Pagina 164 de 1294

"Well, listen then. On the other side, fresh young lives thrown

away for want of help and by thousands, on every side! A hundred

thousand good deeds could be done and helped, on that old woman's

money which will be buried in a monastery! Hundreds, thousands

perhaps, might be set on the right path; dozens of families saved

from destitution, from ruin, from vice, from the Lock

hospitals--and all with her money. Kill her, take her money and

with the help of it devote oneself to the service of humanity and

the good of all. What do you think, would not one tiny crime be

wiped out by thousands of good deeds? For one life thousands

would be saved from corruption and decay. One death, and a

hundred lives in exchange--it's simple arithmetic! Besides, what

value has the life of that sickly, stupid, ill-natured old woman

in the balance of existence! No more than the life of a louse, of

a black-beetle, less in fact because the old woman is doing harm.