VAGRET:--Ah! why! why! Long before the session, it was so well understood by everyone that the accused was the culprit! And then, everyone was trying to rouse my dander, trying to make me drunk! I was the spokesman for humanity, I had to reassure the country, bring peace to the family--I don't know what all else! My first demands were comparatively moderate. But when I saw that famous advocate make the jury weep, I thought I was lost; I felt that the case was getting away from me. Contrary to my custom, I made a reply. When I stood up again, I was like a combattant who goes to meet defeat, and who fights with desperation. From that moment, Etchepare no longer existed, so to speak. I no longer had the care to defend society, or to maintain the accusation--I was fighting against that advocate; it was a tourney of orators, a contest of actors; I had to come out the conqueror at all hazards. I had to convince the jury, to seize it and tear from it the "Yes" of a verdict. It was no longer a question of Etchepare, I tell you; it was a question of myself, of my vanity, of my reputation, of my honor, of my future. It's shameful, I repeat, it's shameful! At any cost, I wanted to avoid the acquittal which I felt was certain. And I was possessed by such a fear of not succeeding, that I employed all the arguments, good and bad--even those which consisted in representing to those frightened men their homes in flames, their loved ones assassinated. I spoke of the vengeance of God upon judges who had no severity. And all that in good faith--or rather without consciousness, in a fit of passion, in a fit of passion against the advocate whom I hated with all my forces.... The success was even greater than I could have wished; the jury is ready to obey me, and for myself, my dear--I let myself be congratulated, and I pressed the hands which were held out to me.--That's what it is to be a prosecutor! MME. VAGRET:--Console yourself. There are perhaps not ten men in France who would have acted otherwise. VAGRET:--You are right. Only--if one reflects, it is precisely that which is frightful. BY KENKŌ HOSHI (See pages 135, 151) The governing class should stop their luxurious expenditures in order to help the governed class. For only when a man has been provided with the ordinary means of living, and yet steals, may he be really called a thief. A Hanging in Prison (_From "The Ballad of Reading Gaol"_) BY OSCAR WILDE (English poet and dramatist, 1856-1900, leader of the so-called "esthetes." The poem from which these extracts are taken was the fruit of his long imprisonment, and is one of the most moving and terrible narratives in English poetry) With slouch and swing around the ring We trod the Fools' Parade; We did not care; we knew we were The Devil's Own Brigade: And shaven head and feet of lead Make a merry masquerade.