"What is it?" asked the mother.
"Oh, nothing--the people are fools! They know nothing; they live
groping about and groping about."
The bellman rang; somebody announced indifferently:
"The session has begun!"
Again all arose, and again, in the same order, the judges filed in
and sat down; then the prisoners were led in.
"Pay attention!" whispered Sizov; "the prosecuting attorney is going
to speak."
The mother craned her neck and extended her whole body. She yielded
anew to expectation of the horrible.
Standing sidewise toward the judges, his head turned to them,
leaning his elbow on the desk, the prosecuting attorney sighed,
and abruptly waving his right hand in the air, began to speak:
The mother could not make out the first words. The prosecuting
attorney's voice was fluent, thick; it sped on unevenly, now a bit
slower, now a bit faster. His words stretched out in a thin line,
like a gray seam; suddenly they burst out quickly and whirled like
a flock of black flies around a piece of sugar. But she did not
find anything horrible in them, nothing threatening. Cold as snow,
gray as ashes, they fell and fell, filling the hall with something
which recalled a slushy day in early autumn.
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