from By the Well of Living and Seeing, Part II, Section 18: “I saw him walking along slowly at night”

I saw him walking along slowly at night holding a tray of candy and chewing-gum: a Jewish boy of fifteen or sixteen with large black eyes and a gentle face. He sidled into a saloon and must have been ordered away because he came out promptly through the swinging doors. I wondered what he was doing far from a Jewish neighborhood. (I knew the side streets and the roughs standing about on the corners and stoops.) What a prize this shambling boy with his tray! I stepped up to warn him against leaving the brightly-lit avenue. He listened, eyed me steadily, and walked on calmly. I looked at him in astonishment and thought: has nothing frightened you? Neither the capture of Jerusalem by the Babylonians, by the Romans, by the Crusaders? No pogrom in Russia; no Nazi death-camp in Germany? How can you still go about so calmly?