“And long after you have been delivered from Fotheringay through the intercession of your cousin, or because they have grown tired of feeding you there any longer like a canary, long afterwards, yes, even now, your daydreams are of this woman; you are roused from sleep, and fall down with a heavy shock, on your bed, because you want to arrest the arm of the executioner! . . . Is it not so?”
“I am willing to believe it, but I cannot say very decidedly, because I have never looked through a hole in the wall of Fotheringay.”
“Granted! nor have I. But now I take picture, which represents the decapitation of Mary Stuart. Suppose the representation to be perfect: there it hangs in a gilt frame, suspended by a red cord, if you like. . . I know what you are about to say,—‘Granted!’ No! you do not see the frame; you even forget that you left your walking-stick at the entrance of the picture-gallery; you forget your name, your child, the new model shako, not to see a picture, but to behold in reality Mary Stuart, exactly the same as at Fotheringay. The executioner stands there exactly the same as he must have been standing in reality; yes, I will even suppose that you extend your arm to avert the blow, that you even cry, ‘Let this woman live, perhaps she will amend.’. . . You see, I give you fair play as regards the execution of the picture.”
“Yes, but what more? Is the impression then not
