The judges, we think, should behave better than the rest of us. And when they don`t, the fragile underpinnings of organized society somehow quiver and sway.

The judicial scandal in the Chicago court system unearthed by operation Greylord is a case in point. It causes a kind of social nausea.

But judicial greed in Chicago is nothing compared to what happened in this little town tucked into the beautiful green hills of southern Wisconsin. Here the one and only judge in the county stands accused of something so bad that people cannot believe it.

Circuit Judge Daniel P. McDonald, 43, is accused of stabbing to death 31- year-old attorney James C. Klein. The stabbing occurred, according to authorities, in an office Klein shared with law partners, just as one of the partners, William Johnston, looked in through the door window and fumbled with keys to unlock the door.

Johnston ran to get help and when police arrived, they said that McDonald was gone and Klein was bleeding from stab wounds to the head, back and torso. He was pronounced dead at an area hospital.

Johnston defeated McDonald in a recent election and was to have taken over the judge`s job in August. McDonald, whose family has lived in the area for generations, had been judge for 12 years. Klein`s family roots also run deep in the farm community here.

An area attorney who did not want to be identified said McDonald was

''paranoid'' about the election loss and blamed all attorneys in the county for helping with his defeat.

The stabbing occurred on a Saturday, and McDonald was arrested later in the day and brought screaming and crying into the courtroom where he had presided for the last 12 years.

He cursed at district attorney H.J. Lynch, shouted that he had not been at the crime scene and cried, ''For God`s sake, I can`t stay in that jail. I`ve got to get out.''

But a substitute judge ordered him held on $500,000 bail, and McDonald was taken to the jail behind the beautiful little old courthouse that sits on top of the hill here like an architectural diamond.

And then shock waves washed over the town like an emotional surf.

''Unbelievable'' was the word that was repeated over and over.

''That kind of thing isn`t supposed to happen here,'' a woman with red-rimmed eyes said on the day of James Klein`s wake.

And of course murder doesn`t happen here very often. One resident thought that the last one might have been way back in horse and buggy days when the accused murderer was taken out of the jail and lynched in the adjoining park.

But then someone remembered that several years ago a man shot his wife with a shotgun.

However, murder is one thing. But when a judge whom you have known all of your life is accused of brutally murdering a young attorney whom you have also known all of your life, that is quite another thing.

In a town of 2,300, everybody knows everybody. Not only are the accused and his victim known to everyone on a personal basis, so are the judge`s wife and their two children, and Klein`s wife and the two small Klein children.

Everyone has a personal story about how they just saw McDonald or Klein doing something routine in the community: At a school function, the judge was taking photographs of one of his children. On the street, Klein was talking and joking with a couple of friends.

Klein was buried last week after a funeral that overflowed the rural church and spilled out into the edges of adjoining fields.

At one point on the same day, McDonald and his wife talked quietly in the visitor`s section of the jail.

In McDonald`s former courtroom, a substitute judge presided over the flow of routine cases, assisted by the people who had worked for a dozen years with McDonald.

''He always treated us well,'' one of the court clerks said. ''It is just unbelievable.''

A yellow crime scene ribbon was stretched across the door of the office where Klein was killed. And across the street in a small coffee shop, the conversation went on and on about the judge and the young attorney he is accused of stabbing to death.

''They`ll bring in some high-powered psychiatrist, and they`ll say he was crazy and get him off,'' a man wearing a seed corn hat said.

Others at the counter nodded.

''By god, you just don`t expect a judge to do something like that,''

another man said.

The others shook their heads in agreement and stared down at their coffee cups.