"Louison," he said impatiently. "You did not see her? She made me shiver!"
"She affects me like a snake," Goursac answered. "She is a creature of the night, in her element at such a time. They say she never misses an execution. Well, citoyen, what of the machine?"
"Horrible!"
"You are wrong," Goursac protested. "It does not take life: it suppresses it, and that by a process more charitable than natural death. That is the way a nation should avenge itself." He repeated several times in a transport of enthusiasm, "Magnificent!"
"There, look at it now!"
At Barabant's summons they paused at the gate, looking back at the dim circle of lights around the guillotine unseen but divined, while Barabant continued:
"The first time did not count—it was only a thief. To-night is the true beginning of the guillotine—a sinister and ominous beginning."
"Still, what a spectacle!" Goursac exclaimed. "What could be more dramatic?"
"Too much so," Barabant retorted. "I admit I am impressionable, but to-night the blow seemed to fall from above our own heads."