<h3><SPAN name="linkC2HCH0035" id="linkC2HCH0035"></SPAN> Chapter 35. La Mazzolata</h3>
<p class="pfirst">
<span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">G</span>entlemen,” said
the Count of Monte Cristo as he entered, “I pray you excuse me for
suffering my visit to be anticipated; but I feared to disturb you by presenting
myself earlier at your apartments; besides, you sent me word that you would
come to me, and I have held myself at your disposal.”</p>
<p>“Franz and I have to thank you a thousand times, count,” returned
Albert; “you extricated us from a great dilemma, and we were on the point
of inventing a very fantastic vehicle when your friendly invitation reached
us.”</p>
<p>“Indeed,” returned the count, motioning the two young men to sit
down. “It was the fault of that blockhead Pastrini, that I did not sooner
assist you in your distress. He did not mention a syllable of your
embarrassment to me, when he knows that, alone and isolated as I am, I seek
every opportunity of making the acquaintance of my neighbors. As soon as I
learned I could in any way assist you, I most eagerly seized the opportunity of
offering my services.”</p>
<p>The two young men bowed. Franz had, as yet, found nothing to say; he had come
to no determination, and as nothing in the count’s manner manifested the
wish that he should recognize him, he did not know whether to make any allusion
to the past, or wait until he had more proof; besides, although sure it was he
who had been in the box the previous evening, he could not be equally positive
that this was the man he had seen at the Colosseum. He resolved, therefore, to
let things take their course without making any direct overture to the count.
Moreover, he had this advantage, he was master of the count’s secret,
while the count had no hold on Franz, who had nothing to conceal. However, he
resolved to lead the conversation to a subject which might possibly clear up
his doubts.</p>
<p>“Count,” said he, “you have offered us places in your
carriage, and at your windows in the Rospoli Palace. Can you tell us where we
can obtain a sight of the Piazza del Popolo?”</p>
<p>“Ah,” said the count negligently, looking attentively at Morcerf,
“is there not something like an execution upon the Piazza del
Popolo?”</p>
<p>“Yes,” returned Franz, finding that the count was coming to the
point he wished.</p>
<p>“Stay, I think I told my steward yesterday to attend to this; perhaps I
can render you this slight service also.”</p>
<p>He extended his hand, and rang the bell thrice.</p>
<p>“Did you ever occupy yourself,” said he to Franz, “with the
employment of time and the means of simplifying the summoning your servants? I
have. When I ring once, it is for my valet; twice, for my majordomo; thrice,
for my steward,—thus I do not waste a minute or a word. Here he
is.”</p>
<p>A man of about forty-five or fifty entered, exactly resembling the smuggler who
had introduced Franz into the cavern; but he did not appear to recognize him.
It was evident he had his orders.</p>
<p>“Monsieur Bertuccio,” said the count, “you have procured me
windows looking on the Piazza del Popolo, as I ordered you yesterday.”</p>
<p>“Yes, excellency,” returned the steward; “but it was very
late.”</p>
<p>“Did I not tell you I wished for one?” replied the count, frowning.</p>
<p>“And your excellency has one, which was let to Prince Lobanieff; but I
was obliged to pay a hundred——”</p>
<p>“That will do—that will do, Monsieur Bertuccio; spare these
gentlemen all such domestic arrangements. You have the window, that is
sufficient. Give orders to the coachman; and be in readiness on the stairs to
conduct us to it.”</p>
<p>The steward bowed, and was about to quit the room.</p>
<p>“Ah!” continued the count, “be good enough to ask Pastrini if
he has received the <i>tavoletta</i>, and if he can send us an account of the
execution.”</p>
<p>“There is no need to do that,” said Franz, taking out his tablets;
“for I saw the account, and copied it down.”</p>
<p>“Very well, you can retire, M. Bertuccio; I need you no longer. Let us
know when breakfast is ready. These gentlemen,” added he, turning to the
two friends, “will, I trust, do me the honor to breakfast with me?”</p>
<p>“But, my dear count,” said Albert, “we shall abuse your
kindness.”</p>
<p>“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.”</p>
<p>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 today, the 23rd of February, will be executed Andrea
Rondolo, guilty of murder on the person of the respected and venerated Don
César 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.’</p>
<p>“Hum! ‘The first will be <i>mazzolato</i>, the second
<i>decapitato</i>.’ 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.”</p>
<p>“Really?” said Franz.</p>
<p>“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.”</p>
<p>“For Andrea Rondolo?” asked Franz.</p>
<p>“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
<i>mazzolata</i> 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 <i>mandaïa</i><SPAN href="#fn-6" name="fnref-6" id="fnref-6"><sup>[6]</sup></SPAN>
