DAVID.
Only once did I dare lift my eyes,—but I saw strange, grey people, into whose eyes some one had spat something white, and they feel the air as if it were a danger, and they fear the earth as though it were a horror. What do they want, Nullius?
ANATHEMA.
Did you see the sick and the maimed, with organs of the body missing,—did you see them crawl on the ground? Out of the pores of the earth they come like a perspiration of blood—the earth is of them.
DAVID.
Be silent, Nullius.
ANATHEMA.
Did you see people who are devoured by their conscience: their face is dark, as though scorched by fire, and their eyes are surrounded with white rings, and they run about in a circle like mad horses? Did you see people who look straight ahead, and in their hands they hold long staffs for measuring the road? These are the people searching after truth.
DAVID.
I dared not look any further.