"So you are going to put me into an insane
asylum?"
No one replied. He looked at their faces and hung his head.
"Behave peacefully! We'll unbind you!" said someone.
"It's not necessary!" said Foma in a low voice. "It's all the
same. I spit on it! Nothing will happen."
And his speech again assumed the nature of a delirium.
"I am lost, I know it! Only not because of your power, but rather
because of my weakness. Yes! You, too, are only worms in the eyes
of God. And, wait! You shall choke. I am lost through blindness.
I saw much and I became blind, like an owl. As a boy, I remember,
I chased an owl in a ravine; it flew about and struck against
something. The sun blinded it. It was all bruised and it
disappeared, and my father said to me then: 'It is the same with
man; some man bustles about to and fro, bruises himself, exhausts
himself, and then throws himself anywhere, just to rest.' Hey I
unbind my hands."
His face turned pale, his eyes closed, his shoulders quivered.
Tattered and crumpled he rocked about in the chair, striking his
chest against the edge of the table, and began to whisper
something.
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