I faced danger, I had innumerable difficulties to contend with, before I
slew the son. Think not that it was a light or easy matter, to make my
way past the watch, and single-handed to overcome one body of guards
after another and put them to flight: herein is perhaps the greatest
difficulty with which the tyrannicide has to contend. It is no such great
matter to bring the tyrant to bay, and dispatch him. Once overcome the
guards that surround him, and success is ensured; little remains to be
done. I could not make my way to the tyrants till I had mastered every
one of their satellites and bodyguards: each of those preliminary
victories had to be won. Once more I pause, and consider my situation. I
have got the better of the guards; I am master of the garrison; I present
you the tyrant stripped, unarmed, defenceless. May I claim some credit
for this, or do you still require his blood? Well, if blood you must
have, that too is not wanting; my hands are not unstained; the glorious
deed is accomplished; the youthful tyrant, the terror of all men, his
father's sole security and protection, the equivalent of many bodyguards,
is slain in the prime of his strength. Have I not earned my reward? Am I
to have no credit for all that is done? What if I had killed one of his
guards, some underling, some favourite domestic? Would it not have been
thought a great thing, to go up and dispatch the tyrant's friend within
his own walls, in the midst of his armed attendants? But who _was_
my victim? The tyrant's son, himself a more grievous tyrant than his
father, more cruel in his punishments, more violent in his excesses; a
pitiless master; one, above all, whose succession to the supreme power
promised a long continuance of our miseries. Shall I concede that this is
the sum of my achievements? Shall we put it, that the tyrant has escaped,
and lives? Still I claim my recompense. What say you, gentlemen? do you
withhold it? The son, perhaps, caused you no uneasiness; he was no
despot, no grievous oppressor?
And now for the final stroke. All that my adversary demands of me, I have
performed; and that in the most effectual manner. I slew the tyrant when
I slew his son; slew him not with a single blow--he could have asked no
easier expiation of his guilt than that--but with prolonged torment. I
showed him his beloved lying in the dust, in pitiable case, weltering in
blood. And what if he were a villain? he was still his son, still the old
man's likeness in the pride of youth. These are the wounds that fathers
feel; this the tyrannicide's sword of justice; this the death, the
vengeance, that befits cruelty and oppression. The tyrant who dies in a
moment, and knows not his loss, and sees not such sights as these, dies
unpunished. I knew--we all knew--his affection for his son; knew that not
for one day would he survive his loss. Other fathers may be devoted to
their sons: his devotion was something more than theirs. How should it be
otherwise? In him, and in him alone, the father saw the zealous guardian
of his lawless rule, the champion of his old age, the sole prop of
tyranny. If grief did not kill him on the spot, despair, I knew, must do
so; there could be no further joy in life for him when his protector was
slain. Nature, grief, despair, foreboding, terror,--these were my allies;
with these I hemmed him in, and drove him to his last desperate resolve.
Know that your oppressor died childless, heartbroken, weeping, groaning
in spirit; the time of his mourning was short, but it was a father
mourning for his son; he died by his own hand, bitterest, most awful of
deaths; that death comes lightly, by comparison, which is dealt by
another.
Where is my sword?
Does any one else know anything of this sword? Does any one claim it? Who
took it up into the citadel? The tyrant used this sword. Who had it
before him? Who put it in his way?--Sword, fellow labourer, partner of my
enterprise,--we have faced danger and shed blood to no purpose. We are
slighted. Men say that we have not earned our reward.
Suppose that I had advanced a claim solely on my sword's behalf: suppose
that I had said to you: 'Gentlemen, the tyrant had resolved to slay
himself, but was without a weapon at the moment, when this sword of mine
supplied his need, and thereby played its part in our deliverance.'
Should you not have considered that the owner of a weapon so public-
spirited was entitled to honour and reward? Should you not have
recompensed him, and inscribed his name among those of your benefactors;
consecrated his sword, and worshipped it as a God?
