At last, what
do you think? As the girl has become all excited, and has already
grown hoarse from tears, and is shy of everybody--he, this same
'roundsman on the beat,' stretches out two of his black, calloused
fingers, the index and the little, and begins to imitate a nanny
goat for the girl and reciting an appropriate nursery rhyme! ...
And so, when I looked upon this charming scene and thought that
half an hour later at the station house this same patrolman will
be beating with his feet the face and chest of a man whom he had
not till that time seen once, and whose crime he is entirely
ignorant of--then--you understand!--I began to feel inexpressibly
eerie and sad. Not with the mind, but the heart. Such a devilish
muddle is this life. Shall we drink some cognac, Lichonin?"
"What do you say to calling each other thou?" suddenly proposed
Lichonin.
"All right. Only, really, without any of this business of kissing,
now. Here's to your health, old man ... Or here is another
instance ... I read a certain French classic, describing the
thoughts and sensations of a man condemned to capital punishment.
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