I was walking down a street and saw an old and decrepit beggar with blazing and watery eyes, blue lips, sordid rags, unclean wounds. Oh! how hideously poverty had gnawed at this unhappy being! He reached out his red, swollen, dirty hand to me; he moaned as he begged for help. I went through all my pockets: no purse, no watch, no handkerchief, I hadn’t taken anything with me. And the beggar waited, and his outstretched hand moved weakly in jerks. All confused, not knowing what to do, I tightly shook his dirty and shaky hand. “Don’t be angry with me, brother. I didn’t take anything for myself.” The beggar stared at me with his ragged eyes, and his bluish lips smiled. He pressed my cold fingers. “Well, brother,” he said in a hoarse voice, “thank you for that. Such an act is also an almsgiving.”
The beggar
Belgium, October 9, 1939
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