Note: Translator Pauline Bancroft Flach died in 1966, less than 70 years ago. Therefore, this work is protected by copyright, restricting your legal rights to reproduce it. However, you are welcome to view it on screen, as you do now. Read more about copyright.
Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - Introduction - III. On the Barricade
<< prev. page << föreg. sida << >> nästa sida >> next page >>
Below is the raw OCR text
from the above scanned image.
Do you see an error? Proofread the page now!
Här nedan syns maskintolkade texten från faksimilbilden ovan.
Ser du något fel? Korrekturläs sidan nu!
This page has been proofread at least once.
(diff)
(history)
Denna sida har korrekturlästs minst en gång.
(skillnad)
(historik)
ON THE BARRICADE
21
but they soon saw that all his grandeur was
imitation and quite worthless, and they began to laugh at
him and mock him.
He went from hand to hand among the agitators,
until one of them bent forward to look at his crown.
His eyes were attracted by the words which stood
scratched there: “My kingdom is only of this
world.”
The man called this out quite loudly, and they
all screamed that the little image should be their
badge. They carried him up to the summit of the
barricade and placed him there like a banner.
Among those who defended the barricade was one
man who was not a poor working-man, but a man of
education, who had passed his whole life in study.
He knew all the want that tortured mankind, and
his heart was full of sympathy, so that he continually
sought means to better their lot. For thirty years
he had written and thought without finding any
remedy. Now on hearing the alarm bell he had
obeyed it and rushed into the streets.
He had seized a weapon and gone with the
insurgents with the thought that the riddle which he had
been unable to solve should now be made clear by
violence and force, and that the poor should be able
to fight their way to a better lot.
There he stood the whole day and fought; and
people fell about him, blood splashed up into his
face, and the misery of life seemed to him greater
and more deplorable than ever before.
But whenever the smoke cleared away, the little
image shone before his eyes; through all the tumult
of the fight it stood unmoved high up on the
barricade.
<< prev. page << föreg. sida << >> nästa sida >> next page >>
