Several old wags were there who had witnessed the Rebellion--at the
moment, had I not become callous, another might have seemed
imminent--and were looked up to by the crowd as heroes of a horrid past,
being listened to with rapt attention as they described what it was the
crowd looked at and whence it came. Had I been a wild animal let loose
from its cage, mingled curiosity and a peculiar foreboding among the
people of something terrible about to happen could not have been more
intense.
But I had by this time got used to their crowding, so that I could
write, sleep, eat, drink, and be merry, and go through personal and
private routine with no embarrassment. If I turned for the purpose, I
could easily stare out of face a member of the crowd whose inquisitive
propensities had become annoying, but as soon as he left another filled
the gap. Quite pitiful was it to see how trivial articles of foreign
manufacture--such, for instance, as the cover of an ordinary tin or the
fabric of one's clothing--brought a regular deluge of childish interest
and inane questioning; and if I happened to make a few shorthand notes
upon anything making a particular impression, a look half surprised,
half amused, went from one to another like an electric current.
Pages:
400
401
402
403
404
405
406
407
408
409
410
411
412
413
414
415
416
417
418
419
420
421
422
423
424