The lonely
buildings busy with a thousand lonelinesses. People laughing and hurrying
along, people eager-eyed for something; summer parks and streets white
with snow, the city moon like a distant window, pretty gewgaws in the
stores--these are a part of Fanny's story.
The judge wants to know. Fanny's eyes look up. A dog takes a kick like
this, with eyes like this, large, dumb and brimming with pathos. The dog's
master is a mysterious and inexplicable dispenser of joys and sorrows. His
caresses and his beatings are alike mysterious; their reasons seldom to be
discerned, never fully understood.
Sometimes in this court where the sinners are haled, where "poised and
prim and particular, society stately sits," his honor has a moment of
confusion. Eyes lift themselves to him, eyes dumb and brimming with
pathos. Eyes stare out of sordid faces, evil faces, wasted faces and say
something not admissible as evidence. Eyes say: "I don't know, I don't
know. What is it all about?"
These are not to be confused with the eyes that plead shrewdly for mercy,
with eyes that feign dramatic naivetes and offer themselves like primping
little penitents to his honor. His honor knows them fairly well. And
understands them.
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