set
the whole _equipage_ in a ditch. I am not going to pretend that my
life was in danger. It was sheer impatience which made me hit him
across the neck with the edge of my hand--you know the way--just
to wake him up--and the result was that he never woke up at all,
but collapsed then and there.

MR. Y. [Craftily] And did you report it?

MR. X. No, and these were my reasons for not doing so. The man
left no family behind him, or anybody else to whom his life could
be of the slightest use. He had already outlived his allotted
period of vegetation, and his place might just as well be filled
by somebody more in need of it. On the other hand, my life was
necessary to the happiness of my parents and myself, and perhaps
also to the progress of my science. The outcome had once for all
cured me of any desire to wake up people in that manner, and I
didn't care to spoil both my own life and that of my parents for
the sake of an abstract principle of justice.

MR. Y. Oh, that's the way you measure the value of a human life?

MR. X. In the present case, yes.

MR. Y. But the sense of guilt--that balance you were speaking of?

MR. X. I had no sense of guilt, as I had committed no crime. As a
boy I had given and taken more than one blow of the same kind, and
the fatal outcome in this particular case was simply caused by my
ignorance of the effect such a blow might have on an elderly
person.

MR. Y. Yes, but even the unintentional killing of a man is
punished with a two-year term at hard labour--which is exactly
what one gets for--writing names.

MR. X. Oh, you may be sure I have thought of it. And more than one
night I have dreamt myself in prison. Tell me now--is it really as
bad as they say to find oneself behind bolt and bar?

MR. Y. You bet it is!--First of all they disfigure you by cutting
off your hair, and if you don't look like a criminal before, you
are sure to do so afterward. And when you catch sight of yourself
in a mirror you feel quite sure that you are a regular bandit.

MR. X. Isn't it a mask that is being torn off, perhaps? Which
wouldn't be a bad idea, I should say.

MR. Y. Yes, you can have your little jest about it!--And then they
cut down your food, so that every day and every hour you become
conscious of the border line between life and death. Every vital
function is more or less checked. You can feel yourself shrinking.
And your soul, which was to be cured and improved, is instead put
on a starva