one new emotion, hardly to be described. That he should
have suffered such oppressions and such horrors was bad
enough; but that he should have been crushed and beaten
by them, that he should have submitted, and forgotten,
and lived in peace -- ah, truly that was a thing not to be
put into words, a thing not to be borne by a human crea~
ture, a thing of terror and madness! "What," asks the
prophet, "is the murder of them that kill the body, to the
murder of them that kill the soul?" And Jurgis was a
man whose soul had been murdered, who had ceased to
hope and to struggle -- who had made terms with degra~
dation and despair; and now, suddenly, in one awful con~
vulsion, the black and hideous fact was made plain to him!
There was a falling in of all the pillars of his soul, the sky
seemed to split above him -- he stood there, with his
clenched hands upraised, his eyes bloodshot, and the veins
standing out purple in his face, roaring in the voice of a
wild beast, frantic, incoherent, maniacal. And when he
could shout no more he still stood there, gasping, and
whispering hoarsely to himself: "By God! By God! By
God!"

[[367]]

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v?