He began
to understand the hate that arms itself with a knife, and lays in ambush
in out-of-the-way places; which strikes in the dark, whether in front
or from behind matters little, but which strikes, which kills, whose
vengeance blood alone can satisfy.
At that very hour he was supposed to be occupied with an inquiry
into the case of an unfortunate, accused of having stabbed one of her
wretched companions. She was jealous of the woman, who had tried to
take her lover from her. He was a soldier, coarse in manners, and always
drunk.
M. Daburon felt himself seized with pity for this miserable creature,
whom he had commenced to examine the day before. She was very ugly, in
fact truly repulsive; but the expression of the eyes, when speaking of
her soldier, returned to the magistrate's memory.
"She loves him sincerely," thought he. "If each one of the jurors had
suffered what I am suffering now, she would be acquitted. But how many
men in this world have loved passionately? Perhaps not one in twenty."
He resolved to recommend this girl to the indulgence of the tribunal,
and to extenuate as much as possible her guilt.
For he himself had just determined upon the commission of a crime.
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