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Page 102
TEMPTER. Who by?
PEOPLE. The Law and his own deed.
TEMPTER. Listen to me! As counsel for the accused I represent him
and take the accusation on myself. I ask permission to address the
court.
MAGISTRATE. I can't refuse it.
PEOPLE. Florian's been condemned already.
TEMPTER. The case must first be heard. (Pause.) I'd reached my
eighteenth year--it's Florian speaking--and my thoughts, as I grew
up under my mother's watchful eye, were pure; and my heart without
deceit, for I'd never seen or heard anything wicked. Then I--
Florian, that is--met a young girl who seemed to me the most
beautiful creature I'd ever set eyes on in this wicked world, for
she was goodness itself. I offered her my hand, my heart, and my
future. She accepted everything and swore that she'd be true. I was
to serve five years for my Rachel--and I did serve, collecting one
straw after another for the little nest we were going to build. My
whole life was centred on the love of this woman! As I was true to
her myself, I never mistrusted her. By the fifth year I'd built the
hut and collected our household goods ... when I discovered she'd
been playing with me and had deceived me with at least three men. ...
MAGISTRATE. Have you witnesses?
BAILIFF. Three valid ones; I'm one of them.
MAGISTRATE. The bailiff alone will be sufficient.
TEMPTER. Then I shot her; not out of revenge, but in order to free
myself from the unhealthy thoughts her faithlessness had forced on
me; for when I tried to tear her picture out of my heart, images of
her lovers always rose and crept into my blood, so that at last I
seemed to be living in unlawful relationship with three men--with a
woman as the link between us!
MAGISTRATE. Well, that was jealousy!
ACCUSED MAN. Yes, that was jealousy.
TEMPTER. Yes, jealousy, that feeling for cleanliness, that seeks to
preserve thoughts from pollution by strangers. If I'd been content
to do nothing, if I'd not been jealous, I'd have got into vicious
company, and I didn't want to do that. That's why she had to die so
that my thoughts might be cleansed of deadly sin, which alone is to
be condemned. I've finished.
PEOPLE. The dead woman's guilty! Her blood's on her own head.
MAGISTRATE. She's guilty, for she was the cause of the crime.
(The FATHER of the dead woman steps forward.)
FATHER. Your Worship, judge of my dead child; and you, countrymen,
let me speak!
MAGISTRATE. The dead girl's father may speak.
FATHER. You're accusing a dead girl; and I shall answer. Maria, my
child, has undoubtedly been guilty of a crime and is to blame for
the misdeeds of this man. There's no doubt of it!
PEOPLE. No doubt! It's she who's guilty!
FATHER. Permit her father to add a word of explanation, if not of
defence. (Pause.) When she was fifteen, Maria fell into the hands
of a man who seemed to have made it his business to entrap young
girls, much as a bird-catcher traps small birds. He was no seducer,
in the ordinary sense, for he contented himself with binding her
senses and entangling her feelings only to thrust her away and
watch how she suffered with torn wings and a broken heart--tortured
by the agony of love, which is worse than any other agony. For
three years Maria was cared for in an institution for the mentally
deranged. And when she came out again, she was divided, broken into
several pieces--it might be said that she was several persons. She
was an angel and feared God with one side of her spirit; but with
another she was a devil, and reviled all that was holy. I've seen
her go straight from dancing and frenzy to her beloved Florian, and
have heard her, in his presence, speak so differently and so alter
her expression, that I could have sworn she was another being. But
to me she seemed equally sincere in both her shapes. Is she to
blame, or her seducer?
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