صفحة 376 من 490

"You must have something to do with it. Wait, wait a moment;

listen to me. Only listen, Alan. All I ask of you is to perform a

certain scientific experiment. You go to hospitals and

dead-houses, and the horrors that you do there don't affect you.

If in some hideous dissecting-room or fetid laboratory you found

this man lying on a leaden table with red gutters scooped out in

it for the blood to flow through, you would simply look upon him

as an admirable subject. You would not turn a hair. You would not

believe that you were doing anything wrong. On the contrary, you

would probably feel that you were benefiting the human race, or

increasing the sum of knowledge in the world, or gratifying

intellectual curiosity, or something of that kind. What I want

you to do is merely what you have often done before. Indeed, to

destroy a body must be far less horrible than what you are

accustomed to work at. And, remember, it is the only piece of

evidence against me.