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.”</p>
<p>“Really, count,” replied Franz, “one would think that you had
studied the different tortures of all the nations of the world.”</p>
<p>“There are, at least, few that I have not seen,” said the count
coldly.</p>
<p>“And you took pleasure in beholding these dreadful spectacles?”</p>
<p>“My first sentiment was horror, the second indifference, the third
curiosity.”</p>
<p>“Curiosity—that is a terrible word.”</p>
<p>“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.”</p>
<p>“I do not quite understand you,” replied Franz; “pray explain
your meaning, for you excite my curiosity to the highest pitch.”</p>
<p>“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?”</p>
<p>“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.”</p>
<p>“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, 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?”</p>
<p>“Yes,” answered Franz; “and it is to punish them that
duelling is tolerated.”</p>
<p>“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 has promised to everyone 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.”</p>
<p>“Then you disapprove of duelling? You would not fight a duel?”
asked Albert in his turn, astonished at this strange theory.</p>
<p>“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.”</p>
<p>“But,” said Franz to the count, “with this theory, which
renders you at once judge and executioner of your own cause, it would be
difficult to adopt a course that would forever prevent your falling under the
power of the law. Hatred is blind, rage carries you away; and he who pours out
vengeance runs the risk of tasting a bitter draught.”</p>
<p>“Yes, if he be poor and inexperienced, not if he be rich and skilful;
besides, the worst that could happen to him would be the punishment of which we
have already spoken, and which the philanthropic French Revolution has
substituted for being torn to pieces by horses or broken on the wheel. What
matters this punishment, as long as he is avenged? On my word, I almost regret
that in all probability this miserable Peppino will not be beheaded, as you
might have had an opportunity then of seeing how short a time the punishment
lasts, and whether it is worth even mentioning; but, really this is a most
singular conversation for the Carnival, gentlemen; how did it arise? Ah, I
recollect, you asked for a place at my window; you shall have it; but let us
first sit down to table, for here comes the servant to inform us that breakfast
is ready.”</p>
<p>As he spoke, a servant opened one of the four doors of the apartment, saying:</p>
<p>“<i>Al suo commodo!</i>”</p>
<p>The two young men arose and entered the breakfast-room.</p>
<p>During the meal, which was excellent, and admirably served, Franz looked
repeatedly at Albert, in order to observe the impressions which he doubted not
had been made on him by the words of their entertainer; but whether with his
usual carelessness he had paid but little attention to him, whether the
explanation of the Count of Monte Cristo with regard to duelling had satisfied
him, or whether the events which Franz knew of had had their effect on him
alone, he remarked that his companion did not pay the least regard to them, but
on the contrary ate like a man who for the last four or five months had been
condemned to partake of Italian cookery—that is, the worst in the world.</p>
<p>As for the count, he just touched the dishes; he seemed to fulfil the duties of
a host by sitting down with his guests, and awaited their departure to be
served with some strange or more delicate food. This brought back to Franz, in
spite of himself, the recollection of the terror with which the count had
inspired the Countess G——, and her firm conviction that the man in
the opposite box was a vampire.</p>
<p>At the end of the breakfast Franz took out his watch.</p>
<p>“Well,” said the count, “what are you doing?”</p>
<p>“You must excuse us, count,” returned Franz, “but we have
still much to do.”</p>
<p>“What may that be?”</p>
<p>“We have no masks, and it is absolutely necessary to procure them.”</p>
<p>“Do not concern yourself about that; we have, I think, a private room in
the Piazza del Popolo; I will have whatever costumes you choose brought to us,
and you can dress there.”</p>
<p>“After the execution?” cried Franz.</p>
<p>“Before or after, whichever you please.”</p>
<p>“Opposite the scaffold?”</p>
<p>“The scaffold forms part of the <i>fête</i>.”</p>
<p>“Count, I have reflected on the matter,” said Franz, “I thank
you for your courtesy, but I shall content myself with accepting a place in
your carriage and at your window at the Rospoli Palace, and I leave you at
liberty to dispose of my place at the Piazza del Popolo.”</p>
<p>“But I warn you, you will lose a very curious sight,” returned the
count.</p>
<p>“You will describe it to me,” replied Franz, “and the recital
from your lips will make as great an impression on me as if I had witnessed it.