Now consider how the tyrant may be supposed to have acted and spoken as
his end approached.--His son lies mortally wounded at my hand; the wounds
are many, and are exposed to view, that so the father's heart may be torn
asunder at the very first sight of him. He cries out piteously to his
father, not for help--he knows the old man's feebleness--, but for
sympathy in his sufferings. I meanwhile am making my way home: I have
written in the last line of my tragedy, and now I leave the stage clear
for the actor; there is the body, the sword, all that is necessary to
complete the scene. The father enters. He beholds his son, his only son,
gasping, blood-stained, weltering in gore; he sees the wounds--mortal
wound upon wound--and exclaims: 'Son, we are slain, we are destroyed, we
are stricken in the midst of our power. Where is the assassin? For what
fate does he reserve me, who am dead already in thy death, O my son?
Because I am old he fears me not, he withholds his vengeance, and would
prolong my torment.' Then he looks for a sword; he has always gone
unarmed himself, trusting all to his son. The sword is not wanting; it
has been waiting for him all this time; I left it ready for the deed that
was to follow. He draws it from the wound and speaks: 'Sword, that but a
moment past hast slain me, complete thy work: comfort the stricken
father, aid his aged hand; dispatch, slay, make an end of the tyrant and
his grief. Would that I had met thee first, that my blood had been shed
before his! I could but have died a tyrant's death, and should have left
an avenger behind me. And now I die childless: I have not so much as a
murderer at my need.' Even as he speaks, with trembling hand he plunges
the sword into his breast: he is in haste to die; but that feeble hand
lacks strength to do its dread office.
Is he punished? Are these wounds? Is this death? A tyrant's death? Is
there reward for this?
The closing scene you have all witnessed: the son--no mean antagonist--
prostrate in death; the father fallen upon him; blood mingling with
blood, the drink-offering of Victory and Freedom; and in the midst my
sword, that wrought all; judge by its presence there, whether the weapon
was unworthy of its master, whether it did him faithful service. Had all
been done by my hand, it had been little; the strangeness of the deed is
its glory. The tyranny was overthrown by me, and no other; but many
actors had their part to play in the drama. The first part was mine; the
second was the son's; the third the tyrant's; and my sword was never
absent from the stage.
THE DISINHERITED
_A disinherited son adopts the medical profession. His father going
mad, and being given up by the other physicians, he treats him
successfully, and is then reinstated in his rights. Subsequently his
step-mother also goes mad; he is bidden to cure her, and, declaring his
inability to do so, is once more disinherited._
There is neither novelty nor strangeness, gentlemen of the jury, in my
father's present proceedings. It is not the first time his passions have
taken this direction; it has become an instinctive habit with him to pay
a visit to this familiar court. Still, my unfortunate position has this
much of novelty about it: the charge I have to meet is not personal, but
professional; I am to be punished for the inability of Medicine to do my
father's bidding. A curious demand, surely, that healing should be done
to order, and depend not on the limits of one's art, but on the wishes of
one's father. For my part, I should be only too glad to find drugs in the
pharmacopoeia which could relieve not only disordered wits, but
disordered tempers; then I might be serviceable to my father. As it is,
he is completely cured of madness, but is worse-tempered than ever. The
bitterest part of it is, he is sane enough in all other relations, and
mad only where his healer is concerned. You see what my medical fee
amounts to; I am again disinherited, cut off from my family once more, as
though the sole purpose of my brief reinstatement had been the
accentuation of my disgrace by repetition.
When a thing is within the limits of possibility, I require no bidding; I
came before I was summoned, to see what I could do in this case. But when
there is absolutely no hope, I will not meddle. With this particular
patient, such caution is especially incumbent upon me; how my father
would treat me, if I tried and failed, I can judge by his disinheriting
me when I refused to try. Gentlemen, I am sorry for my stepmother's
illness--for she was an excellent woman; I am sorry for my father's
distress thereat; I am most sorry of all that I should seem rebellious,
and be unable to give the required service; but the disease is incurable,
and my art is not omnipotent. I do not see the justice of disinheriting
one who, when he cannot do a thing, refuses to undertake it.
