Carl%20Sagan%20-%20The%20Demon%20Haunted%20World

Science and Witchcraft
though several times tortured, would not say what the
investigators wanted.
27. And even confessors and clergymen agree that she died
obstinate and impenitent; that she would not be converted
or desert her incubus, but kept faith with him.
28. If, however, she dies under so much torture, they say the
devil broke her neck.
29. Wherefore the corpse is buried underneath the gallows.
30. On the other hand, if she does not die under torture, and
if some exceptionally scrupulous judge hesitates to torture
her further without fresh proofs or to burn her
without her confession, she is kept in prison and more
harshly chained, there to rot until she yields, even if it
take a whole year.
31. She can never clear herself. The investigating committee
would feel disgraced if it acquitted a woman; once arrested
and in chains, she has to be guilty, by fair means or foul.
32. Meanwhile, ignorant and headstrong priests harass the
wretched creature so that, whether truly or not, she will
confess herself guilty; unless she does so, they say, she
cannot be saved or partake of the sacraments.
33. More understanding or learned priests cannot visit her in
prison lest they counsel her or inform the princes what goes
on. Nothing is more dreaded than that something be
brought to light to prove the innocence of the accused.
Persons who try to do so are labelled troublemakers.
34. While she is kept in prison and tortured, the judges invent
clever devices to build up new proofs of guilt to convict her
to her face, so that, when reviewing the trial, some university
faculty can confirm her burning alive.
35. Some judges, to appear ultrascrupulous, have the woman
exorcized, transferred elsewhere, and tortured all over
again, to break her taciturnity; if she maintains silence, then
at last they can burn her. Now, in Heaven's name, I would
like to know, since she who confesses and she who does not
both perish alike, how can anybody, no matter how innocent,
escape? O unhappy woman, why have you rashly
hoped? Why did you not, on first entering prison, admit
385