Many of those people were at daggers' points
with one another, none of them would show mercy to the others in
the battlefield of business, and all knew wicked and dishonest
things about one another. But now, when they gathered around
Kononov, who was triumphant and happy, they blended in one dense,
dark mass, and stood and breathed as one man, concentrated and
silent, surrounded by something invisible yet firm, by something
which repulsed Foma from them, and which inspired him with fear
of them.
"Impostors!" thought he, thus encouraging himself.
And they coughed gently, sighed, crossed themselves, bowed, and,
surrounding the clergy in a thick wall, stood immovable and firm,
like big, black rocks.
"They are pretending!" Foma exclaimed to himself. Beside him
stood the hump-backed, one-eyed Pavlin Gushchin--he who, not long
before, had turned the children of his half-witted brother into
the street as beggars--he stood there and whispered penetratingly
as he looked at the gloomy sky with his single eye:
"0h Lord! Do not convict me in Thy wrath, nor chastise me in Thy
indignation.
Pages:
566
567
568
569
570
571
572
573
574
575
576
577
578
579
580
581
582
583
584
585
586
587
588
589
590