Madame Vagret. My God!
Vagret. A dreadful thing happened to me in the course of my indictment. While I, the State Attorney, the official prosecutor, was exercising my function, another self was examining the case calmly, in cold blood; an inner voice kept reproaching me for my violence and insinuating into my mind a doubt, which has gone on increasing. A painful struggle has been going on in my mind, a cruel struggle—and if, as I was finishing, I labored under that emotion of which the President was speaking, if when I demanded the death penalty my voice was scarcely audible, it was because I was at the end of my struggle; because my conscience was on the point of winning the battle, and I made haste to finish, because I was afraid it would speak out against my will. When I saw the advocate remain seated and that he was not going to resume his speech in order to tell the jury the things I would have had him tell them—then I was really afraid of myself, afraid of my actions, of my words, of their terrible consequences, and I wanted to gain time.
Madame Vagret. But, my dear, you have done your duty; if the advocate has not done his, that does not concern you.
Vagret. Always the same reply. If I were an honest man I should tell the jury, when the hearing is resumed, of the doubts that have seized me. I should explain how those doubts arose in me; I should call their attention to a point which I deliberately concealed from them, because I believed the counsel for the defence would point it out to him.
Madame Vagret. You know, my dear, how thoroughly I respect your scruples, but allow me to tell you all the same that it won't be you who will declare Etchepare guilty or not guilty; it will be the jury. If anyone ought to feel disturbed, it is Maître Plaçat, not you—
Vagret. But I ought to represent justice!
Madame Vagret. Here is a prisoner who comes before you with previous convictions, with a whole crushing series of circumstances establishing his guilt. He is defended by whom? By one of the ornaments of the Bar, a man famed for his conscience as much as for his ability and his oratorical skill. You expound the facts to the jury. If the jury agrees with you, I cannot see that your responsibility as a magistrate is involved.
Vagret. I don't think about my responsibility as a magistrate—but my responsibility as a man is certainly involved! No! No! I have not the right. I tell you there is a series of circumstances in this case of which no one has spoken and the nature of which makes me believe in the innocence of the accused.
Madame Vagret. But—these circumstances—how was it you knew nothing of them until now?
Vagret [his head drooping] Do you think I did know nothing of them? My God! Shall I have the courage to tell you everything? I am not a bad man, am I? I wouldn't wish anyone to suffer for a fault of mine—but—oh, I am ashamed to admit it, to say it aloud, even, when I have admitted it to myself! Well, when I was studying the brief, I had got it so firmly fixed in my mind, to begin with, that Etchepare was a criminal, that when an argument in his favor presented itself to my mind, I rejected it utterly, shrugging my shoulders. As for the facts of which I am speaking, and which gave rise to my doubts—at first I simply tried to prove that those facts were false, taking, from the depositions of the witnesses, only that which would militate against their truth and rejecting all the rest, with a terrible simplicity of bad faith. And in the end, in order to dissipate my last scruples, I told myself, just as you told me, "That is the business of the defence; it isn't mine!" Listen, and you'll see to what point the exercise of the magistrate's office distorts our natures, makes us unjust and cruel. At first I had a feeling of delight when I saw that the President, in his cross-examination, was throwing no light whatever on this series of little facts. It was my profession speaking in me, my profession, do you see? Oh, what poor creatures we are, what poor creatures!