"You are pitiable, but my life is not worth the trouble of so long a defence. As to your imagining that you… — Victor Hugo
"You are pitiable, but my life is not worth the trouble of so long a defence. As to your imagining that you could make me speak, that you could make me write what I do not wish to write, that you could make me say what I do not wish to say —"
He pulled up the sleeve of his left arm, and added:
"Here."
At the same time he extended his arm, and laid upon the naked flesh the glowing chisel, which he held in his right hand, by the wooden handle.
They heard the hissing of the burning flesh; the odour peculiar to chambers of torture spread through the den. Marius staggered, lost in horror; the brigands themselves felt a shudder; the face of the wonderful old man hardly contracted, and while the red iron was sinking into the smoking, impassable, and almost august wound, he turned upon Thenardier his fine face, in which there was no hatred, and in which suffering was swallowed up in a serene majesty.
Vous êtes des malheureux, mais ma vie ne vaut pas la peine d’être tant défendue. Quant à vous imaginer que vous me feriez parler, que vous me feriez écrire ce que je ne veux pas écrire, que vous me feriez dire ce que je ne veux pas dire…Il releva la manche de son bras gauche et ajouta:— Tenez.En même temps il tendit son bras et posa sur la chair nue le ciseau ardent qu’il tenait dans sa main droite par le manche de bois.On entendit le frémissement de la chair brûlée, l’odeur propre aux chambres de torture se répandit dans le taudis. Marius chancela éperdu d’horreur, les brigands eux-mêmes eurent un frisson, le visage de l’étrange vieillard se contracta à peine, et, tandis que le fer rouge s’enfonçait dans la plaie fumante, impassible et presque auguste, il attachait sur Thénardier son beau regard sans haine où la souffrance s’évanouissait dans une majesté sereine.
Source: Wikiquote · CC BY-SA 4.0
