and again (p. 79) that
"... these filthy rags of speech, this coil
Of statement, comment, query and response,
Tatters all too contaminate for use,
Have no renewing: He, the Truth, is, too,
The Word."
The scene changes to the prison-cell where Count Guido has received his final sentence of death. Two former friends and fellow-Tuscans, Cardinal Acciajuoli and Abate Panciatichi, have come to prepare him for execution; but the one is listening awe-struck to the only kind of confession which they can obtain from him, while the other plies his beads in a desperate endeavour to exorcise the spiritual enemy, "ban" the diabolical influences, it is conjuring up. The speaker is no longer Count Guido Franceschini, but
GUIDO. He is indeed another man than he was in his first monologue, for he has thrown off the mask. His tone is at first conciliatory, even entreating: for his hearers are men of his own class, and he hopes to persuade them to one more intercession in his behalf. But it changes to one of scorn and defiance, as the hopelessness of his case lays hold of him, and rises, at the end, to a climax of ferocity which is all but grand.
"Repentance! if he repent for twelve hours, will he die the less on the thirteenth? He has broken the social law, and is about to pay for it. What has he to repent of but that he has made a mistake? Religion! who of them all believes in it? Not the Pope himself; for religion enjoins mercy; it is meant to temper the harshness of the law: and he destroys the life which the law has given over to him to save. What man of them all shows by his acts that he believes; or would be treated otherwise than as a lunatic if he did? Let those who will, halt between belief and unbelief. It has not been in him to do so. Give him the certainty of another world, and he would have lived for it. Owning no such certainty, he has lived for this one; he has sought its pleasures and avoided its pains. Only he has carried the thing too far. The world has decreed limits to every man's pleasure; it limits this for the good of all; and it has made unlawful the excess of pleasure which turns to someone else's pain. He has exceeded the lawful amount of pleasure, and he pays for it by an extra dose of pain."
"There the matter ends. But his judges want more—a few edifying lies wherewith to show that he did not die impenitent, and stop the mouth of anyone who may hint, the day after the execution, that old men are too fond of putting younger ones out of the way. They shall have his confession; but it must be the truth."