"You rear spies, you deprave women and girls, you put men in the
position which forces them to thievery and murder; you corrupt them
with whisky--international butchery, universal falsehood, depravity,
and savagery--that's your civilization! Yes, we are enemies of
this civilization!"
"Please!" shouted the old judge, shaking his chin; but Samoylov,
all red, his eyes flashing, also shouted:
"But we respect and esteem another civilization, the creators of
which you have persecuted, you have allowed to rot in dungeons,
you have driven mad----"
"I forbid you to speak! Hm-- Fedor Mazin!"
Little Mazin popped up like a cork from a champagne bottle, and said
in a staccato voice:
"I--I swear!--I know you have convicted me----"
He lost breath and paled; his eyes seemed to devour his entire face.
He stretched out his hand and shouted:
"I--upon my honest word! Wherever you send me--I'll escape--I'll
return--I'll work always--all my life! Upon my honest word!"
Sizov quacked aloud. The entire public, overcome by the mounting
wave of excitement, hummed strangely and dully. One woman cried,
some one choked and coughed. The gendarmes regarded the prisoners
with dull surprise, the public with a sinister look.
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