
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The Monte Pincio seemed like a huge amphitheatre with all of its terraces crowded with spectators. The balconies of the two churches at the corners of the Via del Babuino and the Via di Ripetta were overflowing with privileged onlookers. The steps of the peristyles had the appearance of swelling, many-coloured waves, driven towards the portico by the flow of an unceasing tide. Every protuberance on the wall capable of supporting a man had a living statue attached to it.
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First to appear was a company of penitents, each of them dressed in a grey sack which covered him entirely except for the holes for the eyes, and each holding a lighted candle in his hand. At the front marched the head of the order.
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And yet, instead of the silence that the solemnity of the occasion would seem to demand, a great noise rose from the crowd, a noise made up of laughter, booing and joyful cries. It was clear, as the count had also said, that the execution was nothing more for the people than the start of carnival.
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Suddenly the noise ceased as if by enchantment; the church door had just opened.
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Behind the executioner, in the order in which they were to be executed, came Peppino, then Andrea. Each of them was accompanied by two priests. Neither of them was blindfolded.
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Behind the penitents came a tall man. He was naked except for linen trunks, on the left side of which was attached a huge knife concealed in its scabbard. Over his shoulder he carried a heavy iron mace. This man was the executioner. He also had sandals fastened around the lower part of the leg with thongs.
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Peppino was walking with quite a firm step. No doubt he had been told what to expect. Andrea was supported under each arm by a priest. From time to time each of them would kiss the crucifix that a confessor held out to him.
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At the mere sight of this, Franz felt his legs ready to fold under him. He looked at Albert. The latter had gone as white as his shirt and mechanically tossed away his cigar, even though it was only half smoked.
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Only the count appeared impassive. More than that: a faint blush of red seemed to be appearing beneath the livid pallor of his cheeks. His nose was dilating like that of a wild beast at the smell of blood, and his lips, slightly parted, showed his white teeth, as small and sharp as a jackal's. Yet, despite that, his face had an expression of smiling tenderness that Franz had never before seen on it; his black eyes, above all, were compellingly soft and lenient.
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Meanwhile, the two condemned men continued to proceed towards the scaffold and, as they approached, one could make out their faces. Peppino was a handsome young man of between twenty-four and twenty-six, with a wild and free look on his sunburnt face. He carried his head high and seemed to be sniffing the wind to see from which direction his liberator would come.
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"But there are two condemned men here."
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"That was the truth," he replied coldly.
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"I thought you told me," Franz said to the count, "that there would be only one execution."
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"And it is coming. Look," said the count.
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Andrea was short and fat. His face was mean and cruel, of no definite age, though he was probably about thirty. He had let his beard grow in prison. His head was falling over on one shoulder and his legs were giving way beneath him; his whole being appeared to be driven by some mechanical force in which his own will no longer played any part.
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Just as Peppino reached the foot of the mandaïa, a penitent, who seemed like a late arrival, broke through the wall of soldiers without them attempting to stop him and, going up to the head of the order, gave him a sheet of paper folded in four. Peppino's sharp eyes had missed none of this. The head of the order unfolded the paper, read it and raised his hand. "The Lord be blessed and His Holiness be praised!" he said loudly and clearly. "There is a pardon for the life of one of the condemned prisoners."
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"It would seem to me that, if a pardon is to come, there is not much time to be lost."
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"Yes -- but, of those two, one is at the point of death, while the other has many years yet to live."
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"There is a pardon from the death penalty for Peppino, alias Rocca Priori," said the head of the order. And he passed the sheet of paper to the captain in charge of the carabinieri, who read it and handed it back.
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"A pardon!" the crowd cried in unison. "There is a pardon!"
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Peppino remained silent, motionless, panting.
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At this word, "pardon", Andrea seemed to stiffen and raise his head. "A pardon for whom?" he cried.
