It was a commonplace to Terence Mann that punishment itself is an archaic evil in the law. As special prosecutor, as defense lawyer on a few occasions, in the relatively clean region of civil law, he had tried to favor any reorientation of thought and action that might discredit punishment as a respected motivation and replace it by efforts at healing and reclamation. As a judge, familiar with the endless parade of minor offenders (most of them with no chance of redemption, for where in the modern state was there a sufficient will to redeem even the young, or the time, patience, money, wisdom, to implement it?), Judge Mann had been aware of no impulse in himself to punish, only of a desire to lessen disorder, and try for the long view. And then, Callista Blake. But--_balancing crime of punishment_: well, there it was simply his own unexpected rephrasing of the issue that had startled him. Apart from that, if that was significant, this self-castigation probably served no purpose. Fashionable but without merit, to wail that we are all guilty. So we are, in a sense, and (unless one intends to do something about it) so what? Breast-beating is as solitary as any other form of masturbation. The modern spirit, he thought, for a long time before Hiroshima, had grown too fond of the wail, the masochistic acceptance of futility that ended in a downright enjoyment of it, a perversion as sterile as the antics of the louse-eaten monks of the Thebaid. Admit that two years ago he might not have been completely honest with himself. All right: what mattered now was that a slow broadening of reform might look very fine in the armchair perspective of a history book, but was no use at all to Callista Blake, nineteen years old. Capital punishment was on the way out, taking her along with it. Therefore in the very present specific instance: _What to do?_ Wandering to the other side of the room, fingering the stacks of sheet music and the bound volumes, Judge Mann reflected that a judgeship is a very damned comfortable thing, to the nerves of pocketbook and of vanity, until a moment of self-appraisal brings you the image of a bewildered monkey in a black gown. An image caught as though in multiple mirrors. No good turning your head aside: a mirror in every wall, and the monkey, poor puzzled well-meaning bastard, in every mirror.