Fräulein Kling covered her smile with her fan. The windows of the room in which they were sitting looked on the square. Although they spoke quite loudly, some laughter and shouting became so overpowering, that Sulkowski, frowning, could not help turning towards the window to see what was going on in the street.
In those times street noises and shouting of the mob were very rare. If anything of the kind happened the cause for it was nearly always an official one. In this case, one could see through the windows crowds of people in the street, in the windows and doors of the opposite houses. Amongst the crowd, moving like a wave, a strange procession advanced.
Fräulein Kling, very curious, sprang from her chair and rushed to the window, and, having pushed aside the curtain, she and Sulkowski looked into the street.
The crowd passed under the windows, rushing after a man dressed in dark clothes and sitting on a donkey, his face turned toward the ass's tail. The donkey was led by a man dressed in red. It was painful to look at the unfortunate culprit, an elderly man, bent and crushed by shame. From the window one could see his pale face with the painful expression of a punished man, who, judging by his dress, belonged to the better class. His pockets were full of papers sticking out; his clothes were unbuttoned and threadbare. A kind of stupor evidently followed the humiliation, for he mechanically clasped the donkey in order not to fall, he did not look at what was going on around him, though men armed with halberds surrounded him, while the always merciless crowd threw mud and small stones at him. His dress and face was covered with dirt. The men laughed, the children rushed, screamed and thoughtlessly tortured the unfortunate man.
'What is it?' cried Fräulein Kling. 'What is going on? I don't understand!'
'Oh! nothing!' said Sulkowski indifferently, 'a very simple thing. It cannot be permitted that any scribbler can dare to criticise the people belonging to the upper classes, and speak about them disrespectfully.'
'Naturally,' answered Fräulein Kling, 'one cannot permit them to attack the most sacred things.'
'That man,' said Sulkowski, 'is an editor of some paper called a gazette, or news; his name is Erell. We noticed that he took too many liberties. At length he said something very outrageous in the Dresden Merkwürdigkeiten and they ordered him to be put on such a donkey as he is himself.'
'Et c'est juste!' cried Fräulein Kling. 'One must be severe with such people. I should like to see the same in Vienna, that we might catch those who take the liberty of speaking about our secrets in Hamburg and the Hague.'
They looked through the window on the shouting crowd. Erell, an old man, evidently exhausted, swayed to the right and to the left and seemed likely to fall from the donkey. At the bend in the street he disappeared and Fräulein Kling returned to her arm-chair; Sulkowski took another, and they began to talk. The host however answered her questions cautiously and coolly.