ou. To you it is nothing.
But I cannot forget, you see, that you and I are practically conniving
at a murder."

"Hush, hush, my dear friend!" said Calabressa, glancing round. "Be
discreet! And what a foolish phrase, too! You--you whose business is
merely to translate; to preach; to educate a poor devil of a
Russian--what have you to do with it? And to speak of murder! Bah! You
do not understand the difference, then, between killing a man as an act
of private anger and revenge, and executing a man for crimes against
society? My good friend Edouarts, you have lived all your life among
books, but you have not learned any logic--no!"

Edwards was not inclined to go into any abstract argument

"I will do what I have been appointed to do," he said, curtly; "but that
cannot prevent my wishing that it had not to be done at all."

"And who knows?" said Calabressa, lightly. "Perhaps, if you are so
fearful about your small share, your very little share--it is no more
than that of the garcon who helps one on with his coat: is he accessary,
too, if a rogue has to be punished?--is he responsible for the sentence,
also, if he brushes the boots of the judge?--or the servant of the court
who sweeps out the room, is he guilty if there is a miscarriage of
justice? No, no; my dear friend Edouarts, do not alarm yourself. Then, I
was saying, perhaps it may not be necessary, after all. You perceived,
my friend, that when the proposal of his eminence the Cardinal was
mentioned, the Secretary Granaglia smiled, and I, thoughtless, laughed.
You perceived it, did you not?"

By this time they were in the Chiaja, beyond the Villa Reale; and there
were fewer people about. Calabressa stopped and confronted his
companion. For the purposes of greater emphasis, he rested his right
elbow in the palm of his left hand, while his forefinger was at the
point of his nose.

"What?" said he, in this striking attitude, "what if we were both
fools--ha? The Secretary Granaglia and myself--what if we were both
fools?"

Calabressa abandoned his pose, linked his arm within that of his
companion, and walked on with him.

"Come, I will implant something in your mind. I will throw out a fancy;
it may take root and flourish; if not, who is the worse? Now, if the
Council were really to entertain that proposal of Zaccatelli?"

He regarded his friend Edouarts.

"You observed, I say, that Granaglia smiled: to him it was ludicrous. I
laughed: to me it was farcical