What I have done hath not been done without bitter penitence, and an
agony of soul that your own light servitude may have spared you,
Signore."
"Poor Jacopo!"
"If I have lived through it all, 'tis because one mightier than the
state hath not deserted me. But, Don Camillo Monforte, there are crimes
which pass beyond the powers of man to endure."
The Bravo shuddered, and he moved among the despised graves in silence.
"They have then proved too ruthless even for thee?" said Don Camillo,
who watched the contracting eye and heaving form of his companion, in
wonder.
"Signore, they have. I have witnessed, this night, a proof of their
heartlessness and bad faith, that hath caused me to look forward to my
own fate. The delusion is over; from this hour I serve them no longer."
The Bravo spoke with deep feeling, and his companion fancied, strange as
it was coming from such a man, with an air of wounded integrity. Don
Camillo knew that there was no condition of life, however degraded or
lost to the world, which had not its own particular opinions of the
faith due to its fellows; and he had seen enough of the sinuous course
of the oligarchy of Venice, to understand that it was quite possible its
shameless and irresponsible duplicity might offend the principles of
even an assassin. Less odium was attached to men of that class, in Italy
and at that day, than will be easily imagined in a country like this;
for the radical defects and the vicious administration of the laws,
caused an irritable and sensitive people too often to take into their
own hands the right of redressing their own wrongs.
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