The Hour of the Pig Page #5

---

of jejunum sextae.

[ Laughs ]

Uh, first book

of the pandects:

No animal that lacks

intelligence, reasoning,

quod sensu caret...

can be said to have

willfully caused injury.

Monseigneur,

justice is like nature...

which, the philosophers affirm,

can do nothing in vain--

Nihil operantur

frustra.

Now I ask you, can anything

be more futile than to summons...

a brute beast into this solemn

assembly to sit in judgment upon it?

The criminal charge may only

be brought against one capable

of entering into a covenant.

You cannot summons

a six-year-old child, nor a lunatic!

- How can one, then,

possibly arraign a dumb animal?

- [ Boniface ] Pincheon?

Gentlemen...

murder is murder,

whether it be committed...

by a half-witted man

or a pig of prodigious learning.

The maitre knows

there are precedents for

the trial ofbrute beasts:

that some animals

are born with evil within them.

Born criminal.

We say an eye for an eye...

a tooth for a tooth,

stripe for a stripe.

There is a case

to answer.

Dico quod sic.

[ Boniface ]

The charge will be prosecuted...

eight days

from today.

We're waiting leave

to bury the boy, Maitre.

Being a heathen,

he has to go outside the walls.

You really think a pig

killed a child this big,

nine, ten years old?

It has happened, Maitre.

Pigs, dogs, bulls.

- It does happen.

- [ Footsteps ]

[ Courtois ]

You're the apothecary surgeon?

Now look.

The flesh is cut here

and here.

Did you ever see wounds like this

caused by an animal?

Wouldn't you say, there's...

not enough tearing.

I-It's too, um--

It is possible, Maitre.

A beast with sharp teeth.

But then the blood

was black.

- When?

- When I first saw the corpse.

- You saw him after he was killed?

- Oh, yes.

He had been dead

for many hours.

- So he could have been killed

in another place entirely?

- That is possible.

Or the death occurred--

I couldn't say for sure, no.

- I want to call you as a witness.

- That will not be possible.

Like the unfortunate child here,

I was born a Jew.

My testimony cannot be heard

in a Christian court.

[ Seigneur ] They tell me

you're being diligent

on the part of the pig.

Should I not be,

Seigneur?

I think you are not yet

quite at ease with us.

The country gossip is it?

[ Filette ]

No.!

[ Seigneur ] I know the

peasants like to talk of

dark deeds in high places.

But it's not always

as it seems.

Now, on the matter

of the pig.

It seems of no consequence,

but the boy's death was unnatural.

And a kind of fear

spreads here... easily.

Best if it's

done with quickly.

And if the animal's

innocent?

I know you've been tumbling

the black woman. Everybody knows.

So, for God's sake,just

let's pay her off quietly and let it go.

I tried that. She asked me what plans

of mine the pig would spoil?

But the matter will be decided before

a judge and jurors, not between us.

I have one other...

ancient right.

Jehan d'Auferre...

seigneur of Abbeville

and Toquin...

will himself preside

in the matter of the

State vs. The porker.

[ Pounding ]

Gentlemen.

Monseigneur...

the plaint here before these honorable

and learned gentlemen...

is that on the

third Friday of April--

[ Continues Remarks]

It fled like a guilty thing.

So,you have a close

acquaintance with porkers?

Tell me, how does a pig look

when she has the air of a guilty thing?

Well,

she ran fast!

How fast, this impressively

well-fattened porker?

Did she trot,

canter, gallop, monsieur?

She moved quickly.

- For a pig, that is.

- [ Chuckling ]

[ Courtois ]

And the face is familiar to you...

out of the hundreds of pigs

running loose in this province?

There's not many black hogs.

I've never seen one marked like her.

- And you saw her within

the precincts of the chapel?

- No, outside.

Outside? How far outside?

She was wandering around

the little square behind the--

So, having broken off

from its gallop or trot...

she began to wander,

this guilty pig.

Gentlemen, this is insane!

I ask for a deposition

from the apothecary surgeon--

Denied, Maitre.

You realize that if

you lie here under oath...

you will pay the price

with your immortal soul.

Perhaps his costs on that

have already been met.

- That should be stricken.

- Have you been suborned,

you and the others?

Strike that

from the record.

Big pig, black hog...

and she was marked on

the nether part of the eye,

and she was running--

- Like a guilty thing.

- Like a guilty thing.

They're word perfect,

these witnesses.

Speak their lines like born actors.

I don't see what this

tells us, Courtois.

That they've been schooled?

- It is possible.

- It doesn't seem much of

a point to me. Go on.

[ Courtois ] Marked on the nether part

of the eye.

Turn away, will you?

Face over there.

Which side?

No, don't turn back.

Left or right?

Which side?

Left.

Looking at the pig,

the patch was on the left?

- Yes.

- Thank you.

Just a minute.

Turn to face me.

Now, I noticed

when you took the oath--

No, better. Face

your good neighbors.

Now raise

your left hand.

Thank you.

Now then, since Courtois'

examination has taken

the best part of the day...

we'll reconvene

after the Sabbath.

Jesus Maria.

Well, Maitre,

rising up like a cathedral.

You said I'd have a roof by today!

There isn't a wall to put it on.

It's the timber.

It's hard to get the timber.

And with the price of the clay

going up daily--

[ Workman ]

Hey.! Over here.

[ Builder ]

Must have been nine or ten.

Have children gone missing

here in the last year?

The Levy boy

last summer.

AJewish boy?

That age?

Reckon a wolf took him.

Nothing left of him now.

Maitre,

a matter of two hundred sous.

- What?

- For the clay. Maitre!

This has nothing to do

with the present business.

The Levy boy has been missing

for ten months or more.

Exactly. They're both jewish children,

both about the same age.

It is just possible they

both died by the same hand,

and the pig is innocent!

- I ask for an adjournment.

- Monseigneur...

the costs to the state

in this case are already prodigious.

- I have things to find out.

- By questioning a little heap of bones?

- No, I don't think so.

- What do we all think this is?

Two children have died here.

What kind of game are we playing?

In that courtroom, you're a judge.

You're sworn to a solemn duty.

And I'm an advocate at law,

and I'm telling you I do have the right.

Seven days.

How long has he been here,

the silent one upstairs?

- Not long.

- But the seigneur's man, is he

keeping an eye on all of us?

- How long?

- Maitre, he came only

days before we did.

- Five months then, no longer?

- Do we take the land claim, Les Ezies?

Any other strangers in town?

What about the players? Oh, no.

Directly from the presses,

monseigneur.

The torture ofJeannine the Witch

and her death agony on the scaffold.

- Leave us.

- Many others

of fair ladies under duress.

Both Jewish children,

both around the same age.

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