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'