"But to resume: I could have been happy with the fine people who had adopted me and sprayed me with asbestos every day, to ward off death by flammification, but my perverse nature gained the upper hand over all the virtues my adoptive mother sought to instil in me. My father, then, has damned me to the black pits of evil wherein my soul hath become encrusted so that even when I read the Silmarillion to learn virtue, the only parts I read with pleasure were of the crimes of Féanoir. I hope Tache ate the Dwarves too. Little swine."
"And your mother?" asked the president.
"My mother believed me dead; she is innocent. I do not know her name."
At that moment, a sharp cry, ending in a sob, issued forth from the throat of a woman. The woman was seized by an attack of the nerves more violent than the siege of Gondolino, and a veil fell from her face while she was removed from the praetorium, revealing her to be Mme. de Sacqueville-Danglars.
"The proofs!" said the president. "Remember that such a tissue of horrors must be supported by the most stunning proofs."
"Behold M. de Villefaramir," said Trascoletto with a laugh. "And then require proofs of me!"
