“Hey?” he cried. “But explain, Citizen Thibaut.”
“Why, obviously a primal simplicity cannot be taught by those who, by their own showing, are an essential condition of degeneration.”
“You think so, my friend? But is it not he who has hunted with the wolves can best advise the lamb whither not to stray? Set a thief to catch a thief, but not innocence to lead innocence.”
“We are all so disinterested, eh? We must kill to purify—so long as we remain the executioners.”
“The physicians! the physicians! Some day we shall provide the tonic.”
“At this rate the physicians will have to drink it themselves.”
“Meaning the patients will fail us? Rest content. They will last our time. The ills in the constitution of France are many. For the resurrection—sang Dieu!” he cried, with a wry face, “but that is no part of our programme!”
Indeed, it was not of his. He was actuated by no passion but the blood-sucker’s. One day he showed me a clumsy model guillotine, a foot high, of his own contriving. The axe was a fragment of table-knife sunk in a finger of lead, and with it he would operate upon a gruesome little doll he had with an adjustable neck. Snip! the blade fell and the head, and a spout of crimson gushed forth and stained the floor.
“That is a waste of good wine,” said I.
His face puckered like a toad’s eyelids.