Since then many had felt that his gaze was the gaze of destruction,
but neither those who had been forever crushed by it, nor those who in
the prime of life (mysterious even as death) had found the will to
resist his glance, could ever explain the terror that lay immovable in
the depths of his black pupils. He looked quiet and simple. One felt
that he had no intention to hide anything, but also no intention to
tell anything. His look was cold, as of one who is entirely
indifferent to all that is alive. And many careless people who pressed
around him, and did not notice him, later learned with wonder and fear
the name of this stout, quiet man who brushed against them with his
sumptuous, gaudy garments. The sun did not stop shining when he
looked, neither did the fountain cease playing, and the Eastern sky
remained cloudless and blue as always; but the man who fell under his
inscrutable gaze could no longer feel the sun, nor hear the fountain,
nor recognise his native sky. Sometimes he would cry bitterly,
sometimes tear his hair in despair and madly call for help; but
generally it happened that the men thus stricken by the gaze of
Lazarus began to fade away listlessly and quietly and pass into a slow
death lasting many long years.
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