The present case throws a clear light upon the reasons for my first
disinheriting. The allegations of those days I consider to have been
disposed of by my subsequent life; and the present charges I shall do my
best to clear away with a short account of my proceedings. Wilful and
disobedient son that I am, a disgrace to my father, unworthy of my
family, I thought proper to say very little indeed in answer to his long
and vehement denunciations. Banished from my home, I reflected that I
should find my most convincing plea, my best acquittal, in the life I
then led, in practically illustrating the difference between my father's
picture and the reality, in devotion to the worthiest pursuits and
association with the most reputable company. But I had also a
presentiment of what actually happened; it occurred to me even then that
a perfectly sane father does not rage causelessly at his son, nor trump
up false accusations against him. Persons were not wanting who detected
incipient madness; it was the warning and precursor of a stroke which
would fall before long--this unreasoning dislike, this harsh conduct,
this fluent abuse, this malignant prosecution, all this violence,
passion, and general ill temper. Yes, gentlemen, I saw that the time
might come when Medicine would serve me well.
I went abroad, attended lectures by the most famous foreign physicians,
and by hard work and perseverance mastered my craft. Upon my return, I
found that my father's madness had developed, and that he had been given
up by the local doctors, who are not distinguished for insight, and are
much to seek in accurate diagnosis. I did no more than a son's duty when
I forgot and forgave the disinheritance, and visited him without waiting
to be called in; I had in fact nothing to complain of that was properly
his act; his errors were not his, but, as I have implied, those of his
illness. I came unsummoned, then. But I did not treat him at once; that
is not our custom, nor what our art enjoins upon us. What we are taught
to do is first of all to ascertain whether the disease is curable or
incurable--has it passed beyond our control? After that, if it is
susceptible of treatment, we treat it, and do our very best to relieve
the sufferer. But if we realize that the complaint has got the entire
mastery, we have nothing to do with it at all. That is the tradition that
has come down to us from the fathers of our art, who direct us not to
attempt hopeless cases. Well, I found that there was yet hope for my
father; the complaint had not gone too far; I watched him for a long
time; formed my conclusions with scrupulous care; then, I commenced
operations and exhibited my drugs without hesitation--though many of his
friends were suspicious of my prescription, impugned the treatment, and
took notes to be used against me.
My step-mother was present, distressed and doubtful--the result not of
any dislike to me, but of pure anxiety, based on her full knowledge of
his sad condition; no one but her, who had lived with and nursed him,
knew the worst. However, I never faltered; the symptoms would not lie to
me, nor my art fail me; when the right moment came, I applied the
treatment, in spite of the timidity of some of my friends, who were
afraid of the scandal that might result from a failure; it would be said
that the medicine was my vengeful retort to the disinheritance. To make a
long story short, it was at once apparent that he had taken no harm; he
was in his senses again, and aware of all that went on. The company were
amazed; my step-mother thanked me, and every one could see that she was
delighted both at my triumph and at her husband's recovery. He himself--
to give credit where it is due--did not take time to consider, nor to ask
advice, but, as soon as he heard the story, undid what he had done, made
me his son again, hailed me as his preserver and benefactor, confessed
that I had now given my proofs, and withdrew his previous charges. All
this was delightful to the better, who were many, among his friends, but
distasteful to the persons who enjoy a quarrel more than a
reconciliation. I observed at the time that all were not equally pleased;
there were changes of colour, uneasy glances, signs of mortification, in
one quarter at least, which told of envy and hatred. With us, who had
recovered each other, all was naturally affection and rejoicing.
Quite a short time after, my step-mother's disorder commenced--a very
terrible and unaccountable one, gentlemen of the jury. I observed it from
its very beginning; it was no slight superficial case, this; it was a
long-established but hitherto latent mental disease, which now burst out
and forced its way into notice. There are many signs by which we know
that madness is incurable--among them a strange one which I noticed in
this case. Ordinary society has a soothing, alleviating effect; the
patient forgets to be mad; but if he sees a doctor, or even hears one
mentioned, he at once displays acute irritation--an infallible sign that
he is far gone, incurable in fact. I was distressed to notice this
symptom; my step-mother was a worthy person who deserved a better fate,
and I was all compassion for her.
But my father in his simplicity, knowing neither when nor how the trouble
began, and quite unable to gauge its gravity, bade me cure her by the
drugs that had cured him. His idea was that madness was to be nothing
else but mad; the disease was the same, its effects the same, and it must
admit of the same treatment. When I told him, as was perfectly true, that
his wife was incurable, and confessed that the case was beyond me, he
thought it an outrage, said I was refusing because I chose to, and
treating the poor woman shamefully--in short, visited upon me the
limitations of my art. Such ebullitions are common enough in distress; we
all lose our tempers then with the people who tell us the truth. I must
nevertheless defend myself and my profession, as well as I can, against
his strictures.
