Page 76 - Sorrow of the Earth: Buffalo Bill, Sitting Bull and the Tragedy of Show Business

Let’s take another look. You don’t just feel a strange unease at the sight of
their destitution, you also feel a sort of sympathy. Yes, don’t let’s be afraid of
words: we feel sympathy. It’s existed since the dawn of time, but where, in

God’s name, does this sympathy come from? No one knows. It’s something
that courses through your body, your eyes, it takes you by the throat and fills
your breast with tears. It’s a strange phenomenon, sympathy. We must be a
little bit like these poor wretches. Because poor wretches is what they are,
always the same frail figures, the same cluster of children, the same rags.