Page 31 - the-idiot

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,

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