It is very possible, however--even murderers should be given their due--that the man, intoxicated by the sight of blood, ceased to be a human being and became a beast, the son of chaos, the child of dark and terrible desires.

It was characteristic that the murderer, after having committed the crime, drank wine and ate biscuits--some of these were left on the table together with the marks of his blood-stained fingers.

But there was something so horrible that my mind could neither understand nor explain: the murderer, after lighting a cigar himself, apparently moved by a feeling of strange kindness, put a lighted cigar between the closed teeth of my father.
I had not recalled these details in many years.

They had almost been erased by the hand of time, and now while relating them to my shocked listeners, who would not believe that such horrors were possible, I felt my face turning pale and my hair quivering on my head.

In an outburst of grief and anger I rose from my armchair, and straightening myself to my full height, I exclaimed: "Justice on earth is often powerless, but I implore heavenly justice, I implore the justice of life which never forgives, I implore all the higher laws under whose authority man lives.