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"A pardon for Peppino!" yelled Andrea, entirely roused from the state of torpor into which he had seemed to be plunged. "Why a pardon for him and not for me? We were to die together. I was promised that he would die before me. You have no right to make me die alone. I don't want to die alone!" And he broke away from the two priests, twisting, shouting, bellowing and making insane efforts to break the ropes binding his hands.
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The executioner made a sign to his two assistants, who jumped off the scaffold and seized the prisoner.
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"What is wrong?" the count repeated. "Don't you understand? What's wrong is that this human being who is about to die is furious because his fellow creature is not dying with him and, if he were allowed to do so, he would tear him apart with his nails and his teeth rather than leave him to enjoy the life of which he himself is about to be deprived. Oh men! Men! Race of crocodiles, as Karl Moor says," the count exclaimed, brandishing his two clenched fists towards the heads of the crowd. "How well I know you by your deeds and how invariably you succeed in living down to what one expects of you!"
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"What's wrong?" Franz asked the count.
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"Look, look," the count continued, grasping each of the two young men by the hand. "Look, because I swear to you, this is worthy of your curiosity. Here is a man who was resigned to his fate, who was walking to the scaffold and about to die like a coward, that's true, but at least he was about to die without resisting and without recriminations. Do you know what gave him that much strength? Do you know what consoled him? Do you know what resigned him to his fate? It was the fact that another man would share his anguish, that another man was to die like him, that another man was to die before him! Put two sheep in the slaughter-house or two oxen in the abattoir and let one of them realize that his companion will not die, and the sheep will bleat with joy, the ox low with pleasure. But man, man whom God made in His image, man to whom God gave this first, this sole, this supreme law, that he should love his neighbour, man to whom God gave a voice to express his thoughts -- what is man's first cry when he learns that his neighbour is saved? A curse. All honour to man, the masterpiece of nature, the lord of creation!"
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Andrea and the two assistant executioners were rolling around in the dust, the prisoner still crying out: "He must die, I want him to die! You do not have the right to kill me alone!"
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Meanwhile the struggle continued, and it was awful to watch. The two assistants were carrying Andrea on to the scaffold, but the crowd had taken against him and twenty thousand voices were crying: "Death! Death!"
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Franz stepped back, but the count seized his arm and kept him in front of the window.
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He burst out laughing, but such a terrible laugh that one realized he must have suffered horribly to be able to laugh in such a way.
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"What are you doing?" he said. "Is this pity? In faith, it is well placed! If you heard someone cry: 'mad dog', you would take your gun, rush out into the street and kill the poor beast by shooting it point blank, without mercy; yet the animal would, after all's said and done, be guilty of nothing more than having been bitten by another dog and doing the same as was done to it. And yet now you are taking pity on a man who was bitten by no other man, but who killed his benefactor and who now, unable to kill anyone else because his hands are tied, wants more than anything to see his companion in captivity, his comrade in misfortune, die with him! No, no! Watch!"
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The injunction was almost unnecessary. Franz was, as it were, mesmerized by the horrible scene. The two assistants had carried the condemned man on to the scaffold and there, despite his efforts, his bites and his cries, they had forced him to his knees. Meanwhile the executioner had taken up his position on one side and raised the mace. Then, on a sign, the two assistants stepped aside. The prisoner wanted to get to his feet but, before he had time to do so, the club struck him on the left temple. There was a dull, muffled sound, the victim fell like a stricken bull, face downwards, then on the rebound turned over on his back. At this the executioner dropped his mace, pulled the knife out of his belt, cut open his throat with a single stroke and, immediately stepping on his belly, began as it were to knead the body with his feet. At each stamping of the foot, a jet of blood spurted from the condemned man's neck.
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Albert, with his eyes closed, remained standing, but only because he was clasping the curtains.
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This time, Franz could bear it no longer. He flung himself backwards into the room and collapsed on a chair, half senseless.
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The count stood upright and triumphant like an avenging angel.
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