... I looked from these to Semyonov and Marie Ivanovna, they in
their white overalls working at the meat kitchen and the huge
bread-baskets, radiant in their love, their success, their struggle,
confident, both of them, this morning that they had the fire of life
in their hands to do with it as they pleased.
I have not wished during the progress of this book, which is the
history of the experiences of others rather than of myself, to lay any
stress on my personal history, and here I would only say that any one
who is burdened with a physical disease or encumbrance that will
remain to the end of life must know that there are certain moments
when this hindrance leaps up at him like the grinning face of a
devil--despairing hideous moments they are! I have said that during
our drive I had felt a confident happy participation in the joy of
those others who were with me ... now as we stood there feeding that
company of scarecrows, a sudden horror of my own lameness, a sudden
consciousness that I belonged rather to that band of miserable
diseased hungry fugitives than to the two triumphant figures on the
other side of me, overwhelmed and defeated me.
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