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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, Mother, by Maksim Gorky, Illustrated by
+Sigmund de Ivanowski
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: Mother
+
+
+Author: Maksim Gorky
+
+
+
+Release Date: September 4, 2001  [eBook #3783]
+Most recently revised: November 27, 2011
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MOTHER***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Jarrod Newton
+and revised by Al Haines, Veronika Redfern, Juliet Sutherland,
+and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net)
+
+
+
+Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this
+      file which includes the original illustrations.
+      See 3783-h.htm or 3783-h.zip:
+      (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/3783/3783-h/3783-h.htm)
+      or
+      (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/3783/3783-h.zip)
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: "With somber faces ... their muscles stiff from
+insufficient sleep."]
+
+
+MOTHER
+
+by
+
+MAXIM GORKY
+
+With Eight Illustrations by Sigmund De Ivanowski
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+New York and London
+D. Appleton and Company
+1911
+
+Copyright, 1906, 1907, by
+D. Appleton and Company
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+                                                                FACING
+                                                                  PAGE
+
+    "With somber faces ... their muscles stiff with insufficient
+    sleep"                                              _Frontispiece_
+
+    "The mother ... strained her untrained mind to listen"          34
+
+    "It seemed to Vlasova that the officer was but waiting for
+    her tears"                                                      92
+
+    "Taking out one package of books after the other, she
+    shoved them into the hands of the brothers"                    116
+
+    "The mother's heart quivered with impatience"                  142
+
+    "'Listen, for the sake of Christ'"                             232
+
+    "The men listened in silence"                                  296
+
+    "'Run, run!' whispered the mother"                             428
+
+
+
+
+PART I
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+
+Every day the factory whistle bellowed forth its shrill, roaring,
+trembling noises into the smoke-begrimed and greasy atmosphere of the
+workingmen's suburb; and obedient to the summons of the power of steam,
+people poured out of little gray houses into the street. With somber
+faces they hastened forward like frightened roaches, their muscles stiff
+from insufficient sleep. In the chill morning twilight they walked
+through the narrow, unpaved street to the tall stone cage that waited
+for them with cold assurance, illumining their muddy road with scores of
+greasy, yellow, square eyes. The mud plashed under their feet as if in
+mocking commiseration. Hoarse exclamations of sleepy voices were heard;
+irritated, peevish, abusive language rent the air with malice; and, to
+welcome the people, deafening sounds floated about--the heavy whir of
+machinery, the dissatisfied snort of steam. Stern and somber, the black
+chimneys stretched their huge, thick sticks high above the village.
+
+In the evening, when the sun was setting, and red rays languidly
+glimmered upon the windows of the houses, the factory ejected its people
+like burned-out ashes, and again they walked through the streets, with
+black, smoke-covered faces, radiating the sticky odor of machine oil,
+and showing the gleam of hungry teeth. But now there was animation in
+their voices, and even gladness. The servitude of hard toil was over for
+the day. Supper awaited them at home, and respite.
+
+The day was swallowed up by the factory; the machine sucked out of men's
+muscles as much vigor as it needed. The day was blotted out from life,
+not a trace of it left. Man made another imperceptible step toward his
+grave; but he saw close before him the delights of rest, the joys of the
+odorous tavern, and he was satisfied.
+
+On holidays the workers slept until about ten o'clock. Then the staid
+and married people dressed themselves in their best clothes and, after
+duly scolding the young folks for their indifference to church, went to
+hear mass. When they returned from church, they ate pirogs, the Russian
+national pastry, and again lay down to sleep until the evening. The
+accumulated exhaustion of years had robbed them of their appetites, and
+to be able to eat they drank, long and deep, goading on their feeble
+stomachs with the biting, burning lash of vodka.
+
+In the evening they amused themselves idly on the street; and those who
+had overshoes put them on, even if it was dry, and those who had
+umbrellas carried them, even if the sun was shining. Not everybody has
+overshoes and an umbrella, but everybody desires in some way, however
+small, to appear more important than his neighbor.
+
+Meeting one another they spoke about the factory and the machines, had
+their fling against their foreman, conversed and thought only of matters
+closely and manifestly connected with their work. Only rarely, and then
+but faintly, did solitary sparks of impotent thought glimmer in the
+wearisome monotony of their talk. Returning home they quarreled with
+their wives, and often beat them, unsparing of their fists. The young
+people sat in the taverns, or enjoyed evening parties at one another's
+houses, played the accordion, sang vulgar songs devoid of beauty,
+danced, talked ribaldry, and drank.
+
+Exhausted with toil, men drank swiftly, and in every heart there awoke
+and grew an incomprehensible, sickly irritation. It demanded an outlet.
+Clutching tenaciously at every pretext for unloading themselves of this
+disquieting sensation, they fell on one another for mere trifles, with
+the spiteful ferocity of beasts, breaking into bloody quarrels which
+sometimes ended in serious injury and on rare occasions even in murder.
+
+This lurking malice steadily increased, inveterate as the incurable
+weariness in their muscles. They were born with this disease of the soul
+inherited from their fathers. Like a black shadow it accompanied them to
+their graves, spurring on their lives to crime, hideous in its aimless
+cruelty and brutality.
+
+On holidays the young people came home late at night, dirty and dusty,
+their clothes torn, their faces bruised, boasting maliciously of the
+blows they had struck their companions, or the insults they had
+inflicted upon them; enraged or in tears over the indignities they
+themselves had suffered; drunken and piteous, unfortunate and repulsive.
+Sometimes the boys would be brought home by the mother or the father,
+who had picked them up in the street or in a tavern, drunk to
+insensibility. The parents scolded and swore at them peevishly, and beat
+their spongelike bodies, soaked with liquor; then more or less
+systematically put them to bed, in order to rouse them to work early
+next morning, when the bellow of the whistle should sullenly course
+through the air.
+
+They scolded and beat the children soundly, notwithstanding the fact
+that drunkenness and brawls among young folk appeared perfectly
+legitimate to the old people. When they were young they, too, had drunk
+and fought; they, too, had been beaten by their mothers and fathers.
+Life had always been like that. It flowed on monotonously and slowly
+somewhere down the muddy, turbid stream, year after year; and it was all
+bound up in strong ancient customs and habits that led them to do one
+and the same thing day in and day out. None of them, it seemed, had
+either the time or the desire to attempt to change this state of life.
+
+Once in a long while a stranger would come to the village. At first he
+attracted attention merely because he was a stranger. Then he aroused a
+light, superficial interest by the stories of the places where he had
+worked. Afterwards the novelty wore off, the people got used to him, and
+he remained unnoticed. From his stories it was clear that the life of
+the workingmen was the same everywhere. And if so, then what was there
+to talk about?
+
+Occasionally, however, some stranger spoke curious things never heard of
+in the suburb. The men did not argue with him, but listened to his odd
+speeches with incredulity. His words aroused blind irritation in some,
+perplexed alarm in others, while still others were disturbed by a
+feeble, shadowy glimmer of the hope of something, they knew not what.
+And they all began to drink more in order to drive away the unnecessary,
+meddlesome excitement.
+
+Noticing in the stranger something unusual, the villagers cherished it
+long against him and treated the man who was not like them with
+unaccountable apprehension. It was as if they feared he would throw
+something into their life which would disturb its straight, dismal
+course. Sad and difficult, it was yet even in its tenor. People were
+accustomed to the fact that life always oppressed them with the same
+power. Unhopeful of any turn for the better, they regarded every change
+as capable only of increasing their burden.
+
+And the workingmen of the suburb tacitly avoided people who spoke
+unusual things to them. Then these people disappeared again, going off
+elsewhere, and those who remained in the factory lived apart, if they
+could not blend and make one whole with the monotonous mass in the
+village.
+
+Living a life like that for some fifty years, a workman died.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Thus also lived Michael Vlasov, a gloomy, sullen man, with little eyes
+which looked at everybody from under his thick eyebrows suspiciously,
+with a mistrustful, evil smile. He was the best locksmith in the
+factory, and the strongest man in the village. But he was insolent and
+disrespectful toward the foreman and the superintendent, and therefore
+earned little; every holiday he beat somebody, and everyone disliked and
+feared him.
+
+More than one attempt was made to beat him in turn, but without success.
+When Vlasov found himself threatened with attack, he caught a stone in
+his hand, or a piece of wood or iron, and spreading out his legs stood
+waiting in silence for the enemy. His face overgrown with a dark beard
+from his eyes to his neck, and his hands thickly covered with woolly
+hair, inspired everybody with fear. People were especially afraid of his
+eyes. Small and keen, they seemed to bore through a man like steel
+gimlets, and everyone who met their gaze felt he was confronting a
+beast, a savage power, inaccessible to fear, ready to strike
+unmercifully.
+
+"Well, pack off, dirty vermin!" he said gruffly. His coarse, yellow
+teeth glistened terribly through the thick hair on his face. The men
+walked off uttering coward abuse.
+
+"Dirty vermin!" he snapped at them, and his eyes gleamed with a smile
+sharp as an awl. Then holding his head in an attitude of direct
+challenge, with a short, thick pipe between his teeth, he walked behind
+them, and now and then called out: "Well, who wants death?"
+
+No one wanted it.
+
+He spoke little, and "dirty vermin" was his favorite expression. It was
+the name he used for the authorities of the factory, and the police, and
+it was the epithet with which he addressed his wife: "Look, you dirty
+vermin, don't you see my clothes are torn?"
+
+When Pavel, his son, was a boy of fourteen, Vlasov was one day seized
+with the desire to pull him by the hair once more. But Pavel grasped a
+heavy hammer, and said curtly:
+
+"Don't touch me!"
+
+"What!" demanded his father, bending over the tall, slender figure of
+his son like a shadow on a birch tree.
+
+"Enough!" said Pavel. "I am not going to give myself up any more."
+
+And opening his dark eyes wide, he waved the hammer in the air.
+
+His father looked at him, folded his shaggy hands on his back, and,
+smiling, said:
+
+"All right." Then he drew a heavy breath and added: "Ah, you dirty
+vermin!"
+
+Shortly after this he said to his wife:
+
+"Don't ask me for money any more. Pasha will feed you now."
+
+"And you will drink up everything?" she ventured to ask.
+
+"None of your business, dirty vermin!" From that time, for three years,
+until his death, he did not notice, and did not speak to his son.
+
+Vlasov had a dog as big and shaggy as himself. She accompanied him to
+the factory every morning, and every evening she waited for him at the
+gate. On holidays Vlasov started off on his round of the taverns. He
+walked in silence, and stared into people's faces as if looking for
+somebody. His dog trotted after him the whole day long. Returning home
+drunk he sat down to supper, and gave his dog to eat from his own bowl.
+He never beat her, never scolded, and never petted her. After supper he
+flung the dishes from the table--if his wife was not quick enough to
+remove them in time--put a bottle of whisky before him, and leaning his
+back against the wall, began in a hoarse voice that spread anguish about
+him to bawl a song, his mouth wide open and his eyes closed. The doleful
+sounds got entangled in his mustache, knocking off the crumbs of bread.
+He smoothed down the hair of his beard and mustache with his thick
+fingers and sang--sang unintelligible words, long drawn out. The melody
+recalled the wintry howl of wolves. He sang as long as there was whisky
+in the bottle, then he dropped on his side upon the bench, or let his
+head sink on the table, and slept in this way until the whistle began to
+blow. The dog lay at his side.
+
+When he died, he died hard. For five days, turned all black, he rolled
+in his bed, gnashing his teeth, his eyes tightly closed. Sometimes he
+would say to his wife: "Give me arsenic. Poison me."
+
+She called a physician. He ordered hot poultices, but said an operation
+was necessary and the patient must be taken at once to the hospital.
+
+"Go to the devil! I will die by myself, dirty vermin!" said Michael.
+
+And when the physician had left, and his wife with tears in her eyes
+began to insist on an operation, he clenched his fists and announced
+threateningly:
+
+"Don't you dare! It will be worse for you if I get well."
+
+He died in the morning at the moment when the whistle called the men to
+work. He lay in the coffin with open mouth, his eyebrows knit as if in a
+scowl. He was buried by his wife, his son, the dog, an old drunkard and
+thief, Daniel Vyesovshchikov, a discharged smelter, and a few beggars of
+the suburb. His wife wept a little and quietly; Pavel did not weep at
+all. The villagers who met the funeral in the street stopped, crossed
+themselves, and said to one another: "Guess Pelagueya is glad he died!"
+And some corrected: "He didn't die; he rotted away like a beast."
+
+When the body was put in the ground, the people went away, but the dog
+remained for a long time, and sitting silently on the fresh soil, she
+sniffed at the grave.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+
+Two weeks after the death of his father, on a Sunday, Pavel came home
+very drunk. Staggering he crawled to a corner in the front of the room,
+and striking his fist on the table as his father used to do, shouted to
+his mother:
+
+"Supper!"
+
+The mother walked up to him, sat down at his side, and with her arm
+around her son, drew his head upon her breast. With his hand on her
+shoulder he pushed her away and shouted:
+
+"Mother, quick!"
+
+"You foolish boy!" said the mother in a sad and affectionate voice,
+trying to overcome his resistance.
+
+"I am going to smoke, too. Give me father's pipe," mumbled Pavel
+indistinctly, wagging his tongue heavily.
+
+It was the first time he had been drunk. The alcohol weakened his body,
+but it did not quench his consciousness, and the question knocked at his
+brain: "Drunk? Drunk?"
+
+The fondling of his mother troubled him, and he was touched by the
+sadness in her eyes. He wanted to weep, and in order to overcome this
+desire he endeavored to appear more drunk than he actually was.
+
+The mother stroked his tangled hair, and said in a low voice:
+
+"Why did you do it? You oughtn't to have done it."
+
+He began to feel sick, and after a violent attack of nausea the mother
+put him to bed, and laid a wet towel over his pale forehead. He sobered
+a little, but under and around him everything seemed to be rocking; his
+eyelids grew heavy; he felt a bad, sour taste in his mouth; he looked
+through his eyelashes on his mother's large face, and thought
+disjointedly:
+
+"It seems it's too early for me. Others drink and nothing happens--and I
+feel sick."
+
+Somewhere from a distance came the mother's soft voice:
+
+"What sort of a breadgiver will you be to me if you begin to drink?"
+
+He shut his eyes tightly and answered:
+
+"Everybody drinks."
+
+The mother sighed. He was right. She herself knew that besides the
+tavern there was no place where people could enjoy themselves; besides
+the taste of whisky there was no other gratification. Nevertheless she
+said:
+
+"But don't you drink. Your father drank for both of you. And he made
+enough misery for me. Take pity on your mother, then, will you not?"
