Monday, 15th.
Nobis can be paired off with Franti: neither of them was affected this
morning in the presence of the terrible sight which passed before their
eyes. On coming out of school, I was standing with my father and looking
at some big rogues of the second grade, who had thrown themselves on
their knees and were wiping off the ice with their cloaks and caps, in
order to make slides more quickly, when we saw a crowd of people appear
at the end of the street, walking hurriedly, all serious and seemingly
terrified, and conversing in low tones. In the midst of them were three
policemen, and behind the policemen two men carrying a litter. Boys
hastened up from all quarters. The crowd advanced towards us. On the
litter was stretched a man, pale as a corpse, with his head resting on
one shoulder, and his hair tumbled and stained with blood, for he had
been losing blood through the mouth and ears; and beside the litter
walked a woman with a baby in her arms, who seemed crazy, and who
shrieked from time to time, "He is dead! He is dead! He is dead!"
Behind the woman came a boy who had a portfolio under his arm and who
was sobbing.
"What has happened?" asked my father. A neighbor replied, that the man
was a mason who had fallen from the fourth story while at work. The
bearers of the litter halted for a moment. Many turned away their faces
in horror. I saw the schoolmistress of the red feather supporting my
mistress of the upper first, who was almost in a swoon. At the same
moment I felt a touch on the elbow; it was the little mason, who was
ghastly white and trembling from head to foot. He was certainly thinking
of his father. I was thinking of him, too. I, at least, am at peace in
my mind while I am in school: I know that my father is at home, seated
at his table, far removed from all danger; but how many of my companions
think that their fathers are at work on a very high bridge or close to
the wheels of a machine, and that a movement, a single false step, may
cost them their lives! They are like so many sons of soldiers who have
fathers in the battle. The little mason gazed and gazed, and trembled
more and more, and my father noticed it and said:--
"Go home, my boy; go at once to your father, and you will find him safe
and tranquil; go!"
The little mason went off, turning round at every step. And in the
meanwhile the crowd had begun to move again, and the woman to shriek in
a way that rent the heart, "He is dead! He is dead! He is dead!"
"No, no; he is not dead," people on all sides said to her. But she paid
no heed to them, and tore her hair. Then I heard an indignant voice say,
"You are laughing!" and at the same moment I saw a bearded man staring
in Franti's face. Then the man knocked his cap to the ground with his
stick, saying:--
"Uncover your head, you wicked boy, when a man wounded by labor is
passing by!"
The crowd had already passed, and a long streak of blood was visible in
the middle of the street.