I had secured these some days before. In the dark passage one
could realise nothing; important gentlemen in frock-coats, officers, and
one or two soldiers, were hurrying to and fro, with an air of having a
great deal to do, and not knowing at all how to do it. Beyond the
darkness there was a steady hum, like the distant whirr of a great
machine. There was a very faint smell in the air of boots and human
flesh. A stout gentleman with a rosette in his buttonhole showed us to
our seats. Vera sat between Uncle Ivan and myself. When I looked about
me I was amazed. The huge hall was packed so tightly with human beings
that one could see nothing but wave on wave of faces, or, rather, the
same face, repeated again and again and again, the face of a baby, of a
child, of a credulous, cynical dreamer, a face the kindest, the naivest,
the cruellest, the most friendly, the most human, the most savage, the
most Eastern, and the most Western in the world.
That vast presentation of that reiterated visage seemed suddenly to
explain everything to me. I felt at once the stupidity of any appeal,
and the instant necessity for every kind of appeal.
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