I have more than once intended witnessing an execution, but I have never been
able to make up my mind; and you, Albert?”</p>
<p>“I,” replied the viscount,—“I saw Castaing executed,
but I think I was rather intoxicated that day, for I had quitted college the
same morning, and we had passed the previous night at a tavern.”</p>
<p>“Besides, it is no reason because you have not seen an execution at
Paris, that you should not see one anywhere else; when you travel, it is to see
everything. Think what a figure you will make when you are asked, ‘How do
they execute at Rome?’ and you reply, ‘I do not know!’ And,
besides, they say that the culprit is an infamous scoundrel, who killed with a
log of wood a worthy canon who had brought him up like his own son.
<i>Diable!</i> when a churchman is killed, it should be with a different weapon
than a log, especially when he has behaved like a father. If you went to Spain,
would you not see the bull-fights? Well, suppose it is a bull-fight you are
going to see? Recollect the ancient Romans of the Circus, and the sports where
they killed three hundred lions and a hundred men. Think of the eighty thousand
applauding spectators, the sage matrons who took their daughters, and the
charming Vestals who made with the thumb of their white hands the fatal sign
that said, ‘Come, despatch the dying.’”</p>
<p>“Shall you go, then, Albert?” asked Franz.</p>
<p>“<i>Ma foi</i>, yes; like you, I hesitated, but the count’s
eloquence decides me.”</p>
<p>“Let us go, then,” said Franz, “since you wish it; but on our
way to the Piazza del Popolo, I wish to pass through the Corso. Is this
possible, count?”</p>
<p>“On foot, yes, in a carriage, no.”</p>
<p>“I will go on foot, then.”</p>
<p>“Is it important that you should go that way?”</p>
<p>“Yes, there is something I wish to see.”</p>
<p>“Well, we will go by the Corso. We will send the carriage to wait for us
on the Piazza del Popolo, by the Via del Babuino, for I shall be glad to pass,
myself, through the Corso, to see if some orders I have given have been
executed.”</p>
<p>“Excellency,” said a servant, opening the door, “a man in the
dress of a penitent wishes to speak to you.”</p>
<p>“Ah! yes,” returned the count, “I know who he is, gentlemen;
will you return to the salon? you will find good cigars on the centre table. I
will be with you directly.”</p>
<p>The young men rose and returned into the salon, while the count, again
apologizing, left by another door. Albert, who was a great smoker, and who had
considered it no small sacrifice to be deprived of the cigars of the Café de
Paris, approached the table, and uttered a cry of joy at perceiving some
veritable <i>puros</i>.</p>
<p>“Well,” asked Franz, “what think you of the Count of Monte
Cristo?”</p>
<p>“What do I think?” said Albert, evidently surprised at such a
question from his companion; “I think he is a delightful fellow, who does
the honors of his table admirably; who has travelled much, read much, is, like
Brutus, of the Stoic school, and moreover,” added he, sending a volume of
smoke up towards the ceiling, “that he has excellent cigars.”</p>
<p>Such was Albert’s opinion of the count, and as Franz well knew that
Albert professed never to form an opinion except upon long reflection, he made
no attempt to change it.</p>
<p>“But,” said he, “did you observe one very singular
thing?”</p>
<p>“What?”</p>
<p>“How attentively he looked at you.”</p>
<p>“At me?”</p>
<p>“Yes.”</p>
<p>Albert reflected. “Ah,” replied he, sighing, “that is not
very surprising; I have been more than a year absent from Paris, and my clothes
are of a most antiquated cut; the count takes me for a provincial. The first
opportunity you have, undeceive him, I beg, and tell him I am nothing of the
kind.”</p>
<p>Franz smiled; an instant after the count entered.</p>
<p>“I am now quite at your service, gentlemen,” said he. “The
carriage is going one way to the Piazza del Popolo, and we will go another;
and, if you please, by the Corso. Take some more of these cigars, M. de
Morcerf.”</p>
<p>“With all my heart,” returned Albert; “Italian cigars are
horrible. When you come to Paris, I will return all this.”</p>
<p>“I will not refuse; I intend going there soon, and since you allow me, I
will pay you a visit. Come, we have not any time to lose, it is half-past
twelve—let us set off.”</p>
<p>All three descended; the coachman received his master’s orders, and drove
down the Via del Babuino. While the three gentlemen walked along the Piazza di
Spagna and the Via Frattina, which led directly between the Fiano and Rospoli
palaces, Franz’s attention was directed towards the windows of that last
palace, for he had not forgotten the signal agreed upon between the man in the
