“It sounded very much like such a statement.”
“Well, I will tell you how I have meditated upon his death by violence. If the consequences of committing such a deed were purely physical—if there were no moral side to the question—if the only thing that I could have outraged by the commission of such an act had been the law, I think I should have killed him long ago.”
“That is an extremely dangerous sentiment for you to express under the existing circumstances, Danton.”
“Oh, I know that; but that isn’t the point. When I meditated upon his death it was in the form of thinking out regrets that, because of the moral and mental aspects of the case, I was debarred from killing him. I have wished that we might both return to savagery long enough for me to take his life without experiencing regret for the act afterward. I wanted him dead and I wanted to kill him, but I never for an instant considered the possibility that I would do so; precisely in the same ratio in which my adventurous spirit is always stirred whenever I read of an expedition to the North Pole.”
“How is that?”
“Why, I meditate upon going there myself. I haven’t a doubt but that I could accomplish it much more satisfactory than Peary has ever done. I have meditated upon the accomplishment of such an expedition so many times that I have well-defined plans for the work, and yet if the money, the men, the ships and everything were placed at my disposal in the midst of one of those meditative journeys I would no more have undertaken it than I would seriously have considered the cold-blooded murder that had occurred. Do you understand me?”
“Yes. I think I do. A journey to the North Pole is one of your dreams which you make use of on account of its soporific effect, when you are composing yourself for sleep; and the death of Orizaba was one of your dreams which you used in connection with the happiness of your home life.”
“Exactly.”
“Then I think we understand each other.”
“No, Mr. Carter. Not quite.”