Page 94 - the-idiot

that he had to take very small steps. The priest, who seemed
to be a wise man, had stopped talking now, and only held
the cross for the wretched fellow to kiss. At the foot of the
ladder he had been pale enough; but when he set foot on the
scaffold at the top, his face suddenly became the colour of
paper, positively like white notepaper. His legs must have
become suddenly feeble and helpless, and he felt a chok-
ing in his throat—you know the sudden feeling one has in
moments of terrible fear, when one does not lose one’s wits,
but is absolutely powerless to move? If some dreadful thing
were suddenly to happen; if a house were just about to fall on
one;—don’t you know how one would long to sit down and
shut one’s eyes and wait, and wait? Well, when this terrible
feeling came over him, the priest quickly pressed the cross
to his lips, without a word—a little silver cross it wasand
he kept on pressing it to the man’s lips every second. And
whenever the cross touched his lips, the eyes would open
for a moment, and the legs moved once, and he kissed the
cross greedily, hurriedly—just as though he were anxious
to catch hold of something in case of its being useful to him
afterwards, though he could hardly have had any connected
religious thoughts at the time. And so up to the very block.
‘How strange that criminals seldom swoon at such a mo-
ment! On the contrary, the brain is especially active, and
works incessantly— probably hard, hard, hard—like an en-
gine at full pressure. I imagine that various thoughts must
beat loud and fast through his head—all unfinished ones,
and strange, funny thoughts, very likely!—like this, for in-
stance: ‘That man is looking at me, and he has a wart on