mantle and the Transtevere peasant.</p>
<p>“Which are your windows?” asked he of the count, with as much
indifference as he could assume.</p>
<p>“The three last,” returned he, with a negligence evidently
unaffected, for he could not imagine with what intention the question was put.</p>
<p>Franz glanced rapidly towards the three windows. The side windows were hung
with yellow damask, and the centre one with white damask and a red cross. The
man in the mantle had kept his promise to the Transteverin, and there could now
be no doubt that he was the count.</p>
<p>The three windows were still untenanted. Preparations were making on every
side; chairs were placed, scaffolds were raised, and windows were hung with
flags. The masks could not appear; the carriages could not move about; but the
masks were visible behind the windows, the carriages, and the doors.</p>
<p>Franz, Albert, and the count continued to descend the Corso. As they approached
the Piazza del Popolo, the crowd became more dense, and above the heads of the
multitude two objects were visible: the obelisk, surmounted by a cross, which
marks the centre of the square, and in front of the obelisk, at the point where
the three streets, del Babuino, del Corso, and di Ripetta, meet, the two
uprights of the scaffold, between which glittered the curved knife of the
<i>mandaïa</i>.</p>
<p>At the corner of the street they met the count’s steward, who was
awaiting his master. The window, let at an exorbitant price, which the count
had doubtless wished to conceal from his guests, was on the second floor of the
great palace, situated between the Via del Babuino and the Monte Pincio. It
consisted, as we have said, of a small dressing-room, opening into a bedroom,
and, when the door of communication was shut, the inmates were quite alone. On
chairs were laid elegant masquerade costumes of blue and white satin.</p>
<div class="fig"> <ANTIMG src="images/20167m.jpg" style="width:100%;" alt="20167m " /><br/></div>
<p>“As you left the choice of your costumes to me,” said the count to
the two friends, “I have had these brought, as they will be the most worn
this year; and they are most suitable, on account of the <i>confetti</i>
(sweetmeats), as they do not show the flour.”</p>
<p>Franz heard the words of the count but imperfectly, and he perhaps did not
fully appreciate this new attention to their wishes; for he was wholly absorbed
by the spectacle that the Piazza del Popolo presented, and by the terrible
instrument that was in the centre.</p>
<p>It was the first time Franz had ever seen a guillotine,—we say
guillotine, because the Roman <i>mandaïa</i> is formed on almost the same model
as the French instrument.<SPAN href="#fn-7" name="fnref-7" id="fnref-7"><sup>[7]</sup></SPAN>
The knife, which is shaped like a crescent, that cuts with the convex side,
falls from a less height, and that is all the difference.</p>
<p>Two men, seated on the movable plank on which the victim is laid, were eating
their breakfasts, while waiting for the criminal. Their repast consisted
apparently of bread and sausages. One of them lifted the plank, took out a
flask of wine, drank some, and then passed it to his companion. These two men
were the executioner’s assistants.</p>
<p>At this sight Franz felt the perspiration start forth upon his brow.</p>
<p>The prisoners, transported the previous evening from the Carceri Nuove to the
little church of Santa Maria del Popolo, had passed the night, each accompanied
by two priests, in a chapel closed by a grating, before which were two
sentinels, who were relieved at intervals. A double line of carbineers, placed
on each side of the door of the church, reached to the scaffold, and formed a
circle around it, leaving a path about ten feet wide, and around the guillotine
a space of nearly a hundred feet.</p>
<p>All the rest of the square was paved with heads. Many women held their infants
on their shoulders, and thus the children had the best view. The Monte Pincio
seemed a vast amphitheatre filled with spectators; the balconies of the two
churches at the corner of the Via del Babuino and the Via di Ripetta were
crammed; the steps even seemed a parti-colored sea, that was impelled towards
the portico; every niche in the wall held its living statue. What the count
said was true—the most curious spectacle in life is that of death.</p>
<p>And yet, instead of the silence and the solemnity demanded by the occasion,
laughter and jests arose from the crowd. It was evident that the execution was,
in the eyes of the people, only the commencement of the Carnival.</p>
<p>Suddenly the tumult ceased, as if by magic, and the doors of the church opened.
