The Scarlet Pimpernel

From the text:

“It does seem simple, doesn’t it?” she said, with a final bitter attempt at flippancy, “when you want to kill a chicken . . . you take hold of it . . . then you wring its neck . . . it’s only the chicken who does not find it quite so simple. Now you hold a knife at my throat, and a hostage for my obedience. . . . You find it simple. . . . I don’t.”