"But you will miss a very curious thing," said the Count.
"You will relate to me afterwards; I have no doubt that your account will be so vivid that I will seem to be there in person. In any case, I have never been able to attend an execution. And you, Réginard?"
"I was at the execution of Lothon; but I think I was a little drunk," replied the Viscount. "We had been celebrating my coming of age in a cabaret, and some of my cousins and I had set up an impromptu orchestra while Éveraud and Mélilotte danced the can-can ..."
"Moreover," said the Count, "just because you haven't done something in Annuminas is no reason not to do it abroad. If you miss the execution, then when people ask you, how do Elves put criminals to death, you will look rather silly. And besides, they say the condemned man is a rogue who strangled his benefactor and bit off his ring-finger under the mistaken belief that his ring was a ring of power. Morgot! When one takes up arms against a man of the church, one finds a more fitting weapon than one's fangs, especially if the priest has raised you like a son and removed the rope that the cruel minions of justice had used to bind him as a penalty for making love to someone else's spider. If you were travelling in Rhoûne, you'd go to see the wild-kine fights, no? How is this any different, except in being a good deal more entertaining?"
