Page:Leskov - The Sentry and other Stories.djvu/284

 268 of the words that issued from his throat seemed somehow dead: in grief or in joy there was always the same intonation—slow and passionless—half the words were swallowed in his gullet, half were squeezed by his teeth. How was he with these means to seek for abstract truths, and what could he do with them? They would be a burden to him: he must only die out with his whole race as the Aztecs have died, or the Red Indians are dying.—A terrible law! What happiness that he does not know it.—He only knows how to thrust his stick into the snow—first he sticks it in on the right side then he sticks it in on the left side; he does not know where he is driving me, why he is driving me, or why, like a child with a simple heart, he is unfolding to me, for his own harm, his most sacred secrets. His whole talent is small, and it is a blessing for him that little will be asked of him. He was being carried on into the boundless distance, flourishing his long stick, which waving before my eyes, began to have the effect of a pendulum on me. These regular flourishes, like the passes of a mesmerist, caught me in their somnolent meshes; drowsiness crept over my brain and I fell asleep quietly and sweetly—I fell asleep only to awaken in a position, in which, God forbid, any living soul should find himself.