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CORDOBA 67
Have you any right to punish sinners >—The justice of
man has judged him and commissioned me to carry out
the judgment. Then they would remove my chains
and escort me back to my home.”
“I suppose this farce was gone through with in
order to pacify the rage of the mob and give some pro-
tection to you?”
“Yes, that’s it! But when the people were in un-
usual rage over the execution, there was no authority
to protect me—as if I were the guilty one and the
whole thing had been done by me! Once they nearly
tore me limb from limb. It is not so bad any more;
only in the remote districts do the people ever attack
me. But everywhere they have nothing but derision
and contempt for me; in their eyes I am worse than a
leper or one afflicted with cholera. If only the authori-
ties would treat me as a human being! For, after all,
I am a part of the government!” Once more his face
assumed its previous expression of enigmatical reserve,
as if many thoughts were brooding behind it.
“What are your feelings when you are engaged in
your work as an executioner?” I utter this question
reluctantly, almost with aversion.
“Feelings?” his features become bitter. ‘Feelings?
Must a hangman have feelings? Why don’t you say
plainly, just as other people do, that a hangman is so
blood-thirsty that he cuts off a chicken’s head every
day on which he has no execution to perform, and sucks
out its blood? Feelings? When I was still a young
man, I sometimes considered myself to be the repre-
sentative of divine justice, and I thought my trade a
splendid one. But at times I shared the views of the
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