I will begin with some remarks upon the law under which I am to be
disinherited; my father will please to observe that it is not quite so
much now as before a matter for his absolute discretion. You will find,
sir, that the author of the law has not conferred the right of disherison
upon any father against any son upon any pretext. It is true he has armed
fathers with this weapon; but he has also protected sons against its
illegitimate use. That is the meaning of his insisting that the procedure
shall not be irresponsible and uncontrolled, but come under the legal
cognizance of inspectors whose decision will be uninfluenced by passion
or misrepresentation. He knew how often irritation is unreasonable, and
what can be effected by a lying tale, a trusted slave, or a spiteful
woman. He would not have the deed done without form of law; sons were not
to be condemned unheard and out of hand; they are to have the ear of the
court for so long by the clock, and there is to be adequate inquiry into
the facts.
My father's competence, then, being confined to preferring his
complaints, and the decision whether they are reasonable or not resting
with you, I shall be within my rights in requesting you to defer
consideration of the grievance on which he bases the present suit, until
you have determined whether a second disinheritance is admissible in the
abstract. He has cast me off, has exercised his legal rights, enforced
his parental powers to the full, and then restored me to my position as
his son. Now it is iniquitous, I maintain, that fathers should have these
unlimited penal powers, that disgrace should be multiplied, apprehension
made perpetual, the law now chastize, now relent, now resume its
severity, and justice be the shuttlecock of our fathers' caprices. It is
quite proper for the law to humour, encourage, give effect to, _one_
punitive impulse on the part of him who has begotten us; but if, after
shooting his bolt, insisting on his right, indulging his wrath, he
discovers our merits and takes us back, then he should be held to his
decision, and not allowed to oscillate, waver, do and undo any more.
Originally, he had no means of knowing whether his offspring would turn
out well or ill; that is why parents who have decided to bring up
children before they knew their nature are permitted to reject such as
are found unworthy of their family.
But when a man has taken his son back, not upon compulsion, but of his
own motion and after inquiry, how can further chopping and changing be
justified? What further occasion for the law? Its author might fairly say
to you, sir: _If your son was vicious and deserved to be disinherited,
what were you about to recall him? Why have him home again? Why suspend
the law's operation? You were a free agent; you need not have done it.
The laws are not your play-ground; you are not to put the courts in
motion every time your mood varies; the laws are not to be suspended to-
day and enforced to-morrow, with juries to look on at the proceedings, or
rather to be the ministers of your whims, executioners or peace-makers
according to your taste and fancy. The boy cost you one begetting, and
one rearing; in return for which you may disinherit him, once, always
provided you have reason to show for it. Disinheriting as a regular
habit, a promiscuous pastime, is not included in the_ patria potestas.
Gentlemen of the jury, I entreat you in Heaven's name not to permit him,
after voluntarily reinstating me, reversing the previous decision, and
renouncing his anger, to revive the old sentence and have recourse to the
same paternal rights; the period of their validity is past and gone; his
own act suffices to annul and exhaust their power. You know the general
rule of the courts, that a party dissatisfied with the verdict of a
ballot--provided jury is allowed an appeal to another court; but that is
not so when the parties have agreed upon arbitrators, and, after such
selection, put the matter in their hands. They had the choice, there, of
not recognizing the court _ab initio_; if they nevertheless did so,
they may fairly be expected to abide by its award. Similarly you, sir,
had the choice of never taking back your son, if you thought him
unworthy; having decided that he was worthy, and taken him back, you
cannot be permitted to disinherit him anew; the evidence of his not
deserving it is your own admission of his worth. It is only right that
the reinstatement and reconciliation should be definitive, after such
abundant investigation; there have been two trials, observe: the first,
that in which you rejected me; the second, that in your own conscience,
which reversed the decision of the other; the fact of reversal only adds
force to the later result. Abide, then, by your second thoughts, and
uphold your own verdict. You are to be my father; such was your
determination, approved and ratified.
