his canteen, then throw himself back on his plank bed, and go back to sleep.

It seemed as if the man was so tired of life that he did not want to experience his last hours awake. Meanwhile the parade grounds were readied for the execution. Carpenters built a scaffold, nine feet by nine feet square and six feet high, with a railing and a sturdy set of stairs-Grasse had never had one as fine as this. Plus a wooden grandstand for local notables and a fence to separate them from the common people, who were to be kept at some distance. In the buildings to the left and right of the Porte du Cours and in the guardhouse itself, places at the windows had long since been rented out at exorbitant rates. The executioners assistants had even leased the rooms of the patients in the Charit6, which was located off to one side, and resold them to curious spectators at a handsome profit. The lemonade vendors stocked up with pitcherfuls of licorice water, the etcher printed up several hundred copies of the sketch he had made of the murderer in prison-touched up a bit from his own imagination-itinerant peddlers streamed into town by the dozens, the bakers baked souvenir cookies. The executioner, Monsieur Papon, who had not had an offender to smash for years now, had a heavy, squared iron rod forged for him and went off to the slaughterhouse to practice blows on carcasses. He was permitted only tweive hits, and he had to strike true, crushing all twelve joints without damaging the vital body parts, like the chest or head-a difficult business that demanded a fine touch and good timing. The citizens readied themselves for the event as if for a high holiday. That there would be no work that day went without saying. The women ironed their holiday dresses, the men dusted off their frock coats and had their boots polished to a high gloss. Whoever held military rank or occupied public office, whoever was a guild master, an attomey-at-law, a notary, a head of a fraternal order, or held any other position of importance, donned his uniform or official garb, along with his medals, sashes, chains, and periwig powdered to a chalky white. Pious folk intended to assemble immediately afterwards for religious services, the disciples of Satan planned a hearty Luci-ferian mass of thanksgiving, the educated aristocracy were going to gather for magnetic seances at the manors of the Cabris, Villeneuves, and Fontmichels. The roasting and baking had begun in the kitchens, the wine had been fetched from the cellars, the floral displays from the market, and the organist and choir were practicing in the cathedral. In the Richis household on the rue Droite everything remained quiet. Richis had forbidden any preparations for the Day of Liberation, as people were calling the murderers execution day. It all disgusted him. The sudden eruption of renewed fear among the populace had disgusted him, their feverish joy of anticipation disgusted him. The people themselves, every one of them, disgusted him. He had not participated in the presentation of the culprit and his victims in the cathedral square, nor in the trial, nor in the obscene procession of sensation seekers filing past the cell of the condemned man. He had requested that the court come to his home for him to identify his daughters hair and clothing, had given his testimony briefly and calmly, and had asked that they leave him those items as keepsakes, which they did. He carried them to Laures room, laid the shredded nightgown and undershirt on her bed, spread the red hair over the pillow, sat down beside them, and did not leave the room again day or night, as if by pointlessly standing guard now, he could make good what he had neglected to do that night in La Napoule. He was so full of disgust, disgust at the world and at himself, that he could not weep. He was also disgusted by the murderer. He did not want to regard him as a human being, but only as a victim to be slaughtered. He did not want to see him until the execution, when he would be laid on the cross and the twelve blows crashed down upon him- then he would want to see him, want to see him from up close, and he had had a place reserved for himself in the front row. And

when the crowd had wandered off after a few hours, he wanted to climb up onto the bloody scaffold and crouch next to him, keeping watch, by night, by day, for however long he had to, and look into the eyes of this man, the murderer of his daughter, and drop by drop to trickle the disgust within him into those eyes, to pour out his disgust like burning acid over the man in his death agonies-until the beast perished.... And after that? What would he do after that? He did not know. Perhaps resume his normal life, perhaps get married, perhaps father a son, perhaps do nothing at all, perhaps die. It made no difference whatever to him. To think about it seemed to him as pointless as to think about what he would do after his own death: nothing, of course. Nothing that he could know at this point.