9/15 Everywhere he saw houses gutted and doors burst in, and traces of a cruelty and a fanaticism almost incredible. Near the Rue des Lombards he saw a dead child, stripped stark and hanged on the hook of a cobbler's shutter. A little farther on in the same street he stepped over the body of a handsome young woman, distinguished by the length and beauty of her hair. To obtain her bracelets, her captors had cut off her hands; afterwards--but God knows how long afterwards--a passer-by, more pitiful than his fellows, had put her out of her misery with a spit, which still remained plunged in her body. He loathed the symbol he wore, and himself for wearing it; and more than once his better nature bade him return and play the nobler part. |