“And he stands there with a lamentable air.”
“See his murderer’s hands tied before him and bleeding from the wounds of the trap.”
“Let him pay, let him pay!” cried Toria.
He said, bemoaning himself:
“I am poor, let me go.”
And everyone, nay, even the judges, mocked as they listened to him. He wept feigningly, meaning to touch their hearts. And the women laughed.
The evidence being sufficient to warrant torture, he was condemned to be put on the bench until he had confessed how he killed, whence he came, where were the spoils of the victims, and the place where he had his gold hidden.
Being in the torture chamber, and shod with foot-gear of new leather too small for him, and the bailiff asking him how Satan had come to suggest to him such black designs and crimes so abominable, he replied:
“Satan is myself, my natural being. Already when a small boy, but ugly to look on, unfit for all bodily exercise, I was held a ninny by everybody and often beaten. Lad nor lass had pity never. In my adolescence no women would have me, not even though I paid. Then I put on cold hatred against every being born of a woman. That was why I denounced Claes, beloved of all. And I loved but Money only, that was my darling, white or golden; to have Claes killed I found both profit and pleasure. After I must live like a wolf more than ever, and I dreamed of biting. Passing through Brabant, I saw there the waffle irons of that country and thought that one of them would be a good iron mouth for me. Why do not I have you by the neck, you evil tigers, that delight in an old man’s torment! I would bite you with greater joy than the soldier and the little girl. For her, when I saw her so sweet, sleeping on the sand in the sun, holding the little bag of money in her hands, I felt love and pity; feeling myself too old and not being able to take her, I bit her....”
The bailiff asking him where he lived, the fishmonger replied: