As they drove back along dusty stretches of road
amidst fields of corn and sunflower and through bright little
villages, they saw against the evening blue under the full moon a
smoky red glare rising from amidst the white houses and dark trees
of the town. "The pogrom's begun," said Benham's friend, and was
surprised when Benham wanted to end a pleasant day by going to see
what happens after the beginning of a pogrom.
He was to have several surprises before at last he left Benham in
disgust and went home by himself.
For Benham, with that hastiness that so flouted his exalted
theories, passed rapidly from an attitude of impartial enquiry to
active intervention. The two men left their carriage and plunged
into the network of unlovely dark streets in which the Jews and
traders harboured. . . . Benham's first intervention was on behalf
of a crouching and yelping bundle of humanity that was being dragged
about and kicked at a street corner. The bundle resolved itself
into a filthy little old man, and made off with extraordinary
rapidity, while Benham remonstrated with the kickers.
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