The man
left no family behind him, or anybody else to whom his life could
be of the slightest use. He had already outlived his allotted
period of vegetation, and his place might just as well be filled
by somebody more in need of it. On the other hand, my life was
necessary to the happiness of my parents and myself, and perhaps
also to the progress of my science. The outcome had once for all
cured me of any desire to wake up people in that manner, and I
didn't care to spoil both my own life and that of my parents for
the sake of an abstract principle of justice.
MR. Y. Oh, that's the way you measure the value of a human life?
MR. X. In the present case, yes.
MR. Y. But the sense of guilt--that balance you were speaking of?
MR. X. I had no sense of guilt, as I had committed no crime. As a
boy I had given and taken more than one blow of the same kind, and
the fatal outcome in this particular case was simply caused by my
ignorance of the effect such a blow might have on an elderly
person.
MR. Y. Yes, but even the unintentional killing of a man is
punished with a two-year term at hard labour--which is exactly
what one gets for--writing names.
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