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" They had been inspired to insert
the word DEAD because sheep's wool, for example, was an article of
clothing in which they greatly delighted, and they could not bring
themselves to deprive the faithful of this gift of God.
Even as it stood, the Commandment entailed severe sacrifices on the
part of the Sacred Sixty-three. No boot-leather, no picturesque belts,
no bone knife-handles or combs, no tallow candles. . . . They were
prepared, none the less, to carry out to the letter this injunction,
since it gave them what all religious people require--something to
torment themselves with; and this is how matters stood when, on that
morning, a stalwart batch of new-comers from the wilds of Muscovy,
burning with the ardour of abnegation and wholly ignorant of local laws
and customs, sauntered across the market-place in freshly purchased
hempen sandals.
Tobacco being derivable neither from warm-blooded beasts nor yet from
dead ones, a member of the band bethought himself of the fact that he
had run out of cigarettes.


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