The Three Cities Trilogy: Rome, Complete
THE THREE CITIES ROME BY EMILE ZOLA TRANSLATED BY ERNEST A. VIZETELLY PREFACE IN submitting to the English-speaking public this second volume of M.
a monster with long hair and unkempt beard. Hind, acquitted with
apologies, fetched from his lodging the disguise of periwig and beard.
'They laugh who win!' he murmured, and thus forced forgiveness and a
chuckle even from his judges.
As became a gentleman-adventurer, Captain Hind was staunch in his
loyalty to his murdered King. To strip the wealthy was always reputable,
but to rob a Regicide was a masterpiece of well-doing.
A fervent zeal to lighten Cromwell's pocket had brought the illustrious
Allen to the gallows. But Hind was not one whit abashed, and he would
never forego the chance of an encounter with his country's enemies. His
treatment of Hugh Peters in Enfield Chace is among his triumphs. At the
first encounter the Presbyterian plucked up courage enough to oppose
his adversary with texts. To Hind's command of 'Stand and deliver!' duly
enforced with a loaded pistol, the ineffable Peters replied with ox-eye
sanctimoniously upturned: 'Thou shalt not steal; let him that
stole, steal no more,' adding thereto other variations of the eighth
commandment. Hind immediately countered with exhortations against the
awful sin of murder, and rebuked the blasphemy of the Regicides, who,
to defend their own infamy, would wrest Scripture from its meaning.
'Did you not, O monster of impiety,' mimicked Hind in the preacher's own
voice, 'pervert for your own advantage the words of the Psalmist, who
said, "Bind their kings with chains, and their nobles with fetters of
iron"? Moreover, was it not Solomon who wrote: "Men do not despise a
thief, if he steal to satisfy his soul when he is hungry"? And is not my
THE THREE CITIES ROME BY EMILE ZOLA TRANSLATED BY ERNEST A. VIZETELLY PREFACE IN submitting to the English-speaking public this second volume of M.