+
+Listening to the soft, pitiful words of his mother, Pavel remembered
+that in his father's lifetime she had remained unnoticed in the house.
+She had been silent and had always lived in anxious expectation of
+blows. Desiring to avoid his father, he had been home very little of
+late; he had become almost unaccustomed to his mother, and now, as he
+gradually sobered up, he looked at her fixedly.
+
+She was tall and somewhat stooping. Her heavy body, broken down with
+long years of toil and the beatings of her husband, moved about
+noiselessly and inclined to one side, as if she were in constant fear of
+knocking up against something. Her broad oval face, wrinkled and puffy,
+was lighted up with a pair of dark eyes, troubled and melancholy as
+those of most of the women in the village. On her right eyebrow was a
+deep scar, which turned the eyebrow upward a little; her right ear, too,
+seemed to be higher than the left, which gave her face the appearance of
+alarmed listening. Gray locks glistened in her thick, dark hair, like
+the imprints of heavy blows. Altogether she was soft, melancholy, and
+submissive.
+
+Tears slowly trickled down her cheeks.
+
+"Wait, don't cry!" begged the son in a soft voice. "Give me a drink."
+
+She rose and said:
+
+"I'll give you some ice water."
+
+But when she returned he was already asleep. She stood over him for a
+minute, trying to breathe lightly. The cup in her hand trembled, and the
+ice knocked against the tin. Then, setting the cup on the table, she
+knelt before the sacred image upon the wall, and began to pray in
+silence. The sounds of dark, drunken life beat against the window panes;
+an accordion screeched in the misty darkness of the autumn night; some
+one sang a loud song; some one was swearing with ugly, vile oaths, and
+the excited sounds of women's irritated, weary voices cut the air.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Life in the little house of the Vlasovs flowed on monotonously, but more
+calmly and undisturbed than before, and somewhat different from
+everywhere else in the suburb.
+
+The house stood at the edge of the village, by a low but steep and muddy
+declivity. A third of the house was occupied by the kitchen and a small
+room used for the mother's bedroom, separated from the kitchen by a
+partition reaching partially to the ceiling. The other two thirds formed
+a square room with two windows. In one corner stood Pavel's bed, in
+front a table and two benches. Some chairs, a washstand with a small
+looking-glass over it, a trunk with clothes, a clock on the wall, and
+two ikons--this was the entire outfit of the household.
+
+Pavel tried to live like the rest. He did all a young lad should
+do--bought himself an accordion, a shirt with a starched front, a
+loud-colored necktie, overshoes, and a cane. Externally he became like
+all the other youths of his age. He went to evening parties and learned
+to dance a quadrille and a polka. On holidays he came home drunk, and
+always suffered greatly from the effects of liquor. In the morning his
+head ached, he was tormented by heartburns, his face was pale and dull.
+
+Once his mother asked him:
+
+"Well, did you have a good time yesterday?"
+
+He answered dismally and with irritation:
+
+"Oh, dreary as a graveyard! Everybody is like a machine. I'd better go
+fishing or buy myself a gun."
+
+He worked faithfully, without intermission and without incurring fines.
+He was taciturn, and his eyes, blue and large like his mother's, looked
+out discontentedly. He did not buy a gun, nor did he go a-fishing; but
+he gradually began to avoid the beaten path trodden by all. His
+attendance at parties became less and less frequent, and although he
+went out somewhere on holidays, he always returned home sober. His
+mother watched him unobtrusively but closely, and saw the tawny face of
+her son grow keener and keener, and his eyes more serious. She noticed
+that his lips were compressed in a peculiar manner, imparting an odd
+expression of austerity to his face. It seemed as if he were always
+angry at something, or as if a canker gnawed at him. At first his
+friends came to visit him, but never finding him at home, they remained
+away.
+
+The mother was glad to see her son turning out different from all the
+other factory youth; but a feeling of anxiety and apprehension stirred
+in her heart when she observed that he was obstinately and resolutely
+directing his life into obscure paths leading away from the routine
+existence about him--that he turned in his career neither to the right
+nor the left.
+
+He began to bring books home with him. At first he tried to escape
+attention when reading them; and after he had finished a book, he hid
+it. Sometimes he copied a passage on a piece of paper, and hid that
+also.
+
+"Aren't you well, Pavlusha?" the mother asked once.
+
+"I'm all right," he answered.
+
+"You are so thin," said the mother with a sigh.
+
+He was silent.
+
+They spoke infrequently, and saw each other very little. In the morning
+he drank tea in silence, and went off to work; at noon he came for
+dinner, a few insignificant remarks were passed at the table, and he
+again disappeared until the evening. And in the evening, the day's work
+ended, he washed himself, took supper, and then fell to his books, and
+read for a long time. On holidays he left home in the morning and
+returned late at night. She knew he went to the city and the theater;
+but nobody from the city ever came to visit him. It seemed to her that
+with the lapse of time her son spoke less and less; and at the same time
+she noticed that occasionally and with increasing frequency he used new
+words unintelligible to her, and that the coarse, rude, and hard
+expressions dropped from his speech. In his general conduct, also,
+certain traits appeared, forcing themselves upon his mother's attention.
+He ceased to affect the dandy, but became more attentive to the
+cleanliness of his body and dress, and moved more freely and alertly.
+The increasing softness and simplicity of his manner aroused a
+disquieting interest in his mother.
+
+Once he brought a picture and hung it on the wall. It represented three
+persons walking lightly and boldly, and conversing.
+
+"This is Christ risen from the dead, and going to Emmaus," explained
+Pavel.
+
+The mother liked the picture, but she thought:
+
+"You respect Christ, and yet you do not go to church."
+
+Then more pictures appeared on the walls, and the number of books
+increased on the shelves neatly made for him by one of his carpenter
+friends. The room began to look like a home.
+
+He addressed his mother with the reverential plural "you," and called
+her "mother" instead of "mamma." But sometimes he turned to her
+suddenly, and briefly used the simple and familiar form of the singular:
+"Mamma, please be not thou disturbed if I come home late to-night."
+
+This pleased her; in such words she felt something serious and strong.
+
+But her uneasiness increased. Since her son's strangeness was not
+clarified with time, her heart became more and more sharply troubled
+with a foreboding of something unusual. Every now and then she felt a
+certain dissatisfaction with him, and she thought: "All people are like
+people, and he is like a monk. He is so stern. It's not according to his
+years." At other times she thought: "Maybe he has become interested in
+some sort of a girl down there."
+
+But to go about with girls, money is needed, and he gave almost all his
+earnings to her.
+
+Thus weeks and months elapsed; and imperceptibly two years slipped by,
+two years of a strange, silent life, full of disquieting thoughts and
+anxieties that kept continually increasing.
+
+Once, when after supper Pavel drew the curtain over the window, sat down
+in a corner, and began to read, his tin lamp hanging on the wall over
+his head, the mother, after removing the dishes, came out from the
+kitchen and carefully walked up to him. He raised his head, and without
+speaking looked at her with a questioning expression.
+
+"Nothing, Pasha, just so!" she said hastily, and walked away, moving her
+eyebrows agitatedly. But after standing in the kitchen for a moment,
+motionless, thoughtful, deeply preoccupied, she washed her hands and
+approached her son again.
+
+"I want to ask you," she said in a low, soft voice, "what you read all
+the time."
+
+He put his book aside and said to her:
+
+"Sit down, mother."
+
+The mother sat down heavily at his side, and straightening herself into
+an attitude of intense, painful expectation waited for something
+momentous.
+
+Without looking at her, Pavel spoke, not loudly, but for some reason
+very sternly:
+
+"I am reading forbidden books. They are forbidden to be read because
+they tell the truth about our--about the workingmen's life. They are
+printed in secret, and if I am found with them I will be put in
+prison--I will be put in prison because I want to know the truth."
+
+Breathing suddenly became difficult for her. Opening her eyes wide she
+looked at her son, and he seemed to her new, as if a stranger. His voice
+was different, lower, deeper, more sonorous. He pinched his thin, downy
+mustache, and looked oddly askance into the corner. She grew anxious for
+her son and pitied him.
+
+"Why do you do this, Pasha?"
+
+He raised his head, looked at her, and said in a low, calm voice:
+
+"I want to know the truth."
+
+His voice sounded placid, but firm; and his eyes flashed resolution. She
+understood with her heart that her son had consecrated himself forever
+to something mysterious and awful. Everything in life had always
+appeared to her inevitable; she was accustomed to submit without
+thought, and now, too, she only wept softly, finding no words, but in
+her heart she was oppressed with sorrow and distress.
+
+"Don't cry," said Pavel, kindly and softly; and it seemed to her that he
+was bidding her farewell.
+
+"Think what kind of a life you are leading. You are forty years old, and
+have you lived? Father beat you. I understand now that he avenged his
+wretchedness on your body, the wretchedness of his life. It pressed upon
+him, and he did not know whence it came. He worked for thirty years; he
+began to work when the whole factory occupied but two buildings; now
+there are seven of them. The mills grow, and people die, working for
+them."
+
+She listened to him eagerly and awestruck. His eyes burned with a
+beautiful radiance. Leaning forward on the table he moved nearer to his
+mother, and looking straight into her face, wet with tears, he delivered
+his first speech to her about the truth which he had now come to
+understand. With the _naivete_ of youth, and the ardor of a young
+student proud of his knowledge, religiously confiding in its truth, he
+spoke about everything that was clear to him, and spoke not so much for
+his mother as to verify and strengthen his own opinions. At times he
+halted, finding no words, and then he saw before him a disturbed face,
+in which dimly shone a pair of kind eyes clouded with tears. They looked
+on with awe and perplexity. He was sorry for his mother, and began to
+speak again, about herself and her life.
+
+"What joys did you know?" he asked. "What sort of a past can you
+recall?"
+
+She listened and shook her head dolefully, feeling something new,
+unknown to her, both sorrowful and gladsome, like a caress to her
+troubled and aching heart. It was the first time she had heard such
+language about herself, her own life. It awakened in her misty, dim
+thoughts, long dormant; gently roused an almost extinct feeling of
+rebellion, perplexed dissatisfaction--thoughts and feelings of a remote
+youth. She often discussed life with her neighbors, spoke a great deal
+about everything; but all, herself included, only complained; no one
+explained why life was so hard and burdensome.
+
+And now her son sat before her; and what he said about her--his eyes,
+his face, his words--it all clutched at her heart, filling her with a
+sense of pride for her son, who truly understood the life of his mother,
+and spoke the truth about her and her sufferings, and pitied her.
+
+Mothers are not pitied. She knew it. She did not understand Pavel when
+speaking about matters not pertaining to herself, but all he said about
+her own woman's existence was bitterly familiar and true. Hence it
+seemed to her that every word of his was perfectly true, and her bosom
+throbbed with a gentle sensation which warmed it more and more with an
+unknown, kindly caress.
+
+"What do you want to do, then?" she asked, interrupting his speech.
+
+"Study and then teach others. We workingmen must study. We must learn,
+we must understand why life is so hard for us."
+
+It was sweet to her to see that his blue eyes, always so serious and
+stern, now glowed with warmth, softly illuminating something new within
+him. A soft, contented smile played around her lips, although the tears
+still trembled in the wrinkles of her face. She wavered between two
+feelings: pride in her son who desired the good of all people, had pity
+for all, and understood the sorrow and affliction of life; and the
+involuntary regret for his youth, because he did not speak like
+everybody else, because he resolved to enter alone into a fight against
+the life to which all, including herself, were accustomed.
+
+She wanted to say to him: "My dear, what can you do? People will crush
+you. You will perish."
+
+But it was pleasant to her to listen to his speeches, and she feared to
+disturb her delight in her son, who suddenly revealed himself so new and
+wise, even if somewhat strange.
+
+Pavel saw the smile around his mother's lips, the attention in her face,
+the love in her eyes; and it seemed to him that he compelled her to
+understand his truth; and youthful pride in the power of his word
+heightened his faith in himself. Seized with enthusiasm, he continued to
+talk, now smiling, now frowning. Occasionally hatred sounded in his
+words; and when his mother heard its bitter, harsh accents she shook her
+head, frightened, and asked in a low voice:
+
+"Is it so, Pasha?"
+
+"It is so!" he answered firmly. And he told her about people who wanted
+the good of men, and who sowed truth among them; and because of this the
+enemies of life hunted them down like beasts, thrust them into prisons,
+and exiled them, and set them to hard labor.
+
+"I have seen such people!" he exclaimed passionately. "They are the best
+people on earth!"
+
+These people filled the mother with terror, and she wanted to ask her
+son: "Is it so, Pasha?"
+
+But she hesitated, and leaning back she listened to the stories of
+people incomprehensible to her, who taught her son to speak and think
+words and thoughts so dangerous to him. Finally she said:
+
+"It will soon be daylight. You ought to go to bed. You've got to go to
+work."
+
+"Yes, I'll go to bed at once," he assented. "Did you understand me?"
+
+"I did," she said, drawing a deep breath. Tears rolled down from her
+eyes again, and breaking into sobs she added: "You will perish, my son!"
+
+Pavel walked up and down the room.
+
+"Well, now you know what I am doing and where I am going. I told you
+all. I beg of you, mother, if you love me, do not hinder me!"
+
+"My darling, my beloved!" she cried, "maybe it would be better for me
+not to have known anything!"
+
+He took her hand and pressed it firmly in his. The word "mother,"
+pronounced by him with feverish emphasis, and that clasp of the hand so
+new and strange, moved her.
+
+"I will do nothing!" she said in a broken voice. "Only be on your guard!
+Be on your guard!" Not knowing what he should be on his guard against,
+nor how to warn him, she added mournfully: "You are getting so thin."
+
+And with a look of affectionate warmth, which seemed to embrace his
+firm, well-shaped body, she said hastily, and in a low voice:
+
+"God be with you! Live as you want to. I will not hinder you. One thing
+only I beg of you--do not speak to people unguardedly! You must be on
+the watch with people; they all hate one another. They live in greed and
+envy; all are glad to do injury; people persecute out of sheer
+amusement. When you begin to accuse them and to judge them, they will
+hate you, and will hound you to destruction!"
+
+Pavel stood in the doorway listening to the melancholy speech, and when
+the mother had finished he said with a smile:
+
+"Yes, people are sorry creatures; but when I came to recognize that
+there is truth in the world, people became better." He smiled again and
+added: "I do not know how it happened myself! From childhood I feared
+everybody; as I grew up I began to hate everybody, some for their
+meanness, others--well, I do not know why--just so! And now I see all
+the people in a different way. I am grieved for them all! I cannot
+understand it; but my heart turned softer when I recognized that there
+is truth in men, and that not all are to blame for their foulness and
+filth."
