You are quite right; and, if, in order to save Claus, I went and said to the Major, “You need look no further, it is I who killed the Lieutenant,” I should, as you say, be making a display of inopportune heroism for which I am not at all fitted. There is nothing of the hero about me; I am just a poor, respectable man, like the other men of this town; like the other men, I fear death; and I am as much attached to life as any one else, indeed perhaps more, for my life hitherto has been happier than I deserved. I should like to end it as calmly as possible, but even so, I want to end it decently. It is all very well for you to say that Claus, innocent as he is, must die because he has been selected by fate and that I am not responsible for what happens to him. But I too am selected by fate! If an unlucky chance brought him on the scene of the murder, a similar and equally unlucky chance has placed me at the head of this town at a moment of terrible responsibility and danger. Our position, looked at from the point of view of ill-luck and of the excuse which you are trying to find in destiny, is absolutely the same. If Claus had in his hands the power which I have in mine, if my life or death depended on his evidence alone and if, knowing me to be innocent, he proclaimed me guilty, you would consider him a monster or the meanest of cowards; yet he would be doing exactly what you wish me to do. He and I are both marked down, to the same extent, by the same fatality and we stand an equal chance; but you are urging me to cheat and to take an unfair advantage against a decent man who cannot protect himself and who trusts me. I should be only too glad to be convinced by what you say, but that is out of the question; and I cannot understand how you yourself do not understand!
Otto
Very well, let us drop argument, since you will not listen to reason. Let us admit that the position is the same in both cases; but, as a choice has to be made between two lives, would you consider your own, which is useful and necessary to all, of no more value than that of a poor devil who has no relations, no children, no one to regret him, who does no public service and who will soon be a burden to the community?
The Burgomaster
Old Claus’s life is worth just as much as mine; and my answer would be the same if, instead of being the respectable, God-fearing man that he is, he were the lowest of scoundrels. It is here a question not of weighing the value or the usefulness of a man’s life, but of knowing whether or not I am to dishonour my own.
Otto
You really amaze me! You scarcely seem to be the same man, the wise, prudent person, the man of tact and discretion, who did me the honour to entrust me with his daughter!
The Burgomaster
I certainly did not realize to what sort of man I was giving her.
Otto