He walked along the canal bank, and he had not much further to go. But on reaching the bridge he stopped and turning out of his way along it went to the Hay Market.
He looked eagerly to right and left, gazed intently at every object and could not fix his attention on anything; everything slipped away.
“In another week, another month I shall be driven in a prison van over this bridge, how shall I look at the canal then? I should like to remember this!”
slipped into his mind.
“Look at this sign! How shall I read those letters then? It’s written here ‘Campany,’ that’s a thing to remember, that letter a , and to look at it again in a month—how shall I look at it then? What shall I be feeling and thinking then? … How trivial it all must be, what I am fretting about now! Of course it must all be interesting … in its way … (Ha-ha-ha! What am I thinking about?) I am becoming a baby, I am showing off to myself; why am I ashamed? Foo! how people shove! that fat man—a German he must be—who pushed against me, does he know whom he pushed? There’s a peasant woman with a baby, begging. It’s curious that she thinks me happier than she is. I might give her something, for the incongruity of it. Here’s a five kopeck piece left in my pocket, where did I get it? Here, here … take it, my good woman!”
“God bless you,” the beggar chanted in a lachrymose voice.
He went into the Hay Market. It was distasteful, very distasteful to be in a crowd, but he walked just where he saw most people.