+
+He was silent as if listening to something within himself. Then he said
+in a low voice and thoughtfully:
+
+"That's how truth lives."
+
+She looked at him tenderly.
+
+"May God protect you!" she sighed. "It is a dangerous change that has
+come upon you."
+
+When he had fallen asleep, the mother rose carefully from her bed and
+came gently into her son's room. Pavel's swarthy, resolute, stern face
+was clearly outlined against the white pillow. Pressing her hand to her
+bosom, the mother stood at his bedside. Her lips moved mutely, and great
+tears rolled down her cheeks.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+
+Again they lived in silence, distant and yet near to each other. Once,
+in the middle of the week, on a holiday, as he was preparing to leave
+the house he said to his mother:
+
+"I expect some people here on Saturday."
+
+"What people?" she asked.
+
+"Some people from our village, and others from the city."
+
+"From the city?" repeated the mother, shaking her head. And suddenly she
+broke into sobs.
+
+"Now, mother, why this?" cried Pavel resentfully. "What for?"
+
+Drying her face with her apron, she answered quietly:
+
+"I don't know, but it is the way I feel."
+
+He paced up and down the room, then halting before her, said:
+
+"Are you afraid?"
+
+"I am afraid," she acknowledged. "Those people from the city--who knows
+them?"
+
+He bent down to look in her face, and said in an offended tone, and, it
+seemed to her, angrily, like his father:
+
+"This fear is what is the ruin of us all. And some dominate us; they
+take advantage of our fear and frighten us still more. Mark this: as
+long as people are afraid, they will rot like the birches in the marsh.
+We must grow bold; it is time!
+
+"It's all the same," he said, as he turned from her; "they'll meet in my
+house, anyway."
+
+"Don't be angry with me!" the mother begged sadly. "How can I help being
+afraid? All my life I have lived in fear!"
+
+"Forgive me!" was his gentler reply, "but I cannot do otherwise," and he
+walked away.
+
+For three days her heart was in a tremble, sinking in fright each time
+she remembered that strange people were soon to come to her house. She
+could not picture them to herself, but it seemed to her they were
+terrible people. It was they who had shown her son the road he was
+going.
+
+On Saturday night Pavel came from the factory, washed himself, put on
+clean clothes, and when walking out of the house said to his mother
+without looking at her:
+
+"When they come, tell them I'll be back soon. Let them wait a while. And
+please don't be afraid. They are people like all other people."
+
+She sank into her seat almost fainting.
+
+Her son looked at her soberly. "Maybe you'd better go away somewhere,"
+he suggested.
+
+The thought offended her. Shaking her head in dissent, she said:
+
+"No, it's all the same. What for?"
+
+It was the end of November. During the day a dry, fine snow had fallen
+upon the frozen earth, and now she heard it crunching outside the window
+under her son's feet as he walked away. A dense crust of darkness
+settled immovably upon the window panes, and seemed to lie in hostile
+watch for something. Supporting herself on the bench, the mother sat and
+waited, looking at the door.
+
+It seemed to her that people were stealthily and watchfully walking
+about the house in the darkness, stooping and looking about on all
+sides, strangely attired and silent. There around the house some one was
+already coming, fumbling with his hands along the wall.
+
+A whistle was heard. It circled around like the notes of a fine chord,
+sad and melodious, wandered musingly into the wilderness of darkness,
+and seemed to be searching for something. It came nearer. Suddenly it
+died away under the window, as if it had entered into the wood of the
+wall. The noise of feet was heard on the porch. The mother started, and
+rose with a strained, frightened look in her eyes.
+
+The door opened. At first a head with a big, shaggy hat thrust itself
+into the room; then a slender, bending body crawled in, straightened
+itself out, and deliberately raised its right hand.
+
+"Good evening!" said the man, in a thick, bass voice, breathing heavily.
+
+The mother bowed in silence.
+
+"Pavel is not at home yet?"
+
+The stranger leisurely removed his short fur jacket, raised one foot,
+whipped the snow from his boot with his hat, then did the same with the
+other foot, flung his hat into a corner, and rocking on his thin legs
+walked into the room, looking back at the imprints he left on the floor.
+He approached the table, examined it as if to satisfy himself of its
+solidity, and finally sat down and, covering his mouth with his hand,
+yawned. His head was perfectly round and close-cropped, his face shaven
+except for a thin mustache, the ends of which pointed downward.
+
+After carefully scrutinizing the room with his large, gray, protuberant
+eyes, he crossed his legs, and, leaning his head over the table,
+inquired:
+
+"Is this your own house, or do you rent it?"
+
+The mother, sitting opposite him, answered:
+
+"We rent it."
+
+"Not a very fine house," he remarked.
+
+"Pasha will soon be here; wait," said the mother quietly.
+
+"Why, yes, I am waiting," said the man.
+
+His calmness, his deep, sympathetic voice, and the candor and simplicity
+of his face encouraged the mother. He looked at her openly and kindly,
+and a merry sparkle played in the depths of his transparent eyes. In the
+entire angular, stooping figure, with its thin legs, there was something
+comical, yet winning. He was dressed in a blue shirt, and dark, loose
+trousers thrust into his boots. She was seized with the desire to ask
+him who he was, whence he came, and whether he had known her son long.
+But suddenly he himself put a question, leaning forward with a swing of
+his whole body.
+
+"Who made that hole in your forehead, mother?"
+
+His question was uttered in a kind voice and with a noticeable smile in
+his eyes; but the woman was offended by the sally. She pressed her lips
+together tightly, and after a pause rejoined with cold civility:
+
+"And what business is it of yours, sir?"
+
+With the same swing of his whole body toward her, he said:
+
+"Now, don't get angry! I ask because my foster mother had her head
+smashed just exactly like yours. It was her man who did it for her once,
+with a last--he was a shoemaker, you see. She was a washerwoman and he
+was a shoemaker. It was after she had taken me as her son that she found
+him somewhere, a drunkard, and married him, to her great misfortune. He
+beat her--I tell you, my skin almost burst with terror."
+
+The mother felt herself disarmed by his openness. Moreover, it occurred
+to her that perhaps her son would be displeased with her harsh reply to
+this odd personage. Smiling guiltily she said:
+
+"I am not angry, but--you see--you asked so very soon. It was my good
+man, God rest his soul! who treated me to the cut. Are you a Tartar?"
+
+The stranger stretched out his feet, and smiled so broad a smile that
+the ends of his mustache traveled to the nape of his neck. Then he said
+seriously:
+
+"Not yet. I'm not a Tartar yet."
+
+"I asked because I rather thought the way you spoke was not exactly
+Russian," she explained, catching his joke.
+
+"I am better than a Russian, I am!" said the guest laughingly. "I am a
+Little Russian from the city of Kanyev."
+
+"And have you been here long?"
+
+"I lived in the city about a month, and I came to your factory about a
+month ago. I found some good people, your son and a few others. I will
+live here for a while," he said, twirling his mustache.
+
+The man pleased the mother, and, yielding to the impulse to repay him in
+some way for his kind words about her son, she questioned again:
+
+"Maybe you'd like to have a glass of tea?"
+
+"What! An entertainment all to myself!" he answered, raising his
+shoulders. "I'll wait for the honor until we are all here."
+
+This allusion to the coming of others recalled her fear to her.
+
+"If they all are only like this one!" was her ardent wish.
+
+Again steps were heard on the porch. The door opened quickly, and the
+mother rose. This time she was taken completely aback by the newcomer in
+her kitchen--a poorly and lightly dressed girl of medium height, with
+the simple face of a peasant woman, and a head of thick, dark hair.
+Smiling she said in a low voice:
+
+"Am I late?"
+
+"Why, no!" answered the Little Russian, looking out of the living room.
+"Come on foot?"
+
+"Of course! Are you the mother of Pavel Vlasov? Good evening! My name is
+Natasha."
+
+"And your other name?" inquired the mother.
+
+"Vasilyevna. And yours?"
+
+"Pelagueya Nilovna."
+
+"So here we are all acquainted."
+
+"Yes," said the mother, breathing more easily, as if relieved, and
+looking at the girl with a smile.
+
+The Little Russian helped her off with her cloak, and inquired:
+
+"Is it cold?"
+
+"Out in the open, very! The wind--goodness!"
+
+Her voice was musical and clear, her mouth small and smiling, her body
+round and vigorous. Removing her wraps, she rubbed her ruddy cheeks
+briskly with her little hands, red with the cold, and walking lightly
+and quickly she passed into the room, the heels of her shoes rapping
+sharply on the floor.
+
+"She goes without overshoes," the mother noted silently.
+
+"Indeed it is cold," repeated the girl. "I'm frozen through--ooh!"
+
+"I'll warm up the samovar for you!" the mother said, bustling and
+solicitous. "Ready in a moment," she called from the kitchen.
+
+Somehow it seemed to her she had known the girl long, and even loved her
+with the tender, compassionate love of a mother. She was glad to see
+her; and recalling her guest's bright blue eyes, she smiled contentedly,
+as she prepared the samovar and listened to the conversation in the
+room.
+
+"Why so gloomy, Nakhodka?" asked the girl.
+
+"The widow has good eyes," answered the Little Russian. "I was thinking
+maybe my mother has such eyes. You know, I keep thinking of her as
+alive."
+
+"You said she was dead?"
+
+"That's my adopted mother. I am speaking now of my real mother. It seems
+to me that perhaps she may be somewhere in Kiev begging alms and
+drinking whisky."
+
+"Why do you think such awful things?"
+
+"I don't know. And the policemen pick her up on the street drunk and
+beat her."
+
+"Oh, you poor soul," thought the mother, and sighed.
+
+Natasha muttered something hotly and rapidly; and again the sonorous
+voice of the Little Russian was heard.
+
+"Ah, you are young yet, comrade," he said. "You haven't eaten enough
+onions yet. Everyone has a mother, none the less people are bad. For
+although it is hard to rear children, it is still harder to teach a man
+to be good."
+
+"What strange ideas he has," the mother thought, and for a moment she
+felt like contradicting the Little Russian and telling him that here was
+she who would have been glad to teach her son good, but knew nothing
+herself. The door, however, opened and in came Nikolay Vyesovshchikov,
+the son of the old thief Daniel, known in the village as a misanthrope.
+He always kept at a sullen distance from people, who retaliated by
+making sport of him.
+
+"You, Nikolay! How's that?" she asked in surprise.
+
+Without replying he merely looked at the mother with his little gray
+eyes, and wiped his pockmarked, high-cheeked face with the broad palm of
+his hand.
+
+"Is Pavel at home?" he asked hoarsely.
+
+"No."
+
+He looked into the room and said:
+
+"Good evening, comrades."
+
+"He, too. Is it possible?" wondered the mother resentfully, and was
+greatly surprised to see Natasha put her hand out to him in a kind, glad
+welcome.
+
+The next to come were two young men, scarcely more than boys. One of
+them the mother knew. He was Yakob, the son of the factory watchman,
+Somov. The other, with a sharp-featured face, high forehead, and curly
+hair, was unknown to her; but he, too, was not terrible.
+
+Finally Pavel appeared, and with him two men, both of whose faces she
+recognized as those of workmen in the factory.
+
+"You've prepared the samovar! That's fine. Thank you!" said Pavel as he
+saw what his mother had done.
+
+"Perhaps I should get some vodka," she suggested, not knowing how to
+express her gratitude to him for something which as yet she did not
+understand.
+
+"No, we don't need it!" he responded, removing his coat and smiling
+affectionately at her.
+
+It suddenly occurred to her that her son, by way of jest, had purposely
+exaggerated the danger of the gathering.
+
+"Are these the ones they call illegal people?" she whispered.
+
+"The very ones!" answered Pavel, and passed into the room.
+
+She looked lovingly after him and thought to herself condescendingly:
+
+"Mere children!"
+
+When the samovar boiled, and she brought it into the room, she found the
+guests sitting in a close circle around the table, and Natasha installed
+in the corner under the lamp with a book in her hands.
+
+"In order to understand why people live so badly," said Natasha.
+
+"And why they are themselves so bad," put in the Little Russian.
+
+"It is necessary to see how they began to live----"
+
+"See, my dears, see!" mumbled the mother, making the tea.
+
+They all stopped talking.
+
+"What is the matter, mother?" asked Pavel, knitting his brows.
+
+"What?" She looked around, and seeing the eyes of all upon her she
+explained with embarrassment, "I was just speaking to myself."
+
+Natasha laughed and Pavel smiled, but the Little Russian said: "Thank
+you for the tea, mother."
+
+"Hasn't drunk it yet and thanks me already," she commented inwardly.
+Looking at her son, she asked: "I am not in your way?"
+
+"How can the hostess in her own home be in the way of her guests?"
+replied Natasha, and then continuing with childish plaintiveness:
+"Mother dear, give me tea quick! I am shivering with cold; my feet are
+all frozen."
+
+"In a moment, in a moment!" exclaimed the mother, hurrying.
+
+Having drunk a cup of tea, Natasha drew a long breath, brushed her hair
+back from her forehead, and began to read from a large yellow-covered
+book with pictures. The mother, careful not to make a noise with the
+dishes, poured tea into the glasses, and strained her untrained mind to
+listen to the girl's fluent reading. The melodious voice blended with
+the thin, musical hum of the samovar. The clear, simple narrative of
+savage people who lived in caves and killed the beasts with stones
+floated and quivered like a dainty ribbon in the room. It sounded like a
+tale, and the mother looked up to her son occasionally, wishing to ask
+him what was illegal in the story about wild men. But she soon ceased to
+follow the narrative and began to scrutinize the guests, unnoticed by
+them or her son.
+
+[Illustration: "The mother ... strained her untrained mind to listen."]
+
+Pavel sat at Natasha's side. He was the handsomest of them all. Natasha
+bent down very low over the book. At times she tossed back the thin
+curls that kept running down over her forehead, and lowered her voice to
+say something not in the book, with a kind look at the faces of her
+auditors. The Little Russian bent his broad chest over a corner of the
+table, and squinted his eyes in the effort to see the worn ends of his
+mustache, which he constantly twirled. Vyesovshchikov sat on his chair
+straight as a pole, his palms resting on his knees, and his pockmarked
+face, browless and thin-lipped, immobile as a mask. He kept his
+narrow-eyed gaze stubbornly fixed upon the reflection of his face in the
+glittering brass of the samovar. He seemed not even to breathe. Little
+Somov moved his lips mutely, as if repeating to himself the words in the
+book; and his curly-haired companion, with bent body, elbows on knees,
+his face supported on his hands, smiled abstractedly. One of the men who
+had entered at the same time as Pavel, a slender young chap with red,
+curly hair and merry green eyes, apparently wanted to say something; for
+he kept turning around impatiently. The other, light-haired and closely
+cropped, stroked his head with his hand and looked down on the floor so
+that his face remained invisible.
