Page:Leo Tolstoi - Life Is Worth Living and Other Stories - tr. Adolphus Norraikow (1892).djvu/76

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Life is Worth Living.
69

might protect my naked body from the wintry blasts.

"When evening came I had grown still more hungry and cold and had become utterly sick. Suddenly I heard footsteps, and on looking around I saw a man coming along the road. He was carrying in his hand a pair of old felt shoes and was talking to himself. For the first time since I had become a human being I saw the face of man, and it seemed to me that the sight was horrible to behold. I turned from it in disgust.

"I heard this man talking to himself as to how he should protect his body from the chilly winds of winter, and also how he should manage to feed his wife and children, and I thought: 'Here am I perishing from hunger and cold, and here is this man walking along the road and thinking how he shall feed and clothe his wife and children, and I am powerless to help him.'

"The man glanced upward, and on seeing