“Do you mean the hunchback's performance?”
Remembering his peculiar sensitiveness on the subject of his own physical defects, she had avoided mentioning this particular bit of the entertainment; but now that he had touched upon the subject himself, she answered: “Yes; I did not like that part at all.”
“That was the part the people enjoyed most.”
“I dare say; and that is just the worst thing about it.”
“Because it was inartistic?”
“N-no; it was all inartistic. I meant—because it was cruel.”
He smiled.
“Cruel? Do you mean to the hunchback?”
“I mean—— Of course the man himself was quite indifferent; no doubt, it is to him just a way of getting a living, like the circus-rider's way or the columbine's. But the thing makes one feel unhappy. It is humiliating; it is the degradation of a human being.”
“He probably is not any more degraded than he was to start with. Most of us are degraded in one way or another.”