Page 31 - the-idiot
P. 31

thought.
              ‘Well, at all events it is a good thing that there’s no pain
           when the poor fellow’s head flies off,’ he remarked.
              ‘Do  you  know,  though,’  cried  the  prince  warmly,  ‘you
           made that remark now, and everyone says the same thing,
            and the machine is designed with the purpose of avoiding
           pain, this guillotine I mean; but a thought came into my
           head then: what if it be a bad plan after all? You may laugh
            at my idea, perhaps—but I could not help its occurring to
           me all the same. Now with the rack and tortures and so
            on—you suffer terrible pain of course; but then your tor-
           ture is bodily pain only (although no doubt you have plenty
            of that) until you die. But HERE I should imagine the most
           terrible part of the whole punishment is, not the bodily pain
            at all—but the certain knowledge that in an hour,—then in
           ten minutes, then in half a minute, then now—this very IN-
           STANT—your soul must quit your body and that you will
           no longer be a man— and that this is certain, CERTAIN!
           That’s the point—the certainty of it. Just that instant when
           you place your head on the block and hear the iron grate
            over your head—then—that quarter of a second is the most
            awful of all.
              ‘This is not my own fantastical opinion—many people
           have thought the same; but I feel it so deeply that I’ll tell you
           what I think. I believe that to execute a man for murder is to
           punish him immeasurably more dreadfully than is equiva-
            lent to his crime. A murder by sentence is far more dreadful
           than a murder committed by a criminal. The man who is
            attacked by robbers at night, in a dark wood, or anywhere,

            0                                        The Idiot
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