A brotherhood of penitents, clothed from head to foot in robes of gray
sackcloth, with holes for the eyes, and holding in their hands lighted tapers,
appeared first; the chief marched at the head.</p>
<div class="fig"> <ANTIMG src="images/20169m.jpg" style="width:100%;" alt="20169m " /><br/></div>
<p>Behind the penitents came a man of vast stature and proportions. He was naked,
with the exception of cloth drawers at the left side of which hung a large
knife in a sheath, and he bore on his right shoulder a heavy iron
sledge-hammer.</p>
<p>This man was the executioner.</p>
<p>He had, moreover, sandals bound on his feet by cords.</p>
<p>Behind the executioner came, in the order in which they were to die, first
Peppino and then Andrea. Each was accompanied by two priests. Neither had his
eyes bandaged.</p>
<p>Peppino walked with a firm step, doubtless aware of what awaited him. Andrea
was supported by two priests. Each of them, from time to time, kissed the
crucifix a confessor held out to them.</p>
<p>At this sight alone Franz felt his legs tremble under him. He looked at
Albert—he was as white as his shirt, and mechanically cast away his
cigar, although he had not half smoked it. The count alone seemed
unmoved—nay, more, a slight color seemed striving to rise in his pale
cheeks. His nostrils dilated like those of a wild beast that scents its prey,
and his lips, half opened, disclosed his white teeth, small and sharp like
those of a jackal. And yet his features wore an expression of smiling
tenderness, such as Franz had never before witnessed in them; his black eyes
especially were full of kindness and pity.</p>
<p>However, the two culprits advanced, and as they approached their faces became
visible. Peppino was a handsome young man of four or five-and-twenty, bronzed
by the sun; he carried his head erect, and seemed on the watch to see on which
side his liberator would appear. Andrea was short and fat; his visage, marked
with brutal cruelty, did not indicate age; he might be thirty. In prison he had
suffered his beard to grow; his head fell on his shoulder, his legs bent
beneath him, and his movements were apparently automatic and unconscious.</p>
<p>“I thought,” said Franz to the count, “that you told me there
would be but one execution.”</p>
<p>“I told you true,” replied he coldly.</p>
<p>“And yet here are two culprits.”</p>
<p>“Yes; but only one of these two is about to die; the other has many years
to live.”</p>
<p>“If the pardon is to come, there is no time to lose.”</p>
<p>“And see, here it is,” said the count. At the moment when Peppino
reached the foot of the <i>mandaïa</i>, a priest arrived in some haste, forced
his way through the soldiers, and, advancing to the chief of the brotherhood,
gave him a folded paper. The piercing eye of Peppino had noticed all. The chief
took the paper, unfolded it, and, raising his hand, “Heaven be praised,
and his Holiness also,” said he in a loud voice; “here is a pardon
for one of the prisoners!”</p>
<p>“A pardon!” cried the people with one voice; “a
pardon!”</p>
<p>At this cry Andrea raised his head.</p>
<p>“Pardon for whom?” cried he.</p>
<p>Peppino remained breathless.</p>
<p>“A pardon for Peppino, called Rocca Priori,” said the principal
friar. And he passed the paper to the officer commanding the carbineers, who
read and returned it to him.</p>
<p>“For Peppino!” cried Andrea, who seemed roused from the torpor in
which he had been plunged. “Why for him and not for me? We ought to die
together. I was promised he should die with me. You have no right to put me to
death alone. I will not die alone—I will not!”</p>
<p>And he broke from the priests struggling and raving like a wild beast, and
striving desperately to break the cords that bound his hands. The executioner
made a sign, and his two assistants leaped from the scaffold and seized him.</p>
