icer from the magistrate entered my shop, and requesting me
to dismiss the customers, and, producing the things I missed, he said,
"Senore Zaleukos, do you own these things?" I hesitated a moment
whether I had not better disown them altogether, but seeing through the
half-open door my landlord and several acquaintances, who might perhaps
witness against me, I determined not to aggravate the affair by telling
a falsehood, and so owned the things produced. The officer desired me
to follow him, and led me to a large building, which I soon recognised
as a prison. He showed me into an apartment to await further orders.

My situation was terrible as I reflected on it in my solitude; the
thought of having committed murder, though unintentionally, constantly
returned. Neither could I deny to myself that the glitter of gold had
captivated my senses, or I could not so easily have been caught in the
snare. Two hours after my arrest, I was led from my room up several
staircases into a large hall. Twelve persons, mostly old men, were
sitting at a round table, covered with black cloth. Along the walls
stood benches occupied by the nobility of Florence. In the galleries
above stood the spectators, densely crowded together. When I stepped
to the table, a man, with a gloomy and melancholy expression of
countenance, rose: it was the president of the tribunal. Addressing
the assembly, he said, that as the father of the murdered, he could not
pass judgment in this matter, and therefore, ceded his place to the
senior of the senators. The latter was an aged man of at least ninety
years. He was bent with age, and his temples were scantily covered
with a few white hairs, but his eyes still burned with lustre, and his
voice was strong and firm. He began by asking me whether I confessed
the murder? I demanded to be heard, and fearlessly, and in a very
audible voice, related what I had done, and what I knew. I observed
that the president, during my statement, was alternately flushed and
pale, and that when I concluded, he started up furiously, crying to me,
"What, wretch! Do you wish to charge the crime you committed from
avarice upon another?" The senator called him to order for his
interruption, as he had voluntarily resigned his right of judgment,
remarking, moreover, that it was by no means proved that I committed
the crime from avarice, as, by his own deposition, nothing had been
stolen from the murdered. Indeed, he went sti