And the other, his extinguished eyes without gleams blackening the deep shadows under the great, bony forehead, mumbled, catching the tip of his tongue between his lips at every second word as though he were chewing it angrily: "Did you ever see such an idiot?
For him the criminal is the prisoner.
Simple, is it not?
What about those who shut him up there--forced him in there?
Exactly.

Forced him in there.

And what is crime?
Does he know that, this imbecile who has made his way in this world of gorged fools by looking at the ears and teeth of a lot of poor, luckless devils?
Teeth and ears mark the criminal?
Do they?
And what about the law that marks him still better--the pretty branding instrument invented by the overfed to protect themselves against the hungry?
Red-hot applications on their vile skins--hey?
Can't you smell and hear from here the thick hide of the people burn and sizzle?
That's how criminals are made for your Lombrosos to write their silly stuff about." The knob of his stick and his legs shook together with passion, whilst the trunk, draped in the wings of the havelock, preserved his historic attitude of defiance.

He seemed to sniff the tainted air of social cruelty, to strain his ear for its atrocious sounds.

There was an extraordinary force of suggestion in this posturing.