Bedlam Page #8

What they do, I must do.

But you know better. You're a scholar.

A man of letters.

What I know means nothing.

I've had to fawn and toady,

and make a mock of myself...

till all I could hear was

the world laughing at me.

But once I had what I wanted...

- This, my place here...

- You were afraid to lose it?

I could not.

I had to please those to whose favor

I owed everything.

- I was afraid.

- You had to strike us?

Yes. Can't you understand?

- I understand.

- And our punishment?

Let me go and there will be

no punishment.

He is sane. There is a fear within him.

A fear that strikes out, that claws

and tears at the world like a singed cat.

- He is sane.

- He will not punish us.

- He is sane.

- The man is sane.

- Split him in two.

- No, wait. Wait, I say.

This man has been judged sane.

He has no place here. He must leave.

You cannot harm him. No.

It is the order of the court that he is sane

and that he shall be free.

Bailiffs, release the prisoner.

They will punish us for this. All of us.

The Apothecary General is dead.

We must hide him somewhere.

We must hide him,

so that they will never know.

And when we got here, Master Wilkes,

he had gone.

Long said he just left.

- Disappeared.

- Yes, that's all I could get out of Long.

But I know they must have killed him.

It's so preposterous, Master Wilkes.

A man like Sims doesn't just disappear.

And that's precisely why he disappeared.

They tried him...

found him guilty of sanity, then let him go.

Can you imagine what was in his mind?

The mind of this man who had sworn...

by all that was holy

to aid and protect these people.

Can you imagine his feeling of guilt?

I think that's what drove him to run away.

No. They killed him.

Killed him and hid his body somewhere.

You can't prove that

without finding his body.

We shall find it and we shall punish them.

Yes, I know. The chains, the beatings.

I tell you it's no good.

What you need here is a better man

to fill the post that Sims has fled from.

And after him a better man. And so on

until things here are as they should be.

All kindness and care

for these poor, sick people.

You're not going to tell them?

You must know what it will mean

to those people in there.

Is it not worth a little silence

to save them suffering?

- I must tell the truth.

- But no one has asked you.

I have heard

there was much rejoicing in heaven...

for the lost lamb that returned to the fold.

Silence can win you a lost lamb,

Master Hannay.

That's a fundamentalist theory.

I do not care what it is.

I'm only asking you not to add

to the burden of those poor people.

- You, who profess to love them.

- Do thee think that I would tell?

These people are not guilty under the law.

Not answerable for what they do.

Why should I add to their burdens?

I should never have thought that of thee.

I should have known that thy hand would

not add to the weight that they must bear.

Thee has too much heart for that.

Are we lovers

that you "thee" and "thou" me?

English

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