all at once become so extremely wicked
The doltishness with which Ernest speaks cannot obscure the moral question
implicit here. The reliance on simplistic moral absolutes will extend
outward from Ernest to involve his father (1.6.11), who has been established from the
beginnings of Victor's narrative as a citizen of consequence, and he will
then in the next chapter be joined by other men of consequence in Geneva, from the Church to the
magistracy, in a miscarriage of justice. Victor's intuition of the
murderer, as well as his own intellectual research beyond conventional
limitations, isolates him from the other male upholders of establishment
values. This does give Victor a certain moral authority not apparent
before, but it is heavily shadowed by his silence as the travesty of
Justine's trial unfolds. Only Elizabeth, like Justine a woman and without
effectual power, is able through sheer human sympathy to "judge" aright in
this case.
