The Beggar

I was walking along the street ... I was stopped by a decrepit old beggar.     Bloodshot, tearful eyes, blue lips, coarse rags, festering wounds.... Oh, how hideously poverty had eaten into this miserable creature!     He held out to me a red, swollen, filthy hand. He groaned, he mumbled of help.     I began feeling in all my pockets.... No purse, no watch, not even a handkerchief.... I had taken nothing with me. And the beggar was still waiting ... and his outstretched hand feebly shook and trembled.     Confused, abashed, I warmly clasped the filthy, shaking hand ... 'Don't be angry, brother; I have nothing, brother.'     The beggar stared at me with his bloodshot eyes; his blue lips smiled; and he in his turn gripped my chilly fingers.     'What of it, brother?' he mumbled; 'thanks for this, too. That is a gift too, brother.'     I knew that I too had received a gift from my brother.     February 1878.