for torture! You have made me suffer enough, and I must speak at length
to you before I kill you,--yes, at length. It will be very terrible for
you, agonising!"

"Come, no stuff and nonsense, old parson," said Tortillard, raising
himself half up from his seat; "punish her, but don't do her any harm.
You say you'll kill her,--that's only a hum; I am very fond of my
Chouette; I have only lent her to you, and you must give her back again.
Don't spoil her,--I won't have my Chouette spoiled,--if you do, I'll go
and fetch pa!"

"Be quiet, and she shall only have what she deserves, a profitable
lesson," said the Schoolmaster, in order to assure Tortillard, and for
fear the cripple should go and fetch assistance.

"All right! Bravo! Now the play's going to begin!" said Bras-Rouge's
son, who did not seriously believe that the Schoolmaster intended to
kill the Chouette.

"Let us discourse a little, Chouette," continued the Schoolmaster, in a
calm voice. "In the first place, you see, since that dream at the
Bouqueval farm, which brought all my crimes before my eyes, since that
dream, which did all but drive me mad,--which will drive me mad, for, in
my solitude, in the deep isolation in which I live, all my thoughts
dwell on this dream, in spite of myself,--a strange change has come over
me; yes, I have a horror of my past ferocity. In the first place, I
would not allow you to make a martyr of La Goualeuse, though that was
nothing. Chaining me here in the cellar, making me suffer from cold and
hunger, and detaining me for your wicked suggestions, you have left me
to all the fear of my own reflections. Oh, you do not know what it is to
be left alone,--always alone,--with a dark veil over your eyes, as the
pitiless man said who punished me. Oh, it is horrid! It was in this very
cavern that I flung him, in order to kill him; and this cavern is the
place of my punishment, it may be my grave. I repeat that this is
horrid! All that that man predicted to me has come to pass; he said to
me, 'You have abused your strength,--you will be the plaything, the
sport of the most weak.' And it has been so. He said to me,
'Henceforward separated from the exterior world, face to face with the
eternal remembrance of your crimes, one day you will repent those
crimes.' And that day has come; the loneliness has purified me; I could
not have believed it possible. Another proof that I am perhaps less
wicked than formerly, is that I feel inexpressible j