Your brother was murdered, your mother driven to insanity, and society has prosecuted neither the assassin nor the executioner.

You and I are the dregs of justice and instead of destroying we ought to aid each other." Simoun paused with a repressed sigh, and then slowly resumed, while his gaze wandered about: "Yes, I am he who came here thirteen years ago, sick and wretched, to pay the last tribute to a great and noble soul that was willing to die for me.

The victim of a vicious system, I have wandered over the world, working night and day to amass a fortune and carry out my plan.

Now I have returned to destroy that system, to precipitate its downfall, to hurl it into the abyss toward which it is senselessly rushing, even though I may have to shed oceans of tears and blood.

It has condemned itself, it stands condemned, and I don't want to die before I have seen it in fragments at the foot of the precipice!" Simoun extended both his arms toward the earth, as if with that gesture he would like to hold there the broken remains.