I had
just begun to take life seriously then, to think about things and to
hate injustice.
"My father drank and wasted money and treated his servants brutally.
My mother was dead, and when she was alive she was an invalid, and
could do nothing. Most of the people I knew seemed to think the serfs
no better than animals. I remember how sometimes when we were starting
off in the early morning for a boar hunt in the forest, they would come
begging and whining round the horses' heels.
"They seldom got anything except a kick or a curse. They looked
scarcely human, yet it was ourselves who were the brutes really.
"Well, Guerchouni spoke and I went and listened to him. A friend with
whom I had gone to the meetings gave me an introduction to him. I was
mad on the Cause long before the interview was over. He was a man
that! If he had looked at me twice, I would have walked through flames
to please him. Oh, I wasn't the only one! We all felt like that more
or less with Guerchouni. I couldn't describe him. He was not a tall
man, but he carried himself well, and he was dark and pale with
wonderful blazing eyes.
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