course. On the shady side of the street, a scissors grinder was turning his grindstone, and filling the quiet little village with a noise of whizzing and scratching.
From a passage near him, a maid stepped out of a house with a mouse trap in her hand. A band of eager children followed. She gazed indifferently up and down the street in search of some distraction, as if she were going about the most ordinary of household duties. An excited cat was rubbing against her leg and expressing the agitation of all its bloodthirsty instincts in gentle imploring sounds. Gerold shuddered and quickened his pace, looking sorrowfully up to the sky, to see whether such cruel, devilish play would not cause a visible blot on the great world's serenity. His heart was wrung with pity, and he was tormented by a faint sense of guilt. A vague feeling in his heart whispered that every one is to a certain extent responsible for everything of which he is a witness.
All this time the wheel of the scissors grinder continued to whizz actively and the grating of sharp knives on the stone was so loud that it sent cold shudders through Gerold's bones. He imagined human flesh under the knife, instead of the stone. But when he expressed his horror at the cruel behaviour of cats towards mice, Gesima scolded him.
"It serves the mice right," she said decidedly. "Why do they eat holes in curtains?"
In front of a pastry shop at the end of the little town, Gesima confessed that she was beginning to feel hungry.
"I have no money," said Gerold with regret.
"But I have fifty centimes," and she persuaded him to enter the shop. There was a woman inside, who asked them kindly what they wanted.
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