99 Fables

68. The Hangman and The Hero

68 the hangman and the hero THE WITTINS REGARDED the taking of life with such repugnance that they required their hangman to wear a costume which made his profession known to all. He must live in a house beyond the limits of the city; he could walk certain streets, but only at designateci hours; and he must ring a bell as he went along, so that others would not be contaminated by some accidental contact. As he was returning home on one occasion, the hangman got a stone in his shoe, and without thinking sat down under the marble statue that the people had [ 132 ] erected to their hero-god, the fierce warrior who had founded their nation. For a time the hangman was so occupied that he did not notice a crowd had gathered, but when they threw stones at him and shouted that he had corrupted this, their most sacred spot, by sitting upon it, the hangman ran for his life; and although the mob was close behind him at times, he managed to escape them at last. An old tortoise, who had witnessed the chase, asked' what had happened, and the hangman told him. "But I don't blame the Wittins," he said. "I brought it on myself." "What did you do that was wrong?" The hangman, from long habit, picked up his bell and tinkled it to the rhythm of his words. "I'm a hangman, as you see. I take the lives of people, so when I sat on a step o'f the monument, I defiled the memory of our great hero." The old tortoise thought this over and then said, "But the hero whose monument you sat on took the lives of people, too. Now, tell me why one of you should be reviled and the other revered for doing the same thing." The hangman stared at the tortoise, marveling at his stupidity. "Tortoises haven't intelligence enough to understand these distinctions," he said. "So don't d~,s­ cuss matters you know nothing about." "Perhaps you're right," said the old tortoise. "Perhaps if our brains could accept contradictions 'without con- [ 133 ] £lict, we wouldn't have remained tortoises for a million years, as we have, but would have developed into something as powerful as man, who rules the universe." ...