Simoun paused with a repressed sigh, and then slowly resumed, while
his gaze wandered about: "Yes, I am he who came here thirteen years
ago, sick and wretched, to pay the last tribute to a great and noble
soul that was willing to die for me. The victim of a vicious system, I
have wandered over the world, working night and day to amass a fortune
and carry out my plan. Now I have returned to destroy that system,
to precipitate its downfall, to hurl it into the abyss toward which
it is senselessly rushing, even though I may have to shed oceans
of tears and blood. It has condemned itself, it stands condemned,
and I don't want to die before I have seen it in fragments at the
foot of the precipice!"

Simoun extended both his arms toward the earth, as if with that gesture
he would like to hold there the broken remains. His voice took on a
sinister, even lugubrious tone, which made the student shudder.

"Called by the vices of the rulers, I have returned to these islands,
and under the cloak of a merchant have visited the towns. My gold
has opened a way for me and wheresoever I have beheld greed in the
most execrable forms, sometimes hypocritical, sometimes shameless,
sometimes cruel, fatten on the dead organism, like a vulture on a
corpse, I have asked myself--why was there not, festering in its
vitals, the corruption, the ptomaine, the poison of the tombs, to
kill the foul bird? The corpse was letting itself be consumed, the
vulture was gorging itself with meat, and because it was not possible
for me to give it life so that it might turn against its destroyer,
and because the corruption developed slowly, I have stimulated greed,
I have abetted it. The cases of injustice and the abuses multiplied
themselves; I have instigated crime and acts of cruelty, so that the