Page:Best Russian Short Stories.djvu/469

Rh If you had a face, I would give you a blow upon it, but you have no face, you have only the snout of a wild beast. You pretend that you are men, but I see claws under your gloves and the flat skull of an animal under your hat; hidden beneath your clever conversation I hear insanity rattling its rusty chains. And with all the power of my grief, my anguish and dishonored thought—I curse you, you wretched, imbecile animals!"

". . . look to you for the regeneration of human life!"

So shouted a speaker, holding on with difficulty to small pillar, balancing himself with his arms, and waving flag with a large inscription half-hidden in its folds: Down with the war!"

"You, who are young, you, whose lives are only just beginning, save yourselves and the future generations from this horror, from this madness. It is unbearable, our eyes are drowned with blood. The sky is falling upon us, the earth is giving way under our feet. Kind people . . ."

The crowd was buzzing enigmatically and the voice of the speaker was drowned at times in the living threatening noise.