Minutes passed. Hours. Julie suffered the time in silence. She saw and heard, but could hardly believe, the unrestrained sadism of the giggling, laughing, applauding, cheering, jeering audience. What kind of people were these, who laughed at the pain and humiliation of others? What did they find amusing in the ruin of human life?
They laughed when a partially paralyzed hunchback limped before the judge and pleaded guilty to a charge of ogling girls in a public park. They roared with hilarity when the magistrate suspended sentence and commented that a more appropriate charge would have been that of defacing public property. They applauded lustily when he said to the arresting officer, "Bring him in on that one tomorrow and I'll throw the book at him!"
They laughed when an alcoholic appeared, twitching and brushing imaginary creatures from his torn jacket. They howled gleefully when he whimpered and sobbed like a small boy having a nightmare.
They laughed when the magistrate said his fountain pen had run out of ink and, looking into the detention pen, inquired, "Would any of you blue bloods care to make a donation?"
They laughed when a court attendant read a complaint which charged that the defendant, a small skinny man, had attacked the arresting officer, and that the officer (six-three, two hundred and ten pounds) had used reasonable force in defending himself. The man's broken arm was in a sling and bandages covered twelve stitches in his scalp.
The audience laughed. They gloated. They sat in judgment of their fellow men and called for punishment—the more severe, the better.
At last, the detention pen was empty. The last "undesirable" was brought before the bench. He was a small, pathetic looking man dressed in sailor's dungarees. He spoke Norwegian and clumsily tried to explain his predicament with the few words of English that he knew.
"Stop gibbering!" the judge shouted at him. The magistrate's facade of kindliness had long since disappeared. He turned to the arresting officer. "Do you speak that language?" He made it sound like a disgrace to be able to speak Norwegian.
The officer shook his head.
"Neither do I," the magistrate said, with obvious pride that he was not contaminated by such knowledge. He arbitrarily ordered the man held until he learned to make himself understood; the hearing to take place when that had been accomplished. The sailor was led away.