+
+It was warm in the room, and the atmosphere was genial. The mother
+responded to this peculiar charm, which she had never before felt. She
+was affected by the purling of Natasha's voice, mingled with the
+quavering hum of the samovar, and recalled the noisy evening parties of
+her youth--the coarseness of the young men, whose breath always smelled
+of vodka--their cynical jokes. She remembered all this, and an
+oppressive sense of pity for her own self gently stirred her worn,
+outraged heart.
+
+Before her rose the scene of the wooing of her husband. At one of the
+parties he had seized her in a dark porch, and pressing her with his
+whole body to the wall asked in a gruff, vexed voice:
+
+"Will you marry me?"
+
+She had been pained and had felt offended; but he rudely dug his fingers
+into her flesh, snorted heavily, and breathed his hot, humid breath into
+her face. She struggled to tear herself out of his grasp.
+
+"Hold on!" he roared. "Answer me! Well?"
+
+Out of breath, shamed and insulted, she remained silent.
+
+"Don't put on airs now, you fool! I know your kind. You are mighty
+pleased."
+
+Some one opened the door. He let her go leisurely, saying:
+
+"I will send a matchmaker to you next Sunday."
+
+And he did.
+
+The mother covered her eyes and heaved a deep sigh.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"I do not want to know how people used to live, but how they ought to
+live!" The dull, dissatisfied voice of Vyesovshchikov was heard in the
+room.
+
+"That's it!" corroborated the red-headed man, rising.
+
+"And I disagree!" cried Somov. "If we are to go forward, we must know
+everything."
+
+"True, true!" said the curly-headed youth in a low tone.
+
+A heated discussion ensued; and the words flashed like tongues of fire
+in a wood pile. The mother did not understand what they were shouting
+about. All faces glowed in an aureole of animation, but none grew angry,
+no one spoke the harsh, offensive words so familiar to her.
+
+"They restrain themselves on account of a woman's presence," she
+concluded.
+
+The serious face of Natasha pleased her. The young woman looked at all
+these young men so considerately, with the air of an elder person toward
+children.
+
+"Wait, comrades," she broke out suddenly. And they all grew silent and
+turned their eyes upon her.
+
+"Those who say that we ought to know everything are right. We ought to
+illumine ourselves with the light of reason, so that the people in the
+dark may see us; we ought to be able to answer every question honestly
+and truly. We must know all the truth, all the falsehood."
+
+The Little Russian listened and nodded his head in accompaniment to her
+words. Vyesovshchikov, the red-haired fellow, and the other factory
+worker, who had come with Pavel, stood in a close circle of three. For
+some reason the mother did not like them.
+
+When Natasha ceased talking, Pavel arose and asked calmly:
+
+"Is filling our stomachs the only thing we want?"
+
+"No!" he answered himself, looking hard in the direction of the three.
+"We want to be people. We must show those who sit on our necks, and
+cover up our eyes, that we see everything, that we are not foolish, we
+are not animals, and that we do not want merely to eat, but also to live
+like decent human beings. We must show our enemies that our life of
+servitude, of hard toil which they impose upon us, does not hinder us
+from measuring up to them in intellect, and as to spirit, that we rise
+far above them!"
+
+The mother listened to his words, and a feeling of pride in her son
+stirred her bosom--how eloquently he spoke!
+
+"People with well-filled stomachs are, after all, not a few, but honest
+people there are none," said the Little Russian. "We ought to build a
+bridge across the bog of this rotten life to a future of soulful
+goodness. That's our task, that's what we have to do, comrades!"
+
+"When the time is come to fight, it's not the time to cure the finger,"
+said Vyesovshchikov dully.
+
+"There will be enough breaking of our bones before we get to fighting!"
+the Little Russian put in merrily.
+
+It was already past midnight when the group began to break up. The first
+to go were Vyesovshchikov and the red-haired man--which again displeased
+the mother.
+
+"Hm! How they hurry!" she thought, nodding them a not very friendly
+farewell.
+
+"Will you see me home, Nakhodka?" asked Natasha.
+
+"Why, of course," answered the Little Russian.
+
+When Natasha put on her wraps in the kitchen, the mother said to her:
+"Your stockings are too thin for this time of the year. Let me knit some
+woolen ones for you, will you, please?"
+
+"Thank you, Pelagueya Nilovna. Woolen stockings scratch," Natasha
+answered, smiling.
+
+"I'll make them so they won't scratch."
+
+Natasha looked at her rather perplexedly, and her fixed serious glance
+hurt the mother.
+
+"Pardon me my stupidity; like my good will, it's from my heart, you
+know," she added in a low voice.
+
+"How kind you are!" Natasha answered in the same voice, giving her a
+hasty pressure of the hand and walking out.
+
+"Good night, mother!" said the Little Russian, looking into her eyes.
+His bending body followed Natasha out to the porch.
+
+The mother looked at her son. He stood in the room at the door and
+smiled.
+
+"The evening was fine," he declared, nodding his head energetically. "It
+was fine! But now I think you'd better go to bed; it's time."
+
+"And it's time for you, too. I'm going in a minute."
+
+She busied herself about the table gathering the dishes together,
+satisfied and even glowing with a pleasurable agitation. She was glad
+that everything had gone so well and had ended peaceably.
+
+"You arranged it nicely, Pavlusha. They certainly are good people. The
+Little Russian is such a hearty fellow. And the young lady, what a
+bright, wise girl she is! Who is she?"
+
+"A teacher," answered Pavel, pacing up and down the room.
+
+"Ah! Such a poor thing! Dressed so poorly! Ah, so poorly! It doesn't
+take long to catch a cold. And where are her relatives?"
+
+"In Moscow," said Pavel, stopping before his mother. "Look! her father
+is a rich man; he is in the hardware business, and owns much property.
+He drove her out of the house because she got into this movement. She
+grew up in comfort and warmth, she was coddled and indulged in
+everything she desired--and now she walks four miles at night all by
+herself."
+
+The mother was shocked. She stood in the middle of the room, and looked
+mutely at her son. Then she asked quietly:
+
+"Is she going to the city?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And is she not afraid?"
+
+"No," said Pavel smiling.
+
+"Why did she go? She could have stayed here overnight, and slept with
+me."
+
+"That wouldn't do. She might have been seen here to-morrow morning, and
+we don't want that; nor does she."
+
+The mother recollected her previous anxieties, looked thoughtfully
+through the window, and asked:
+
+"I cannot understand, Pasha, what there is dangerous in all this, or
+illegal. Why, you are not doing anything bad, are you?"
+
+She was not quite assured of the safety and propriety of his conduct,
+and was eager for a confirmation from her son. But he looked calmly into
+her eyes, and declared in a firm voice:
+
+"There is nothing bad in what we're doing, and there's not going to be.
+And yet the prison is awaiting us all. You may as well know it."
+
+Her hands trembled. "Maybe God will grant you escape somehow," she said
+with sunken voice.
+
+"No," said the son kindly, but decidedly. "I cannot lie to you. We will
+not escape." He smiled. "Now go to bed. You are tired. Good night."
+
+Left alone, she walked up to the window, and stood there looking into
+the street. Outside it was cold and cheerless. The wind howled, blowing
+the snow from the roofs of the little sleeping houses. Striking against
+the walls and whispering something, quickly it fell upon the ground and
+drifted the white clouds of dry snowflakes across the street.
+
+"O Christ in heaven, have mercy upon us!" prayed the mother.
+
+The tears began to gather in her eyes, as fear returned persistently to
+her heart, and like a moth in the night she seemed to see fluttering the
+woe of which her son spoke with such composure and assurance.
+
+Before her eyes as she gazed a smooth plain of snow spread out in the
+distance. The wind, carrying white, shaggy masses, raced over the plain,
+piping cold, shrill whistles. Across the snowy expanse moved a girl's
+figure, dark and solitary, rocking to and fro. The wind fluttered her
+dress, clogged her footsteps, and drove pricking snowflakes into her
+face. Walking was difficult; the little feet sank into the snow. Cold
+and fearful the girl bent forward, like a blade of grass, the sport of
+the wanton wind. To the right of her on the marsh stood the dark wall of
+the forest; the bare birches and aspens quivered and rustled with a
+mournful cry. Yonder in the distance, before her, the lights of the city
+glimmered dimly.
+
+"Lord in heaven, have mercy!" the mother muttered again, shuddering with
+the cold and horror of an unformed fear.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+
+The days glided by one after the other, like the beads of a rosary, and
+grew into weeks and months. Every Saturday Pavel's friends gathered in
+his house; and each meeting formed a step up a long stairway, which led
+somewhere into the distance, gradually lifting the people higher and
+higher. But its top remained invisible.
+
+New people kept coming. The small room of the Vlasovs became crowded and
+close. Natasha arrived every Saturday night, cold and tired, but always
+fresh and lively, in inexhaustible good spirits. The mother made
+stockings, and herself put them on the little feet. Natasha laughed at
+first; but suddenly grew silent and thoughtful, and said in a low voice
+to the mother:
+
+"I had a nurse who was also ever so kind. How strange, Pelagueya
+Nilovna! The workingmen live such a hard, outraged life, and yet there
+is more heart, more goodness in them than in--those!" And she waved her
+hand, pointing somewhere far, very far from herself.
+
+"See what sort of a person you are," the older woman answered. "You have
+left your own family and everything--" She was unable to finish her
+thought, and heaving a sigh looked silently into Natasha's face with a
+feeling of gratitude to the girl for she knew not what. She sat on the
+floor before Natasha, who smiled and fell to musing.
+
+"I have abandoned my family?" she repeated, bending her head down.
+"That's nothing. My father is a stupid, coarse man--my brother also--and
+a drunkard, besides. My oldest sister--unhappy, wretched thing--married
+a man much older than herself, very rich, a bore and greedy. But my
+mother I am sorry for! She's a simple woman like you, a beaten-down,
+frightened creature, so tiny, like a little mouse--she runs so quickly
+and is afraid of everybody. And sometimes I want to see her so--my
+mother!"
+
+"My poor thing!" said the mother sadly, shaking her head.
+
+The girl quickly threw up her head and cried out:
+
+"Oh, no! At times I feel such joy, such happiness!"
+
+Her face paled and her blue eyes gleamed. Placing her hands on the
+mother's shoulders she said with a deep voice issuing from her very
+heart, quietly as if in an ecstasy:
+
+"If you knew--if you but understood what a great, joyous work we are
+doing! You will come to feel it!" she exclaimed with conviction.
+
+A feeling akin to envy touched the heart of the mother. Rising from the
+floor she said plaintively:
+
+"I am too old for that--ignorant and old."
+
+Pavel spoke more and more often and at greater length, discussed more
+and more hotly, and--grew thinner and thinner. It seemed to his mother
+that when he spoke to Natasha or looked at her his eyes turned softer,
+his voice sounded fonder, and his entire bearing became simpler.
+
+"Heaven grant!" she thought; and imagining Natasha as her
+daughter-in-law, she smiled inwardly.
+
+Whenever at the meetings the disputes waxed too hot and stormy, the
+Little Russian stood up, and rocking himself to and fro like the tongue
+of a bell, he spoke in his sonorous, resonant voice simple and good
+words which allayed their excitement and recalled them to their purpose.
+Vyesovshchikov always kept hurrying everybody on somewhere. He and the
+red-haired youth called Samoylov were the first to begin all disputes.
+On their side were always Ivan Bukin, with the round head and the white
+eyebrows and lashes, who looked as if he had been hung out to dry, or
+washed out with lye; and the curly-headed, lofty-browed Fedya Mazin.
+Modest Yakob Somov, always smoothly combed and clean, spoke little and
+briefly, with a quiet, serious voice, and always took sides with Pavel
+and the Little Russian.
+
+Sometimes, instead of Natasha, Alexey Ivanovich, a native of some remote
+government, came from the city. He wore eyeglasses, his beard was shiny,
+and he spoke with a peculiar singing voice. He produced the impression
+of a stranger from a far-distant land. He spoke about simple
+matters--about family life, about children, about commerce, the police,
+the price of bread and meat--about everything by which people live from
+day to day; and in everything he discovered fraud, confusion, and
+stupidity, sometimes setting these matters in a humorous light, but
+always showing their decided disadvantage to the people.
+
+To the mother, too, it seemed that he had come from far away, from
+another country, where all the people lived a simple, honest, easy life,
+and that here everything was strange to him, that he could not get
+accustomed to this life and accept it as inevitable, that it displeased
+him, and that it aroused in him a calm determination to rearrange it
+after his own model. His face was yellowish, with thin, radiate wrinkles
+around his eyes, his voice low, and his hands always warm. In greeting
+the mother he would enfold her entire hand in his long, powerful
+fingers, and after such a vigorous hand clasp she felt more at ease and
+lighter of heart.
+
+Other people came from the city, oftenest among them a tall, well-built
+young girl with large eyes set in a thin, pale face. She was called
+Sashenka. There was something manly in her walk and movements; she knit
+her thick, dark eyebrows in a frown, and when she spoke the thin
+nostrils of her straight nose quivered.
+
+She was the first to say, "We are socialists!" Her voice when she said
+it was loud and strident.
+
+When the mother heard this word, she stared in dumb fright into the
+girl's face. But Sashenka, half closing her eyes, said sternly and
+resolutely: "We must give up all our forces to the cause of the
+regeneration of life; we must realize that we will receive no
+recompense."
+
+The mother understood that the socialists had killed the Czar. It had
+happened in the days of her youth; and people had then said that the
+landlords, wishing to revenge themselves on the Czar for liberating the
+peasant serfs, had vowed not to cut their hair until the Czar should be
+killed. These were the persons who had been called socialists. And now
+she could not understand why it was that her son and his friends were
+socialists.
+
+When they had all departed, she asked Pavel:
+
+"Pavlusha, are you a socialist?"
+
+"Yes," he said, standing before her, straight and stalwart as always.
+"Why?"
+
+The mother heaved a heavy sigh, and lowering her eyes, said:
+
+"So, Pavlusha? Why, they are against the Czar; they killed one."
+
+Pavel walked up and down the room, ran his hand across his face, and,
+smiling, said:
+
+"We don't need to do that!"
+
+He spoke to her for a long while in a low, serious voice. She looked
+into his face and thought:
+
+"He will do nothing bad; he is incapable of doing bad!"
