"Austere!" they would interrupt. "Nonsense! He is dead, and it's all over now. But he was a regular demon!"
And they would cite incidents and relate the colonel's perversities, some of which were nothing less than extraordinary.
Need I confess it? At first I listened to all this talk with great curiosity; then, a queer pleasure penetrated my heart, a pleasure from which, sincerely, I tried to escape. And I continued to defend the colonel; I explained him, I attributed much of the fault-finding to local animosity; I admitted, yes, I admitted that he had been a trifle exacting, somewhat violent....
"Somewhat! Why he was as furious as a snake!" exclaimed the barber.
And all—the collector, the apothecary, the clerk—all were of the same opinion. And they would start to relate other anecdotes. They reviewed the entire life of the deceased. The old folks took particular delight in recalling the cruelties of his youth. And that queer pleasure, intimate, mute, insidious, grew within me—a sort of moral tape-worm whose coils I tore out in vain, for they would immediately form again and take firmer hold than ever.
The formalities of the inventory afforded
