"I can well recall only one human being I really loved: my wife. She had
her weak points, for she was a despiser of the gods, mocking all religion
and addicted to some contemptible Syrian cult of superstition and
puerilities. But I loved her in spite of that failing, for, in every other
way, she was a paragon. She is dead now and spared the agonies she would
have suffered at my capture and fate. Our two daughters are safe; both
healthy, both with the full status of citizens of the Republic, both well
provided with possessions, each married to a good, reliable husband,
though the younger is almost too young to be a wife. I feel at peace about
them.
"I really loved my wife and in a way, her two girls. But, except for them,
I have cheated, ensnared, robbed and killed without pity or remorse."
"You have no regrets?" I queried.
"No remorse," he corrected me. "I should do it all over again if I were
back as I was when I took to brigandage.
"Of course, while my wife was alive and I hoped for an old age with her, I
had a dream of investing my savings in a house in some out-of-the-way town
and in an estate near it and living at ease on the proceeds of my
robberies. But that was always far off in the future; I laid up a hoard to
make it possible, but I was never anywhere near ready to make use of that
hoard.
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