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- 512 CRIME AND PUNISHMENT
prisoners on the road, they all took off their hats to her. "Little
mother Sofya Semyonovna, you are our dear, good little
mother," coarse branded criminals said to that frail little crea-
ture. She would smile and bow to them and every one was
delighted when she smiled. They even admired her gait and
turned round to watch her walking; they admired her too for
being so little, and, in fact, did not know what to admire her
most for. They even came to her for help in their illnesses.
He was in the hospital from the middle of Lent till aftei
Easter. When he was better, he remembered the dreams he had
had while he was feverish and delirious. He dreamt that the
whole world was condemned to a terrible new strange plague
that had come to Europe from the depths of Asia. All were to
be destroyed except a very few chosen. Some new sorts of mi-
crobes were attacking the bodies of men, but these microbes
were endowed with intelligence and will. Men attacked by them
became at once mad and furious. But never had men considered
themselves so intellectual and so completely in possession of the
truth as these sufferers, never had they considered their deci-
sions, their scientific conclusions, their moral convictions so
infallible. Whole villages, whole towns and peoples went mad
from the infection. All were excited and did not understand one
another. Each thought that he alone had the truth and was
wretched looking at the others, beat himself on the breast, wept,
and wrung his hands. They did not know how to judge and
could not agree what to consider evil and what good; they did
not know whom to blame, whom to justify. Men killed each
other in a sort of senseless spite. They gathered together in
armies against one another, but even on the march the armies
would begin attacking each other, the ranks would be broken
and the soldiers would fall on each other, stabbing and cutting,
biting and devouring each other. The alarm bell was ringing all
day long in the towns; men rushed together, but why they were
summoned and who was summoning them no one knew. The
most ordinary trades were abandoned, because every one pro-
posed hisown ideas, his own improvements, and they could not
agree. The land too was abandoned. Men met in groups, agreed
on something, swore to keep together, but at once began on
something quite different from what they had proposed. They
accused one another, fought and killed each other. There were
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