Suppose I were not your begotten, but only your adopted son, I hold that
you could not then have disinherited me; for what it is originally open
to us not to do, we have no right, having done, to undo. But where there
is both the natural tie, and that of deliberate choice, how can a second
rejection, a repeated deprivation of the one relationship, be justified?
Or again, suppose I had been a slave, and you had seen reason to put me
in irons, and afterwards, convinced of my innocence, made me a free man;
could you, upon an angry impulse, have enslaved me again? Assuredly not;
the law makes these acts binding and irrevocable. Upon this contention,
that the voluntary annulment of a disinheritance precludes a repetition
of the act, I could enlarge further, but will not labour the point.
You have next to consider the character of the man now to be
disinherited. I lay no stress upon the fact that I was then nothing, and
am now a physician; my art will not help me here. As little do I insist
that I was then young, and am now middle-aged, with my years as a
guarantee against misconduct; perhaps there is not much in that either.
But, gentlemen, at the time of my previous expulsion, if I had never done
my father any harm (as I should maintain), neither had I done him any
good; whereas now I have recently been his preserver and benefactor;
could there be worse ingratitude than so, and so soon, to requite me for
saving him from that terrible fate? My care of him goes for nothing; it
is lightly forgotten, and I am driven forth desolate--I, whose wrongs
might have excused my rejoicing at his troubles, but who, so far from
bearing malice, saved him and restored him to his senses.
For, gentlemen, it is no ordinary slight kindness that he is choosing
this way of repaying. You all know (though he may not realize) what he
was capable of doing, what he had to endure, what his state was, in fact,
during those bad days. The doctors had given him up, his relations had
cleared away and dared not come near him; but I undertook his case and
restored him to the power of--accusing me and going to law. Let me help
your imagination, sir. You were very nearly in the state in which your
wife now is, when I gave you back your understanding. It is surely not
right that my reward for that should be this--that your understanding
should be used against me alone. That it is no trifling kindness I have
done you is apparent from the very nature of your accusation. The ground
of your hatred is that she whom I do not cure is in extremities, is
terribly afflicted; then, seeing that I relieved you of just such an
affliction, there is surely better reason for you to love and be grateful
to me for your own release from such horrors. But you are unconscionable
enough to make the first employment of your restored faculties an
indictment of me; you smite your healer, the ancient hate revives, and we
have you reciting the same old law again. My art's handsome fee, the
worthy payment for my drugs, is--your present manifestation of vigour!
But you, gentlemen of the jury, will you allow him to punish his
benefactor, drive away his preserver, pay for his wits with hatred, and
for his recovery with chastisement? I hope better things of your justice.
However flagrantly I had now been misconducting myself, I had a large
balance of gratitude to draw upon. With that consideration in his memory,
he need not have been extreme to mark what is now done amiss; it might
have inspired him with ready indulgence, the more if the antecedent
service was great enough to throw anything that might follow into the
shade. That fairly states my relation to him; I preserved him; he owes
his life absolutely to me; his existence, his sanity, his understanding,
are my gifts, given, moreover, when all others despaired and confessed
that the case was beyond their skill.
The service that I did was the more meritorious, it seems to me, in that
I was not at the time my father's son, nor under any obligation to
undertake the case; I was independent of him, a mere stranger; the
natural bond had been snapped. Yet I was not indifferent; I came as a
volunteer, uninvited, at my own instance. I brought help, I persevered, I
effected the cure, I restored him, thereby securing myself at once a
father and an acquittal; I conquered anger with kindness, disarmed law
with affection, purchased readmission to my family with important
service, proved my filial loyalty at that critical moment, was adopted
(or adopted myself, rather) on the recommendation of my art, while my
conduct in trying circumstances proved me a son by blood also. For I had
anxiety and fatigue enough in being always on the spot, ministering to my
patient, watching for my opportunities, now humouring the disease when it
gathered strength, now availing myself of a remission to combat it. Of
all a physician's tasks the most hazardous is the care of patients like
this, with the personal attendance it involves; for in their moments of
exasperation they are apt to direct their fury upon any one they can come
at. Yet I never shrank or hesitated; I was always there; I had a life-
and-death struggle with the malady, and the final victory was with me and
my drugs.