OF THE RABBLE 133
to put his foot into the jaws of the rabble and thus stuff their throat.
And this was not the bit which choked me most : to know that life itself requireth hostility and death and crosses of torture;
But once I asked and was almost suffocated by my question : ' What ? doth life also require rabble ?
Are poisoned wells required, and stinking fires, and foul dreams, and mites in the bread of life ? '
Not my hatred but my loathing gnawed hungrily at my life ! Alas, I frequently wearied of the spirit when I found the rabble also full of spirit !
And I turned my back upon the rulers, when I saw what is now called ruling : to chaffer and barter about power with the rabble !
Among nations with foreign tongues I lived with closed ears, in order that the tongue of their chaffer- ing might remain unknown unto me, and their bar- tering about power.
And holding my nose I angrily walked through all yesterday and to-day. Verily, after writing rabble badly smelleth all yesterday and to-day!
Like a cripple who became deaf and blind and dumb, thus I lived long in order not to live with the rabble of power, writing, and lust.
With difficulty my mind went up stairs, and cau- tiously ; alms of lust were its refreshments ; for the blind man, life crept leaning on a stick.
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