Huff:
This is a fool; or else it's what I think,--
The world now breeds such crowd that they've no room
For well-grown sins: they hatch 'em small as flies.
But you stay here, out of the world awhile,
Here where a man's mind, and a woman's mind,
Can fling out large in wickedness: you'll see
Something monstrous here, something dreadful.
Stranger:
I've seen enough of that. Though it was only
Fancying made me see it, it was enough:
I've seen the folk of the world yelling aghast,
Scurrying to hide themselves. I want nought else
Monstrous and dreadful.--
Merrick:
What had roused 'em so?
Some house afire?
Huff:
A huzzy flogged to death
For her hard-faced adultery?
Stranger (too intent to hear them):
Oh to think of it!
Talk, do, chatter some nonsense, else I'll think:
And then I'm feeling like a grub that crawls
All abroad in a dusty road; and high
Above me, and shaking the ground beneath me, come
Wheels of a thundering wain, right where I'm plodding.
Sollers:
Queer thinking, that.
Stranger:
And here's a queerer thing.
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