People seek the terrible in words,
in cries, in gestures. Well, now, for example, I am reading a
description of some pogrom or of a slaughter in jail, or of a riot
being put down. Of course, the policemen are described, these
servants of arbitrariness, these lifeguards of
contemporaneousness, striding up to their knees in blood, or how
else do they write in such cases? Of course, it is revolting and
it hurts, and is disgusting, but all this is felt by the mind, and
not the heart. But here I am walking along Lebyazhia Street, and
see that a crowd has collected, a girl of five years in the
centre--she has lagged behind the mother and has strayed, or it
may be that the mother had abandoned her. And before the girl,
squatting down on his heels, is a roundsman. He is interrogating
her, how she is called, and where is she from, and how do they
call papa, and how do they call mamma. He has broken out into
sweat, the poor fellow, from the effort, the cap is at the back of
his neck, the whiskered face is such a kindly and woeful and
helpless one, while the voice is gentle, so gentle.
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