+
+And thereafter the terrible word was repeated with increasing frequency;
+its sharpness wore off, and it became as familiar to her ear as scores
+of other words unintelligible to her. But Sashenka did not please her,
+and when she came the mother felt troubled and ill at ease.
+
+Once she said to the Little Russian, with an expression of
+dissatisfaction about the mouth:
+
+"What a stern person this Sashenka is! Flings her commands around!--You
+must do this and you must do that!"
+
+The Little Russian laughed aloud.
+
+"Well said, mother! You struck the nail right on the head! Hey, Pavel?"
+
+And with a wink to the mother, he said with a jovial gleam in his eyes:
+
+"You can't drain the blue blood out of a person even with a pump!"
+
+Pavel remarked dryly:
+
+"She is a good woman!" His face glowered.
+
+"And that's true, too!" the Little Russian corroborated. "Only she does
+not understand that she ought to----"
+
+They started up an argument about something the mother did not
+understand. The mother noticed, also, that Sashenka was most stern with
+Pavel, and that sometimes she even scolded him. Pavel smiled, was
+silent, and looked in the girl's face with that soft look he had
+formerly given Natasha. This likewise displeased the mother.
+
+The gatherings increased in number, and began to be held twice a week;
+and when the mother observed with what avidity the young people listened
+to the speeches of her son and the Little Russian, to the interesting
+stories of Sashenka, Natasha, Alexey Ivanovich, and the other people
+from the city, she forgot her fears and shook her head sadly as she
+recalled the days of her youth.
+
+Sometimes they sang songs, the simple, familiar melodies, aloud and
+merrily. But often they sang new songs, the words and music in perfect
+accord, sad and quaint in tune. These they sang in an undertone,
+pensively and seriously as church hymns are chanted. Their faces grew
+pale, yet hot, and a mighty force made itself felt in their ringing
+words.
+
+"It is time for us to sing these songs in the street," said
+Vyesovshchikov somberly.
+
+And sometimes the mother was struck by the spirit of lively, boisterous
+hilarity that took sudden possession of them. It was incomprehensible to
+her. It usually happened on the evenings when they read in the papers
+about the working people in other countries. Then their eyes sparkled
+with bold, animated joy; they became strangely, childishly happy; the
+room rang with merry peals of laughter, and they struck one another on
+the shoulder affectionately.
+
+"Capital fellows, our comrades the French!" cried some one, as if
+intoxicated with his own mirth.
+
+"Long live our comrades, the workingmen of Italy!" they shouted another
+time.
+
+And sending these calls into the remote distance to friends who did not
+know them, who could not have understood their language, they seemed to
+feel confident that these people unknown to them heard and comprehended
+their enthusiasm and their ecstasy.
+
+The Little Russian spoke, his eyes beaming, his love larger than the
+love of the others:
+
+"Comrades, it would be well to write to them over there! Let them know
+that they have friends living in far-away Russia, workingmen who confess
+and believe in the same religion as they, comrades who pursue the same
+aims as they, and who rejoice in their victories!"
+
+And all, with smiles on their faces dreamily spoke at length of the
+Germans, the Italians, the Englishmen, and the Swedes, of the working
+people of all countries, as of their friends, as of people near to their
+hearts, whom without seeing they loved and respected, whose joys they
+shared, whose pain they felt.
+
+In the small room a vast feeling was born of the universal kinship of
+the workers of the world, at the same time its masters and its slaves,
+who had already been freed from the bondage of prejudice and who felt
+themselves the new masters of life. This feeling blended all into a
+single soul; it moved the mother, and, although inaccessible to her, it
+straightened and emboldened her, as it were, with its force, with its
+joys, with its triumphant, youthful vigor, intoxicating, caressing, full
+of hope.
+
+"What queer people you are!" said the mother to the Little Russian one
+day. "All are your comrades--the Armenians and the Jews and the
+Austrians. You speak about all as of your friends; you grieve for all,
+and you rejoice for all!"
+
+"For all, mother dear, for all! The world is ours! The world is for the
+workers! For us there is no nation, no race. For us there are only
+comrades and foes. All the workingmen are our comrades; all the rich,
+all the authorities are our foes. When you see how numerous we
+workingmen are, how tremendous the power of the spirit in us, then your
+heart is seized with such joy, such happiness, such a great holiday
+sings in your bosom! And, mother, the Frenchman and the German feel the
+same way when they look upon life, and the Italian also. We are all
+children of one mother--the great, invincible idea of the brotherhood of
+the workers of all countries over all the earth. This idea grows, it
+warms us like the sun; it is a second sun in the heaven of justice, and
+this heaven resides in the workingman's heart. Whoever he be, whatever
+his name, a socialist is our brother in spirit now and always, and
+through all the ages forever and ever!"
+
+This intoxicated and childish joy, this bright and firm faith came over
+the company more and more frequently; and it grew ever stronger, ever
+mightier.
+
+And when the mother saw this, she felt that in very truth a great
+dazzling light had been born into the world like the sun in the sky and
+visible to her eyes.
+
+On occasions when his father had stolen something again and was in
+prison, Nikolay would announce to his comrades: "Now we can hold our
+meetings at our house. The police will think us thieves, and they love
+thieves!"
+
+Almost every evening after work one of Pavel's comrades came to his
+house, read with him, and copied something from the books. So greatly
+occupied were they that they hardly even took the time to wash. They ate
+their supper and drank tea with the books in their hands; and their
+talks became less and less intelligible to the mother.
+
+"We must have a newspaper!" Pavel said frequently.
+
+Life grew ever more hurried and feverish; there was a constant rushing
+from house to house, a passing from one book to another, like the
+flirting of bees from flower to flower.
+
+"They are talking about us!" said Vyesovshchikov once. "We must get away
+soon."
+
+"What's a quail for but to be caught in the snare?" retorted the Little
+Russian.
+
+Vlasova liked the Little Russian more and more. When he called her
+"mother," it was like a child's hand patting her on the cheek. On
+Sunday, if Pavel had no time, he chopped wood for her; once he came with
+a board on his shoulder, and quickly and skillfully replaced the rotten
+step on the porch. Another time he repaired the tottering fence with
+just as little ado. He whistled as he worked. It was a beautifully sad
+and wistful whistle.
+
+Once the mother said to the son:
+
+"Suppose we take the Little Russian in as a boarder. It will be better
+for both of you. You won't have to run to each other so much!"
+
+"Why need you trouble and crowd yourself?" asked Pavel, shrugging his
+shoulders.
+
+"There you have it! All my life I've had trouble for I don't know what.
+For a good person it's worth the while."
+
+"Do as you please. If he comes I'll be glad."
+
+And the Little Russian moved into their home.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+
+The little house at the edge of the village aroused attention. Its walls
+already felt the regard of scores of suspecting eyes. The motley wings
+of rumor hovered restlessly above them.
+
+People tried to surprise the secret hidden within the house by the
+ravine. They peeped into the windows at night. Now and then somebody
+would rap on the pane, and quickly take to his heels in fright.
+
+Once the tavern keeper stopped Vlasova on the street. He was a dapper
+old man, who always wore a black silk neckerchief around his red, flabby
+neck, and a thick, lilac-colored waistcoat of velvet around his body. On
+his sharp, glistening nose there always sat a pair of glasses with
+tortoise-shell rims, which secured him the sobriquet of "bony eyes."
+
+In a single breath and without awaiting an answer, he plied Vlasova with
+dry, crackling words:
+
+"How are you, Pelagueya Nilovna, how are you? How is your son? Thinking
+of marrying him off, hey? He's a youth full ripe for matrimony. The
+sooner a son is married off, the safer it is for his folks. A man with a
+family preserves himself better both in the spirit and the flesh. With a
+family he is like mushrooms in vinegar. If I were in your place I would
+marry him off. Our times require a strict watch over the animal called
+man; people are beginning to live in their brains. Men have run amuck
+with their thoughts, and they do things that are positively criminal.
+The church of God is avoided by the young folk; they shun the public
+places, and assemble in secret in out-of-the-way corners. They speak in
+whispers. Why speak in whispers, pray? All this they don't dare say
+before people in the tavern, for example. What is it, I ask? A secret?
+The secret place is our holy church, as old as the apostles. All the
+other secrets hatched in the corners are the offspring of delusions. I
+wish you good health."
+
+Raising his hand in an affected manner, he lifted his cap, and waving it
+in the air, walked away, leaving the mother to her perplexity.
+
+Vlasova's neighbor, Marya Korsunova, the blacksmith's widow, who sold
+food at the factory, on meeting the mother in the market place also said
+to her:
+
+"Look out for your son, Pelagueya!"
+
+"What's the matter?"
+
+"They're talking!" Marya tendered the information in a hushed voice.
+"And they don't say any good, mother of mine! They speak as if he's
+getting up a sort of union, something like those Flagellants--sects,
+that's the name! They'll whip one another like the Flagellants----"
+
+"Stop babbling nonsense, Marya! Enough!"
+
+"I'm not babbling nonsense! I talk because I know."
+
+The mother communicated all these conversations to her son. He shrugged
+his shoulders in silence, and the Little Russian laughed with his thick,
+soft laugh.
+
+"The girls also have a crow to pick with you!" she said. "You'd make
+enviable bridegrooms for any of them; you're all good workers, and you
+don't drink--but you don't pay any attention to them. Besides, people
+are saying that girls of questionable character come to you."
+
+"Well, of course!" exclaimed Pavel, his brow contracting in a frown of
+disgust.
+
+"In the bog everything smells of rottenness!" said the Little Russian
+with a sigh. "Why don't you, mother, explain to the foolish girls what
+it is to be married, so that they shouldn't be in such a hurry to get
+their bones broken?"
+
+"Oh, well," said the mother, "they see the misery in store for them,
+they understand, but what can they do? They have no other choice!"
+
+"It's a queer way they have of understanding, else they'd find a
+choice," observed Pavel.
+
+The mother looked into his austere face.
+
+"Why don't you teach them? Why don't you invite some of the cleverer
+ones?"
+
+"That won't do!" the son replied dryly.
+
+"Suppose we try?" said the Little Russian.
+
+After a short silence Pavel said:
+
+"Couples will be formed; couples will walk together; then some will get
+married, and that's all."
+
+The mother became thoughtful. Pavel's austerity worried her. She saw
+that his advice was taken even by his older comrades, such as the Little
+Russian; but it seemed to her that all were afraid of him, and no one
+loved him because he was so stern.
+
+Once when she had lain down to sleep, and her son and the Little Russian
+were still reading, she overheard their low conversation through the
+thin partition.
+
+"You know I like Natasha," suddenly ejaculated the Little Russian in an
+undertone.
+
+"I know," answered Pavel after a pause.
+
+"Yes!"
+
+The mother heard the Little Russian rise and begin to walk. The tread of
+his bare feet sounded on the floor, and a low, mournful whistle was
+heard. Then he spoke again:
+
+"And does she notice it?"
+
+Pavel was silent.
+
+"What do you think?" the Little Russian asked, lowering his voice.
+
+"She does," replied Pavel. "That's why she has refused to attend our
+meetings."
+
+The Little Russian dragged his feet heavily over the floor, and again
+his low whistle quivered in the room. Then he asked:
+
+"And if I tell her?"
+
+"What?" The brief question shot from Pavel like the discharge of a gun.
+
+"That I am--" began the Little Russian in a subdued voice.
+
+"Why?" Pavel interrupted.
+
+The mother heard the Little Russian stop, and she felt that he smiled.
+
+"Yes, you see, I consider that if you love a girl you must tell her
+about it; else there'll be no sense to it!"
+
+Pavel clapped the book shut with a bang.
+
+"And what sense do you expect?"
+
+Both were silent for a long while.
+
+"Well?" asked the Little Russian.
+
+"You must be clear in your mind, Andrey, as to what you want to do,"
+said Pavel slowly. "Let us assume that she loves you, too--I do not
+think so, but let us assume it. Well, you get married. An interesting
+union--the intellectual with the workingman! Children come along; you
+will have to work all by yourself and very hard. Your life will become
+the ordinary life of a struggle for a piece of bread and a shelter for
+yourself and children. For the cause, you will become nonexistent, both
+of you!"
+
+Silence ensued. Then Pavel began to speak again in a voice that sounded
+softer:
+
+"You had better drop all this, Andrey. Keep quiet, and don't worry her.
+That's the more honest way."
+
+"And do you remember what Alexey Ivanovich said about the necessity for
+a man to live a complete life--with all the power of his soul and
+body--do you remember?"
+
+"That's not for us! How can you attain completion? It does not exist for
+you. If you love the future you must renounce everything in the
+present--everything, brother!"
+
+"That's hard for a man!" said the Little Russian in a lowered voice.
+
+"What else can be done? Think!"
+
+The indifferent pendulum of the clock kept chopping off the seconds of
+life, calmly and precisely. At last the Little Russian said:
+
+"Half the heart loves, and the other half hates! Is that a heart?"
+
+"I ask you, what else can we do?"
+
+The pages of a book rustled. Apparently Pavel had begun to read again.
+The mother lay with closed eyes, and was afraid to stir. She was ready
+to weep with pity for the Little Russian; but she was grieved still more
+for her son.
+
+"My dear son! My consecrated one!" she thought.
+
+Suddenly the Little Russian asked:
+
+"So I am to keep quiet?"
+
+"That's more honest, Andrey," answered Pavel softly.
+
+"All right! That's the road we will travel." And in a few seconds he
+added, in a sad and subdued voice: "It will be hard for you, Pasha, when
+you get to that yourself."
+
+"It is hard for me already."
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+The wind brushed along the walls of the house, and the pendulum marked
+the passing time.
+
+"Um," said the Little Russian leisurely, at last. "That's too bad."
+
+The mother buried her head in the pillow and wept inaudibly.
+
+In the morning Andrey seemed to her to be lower in stature and all the
+more winning. But her son towered thin, straight, and taciturn as ever.
+She had always called the Little Russian Andrey Stepanovich, in formal
+address, but now, all at once, involuntarily and unconsciously she said
+to him:
+
+"Say, Andriusha, you had better get your boots mended. You are apt to
+catch cold."
+
+"On pay day, mother, I'll buy myself a new pair," he answered, smiling.
+Then suddenly placing his long hand on her shoulder, he added: "You
+know, you are my real mother. Only you don't want to acknowledge it to
+people because I am so ugly."
