We were seated in a little park, driven there by the unbearable heat of
the noonday sun. It was much cooler there than in the streets, where
the paving stones, steeped in the rays of the July sun, burnt the
soles of one's feet, and the walls of the buildings seemed red-hot.
The fine scorching dust of the roadway did not penetrate through the
close border of leafy old limes and spreading chestnuts, the latter
with their long upright pyramids of rosy flowers looking like gigantic
imperial candelabra. The park was full of frolicsome well-dressed
children, the older ones playing with hoops and skipping-ropes, chasing
one another or going together in pairs, their arms entwined as they
walked about with an air of importance, stepping quickly upon the
sidewalk. The little ones played at choosing colours, "My lady sent
me a hundred roubles," and "King of the castle." And then a group of
all the smallest ones gathered together on a large heap of warm yellow
sand, moulding it into buckwheat cakes and Easter loaves. The nurses
stood round in groups, gossiping about their masters and mistresses;
the governesses sat stiffly upright on the benches, deep in their
reading or their needlework.
Suddenly the children stopped their playing and began to gaze intently
in the direction of the entrance gate. We also turned to look. A tall
bearded peasant was wheeling in before him a bath-chair in which sat
a pitiful helpless being, a boy of about eighteen or twenty years,
with a flabby pale face, thick, wet, crimson hanging lips, and the
appearance of an idiot. The bearded peasant pushed the chair past us
and disappeared down a side path. I noticed as he passed that the
enormous sharp-pointed head of the boy moved from side to side, and
that at each movement of the chair it fell towards his shoulder or
dropped helplessly in front of him.
"Poor man!" exclaimed my companion in a gentle voice.
I heard such deep and sincere sympathy in his words that I
involuntarily looked at him in astonishment. I had known Zimina for a
long time--he was a strong, good-natured, jolly, virile type of man
serving in one of the regiments quartered in our town. To tell the
truth, I shouldn't have expected from him such sincere compassion
towards a stranger's misfortune.
"Poor, of course he is, but I shouldn't call him a man," said I,
wishing to get into conversation with Zimina.
"Why wouldn't you?" asked he in his turn.
"Well, it's difficult to say. But surely it's clear to everybody....
An idiot has none of the higher impulses and virtues which distinguish
man from the animal ... no reason or speech or will.... A dog or a cat
possesses these qualities in a much higher degree...."
But Zimina interrupted me.
"Pardon me, please," said he. "I am deeply convinced, on the contrary,
that idiots are not lacking in human instincts. These instincts are
only clouded over ... they exist deep below their animal feelings. ...
You see, I once had an experience which gives me, I think, the right
to say this. The remembrance of it will never leave me, and every time
I see such an afflicted person I feel touched almost to tears.... If
you'll allow me, I'll tell you why the sight of an idiot moves me to
such compassion."