Etchepare. It was raining in torrents.
Mouzon. Then you met no one?
Etchepare. No one.
Mouzon. I thought as much. [In a tone of disappointed reproach, with apparent pity] Tell me, Etchepare, do you take the jurymen for idiots? [Silence] So that's all you've been able to think of? I said you were intelligent just now. I take that back. But think what you've told me—a rigmarole like that. Why, a child of eight would have done better. It's ridiculous I tell you—ridiculous. The jurymen will simply shrug their shoulders when they hear it. A whole night out of doors, in the pouring rain, to look for a horse you don't find—and without meeting a living soul—no shepherds, no customs officers—and you go home at five in the morning—although at this time of the year it's daylight by then—yes, and before then—but no, no one saw you and you saw no one. So everybody was stricken with blindness, eh? A miracle happened, and everyone was blind that night. You don't ask me to believe that? No? Why not? It's quite as probable as what you do tell me. So everybody wasn't blind? [The recorder bursts into a laugh; the gendarmes imitate him] You see what it's worth, your scheme of defence! You make the gaolers and my recorder laugh. Don't you agree with me that your new method of defence is ridiculous?
Etchepare [abashed, under his breath] I don't know.
Mouzon. Well, if you don't know, we do! Come now! I have no advice to give you. You repeat that at the trial and see what effect you produce. But why not confess? Why not confess? I really don't understand your obstinacy. I repeat, I really do not understand it.
Etchepare. Well, if I didn't do it, am I to say all the same that I did?
Mouzon. So you persist in your story of the phantom horse? You persist in it, do you?
Etchepare. How do I know? How should I know what I ought to say? I should do better not to say anything at all—everything I say is turned against me!
Mouzon. Because the stories you invent are altogether too improbable—because you think me more of a fool than I am in thinking that I am going to credit such absurd inventions. I preferred your first method; at least you had two witnesses to speak for you—two witnesses who were not worth very much, it's true, but witnesses all the same. You've made a change; well, you are within your rights. Let us stick to the lost horse.