The Count of Monte Cristo

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"For heaven's sake, madame," said Villefort, with a firmness of
expression not altogether free from harshness--"for heaven's sake, do
not ask pardon of me for a guilty wretch! What am I?--the law. Has the
law any eyes to witness your grief? Has the law ears to be melted by
your sweet voice? Has the law a memory for all those soft recollections
you endeavor to recall? No, madame; the law has commanded, and when it
commands it strikes. You will tell me that I am a living being, and not
a code--a man, and not a volume. Look at me, madame--look around me.
Have mankind treated me as a brother? Have they loved me? Have they
spared me? Has any one shown the mercy towards me that you now ask at my
hands? No, madame, they struck me, always struck me!

"Woman, siren that you are, do you persist in fixing on me that
fascinating eye, which reminds me that I ought to blush? Well, be it so;
let me blush for the faults you know, and perhaps--perhaps for even
more than those! But having sinned myself,--it may be more deeply
than others,--I never rest till I have torn the disguises from my