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all made up. Now, maybe they must have worked it out some other way, don’t you think?’
    ‘Thank you; no need to go into detail,’ said the Judge, as the crowd laughed.
    Meanwhile, the accused woman, huddled on her bench, was overcome by nerves and started shaking. She was sobbing, and saying over and over again in despair, ‘Have pity on me! Let me be. I killed him! Put me in prison, kill me, I deserve it! I deserve it a thousand times over; I deserve to be miserable and put to death, but why subject me to such shame? Yes, I killed him, I’m not asking for leniency, I just want it to be over, please let it be over …’
    The hearing was adjourned until the next day. The crowd slowly dispersed. It was late; night was falling.
    The summations would be heard the next day.
    The accused woman was no longer of interest to anyone. She seemed to have lost all her beauty overnight, once and for all. She was an old, haggard woman. She was barely visible on the stand; she had left her hat on and lowered it to hide her face. The crowd only had eyes for Gladys Eysenach’s Defence Counsel; he was still quite young with a scornful smirk and a beautiful mane of dark hair. He was the star of the day.
    Meanwhile, she listened to the prosecution’s summation, her face hidden in her hands: ‘Until the night of 24 December 1934, the woman whom you see before you, gentlemen of the jury, was a member of life’s privileged classes. She was still beautiful, in good health, freely enjoying a considerable fortune. Nevertheless, from her early childhood she had no family, no home, no exampleof morality. Ah! If only she had been fortunate enough to be born into a respectable middle-class family …’
    The accused woman slowly let her hands fall on to her knees. She raised her face for a moment; it was pale and tense. She continued listening.
    ‘A poor woman, an ignorant woman, an abused woman would perhaps have deserved leniency. But this woman …
    ‘I implore the gentlemen of the jury not to allow the flame of justice to be extinguished. You must prove that justice exists for everyone, that if the charm, the beauty, the sophistication of this woman must be taken into account, they must be placed on the scales of justice in order to cause them to weigh heavily on the side of harshness. This woman committed murder. Her act was premeditated. She deserves a punishment that is proportionate to her crime.’
    Next came the wonderful summation of the defence. Every now and again his biting voice turned sweet, almost feminine. The lawyer portrayed Gladys as a woman who had lived only for love, who cared for nothing in the world but love, and who deserved, in the name of love, to forget and to be forgiven; he spoke of the terrible demon of sensuality who lies in wait for ageing women, pushing them towards misdeeds and shame. The women in the courtroom were crying.
    The Judge then turned towards Gladys and asked the traditional question: ‘Does the accused have anything she wishes to add?’
    Gladys remained silent for a long time. Finally, she shook her head and replied, ‘No. Nothing.’ Then, she addedquietly, ‘I am not asking for leniency. I committed a terrible crime …’
    It was a warm, stormy evening, shot through with the dazzling rays of the setting sun; the atmosphere in the courtroom was nearly suffocating, and the observers grew more and more nervous and worked up. A muffled hum ran through the crowd, predicting the forthcoming verdict. The jury had retired and the accused woman had been led out.
    Towards nine o’clock in the evening a bell finally rang, so low that it could hardly be heard; it marked the end of the jury’s deliberation. Night had fallen. In the courtroom, packed to capacity, steam seemed to rise from the crowd and form condensation on the closed windows; the heat was unbearable.
    The foreman of the jury, pale, his hands shaking, read out the responses to the questions. The Judge announced the verdict. A