The Severed Hand | Page 6

to the eldest of the Senators. The eldest of the Senators was an
old man at least ninety years of age. He stood in a bent attitude, and his
temples were covered with thin white hair, but his eyes were as yet
very fiery, and his voice powerful and weighty. He commenced by
asking me whether I confessed to the murder. I requested him to allow
me to speak, and related undauntedly and with a clear voice what I had
done, and what I knew.
I noticed that the Governor, during my recital, at one time turned pale,
and at another time red. When I had finished, he rose angrily: "What,
wretch!" he exclaimed, "dost thou even dare to impute a crime which
thou hast committed from greediness to another?" The Senator
reprimanded him for his interruption, since he had voluntarily
renounced his right; besides it was not clear that I did the deed from
greediness, for, according to his own statement, nothing had been
stolen from the victim. He even went further. He told the Governor that
he must give an account of the early life of his daughter, for then only it
would be possible to decide whether I had spoken the truth or not. At
the same time he adjourned the court for the day, in order, as he said, to
consult the papers of the deceased, which the Governor would give him.
I was again taken back to my prison, where I spent a wretched day,
always fervently wishing that a link between the deceased and the
"red-cloak" might be discovered. Full of hope, I entered the Court of
Justice the next day. Several letters were lying upon the table. The old
Senator asked me whether they were in my handwriting. I looked at
them and noticed that they must have been written by the same hand as
the other two papers which I had received. I communicated this to the
Senators, but no attention was paid to it, and they told me that I might
have written both, for the signature of the letters was undoubtedly a Z.,
the first letter of my name. The letters, however, contained threats

against the deceased, and warnings against the marriage which she was
about to contract.
The Governor seemed to have given extraordinary information
concerning me, for I was treated with more suspicion and rigor on this
day. I referred, to justify myself, to my papers which must be in my
room, but was told they had been looked for without success. Thus at
the conclusion of this sitting all hope vanished, and on being brought
into the Court the third day, judgment was pronounced on me. I was
convicted of wilful murder and condemned to death. Things had come
to such a pass! Deserted by all that was precious to me upon earth, far
away from home, I was to die innocently in the bloom of my life.
On the evening of this terrible day which had decided my fate, I was
sitting in my lonely cell, my hopes were gone, my thoughts steadfastly
fixed upon death, when the door of my prison opened, and in came a
man, who for a long time looked at me silently. "Is it thus I find you
again, Zaleukos?" he said. I had not recognized him by the dim light of
my lamp, but the sound of his voice roused in me old remembrances. It
was Valetti, one of those few friends whose acquaintance I made in the
city of Paris when I was studying there. He said that he had come to
Florence accidentally, where his father, who was a distinguished man,
lived. He had heard about my affair, and had come to see me once more,
and to hear from my own lips how I could have committed such a
crime. I related to him the whole affair. He seemed much surprised at it,
and adjured me, as my only friend, to tell him all, in order not to leave
the world with a lie behind me. I confirmed my assertions with an oath
that I had spoken the truth, and that I was not guilty of anything, except
that the glitter of the gold had dazzled me, and that I had not perceived
the improbability of the story of the stranger. "Did you not know
Bianca?" he asked me. I assured him that I had never seen her. Valetti
now related to me that a profound mystery rested on the affair, that the
Governor had very much accelerated my condemnation, and now a
report was spread that I had known Bianca for a long time, and had
murdered her out of revenge for her marriage with some one else. I told
him that all this coincided exactly with