<p>“What is going on?” asked Franz of the count; for, as all the talk
was in the Roman dialect, he had not perfectly understood it.</p>
<p>“Do you not see?” returned the count, “that this human
creature who is about to die is furious that his fellow-sufferer does not
perish with him? and, were he able, he would rather tear him to pieces with his
teeth and nails than let him enjoy the life he himself is about to be deprived
of. Oh, man, man—race of crocodiles,” cried the count, extending
his clenched hands towards the crowd, “how well do I recognize you there,
and that at all times you are worthy of yourselves!”</p>
<p>Meanwhile Andrea and the two executioners were struggling on the ground, and he
kept exclaiming, “He ought to die!—he shall die!—I will not
die alone!”</p>
<p>“Look, look,” cried the count, seizing the young men’s hands;
“look, for on my soul it is curious. Here is a man who had resigned
himself to his fate, who was going to the scaffold to die—like a coward,
it is true, but he was about to die without resistance. Do you know what gave
him strength? do you know what consoled him? It was, that another partook of
his punishment—that another partook of his anguish—that another was
to die before him! Lead two sheep to the butcher’s, two oxen to the
slaughterhouse, and make one of them understand that his companion will not
die; the sheep will bleat for pleasure, the ox will bellow with joy. But
man—man, whom God created in his own image—man, upon whom God has
laid his first, his sole commandment, to love his neighbor—man, to whom
God has given a voice to express his thoughts—what is his first cry when
he hears his fellow-man is saved? A blasphemy. Honor to man, this masterpiece
of nature, this king of the creation!”</p>
<p>And the count burst into a laugh; a terrible laugh, that showed he must have
suffered horribly to be able thus to laugh.</p>
<p>However, the struggle still continued, and it was dreadful to witness. The two
assistants carried Andrea up to the scaffold; the people all took part against
Andrea, and twenty thousand voices cried, “Put him to death! put him to
death!”</p>
<p>Franz sprang back, but the count seized his arm, and held him before the
window.</p>
<p>“What are you doing?” said he. “Do you pity him? If you heard
the cry of ‘Mad dog!’ you would take your gun—you would
unhesitatingly shoot the poor beast, who, after all, was only guilty of having
been bitten by another dog. And yet you pity a man who, without being bitten by
one of his race, has yet murdered his benefactor; and who, now unable to kill
anyone, because his hands are bound, wishes to see his companion in captivity
perish. No, no—look, look!”</p>
<div class="fig"> <ANTIMG src="images/20172m.jpg" style="width:100%;" alt="20172m " /><br/></div>
<p>The recommendation was needless. Franz was fascinated by the horrible
spectacle.</p>
<p>The two assistants had borne Andrea to the scaffold, and there, in spite of his
struggles, his bites, and his cries, had forced him to his knees. During this
time the executioner had raised his mace, and signed to them to get out of the
way; the criminal strove to rise, but, ere he had time, the mace fell on his
left temple. A dull and heavy sound was heard, and the man dropped like an ox
on his face, and then turned over on his back.</p>
<p>The executioner let fall his mace, drew his knife, and with one stroke opened
his throat, and mounting on his stomach, stamped violently on it with his feet.
At every stroke a jet of blood sprang from the wound.</p>
<p>This time Franz could contain himself no longer, but sank, half fainting, into
a seat.</p>
<p>Albert, with his eyes closed, was standing grasping the window-curtains.</p>
<p>The count was erect and triumphant, like the Avenging Angel!</p>
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