Read "The Dumpling" by Coulson Kernahan online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
"He's only starving! " the woman had said. But as I stooped to lift the frail little figure from the ground, as I hurried with it across the street and into the baker's shop, there to wet the white lips with a restorative -- a prayer that was like the spurting of blood from a wound, a prayer that shot a pang of actual physical pain to my heart -- so poignant, so terrible was my remorse -- surged up unuttered but not unheard, within me.
"Lord Christ, lover of little children, spare and heal this Thy stricken little child. Forgive and pardon such as I, who, living our selfish, easeful lives, have closed our ears and shut our eyes to the suffering and the misery around us. Help us to repent. Lash us, if need be, with Thy whip of pain, burn us, if it seem good to Thee, with the scorching of fire, but awaken us, arouse us, thaw this cruel, frozen heart within us, that we be forgetful of the sufferings of these our fellow-creatures no more. Amen."