Short Story from 1990s-2000s? Narrator gets swept up into an execution procession of a man through city streets, and by the end of the story is accidently swapped out and executed instead

[JQStanley]

I distinctly remember reading this story in a short story anthology textbook in Grade 10 English.

For background reference. I attended high school in Ontario, Canada in the late 2000s, and our textbooks were usually 20 years old or so (the anthology from which I read this, may have been more recent - I'm not sure).

To reiterate, the short story is written from the first person perspective of a narrator. In the story, it's night time, and I believe the narrator has just exited a theatre into the city streets (I believe the setting is a European city).

A mob or group of men is escorting a man to be executed and marches past the narrator who becomes accidently swept up into the crowd.

Eventually the mob reaches the place of execution and somehow (I can't remember how), the narrator is mistaken for the man about to be executed and a hood is placed over his head.

He begs and protests against being executed, but nobody listens to him. The short story ends with him describing his fear and then he is hanged? He may have been beheaded alternatively.

This has been bugging me for years! I hope somebody else will know the story I'm describing.

[Michele]

This sounds really interesting and it's niggling at the back of my mind that I've read this somewhere. I don't suppose any of your old teachers are still there who might remember it? (I often think all current and former high school English teachers should be auto-subscribed to a single email list so we could query them all with a one message lol)