Aye, poison, poison, there was truth in it; it existed and still circulated in the depths of the black world, amidst all the ravenous, rival longings for conquest and sovereignty.
And all at once the figure of Prada likewise arose in Pierre's mind.

A little while previously, when Benedetta had so violently accused the Count, he, Pierre, had stepped forward to defend him and cry aloud what he knew, whence the poison had come, and what hand had offered it.

But a sudden thought had made him shiver: though Prada had not devised the crime, he had allowed it to be perpetrated.

Another memory darted keen like steel through the young priest's mind--that of the little black hen lying lifeless beside the shed, amidst the dismal surroundings of the _osteria_, with a tiny streamlet of violet blood trickling from her beak.
And here again, Tata, the parrot, lay still soft and warm at the foot of her stand, with her beak stained by oozing blood.

Why had Prada told that lie about a battle between two fowls?
All the dim intricacy of passion and contention bewildered Pierre, he could not thread his way through it; nor was he better able to follow the frightful combat which must have been waged in that man's mind during the night of the ball.