VAGRET. I must console myself with Berryer's re-
mark: "It is better to leave ten guilty men at liberty
than to punish one innocent man."

THE PRESIDENT. You have a sensitive nature.

VAGRET. Ought one to have a heart of stone, then,
to be a magistrate?

THE PRESIDENT [tying up the box in which he has
put his judge's bonnet] One must keep oneself above
the little miseries of humanity.

VAGRET. Above the miseries of others.

THE PRESIDENT. Hang it all --

VAGRET. That is what we call egoism.

THE PRESIDENT. Do you say that for my benefit?

VAGRET. For all three of us.

BUNERAT. Au revoir, gentlemen. Au revoir. [He
shakes hands with each and goes out]

THE PRESIDENT [taking off his gown] My dear
Monsieur, I beg you to be more moderate in your re-
marks.

VAGRET. Ah, I assure you that I am moderate! If
I were to speak what is in my mind, you would hear
very unpleasant things.

THE PRESIDENT [in shirt sleeves] Are you forgetting
to whom you are speaking? I am a Councillor of the
Court, Monsieur le Procureur.

VAGRET. Once again, I am not speaking to you
merely; the disagreeable things I might say would con-
demn me equally. I am thinking of those poor people.

THE PRESIDENT [brushing his gown] What poor
people? The late prisoners? But after all, they are
acquitted. What more do you want? To provide them
with an income?

VAGRET. They are acquitted, true; but they are
condemned, all the same. They are sentenced to
misery for life.

THE PRESIDENT. What are you talking about?

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