and reach the object. . . . You look for one moment through the hole. . . . ‘Oh, dear!’ You fall. . . . And don’t you now know why?”
“I think that the weak leg of the stool broke down,” said Verbrugge.
“Yes; that leg broke down,—but that is not the reason why you fell, the leg broke after your fall. Before every other hole, you could have stood a year on that chair, but now you would have fallen even if there had been thirteen legs to the stool. Yes, even had you been standing on the ground. . . .”
“I take it for granted,” said Duclari. “I see that you intend to let me fall, coûte que coûte. I lie flat enough now, and at full length; but really I don’t know why.”
“Well; that is very simple. . . you saw there a woman, dressed in black, kneeling down before a block. She bowed her head, and white as silver was the neck, which appeared whiter from its contrast with the velvet. . . and there stood a man with a large sword;[1] and he held it high, and he looked at this white neck. . . and he considered the are which his blade must describe, to be driven through just there. . . there between those joints with exactness and forceand then you fell, Duclari; you fell because you saw that, and, therefore, you cried: ‘Oh, dear!’ and not because your chair had only three legs.
- ↑ Headsman’s axe.