+
+She patted him on the hand without speaking. She would have liked to say
+many endearing things, but her heart was wrung with pity, and the words
+would not leave her tongue.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+They spoke in the village about the socialists who distributed broadcast
+leaflets in blue ink. In these leaflets the conditions prevailing in the
+factory were trenchantly and pointedly depicted, as well as the strikes
+in St. Petersburg and southern Russia; and the workingmen were called
+upon to unite and fight for their interests.
+
+The staid people who earned good pay waxed wroth as they read the
+literature, and said abusively: "Breeders of rebellion! For such
+business they ought to get their eyes blacked." And they carried the
+pamphlets to the office.
+
+The young people read the proclamations eagerly, and said excitedly:
+"It's all true!"
+
+The majority, broken down with their work, and indifferent to
+everything, said lazily: "Nothing will come of it. It is impossible!"
+
+But the leaflets made a stir among the people, and when a week passed
+without their getting any, they said to one another:
+
+"None again to-day! It seems the printing must have stopped."
+
+Then on Monday the leaflets appeared again; and again there was a dull
+buzz of talk among the workingmen.
+
+In the taverns and the factory strangers were noticed, men whom no one
+knew. They asked questions, scrutinized everything and everybody; looked
+around, ferreted about, and at once attracted universal attention, some
+by their suspicious watchfulness, others by their excessive
+obtrusiveness.
+
+The mother knew that all this commotion was due to the work of her son
+Pavel. She saw how all the people were drawn together about him. He was
+not alone, and therefore it was not so dangerous. But pride in her son
+mingled with her apprehension for his fate; it was his secret labors
+that discharged themselves in fresh currents into the narrow, turbid
+stream of life.
+
+One evening Marya Korsunova rapped at the window from the street, and
+when the mother opened it, she said in a loud whisper:
+
+"Now, take care, Pelagueya; the boys have gotten themselves into a nice
+mess! It's been decided to make a search to-night in your house, and
+Mazin's and Vyesovshchikov's----"
+
+The mother heard only the beginning of the woman's talk; all the rest of
+the words flowed together in one stream of ill-boding, hoarse sounds.
+
+Marya's thick lips flapped hastily one against the other. Snorts issued
+from her fleshy nose, her eyes blinked and turned from side to side as
+if on the lookout for somebody in the street.
+
+"And, mark you, I do not know anything, and I did not say anything to
+you, mother dear, and did not even see you to-day, you understand?"
+
+Then she disappeared.
+
+The mother closed the window and slowly dropped on a chair, her strength
+gone from her, her brain a desolate void. But the consciousness of the
+danger threatening her son quickly brought her to her feet again. She
+dressed hastily, for some reason wrapped her shawl tightly around her
+head, and ran to Fedya Mazin, who, she knew, was sick and not working.
+She found him sitting at the window reading a book, and moving his right
+hand to and fro with his left, his thumb spread out. On learning the
+news he jumped up nervously, his lips trembled, and his face paled.
+
+"There you are! And I have an abscess on my finger!" he mumbled.
+
+"What are we to do?" asked Vlasova, wiping the perspiration from her
+face with a hand that trembled nervously.
+
+"Wait a while! Don't be afraid," answered Fedya, running his sound hand
+through his curly hair.
+
+"But you are afraid yourself!"
+
+"I?" He reddened and smiled in embarrassment. "Yes--h-m-- I had a fit of
+cowardice, the devil take it! We must let Pavel know. I'll send my
+little sister to him. You go home. Never mind! They're not going to beat
+us."
+
+On returning home she gathered together all the books, and pressing them
+to her bosom walked about the house for a long time, looking into the
+oven, under the oven, into the pipe of the samovar, and even into the
+water vat. She thought Pavel would at once drop work and come home; but
+he did not come. Finally she sat down exhausted on the bench in the
+kitchen, putting the books under her; and she remained in that position,
+afraid to rise, until Pavel and the Little Russian returned from the
+factory.
+
+"Do you know?" she exclaimed without rising.
+
+"We know!" said Pavel with a composed smile. "Are you afraid?"
+
+"Oh, I'm so afraid, so afraid!"
+
+"You needn't be afraid," said the Little Russian. "That won't help
+anybody."
+
+"Didn't even prepare the samovar," remarked Pavel.
+
+The mother rose, and pointed to the books with a guilty air.
+
+"You see, it was on account of them--all the time--I was----"
+
+The son and the Little Russian burst into laughter; and this relieved
+her. Then Pavel picked out some books and carried them out into the yard
+to hide them, while the Little Russian remained to prepare the samovar.
+
+"There's nothing terrible at all in this, mother. It's only a shame for
+people to occupy themselves with such nonsense. Grown-up men in gray
+come in with sabers at their sides, with spurs on their feet, and
+rummage around, and dig up and search everything. They look under the
+bed, and climb up to the garret; if there is a cellar they crawl down
+into it. The cobwebs get on their faces, and they puff and snort. They
+are bored and ashamed. That's why they put on the appearance of being
+very wicked and very mad with us. It's dirty work, and they understand
+it, of course they do! Once they turned everything topsy-turvy in my
+place, and went away abashed, that's all. Another time they took me
+along with them. Well, they put me in prison, and I stayed there with
+them for about four months. You sit and sit, then you're called out,
+taken to the street under an escort of soldiers, and you're asked
+certain questions. They're stupid people, they talk such incoherent
+stuff. When they're done with you, they tell the soldiers to take you
+back to prison. So they lead you here, and they lead you there--they've
+got to justify their salaries somehow. And then they let you go free.
+That's all."
+
+"How you always do speak, Andriusha!" exclaimed the mother
+involuntarily.
+
+Kneeling before the samovar he diligently blew into the pipe; but
+presently he turned his face, red with exertion, toward her, and
+smoothing his mustache with both hands inquired:
+
+"And how do I speak, pray?"
+
+"As if nobody had ever done you any wrong."
+
+He rose, approached her, and shaking his head, said:
+
+"Is there an unwronged soul anywhere in the wide world? But I have been
+wronged so much that I have ceased to feel wronged. What's to be done if
+people cannot help acting as they do? The wrongs I undergo hinder me
+greatly in my work. It is impossible to avoid them. But to stop and pay
+attention to them is useless waste of time. Such a life! Formerly I
+would occasionally get angry--but I thought to myself: all around me I
+see people broken in heart. It seemed as if each one were afraid that
+his neighbor would strike him, and so he tried to get ahead and strike
+the other first. Such a life it is, mother dear."
+
+His speech flowed on serenely. He resolutely distracted her mind from
+alarm at the expected police search. His luminous, protuberant eyes
+smiled sadly. Though ungainly, he seemed made of stuff that bends but
+never breaks.
+
+The mother sighed and uttered the warm wish:
+
+"May God grant you happiness, Andriusha!"
+
+The Little Russian stalked to the samovar with long strides, sat in
+front of it again on his heels, and mumbled:
+
+"If he gives me happiness, I will not decline it; ask for it I won't, to
+seek it I have no time."
+
+And he began to whistle.
+
+Pavel came in from the yard and said confidently:
+
+"They won't find them!" He started to wash himself. Then carefully
+rubbing his hands dry, he added: "If you show them, mother, that you are
+frightened, they will think there must be something in this house
+because you tremble. And we have done nothing as yet, nothing! You know
+that we don't want anything bad; on our side is truth, and we will work
+for it all our lives. This is our entire guilt. Why, then, need we
+fear?"
+
+"I will pull myself together, Pasha!" she assured him. And the next
+moment, unable to repress her anxiety, she exclaimed: "I wish they'd
+come soon, and it would all be over!"
+
+But they did not come that night, and in the morning, in anticipation of
+the fun that would probably be poked at her for her alarm, the mother
+began to joke at herself.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+
+The searchers appeared at the very time they were not expected, nearly a
+month after this anxious night. Nikolay Vyesovshchikov was at Pavel's
+house talking with him and Andrey about their newspaper. It was late,
+about midnight. The mother was already in bed. Half awake, half asleep,
+she listened to the low, busy voices. Presently Andrey got up and
+carefully picked his way through and out of the kitchen, quietly
+shutting the door after him. The noise of the iron bucket was heard on
+the porch. Suddenly the door was flung wide open; the Little Russian
+entered the kitchen, and announced in a loud whisper:
+
+"I hear the jingling of spurs in the street!"
+
+The mother jumped out of bed, catching at her dress with a trembling
+hand; but Pavel came to the door and said calmly:
+
+"You stay in bed; you're not feeling well."
+
+A cautious, stealthy sound was heard on the porch. Pavel went to the
+door and knocking at it with his hand asked:
+
+"Who's there?"
+
+A tall, gray figure tumultuously precipitated itself through the
+doorway; after it another; two gendarmes pushed Pavel back, and
+stationed themselves on either side of him, and a loud mocking voice
+called out:
+
+"No one you expect, eh?"
+
+The words came from a tall, lank officer, with a thin, black mustache.
+The village policeman, Fedyakin, appeared at the bedside of the mother,
+and, raising one hand to his cap, pointed the other at her face and,
+making terrible eyes, said:
+
+"This is his mother, your honor!" Then, waving his hand toward Pavel:
+"And this is he himself."
+
+"Pavel Vlasov?" inquired the officer, screwing up his eyes; and when
+Pavel silently nodded his head, he announced, twirling his mustache:
+
+"I have to make a search in your house. Get up, old woman!"
+
+"Who is there?" he asked, turning suddenly and making a dash for the
+door.
+
+"Your name?" His voice was heard from the other room.
+
+Two other men came in from the porch: the old smelter Tveryakov and his
+lodger, the stoker Rybin, a staid, dark-colored peasant. He said in a
+thick, loud voice:
+
+"Good evening, Nilovna."
+
+She dressed herself, all the while speaking to herself in a low voice,
+so as to give herself courage:
+
+"What sort of a thing is this? They come at night. People are asleep and
+they come----"
+
+The room was close, and for some reason smelled strongly of shoe
+blacking. Two gendarmes and the village police commissioner, Ryskin,
+their heavy tread resounding on the floor, removed the books from the
+shelves and put them on the table before the officer. Two others rapped
+on the walls with their fists, and looked under the chairs. One man
+clumsily clambered up on the stove in the corner. Nikolay's pockmarked
+face became covered with red patches, and his little gray eyes were
+steadfastly fixed upon the officer. The Little Russian curled his
+mustache, and when the mother entered the room, he smiled and gave her
+an affectionate nod of the head.
+
+Striving to suppress her fear, she walked, not sideways as always, but
+erect, her chest thrown out, which gave her figure a droll, stilted air
+of importance. Her shoes made a knocking sound on the floor, and her
+brows trembled.
+
+The officer quickly seized the books with the long fingers of his white
+hand, turned over the pages, shook them, and with a dexterous movement
+of the wrist flung them aside. Sometimes a book fell to the floor with a
+light thud. All were silent. The heavy breathing of the perspiring
+gendarmes was audible; the spurs clanked, and sometimes the low question
+was heard: "Did you look here?"
+
+The mother stood by Pavel's side against the wall. She folded her arms
+over her bosom, like her son, and both regarded the officer. The mother
+felt her knees trembling, and her eyes became covered with a dry mist.
+
+Suddenly the piercing voice of Nikolay cut into the silence:
+
+"Why is it necessary to throw the books on the floor?"
+
+The mother trembled. Tveryakov rocked his head as if he had been struck
+on the back. Rybin uttered a peculiar cluck, and regarded Nikolay
+attentively.
+
+The officer threw up his head, screwed up his eyes, and fixed them for a
+second upon the pockmarked, mottled, immobile face. His fingers began to
+turn the leaves of the books still more rapidly. His face was yellow and
+pale; he twisted his lips continually. At times he opened his large gray
+eyes wide, as if he suffered from an intolerable pain, and was ready to
+scream out in impotent anguish.
+
+"Soldier!" Vyesovshchikov called out again. "Pick the books up!"
+
+All the gendarmes turned their eyes on him, then looked at the officer.
+He again raised his head, and taking in the broad figure of Nikolay with
+a searching stare, he drawled:
+
+"Well, well, pick up the books."
+
+One gendarme bent down, and, looking slantwise at Vyesovshchikov, began
+to collect the books scattered on the floor.
+
+"Why doesn't Nikolay keep quiet?" the mother whispered to Pavel. He
+shrugged his shoulders. The Little Russian drooped his head.
+
+"What's the whispering there? Silence, please! Who reads the Bible?"
+
+"I!" said Pavel.
+
+"Aha! And whose books are all these?"
+
+"Mine!" answered Pavel.
+
+"So!" exclaimed the officer, throwing himself on the back of the chair.
+He made the bones of his slender hand crack, stretched his legs under
+the table, and adjusting his mustache, asked Nikolay: "Are you Andrey
+Nakhodka?"
+
+"Yes!" answered Nikolay, moving forward. The Little Russian put out his
+hand, took him by the shoulder, and pulled him back.
+
+"He made a mistake; I am Andrey!"
+
+The officer raised his hand, and threatening Vyesovshchikov with his
+little finger, said:
+
+"Take care!"
+
+He began to search among his papers. From the street the bright, moonlit
+night looked on through the window with soulless eyes. Some one was
+loafing about outside the window, and the snow crunched under his tread.
+
+"You, Nakhodka, you have been searched for political offenses before?"
+asked the officer.
+
+"Yes, I was searched in Rostov and Saratov. Only there the gendarmes
+addressed me as 'Mr.'"
+
+The officer winked his right eye, rubbed it, and showing his fine teeth,
+said:
+
+"And do you happen to know, _Mr._ Nakhodka--yes, you, _Mr._
+Nakhodka--who those scoundrels are who distribute criminal proclamations
+and books in the factory, eh?"
+
+The Little Russian swayed his body, and with a broad smile on his face
+was about to say something, when the irritating voice of Nikolay again
+rang out:
+
+"This is the first time we have seen scoundrels here!"
+
+Silence ensued. There was a moment of breathless suspense. The scar on
+the mother's face whitened, and her right eyebrow traveled upward.
+Rybin's black beard quivered strangely. He dropped his eyes, and slowly
+scratched one hand with the other.
+
+"Take this dog out of here!" said the officer.
+
+Two gendarmes seized Nikolay under the arm and rudely pulled him into
+the kitchen. There he planted his feet firmly on the floor and shouted:
+
+"Stop! I am going to put my coat on."
+
+The police commissioner came in from the yard and said:
+
+"There is nothing out there. We searched everywhere!"
+
+"Well, of course!" exclaimed the officer, laughing. "I knew it! There's
+an experienced man here, it goes without saying."
+
+The mother listened to his thin, dry voice, and looking with terror into
+the yellow face, felt an enemy in this man, an enemy without pity, with
+a heart full of aristocratic disdain of the people. Formerly she had but
+rarely seen such persons, and now she had almost forgotten they existed.
