So much for the Great Man and the leadsman. Now let us see what
happened to the fool.

As he was standing close to the table during the Great Man's speech,
he received a glance from the leadsman, which, like a small fiery
arrow, was capable of setting a fortress aflame. And as he went out
into the night, he felt beside himself, like a man who is clothed
in sheets of fire. He was not a nice man. True, fools and jailers
are human beings, like the rest of us, but they are not the very
nicest specimen. Like everybody else he had many faults and weaknesses,
but he knew how to cloak them. Now something extraordinary happened.
Through having mimicked the leadsman all day long, and also, perhaps,
owing to all the drink he had consumed, he had become so much the
part which he had played that he was unable to shake it off; and
since he had brought into prominence the faults and weaknesses of
the leadsman, he had, as it were, acquired them, and that flash
from the leadsman's eye had rammed them down to the very bottom of
his soul, just as a ramrod pushes the powder into the barrel of a
gun. He was charged with the leadsman, so to speak, and therefore,
as he stepped out into the street he at once began to shout and
boast. But this time luck was against him. A policeman ordered him
to be quiet. The fool said something funny, imitating the leadsman's
provincial accent. But the policeman, who happened to be a native
of the same province, was annoyed and wanted to arrest the fool.
Now it is just as difficult for a fool to take a thing seriously
as it is for a policeman to understand a joke; therefore the fool
resisted and created such a disturbance that the policeman struck
him with his truncheon.