"Take vengeance, Samouard, but on the guilty!" cried the poor mother. "Avenge yourself on him, avenge yourself on me; but do not take revenge on my son!"
"It is written in the Silmarillion: 'The sins of fathers will fall upon their descendants, up to the third and fourth generation," said the Count. "Shall I be better than Érou and the Valards?"
"Samouard," replied Rosédès, extending her arms towards the Count. "Samouard, since I have known you I have adored your name, spelt or spoken though it may not be because of its Sharcoléonist associations; I have honoured your memory. Samouard, my friend, do not force me to tarnish this pure and noble image reflected without cease in the mirror of my heart as the expensive clothes of Mme. Durin-Graz-Schneiffel in the waters of Quélède-Zarâme. Samouard, if you knew all the prayers I uttered on your behalf, when I believed you dead, yes, dead! I believed you buried in the foundations of some sombre tower like Barad-Dour but without the simple elegance of its construction, I believed your body precipitated to the depths of one of those abysms where jailers let roll the cadavers of dead prisoners, and whence balrogue seeks to fly in vain; and I wept! Each night for ten years I have dreamt the same dream, wherein you covered yourself with the shroud of some deceased prisoner, and had been tossed from the castle parapet, and being whelmed by a dark wave climbing over the green lands and above the hills, darkness unescapable. Samouard, criminal though I be, I too have suffered!"
