There
was a hush over all the people.
What followed happened so quickly that I can hardly separate the
progressive steps. Barber continued to talk excitedly, but all my
attention being on the scene before me, I took no heed of what he said.
Neither could I hear him very plainly. But it must have been the ceasing
of his voice which made me look around, when I saw he was no longer by
my side.
How he managed, at that moment, to get out there I never knew, but
suddenly in the broad vacant space, fringed by police and soldiery, I
saw Barber walking alone in the sight of all the people.
I was thunderstruck. What a madman! I expected to hear the crowd roar at
him, to see the police ride up and drag him away.
But nobody moved; there was a great stillness; and before I knew it my
own feelings blended with the crowd's. It seemed to me that Barber was
in his right place there: this mean shabby man, walking solitary, was
what we had all come to see. For his passage the street had been
cleared, the guards deployed, the houses decked.
It all sounds wild, I know, but the whole scene made so deep an
impression on my mind that I am perfectly certain as to what I felt
while Barber was walking there. He walked slowly, with no trace of his
usual shuffling uncertain gait, but with a balanced cadenced step, and
as he turned his head calmly from side to side his face seemed
transfigured.
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