To retain a stolen name, he had
committed a most cowardly assassination. And he, the magistrate, was
about to experience the infinite gratification of striking his enemy
with the sword of justice.
But this was only a passing thought. The man's upright conscience
revolted against it, and made its powerful voice heard.
"Is anything," it cried, "more monstrous than the association of these
two ideas,--hatred and justice? Can a magistrate, without despising
himself more than he despises the vile beings he condemns, recollect
that a criminal, whose fate is in his hands, has been his enemy? Has an
investigating magistrate the right to make use of his exceptional powers
in dealing with a prisoner; so long as he harbours the least resentment
against him?"
M. Daburon repeated to himself what he had so frequently thought during
the year, when commencing a fresh investigation: "And I also, I almost
stained myself with a vile murder!"
And now it was his duty to cause to be arrested, to interrogate, and
hand over to the assizes the man he had once resolved to kill.
All the world, it is true, ignored this crime of thought and intention;
but could he himself forget it? Was not this, of all others, a case in
which he should decline to be mixed up? Ought he not to withdraw, and
wash his hands of the blood that had been shed, leaving to another the
task of avenging him in the name of society?
"No," said he, "it would be a cowardice unworthy of me.
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