第62章

I took my measures thus: Many Jews were present at Waterloo.From among these, all irritated against Napoleon for the expectations he had raised, only to disappoint, by his great assembly of Jews at Paris, I selected eight, whom I knew familiarly as men hardened by military experience against the movements of pity.With these as my beagles, I hunted for some time in your forest before opening my regular campaign; and I am surprised that you did not hear of the death which met the executioner--him I mean who dared to lift his hand against my mother.This man I met by accident in the forest;and I slew him.I talked with the wretch, as a stranger at first, upon the memorable case of the Jewish lady.Had he relented, had he expressed compunction, I might have relented.But far otherwise: the dog, not dreaming to whom he spoke, exulted; he--But why repeat the villain's words? I cut him to pieces.Next Idid this: My agents I caused to matriculate separately at the college.They assumed the college dress.And now mark the solution of that mystery which caused such perplexity.Simply as students we all had an unsuspected admission at any house.Just then there was a common practice, as you will remember, among the younger students, of going out a masking--that is, of entering houses in the academic dress, and with the face masked.This practice subsisted even during the most intense alarm from the murderers; for the dress of the students was supposed to bring protection along with it.But, even after suspicion had connected itself with this dress, it was sufficient that I should appear unmasked at the head of the maskers, to insure them a friendly reception.Hence the facility with which death was inflicted, and that unaccountable absence of any motion toward an alarm.I took hold of my victim, and he looked at me with smiling security.Our weapons were hid under our academic robes; and even when we drew them out, and at the moment of applying them to the threat, they still supposed our gestures to be part of the pantomime we were performing.Did I relish this abuse of personal confidence in myself? No--I loathed it, and I grieved for its necessity; but my mother, a phantom not seen with bodily eyes, but ever present to my mind, continually ascended before me; and still I shouted aloud to my astounded victim, 'This comes from the Jewess! Hound of hounds!

Do you remember the Jewess whom you dishonored, and the oaths which you broke in order that you might dishonor her, and the righteous law which you violated, and the cry of anguish from her son which you scoffed at?' Who I was, what I avenged, and whom, I made every man aware, and every woman, before I punished them.The details of the cases I need not repeat.One or two I was obliged, at the beginning, to commit to my Jews.The suspicion was thus, from the first, turned aside by the notoriety of my presence elsewhere; but I took care that none suffered who had not either been upon the guilty list of magistrates who condemned the mother, or of those who turned away with mockery from the supplication of the son.