nsciousness altogether, being almost
torn to pieces by the multitude.

While this lasted, it seemed to me that I had a dream. I felt the blows
raining down upon me, and my body struggling upon the ground; and yet
it seemed to me that I was lying outside upon the ground, and above me
the pale sky which never brightened at the touch of the sun. And I
thought that dull, persistent cloud wavered and broke for an instant,
and that I saw behind a glimpse of that blue which is heaven when we
are on the earth--the blue sky--which is nowhere to be seen but in the
mortal life; which is heaven enough, which is delight enough, for those
who can look up to it, and feel themselves in the land of hope. It
might be but a dream; in this strange world who could tell what was
vision and what was true?

The next thing I remember was that I found myself lying on the floor of
a great room full of people with every kind of disease and deformity,
some pale with sickness, some with fresh wounds, the lame, and the
maimed, and the miserable. They lay round me in every attitude of pain,
many with sores, some bleeding, with broken limbs, but all struggling,
some on hands and knees, dragging themselves up from the ground to stare
at me. They roused in my mind a loathing and sense of disgust which it is
impossible to express. I could scarcely tolerate the thought that I--I!
should be forced to remain a moment in this lazar-house. The feeling with
which I had regarded the miserable creature who shared the corner of the
wall with me, and who had cursed me for being sorry for him, had
altogether gone out of my mind. I called out, to whom I know not,
adjuring some one to open the door and set me free; but my cry was
answered only by a shout from my companions in trouble. 'Who do you think
will let you out?' 'Who is going to help you more than the rest?' My
whole body was racked with pain; I could not move from the floor, on
which I lay. I had to put up with the stares of the curious, and the
mockeries and remarks on me of whoever chose to criticise. Among them
was the lame man whom I had seen thrust in by the two officers who had
taken me from the gate. He was the first to jibe. 'But for him they would
never have seen me,' he said. 'I should have been well by this time in
the fresh air.' 'It is his turn now,' said another. I turned my head as
well as I could and spoke to them all.

'I am a stranger here,' I cried. 'They have made my brain burn with the