+
+"Then this is the man whom Pavel and his friends have provoked," she
+thought.
+
+"I place you, _Mr._ Andrey Onisimov Nakhodka, under arrest."
+
+"What for?" asked the Little Russian composedly.
+
+"I will tell you later!" answered the officer with spiteful civility,
+and turning to Vlasova, he shouted:
+
+"Say, can you read or write?"
+
+"No!" answered Pavel.
+
+"I didn't ask you!" said the officer sternly, and repeated: "Say, old
+woman, can you read or write?"
+
+The mother involuntarily gave way to a feeling of hatred for the man.
+She was seized with a sudden fit of trembling, as if she had jumped into
+cold water. She straightened herself, her scar turned purple, and her
+brow drooped low.
+
+"Don't shout!" she said, flinging out her hand toward him. "You are a
+young man still; you don't know misery or sorrow----"
+
+"Calm yourself, mother!" Pavel intervened.
+
+"In this business, mother, you've got to take your heart between your
+teeth and hold it there tight," said the Little Russian.
+
+"Wait a moment, Pasha!" cried the mother, rushing to the table and then
+addressing the officer: "Why do you snatch people away thus?"
+
+"That does not concern you. Silence!" shouted the officer, rising.
+
+"Bring in the prisoner Vyesovshchikov!" he commanded, and began to read
+aloud a document which he raised to his face.
+
+Nikolay was brought into the room.
+
+"Hats off!" shouted the officer, interrupting his reading.
+
+Rybin went up to Vlasova, and patting her on the back, said in an
+undertone:
+
+"Don't get excited, mother!"
+
+"How can I take my hat off if they hold my hands?" asked Nikolay,
+drowning the reading.
+
+The officer flung the paper on the table.
+
+"Sign!" he said curtly.
+
+The mother saw how everyone signed the document, and her excitement died
+down, a softer feeling taking possession of her heart. Her eyes filled
+with tears--burning tears of insult and impotence--such tears she had
+wept for twenty years of her married life, but lately she had almost
+forgotten their acid, heart-corroding taste.
+
+The officer regarded her contemptuously. He scowled and remarked:
+
+"You bawl ahead of time, my lady! Look out, or you won't have tears left
+for the future!"
+
+"A mother has enough tears for everything, everything! If you have a
+mother, she knows it!"
+
+The officer hastily put the papers into his new portfolio with its
+shining lock.
+
+"How independent they all are in your place!" He turned to the police
+commissioner.
+
+"An impudent pack!" mumbled the commissioner.
+
+"March!" commanded the officer.
+
+"Good-by, Andrey! Good-by, Nikolay!" said Pavel warmly and softly,
+pressing his comrades' hands.
+
+"That's it! Until we meet again!" the officer scoffed.
+
+Vyesovshchikov silently pressed Pavel's hands with his short fingers and
+breathed heavily. The blood mounted to his thick neck; his eyes flashed
+with rancor. The Little Russian's face beamed with a sunny smile. He
+nodded his head, and said something to the mother; she made the sign of
+the cross over him.
+
+"God sees the righteous," she murmured.
+
+At length the throng of people in the gray coats tumbled out on the
+porch, and their spurs jingled as they disappeared. Rybin went last. He
+regarded Pavel with an attentive look of his dark eyes and said
+thoughtfully: "Well, well--good-by!" and coughing in his beard he
+leisurely walked out on the porch.
+
+Folding his hands behind his back, Pavel slowly paced up and down the
+room, stepping over the books and clothes tumbled about on the floor. At
+last he said somberly:
+
+"You see how it's done! With insult--disgustingly--yes! They left me
+behind."
+
+Looking perplexedly at the disorder in the room, the mother whispered
+sadly:
+
+"They will take you, too, be sure they will. Why did Nikolay speak to
+them the way he did?"
+
+"He got frightened, I suppose," said Pavel quietly. "Yes--It's
+impossible to speak to them, absolutely impossible! They cannot
+understand!"
+
+"They came, snatched, and carried off!" mumbled the mother, waving her
+hands. As her son remained at home, her heart began to beat more
+lightly. Her mind stubbornly halted before one fact and refused to be
+moved. "How he scoffs at us, that yellow ruffian! How he threatens us!"
+
+"All right, mamma!" Pavel suddenly said with resolution. "Let us pick
+all this up!"
+
+He called her "mamma," the word he used only when he came nearer to her.
+She approached him, looked into his face, and asked softly:
+
+"Did they insult you?"
+
+"Yes," he answered. "That's--hard! I would rather have gone with them."
+
+It seemed to her that she saw tears in his eyes, and wishing to soothe
+him, with an indistinct sense of his pain, she said with a sigh:
+
+"Wait a while--they'll take you, too!"
+
+"They will!" he replied.
+
+After a pause the mother remarked sorrowfully:
+
+"How hard you are, Pasha! If you'd only reassure me once in a while! But
+you don't. When I say something horrible, you say something worse."
+
+He looked at her, moved closer to her, and said gently:
+
+"I cannot, mamma! I cannot lie! You have to get used to it."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+
+The next day they knew that Bukin, Samoylov, Somov, and five more had
+been arrested. In the evening Fedya Mazin came running in upon them. A
+search had been made in his house also. He felt himself a hero.
+
+"Were you afraid, Fedya?" asked the mother.
+
+He turned pale, his face sharpened, and his nostrils quivered.
+
+"I was afraid the officer might strike me. He has a black beard, he's
+stout, his fingers are hairy, and he wears dark glasses, so that he
+looks as if he were without eyes. He shouted and stamped his feet. He
+said I'd rot in prison. And I've never been beaten either by my father
+or mother; they love me because I'm their only son. Everyone gets beaten
+everywhere, but I never!"
+
+He closed his eyes for a moment, compressed his lips, tossed his hair
+back with a quick gesture of both hands, and looking at Pavel with
+reddening eyes, said:
+
+"If anybody ever strikes me, I will thrust my whole body into him like a
+knife--I will bite my teeth into him--I'd rather he'd kill me at once
+and be done!"
+
+"To defend yourself is your right," said Pavel. "But take care not to
+attack!"
+
+"You are delicate and thin," observed the mother. "What do you want with
+fighting?"
+
+"I _will_ fight!" answered Fedya in a low voice.
+
+When he left, the mother said to Pavel:
+
+"This young man will go down sooner than all the rest."
+
+Pavel was silent.
+
+A few minutes later the kitchen door opened slowly and Rybin entered.
+
+"Good evening!" he said, smiling. "Here I am again. Yesterday they
+brought me here; to-day I come of my own accord. Yes, yes!" He gave
+Pavel a vigorous handshake, then put his hand on the mother's shoulder,
+and asked: "Will you give me tea?"
+
+Pavel silently regarded his swarthy, broad countenance, his thick, black
+beard, and dark, intelligent eyes. A certain gravity spoke out of their
+calm gaze; his stalwart figure inspired confidence.
+
+The mother went into the kitchen to prepare the samovar. Rybin sat down,
+stroked his beard, and placing his elbows on the table, scanned Pavel
+with his dark look.
+
+"That's the way it is," he said, as if continuing an interrupted
+conversation. "I must have a frank talk with you. I observed you long
+before I came. We live almost next door to each other. I see many people
+come to you, and no drunkenness, no carrying on. That's the main thing.
+If people don't raise the devil, they immediately attract attention.
+What's that? There you are! That's why all eyes are on me, because I
+live apart and give no offense."
+
+His speech flowed along evenly and freely. It had a ring that won him
+confidence.
+
+"So. Everybody prates about you. My masters call you a heretic; you
+don't go to church. I don't, either. Then the papers appeared, those
+leaflets. Was it you that thought them out?"
+
+"Yes, I!" answered Pavel, without taking his eyes off Rybin's face.
+Rybin also looked steadily into Pavel's eyes.
+
+"You alone!" exclaimed the mother, coming into the room. "It wasn't you
+alone."
+
+Pavel smiled; Rybin also.
+
+The mother sniffed, and walked away, somewhat offended because they did
+not pay attention to her words.
+
+"Those leaflets are well thought out. They stir the people up. There
+were twelve of them, weren't there?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I have read them all! Yes, yes. Sometimes they are not clear, and some
+things are superfluous. But when a man speaks a great deal, it's natural
+he should occasionally say things out of the way."
+
+Rybin smiled. His teeth were white and strong.
+
+"Then the search. That won me over to you more than anything else. You
+and the Little Russian and Nikolay, you all got caught!" He paused for
+the right word and looked at the window, rapping the table with his
+fingers. "They discovered your resolve. You attend to your business,
+your honor, you say, and we'll attend to ours. The Little Russian's a
+fine fellow, too. The other day I heard how he speaks in the factory,
+and thinks I to myself: that man isn't going to be vanquished; it's only
+one thing will knock him out, and that's death! A sturdy chap! Do you
+trust me, Pavel?"
+
+"Yes, I trust you!" said Pavel, nodding.
+
+"That's right. Look! I am forty years old; I am twice as old as you, and
+I've seen twenty times as much as you. For three years long I wore my
+feet to the bone marching in the army. I have been married twice. I've
+been in the Caucasus, I know the Dukhobors. They're not masters of life,
+no, they aren't!"
+
+The mother listened eagerly to his direct speech. It pleased her to have
+an older man come to her son and speak to him just as if he were
+confessing to him. But Pavel seemed to treat the guest too curtly, and
+the mother, to introduce a softer element, asked Rybin:
+
+"Maybe you'll have something to eat."
+
+"Thank you, mother! I've had my supper already. So then, Pavel, you
+think that life does not go as it should?"
+
+Pavel arose and began to pace the room, folding his hands behind his
+back.
+
+"It goes all right," he said. "Just now, for instance, it has brought
+you here to me with an open heart. We who work our whole life long--it
+unites us gradually and more and more every day. The time will come when
+we shall all be united. Life is arranged unjustly for us and is made a
+burden. At the same time, however, life itself is opening our eyes to
+its bitter meaning and is itself showing man the way to accelerate its
+pace. We all of us think just as we live."
+
+"True. But wait!" Rybin stopped him. "Man ought to be renovated--that's
+what I think! When a man grows scabby, take him to the bath, give him a
+thorough cleaning, put clean clothes on him--and he will get well. Isn't
+it so? And if the heart grows scabby, take its skin off, even if it
+bleeds, wash it, and dress it up all afresh. Isn't it so? How else can
+you clean the inner man? There now!"
+
+Pavel began to speak hotly and bitterly about God, about the Czar, about
+the government authorities, about the factory, and how in foreign
+countries the workingmen stand up for their rights. Rybin smiled
+occasionally; sometimes he struck a finger on the table as if
+punctuating a period. Now and then he cried out briefly: "So!" And once,
+laughing out, he said quietly: "You're young. You know people but
+little!"
+
+Pavel stopping before him said seriously:
+
+"Let's not talk of being old or being young. Let us rather see whose
+thoughts are truer."
+
+"That is, according to you, we've been fooled about God also. So! I,
+too, think that our religion is false and injurious to us."
+
+Here the mother intervened. When her son spoke about God and about
+everything that she connected with her faith in him, which was dear and
+sacred to her, she sought to meet his eyes, she wanted to ask her son
+mutely not to chafe her heart with the sharp, bitter words of his
+unbelief. And she felt that Rybin, an older man, would also be
+displeased and offended. But when Rybin calmly put his question to
+Pavel, she could no longer contain herself, and said firmly: "When you
+speak of God, I wish you were more careful. You can do whatever you
+like. You have your compensation in your work." Catching her breath she
+continued with still greater vehemence: "But I, an old woman, I will
+have nothing to lean upon in my distress if you take my God away from
+me."
+
+Her eyes filled with tears. She was washing the dishes, and her fingers
+trembled.
+
+"You did not understand us, mother!" Pavel said softly and kindly.
+
+"Beg your pardon, mother!" Rybin added in a slow, thick voice. He looked
+at Pavel and smiled. "I forgot that you're too old to cut out your
+warts."
+
+"I did not speak," continued Pavel, "about that good and gracious God in
+whom you believe, but about the God with whom the priests threaten us as
+with a stick, about the God in whose name they want to force all of us
+to the evil will of the few."
+
+"That's it, right you are!" exclaimed Rybin, striking his fingers upon
+the table. "They have mutilated even our God for us, they have turned
+everything in their hands against us. Mark you, mother, God created man
+in his own image and after his own likeness. Therefore he is like man if
+man is like him. But we have become, not like God, but like wild beasts!
+In the churches they set up a scarecrow before us. We have got to change
+our God, mother; we must cleanse him! They have dressed him up in
+falsehood and calumny; they have distorted his face in order to destroy
+our souls!"
+
+He talked composedly and very distinctly and intelligibly. Every word of
+his speech fell upon the mother's ears like a blow. And his face set in
+the frame of his black beard, his broad face attired, as it were, in
+mourning, frightened her. The dark gleam of his eyes was insupportable
+to her. He aroused in her a sense of anguish, and filled her heart with
+terror.
+
+"No, I'd better go away," she said, shaking her head in negation. "It's
+not in my power to listen to this. I cannot!"
+
+And she quickly walked into the kitchen followed by the words of Rybin:
+
+"There you have it, Pavel! It begins not in the head, but in the heart.
+The heart is such a place that nothing else will grow in it."
+
+"Only reason," said Pavel firmly, "only reason will free mankind."
+
+"Reason does not give strength!" retorted Rybin emphatically. "The heart
+gives strength, and not the head, I tell you."
+
+The mother undressed and lay down in bed without saying her prayer. She
+felt cold and miserable. And Rybin, who at first seemed such a staid,
+wise man, now aroused in her a blind hostility.
+
+"Heretic! Sedition-maker!" she thought, listening to his even voice
+flowing resonantly from his deep chest. He, too, had come--he was
+indispensable.
+
+He spoke confidently and composedly:
+
+"The holy place must not be empty. The spot where God dwells is a place
+of pain; and if he drops out from the heart, there will be a wound in
+it, mark my word! It is necessary, Pavel, to invent a new faith; it is
+necessary to create a God for all. Not a judge, not a warrior, but a God
+who shall be the friend of the people."
+
+"You had one! There was Christ!"
+
+"Wait a moment! Christ was not strong in spirit. 'Let the cup pass from
+me,' he said. And he recognized Caesar. God cannot recognize human
+powers. He himself is the whole of power. He does not divide his soul
+saying: so much for the godly, so much for the human. If Christ came to
+affirm the divine he had no need for anything human. But he recognized
+trade, and he recognized marriage. And it was unjust of him to condemn
+the fig tree. Was it of its own will that it was barren of fruit?
