I shall have, until I die, a feeling of tenderness....
I was recalled from my observation of Grogoff and the Rat by the
sensation that the waters of emotion were rising higher around me. I
raised my eyes and saw that the Belgian Consul was addressing the
meeting. He was a stout little man, with eye-glasses and a face of no
importance, but it was quite obvious at once that he was most terribly
in earnest. Because he did not know the Russian language he was under
the unhappy necessity of having a translator, a thin and amiable
Russian, who suffered from short sight and a nervous stammer.
He could not therefore have spoken under heavier disadvantages, and my
heart ached for him. It need not have done so. He started in a low
voice, and they shouted to him to speak up. At the end of his first
paragraph the amiable Russian began his translation, sticking his nose
into the paper, losing the place and stuttering over his sentences.
There was a restless movement in the hall, and the poor Belgian Consul
seemed lost. He was made, however, of no mean stuff. Before the Russian
had finished his translation the little man had begun again.
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