The first step, the essential step, was to get back.

Perhaps it would not be necessary to kill anyone.

There were other kinds of revenge, grimmer, more devilish, than a commonplace murder.

If he were to feign acceptance of the Council's proposal, it would be the easiest thing in the world to compass the destruction of those whom he wished to destroy, instead of bringing about the ruin of those whom the authorities had in mind, and who were doubtless the finest fellows among all the inhabitants of Venice! Monstrous! Because they were the enemies of this infamous government, because they were reputed heretics, were they to languish in The Leads where he had languished twenty-five years ago, or were they to perish under the executioner's axe?
He detested the government a hundred times more than they did, and with better reason.

He had been a lifelong heretic; was a heretic to-day, upon sincerer conviction than them all.
What a queer comedy he had been playing of late years--simply from tedium and disgust.