As it takes at least two seconds to plunge a dagger up to the hilt into the tenderest flesh and to withdraw the weapon for another blow, the Countess must have spent considerably more than half-an-hour in stabbing the Marchesa's body. Bearing in mind the amount of muscular effort requisite for driving a dagger up to the hilt into a human body, one is not surprised to learn that the murderess exhausted herself. Bearing in mind also the number of square inches on the surface of a woman's body, no reader will question that Julia's body was frightfully disfigured by the thousand stabs in a thousand different places. Julia's murder is of course followed by the punishment of the murderess, and of the supreme villain who may be said to have educated her to perpetrate the monstrous crime. Zastrozzi is racked to death. No particulars are given of Matilda di Laurentini's last agonies, but the reader is left under the impression that she has died or will die by the executioner. Published in a single duodecimo volume, this tale of horror contains about as many words as a single volume of an ordinary three-volume novel. Perhaps more horrors have never been crowded into so short a romance. The tortures endured by Verezzi during his successive imprisonments afflict the memory. Verezzi's father is poniarded to death by his bastard son. Julia's faithful servant, Paulo, dies in the presence of his poisoners, groaning horribly and writhing in hideous convulsions. Matilda makes a futile attempt to throw herself into the Danube. The dagger-scene in the vicinity of the Castella di Laurentini would not have been more terrific had the mock-assailant been a veritable bravo. The Count Verezzi commits suicide. Julia is stabbed in a thousand different spots of her body. Zastrozzi is racked to death. The Contessa di Laurentini is left for execution.