Of statement, comment, query and response,
Tatters all too contaminate for use,
Have no renewing: He, the Truth, is, too,
The Word."

The scene changes to the prison-cell where Count Guido has received his
final sentence of death. Two former friends and fellow-Tuscans, Cardinal
Acciajuoli and Abate Panciatichi, have come to prepare him for
execution; but the one is listening awe-struck to the only kind of
confession which they can obtain from him, while the other plies his
beads in a desperate endeavour to exorcise the spiritual enemy, "ban"
the diabolical influences, it is conjuring up. The speaker is no longer
Count Guido Franceschini, but

GUIDO. He is indeed another man than he was in his first monologue, for
he has thrown off the mask. His tone is at first conciliatory, even
entreating: for his hearers are men of his own class, and he hopes to
persuade them to one more intercession in his behalf. But it changes to
one of scorn and defiance, as the hopelessness of his case lays hold of
him, and rises, at the end, to a climax of ferocity which is all but
grand.

"Repentance! if he repent for twelve hours, will he die the less on the
thirteenth? He has broken the social law, and is about to pay for it.
What has he to repent of but that he has made a mistake? Religion! who
of them all believes in it? Not the Pope himself; for religion enjoins
mercy; it is meant to temper the harshness of the law: and he destroys
the life which the law has given over to him to save. What man of them
all shows by his acts that he believes; or would be treated otherwise
than as a lunatic if he did? Let those who will, halt between belief and
unbelief. It has not been in him to do so. Give him the certainty of
another world, and he would have lived for it. Owning no such certainty,
he has lived for this one; he has sought its pleasures and avoided its
pains. Only he has carried the thing too far. The world has decreed
limits to every man's pleasure; it limits this for the good of all; and
it has made unlawful the excess of pleasure which turns to someone
else's pain. He has exceeded the lawful amount of pleasure, and he pays
for it by an extra dose of pain."

"There the matter ends. But his judges want more--a few edifying lies
wherewith to show that he did not die impenitent, and stop the mouth of
anyone who may hint, the day after the execution, that old men are too
fond of putting younger ones out of the way. T