nt, the interrogative form to make what he called his
"examination of conscience."

"Now, then, be frank, Polypheme, do you care much for life?

"Eh! eh!

"What say you to being hanged?

"H--m, h--m.

"Come, now, frankly?

"Frankly? well, the gallows, strictly speaking, might please me if Blue
Beard was there to see me hanged. And yet, no, it is an ignoble death, a
ridiculous death; one's tongue hangs out, one kicks about----

"Polypheme, you are afraid--of being hanged?

"No, faith! but hanged all alone, hanged by myself, hanged like a mad
dog, hanged without two beautiful eyes looking at you, without a pretty
mouth smiling at you----

"Polypheme, you are a stupid oaf; do you believe that Her Grace the
Duchess of Monmouth would come to applaud your last dance? Once more,
Polypheme, you are tricking, you seek all sorts of evasions. You are
afraid of being hanged, I tell you."

"So be it--yes, I am afraid of the gallows, I own it; let us speak no
more of it. Put aside these probabilities, do not admit into our future
this exaggerated fear. Zounds! one is not hanged for so little, while
the prison is possible, not to say probable. Let us talk, then, of the
prison.

"Well, how does the prison seem to you, Polypheme?

"Eh! eh! the prison is devilishly monotonous. I know well that I should
have the resource of thinking of Blue Beard, but I shall think of her so
much, I shall think of her even better in the peaceful solitude of the
woods, in the calm of the paternal valley. The paternal valley! yes,
decidedly, it is there that I would prefer to finish my days, dreaming
of Blue Beard. Only, shall I ever find it again, this paternal valley?
Alas! the mists of our Gavonne are so thick that I shall wander long,
without doubt, before I find this dear valley again.

"Polypheme, you purposely wander from the subject; you wish to escape
the prison as well as the gallows, in spite of your philosophical
bombast.

"Well, yes, zounds! I do want to escape both; to whom should I avow it
if not to myself? Who will comprehend me if not I, myself?

"That admitted, Polypheme, how will you evade the fate that threatens
you?

"Just at present this road is hardly favorable for escape, I know; rocks
on the right hand, on the left the sea, in front of and behind me the
escort. My horse is not bad; if it was better than that of the good
Chemerant, I might make a trial of swiftness with him.

"And then, Polypheme?

"And then