The nausea, the spiritless
stillness beyond the window that replaced the noise, disclosed
something huge, but subdued, something frightening, which sharpened
her feeling of solitude, her consciousness of powerlessness, and
filled her heart with ashen gloom.
The young girl came in and stopped at the door.
"Shall I bring you an omelette?"
"No, thank you, I don't want it; the shouts frightened me."
The girl walked up to the table and began to speak excitedly in
hasty, terror-stricken tones:
"How the police commissioner beat him! I stood near and could see.
All his teeth were broken. He spit out and his teeth fell on the
ground. The blood came thick--thick and dark. You couldn't see his
eyes at all; they were swollen up. He's a tar man. The sergeant is
in there in our place drunk, but he keeps on calling for whisky.
They say there was a whole band of them, and that this bearded man
was their elder, the hetman. Three were captured and one escaped.
They seized a teacher, too; he was also with them. They don't
believe in God, and they try to persuade others to rob all the
churches. That's the kind of people they are; and our peasants,
some of them pitied him--that fellow--and others say they should
have settled him for good and all.
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