+Neither is the soul barren of good of its own accord. Have I sown the
+evil in it myself? Of course not!"
+
+The two voices hummed continuously in the room, as if clutching at each
+other and wrestling in exciting play. Pavel walked hurriedly up and down
+the room; the floor cracked under his feet. When he spoke all other
+sounds were drowned by his voice; but above the slow, calm flow of
+Rybin's dull utterance were heard the strokes of the pendulum and the
+low creaking of the frost, as of sharp claws scratching the walls of the
+house.
+
+"I will speak to you in my own way, in the words of a stoker. God is
+like fire. He does not strengthen anything. He cannot. He merely burns
+and fuses when he gives light. He burns down churches, he does not raise
+them. He lives in the heart."
+
+"And in the mind!" insisted Pavel.
+
+"That's it! In the heart and in the mind. There's the rub. It's this
+that makes all the trouble and misery and misfortune. We have severed
+ourselves from our own selves. The heart was severed from the mind, and
+the mind has disappeared. Man is not a unit. It is God that makes him a
+unit, that makes him a round, circular thing. God always makes things
+round. Such is the earth and all the stars and everything visible to the
+eye. The sharp, angular things are the work of men."
+
+The mother fell asleep and did not hear Rybin depart.
+
+But he began to come often, and if any of Pavel's comrades were present,
+Rybin sat in a corner and was silent, only occasionally interjecting:
+"That's so!"
+
+And once looking at everybody from his corner with his dark glance he
+said somberly:
+
+"We must speak about that which is; that which will be is unknown to us.
+When the people have freed themselves, they will see for themselves what
+is best. Enough, quite enough of what they do not want at all has been
+knocked into their heads. Let there be an end of this! Let them contrive
+for themselves. Maybe they will want to reject everything, all life, and
+all knowledge; maybe they will see that everything is arranged against
+them. You just deliver all the books into their hands, and they will
+find an answer for themselves, depend upon it! Only let them remember
+that the tighter the collar round the horse's neck, the worse the work."
+
+But when Pavel was alone with Rybin they at once began an endless but
+always calm disputation, to which the mother listened anxiously,
+following their words in silence, and endeavoring to understand.
+Sometimes it seemed to her as if the broad-shouldered, black-bearded
+peasant and her well-built, sturdy son had both gone blind. In that
+little room, in the darkness, they seemed to be knocking about from side
+to side in search of light and an outlet, to be grasping out with
+powerful but blind hands; they seemed to fall upon the floor, and having
+fallen, to scrape and fumble with their feet. They hit against
+everything, groped about for everything, and flung it away, calm and
+composed, losing neither faith nor hope.
+
+They got her accustomed to listen to a great many words, terrible in
+their directness and boldness; and these words had now ceased to weigh
+down on her so heavily as at first. She learned to push them away from
+her ears. And although Rybin still displeased her as before, he no
+longer inspired her with hostility.
+
+Once a week she carried underwear and books to the Little Russian in
+prison. On one occasion they allowed her to see him and talk to him; and
+on returning home she related enthusiastically:
+
+"He is as if he were at home there, too! He is good and kind to
+everybody; everybody jokes with him; just as if there were a holiday in
+his heart all the time. His lot is hard and heavy, but he does not want
+to show it."
+
+"That's right! That's the way one should act," observed Rybin. "We are
+all enveloped in misery as in our skins. We breathe misery, we wear
+misery. But that's nothing to brag about. Not all people are blind; some
+close their eyes of their own accord, indeed! And if you are stupid you
+have to suffer for it."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+
+The little old gray house of the Vlasovs attracted the attention of the
+village more and more; and although there was much suspicious chariness
+and unconscious hostility in this notice, yet at the same time a
+confiding curiosity grew up also. Now and then some one would come over,
+and looking carefully about him would say to Pavel: "Well, brother, you
+are reading books here, and you know the laws. Explain to me, then----"
+
+And he would tell Pavel about some injustice of the police or the
+factory administration. In complicated cases Pavel would give the man a
+note to a lawyer friend in the city, and when he could, he would explain
+the case himself.
+
+Gradually people began to look with respect upon this young, serious
+man, who spoke about everything simply and boldly, and almost never
+laughed, who looked at everybody and listened to everybody with an
+attention which searched stubbornly into every circumstance, and always
+found a certain general and endless thread binding people together by a
+thousand tightly drawn knots.
+
+Vlasova saw how her son had grown up; she strove to understand his work,
+and when she succeeded, she rejoiced with a childlike joy.
+
+Pavel rose particularly in the esteem of the people after the appearance
+of his story about the "Muddy Penny."
+
+Back of the factory, almost encircling it with a ring of putrescence,
+stretched a vast marsh grown over with fir trees and birches. In the
+summer it was covered with thick yellow and green scum, and swarms of
+mosquitoes flew from it over the village, spreading fever in their
+course. The marsh belonged to the factory, and the new manager, wishing
+to extract profit from it, conceived the plan of draining it and
+incidentally gathering in a fine harvest of peat. Representing to the
+workingmen how much this measure would contribute to the sanitation of
+the locality and the improvement of the general condition of all, the
+manager gave orders to deduct a kopeck from every ruble of their
+earnings, in order to cover the expense of draining the marsh. The
+workingmen rebelled; they especially resented the fact that the office
+clerks were exempted from paying the new tax.
+
+Pavel was ill on the Saturday when posters were hung up announcing the
+manager's order in regard to the toll. He had not gone to work and he
+knew nothing about it. The next day, after mass, a dapper old man, the
+smelter Sizov, and the tall, vicious-looking locksmith Makhotin, came to
+him and told him of the manager's decision.
+
+"A few of us older ones got together," said Sizov, speaking sedately,
+"talked the matter over, and our comrades, you see, sent us over to you,
+as you are a knowing man among us. Is there such a law as gives our
+manager the right to make war upon mosquitoes with our kopecks?"
+
+"Think!" said Makhotin, with a glimmer in his narrow eyes. "Three years
+ago these sharpers collected a tax to build a bath house. Three thousand
+eight hundred rubles is what they gathered in. Where are those rubles?
+And where is the bath house?"
+
+Pavel explained the injustice of the tax, and the obvious advantage of
+such a procedure to the factory owners; and both of his visitors went
+away in a surly mood.
+
+The mother, who had gone with them to the door, said, laughing:
+
+"Now, Pasha, the old people have also begun to come to seek wisdom from
+you."
+
+Without replying, Pavel sat down at the table with a busy air and began
+to write. In a few minutes he said to her: "Please go to the city
+immediately and deliver this note."
+
+"Is it dangerous?" she asked.
+
+"Yes! A newspaper is being published for us down there! That 'Muddy
+Penny' story must go into the next issue."
+
+"I'll go at once," she replied, beginning hurriedly to put on her wraps.
+
+This was the first commission her son had given her. She was happy that
+he spoke to her so openly about the matter, and that she might be useful
+to him in his work.
+
+"I understand all about it, Pasha," she said. "It's a piece of robbery.
+What's the name of the man? Yegor Ivanovich?"
+
+"Yes," said Pavel, smiling kindly.
+
+She returned late in the evening, exhausted but contented.
+
+"I saw Sashenka," she told her son. "She sends you her regards. And this
+Yegor Ivanovich is such a simple fellow, such a joker! He speaks so
+comically."
+
+"I'm glad you like them," said Pavel softly.
+
+"They are simple people, Pasha. It's good when people are simple. And
+they all respect you."
+
+Again, Monday, Pavel did not go to work. His head ached. But at dinner
+time Fedya Mazin came running in, excited, out of breath, happy, and
+tired.
+
+"Come! The whole factory has arisen! They've sent for you. Sizov and
+Makhotin say you can explain better than anybody else. My! What a
+hullabaloo!"
+
+Pavel began to dress himself silently.
+
+"A crowd of women are gathered there; they are screaming!"
+
+"I'll go, too," declared the mother. "You're not well, and--what are
+they doing? I'm going, too."
+
+"Come," Pavel said briefly.
+
+They walked along the street quickly and silently. The mother panted
+with the exertion of the rapid gait and her excitement. She felt that
+something big was happening. At the factory gates a throng of women were
+discussing the affair in shrill voices. When the three pushed into the
+yard, they found themselves in the thick of a crowd buzzing and humming
+in excitement. The mother saw that all heads were turned in the same
+direction, toward the blacksmith's wall, where Sizov, Makhotin, Vyalov,
+and five or six influential, solid workingmen were standing on a high
+pile of old iron heaped on the red brick paving of the court, and waving
+their hands.
+
+"Vlasov is coming!" somebody shouted.
+
+"Vlasov? Bring him along!"
+
+Pavel was seized and pushed forward, and the mother was left alone.
+
+"Silence!" came the shout from various directions. Near by the even
+voice of Rybin was heard:
+
+"We must make a stand, not for the kopeck, but for justice. What is dear
+to us is not our kopeck, because it's no rounder than any other kopeck;
+it's only heavier; there's more human blood in it than in the manager's
+ruble. That's the truth!"
+
+The words fell forcibly on the crowd and stirred the men to hot
+responses:
+
+"That's right! Good, Rybin!"
+
+"Silence! The devil take you!"
+
+"Vlasov's come!"
+
+The voices mingled in a confused uproar, drowning the ponderous whir of
+the machinery, the sharp snorts of the steam, and the flapping of the
+leather belts. From all sides people came running, waving their hands;
+they fell into arguments, and excited one another with burning, stinging
+words. The irritation that had found no vent, that had always lain
+dormant in tired breasts, had awakened, demanded an outlet, and burst
+from their mouths in a volley of words. It soared into the air like a
+great bird spreading its motley wings ever wider and wider, clutching
+people and dragging them after it, and striking them against one
+another. It lived anew, transformed into flaming wrath. A cloud of dust
+and soot hung over the crowd; their faces were all afire, and black
+drops of sweat trickled down their cheeks. Their eyes gleamed from
+darkened countenances; their teeth glistened.
+
+Pavel appeared on the spot where Sizov and Makhotin were standing, and
+his voice rang out:
+
+"Comrades!"
+
+The mother saw that his face paled and his lips trembled; she
+involuntarily pushed forward, shoving her way through the crowd.
+
+"Where are you going, old woman?"
+
+She heard the angry question, and the people pushed her, but she would
+not stop, thrusting the crowd aside with her shoulders and elbows. She
+slowly forced her way nearer to her son, yielding to the desire to stand
+by his side. When Pavel had thrown out the word to which he was wont to
+attach a deep and significant meaning, his throat contracted in a sharp
+spasm of the joy of fight. He was seized with an invincible desire to
+give himself up to the strength of his faith; to throw his heart to the
+people. His heart kindled with the dream of truth.
+
+"Comrades!" he repeated, extracting power and rapture from the word. "We
+are the people who build churches and factories, forge chains and coin
+money, make toys and machines. We are that living force which feeds and
+amuses the world from the cradle to the grave."
+
+"There!" Rybin exclaimed.
+
+"Always and everywhere we are first in work but last in life. Who cares
+for us? Who wishes us good? Who regards us as human beings? No one!"
+
+"No one!" echoed from the crowd.
+
+Pavel, mastering himself, began to talk more simply and calmly; the
+crowd slowly drew about him, blending into one dark, thick,
+thousand-headed body. It looked into his face with hundreds of attentive
+eyes; it sucked in his words in silent, strained attention.
+
+"We will not attain to a better life until we feel ourselves as
+comrades, as one family of friends firmly bound together by one
+desire--the desire to fight for our rights."
+
+"Get down to business!" somebody standing near the mother shouted
+rudely.
+
+"Don't interrupt!" "Shut up!" The two muffled exclamations were heard in
+different places. The soot-covered faces frowned in sulky incredulity;
+scores of eyes looked into Pavel's face thoughtfully and seriously.
+
+"A socialist, but no fool!" somebody observed.
+
+"I say, he does speak boldly!" said a tall, crippled workingman, tapping
+the mother on the shoulder.
+
+"It is time, comrades, to take a stand against the greedy power that
+lives by our labor. It is time to defend ourselves; we must all
+understand that no one except ourselves will help us. One for all and
+all for one--this is our law, if we want to crush the foe!"
+
+"He's right, boys!" Makhotin shouted. "Listen to the truth!" And, with a
+broad sweep of his arm, he shook his fist in the air.
+
+"We must call out the manager at once," said Pavel. "We must ask him."
+
+As if struck by a tornado, the crowd rocked to and fro; scores of voices
+shouted:
+
+"The manager! The manager! Let him come! Let him explain!"
+
+"Send delegates for him! Bring him here!"
+
+"No, don't; it's not necessary!"
+
+The mother pushed her way to the front and looked up at her son. She was
+filled with pride. Her son stood among the old, respected workingmen;
+all listened to him and agreed with him! She was pleased that he was so
+calm and talked so simply; not angrily, not swearing, like the others.
+Broken exclamations, wrathful words and oaths descended like hail on
+iron. Pavel looked down on the people from his elevation, and with
+wide-open eyes seemed to be seeking something among them.
+
+"Delegates!"
+
+"Let Sizov speak!"
+
+"Vlasov!"
+
+"Rybin! He has a terrible tongue!"
+
+Finally Sizov, Rybin, and Pavel were chosen for the interview with the
+manager. When just about to send for the manager, suddenly low
+exclamations were heard in the crowd:
+
+"Here he comes himself!"
+
+"The manager?"
+
+"Ah!"
+
+The crowd opened to make way for a tall, spare man with a pointed beard,
+an elongated face and blinking eyes.
+
+"Permit me," he said, as he pushed the people aside with a short motion
+of his hand, without touching them. With the experienced look of a ruler
+of people, he scanned the workingmen's faces with a searching gaze. They
+took their hats off and bowed to him. He walked past them without
+acknowledging their greetings. His presence silenced and confused the
+crowd, and evoked embarrassed smiles and low exclamations, as of
+repentant children who had already come to regret their prank.
+
+Now he passed by the mother, casting a stern glance at her face, and
+stopped before the pile of iron. Somebody from above extended a hand to
+him; he did not take it, but with an easy, powerful movement of his body
+he clambered up and stationed himself in front of Pavel and Sizov.
+Looking around the silent crowd, he asked:
+
+"What's the meaning of this crowd? Why have you dropped your work?"
+
+For a few seconds silence reigned. Sizov waved his cap in the air,
+shrugged his shoulders, and dropped his head.
+
+"I am asking you a question!" continued the manager.
+
+Pavel moved alongside of him and said in a low voice, pointing to Sizov
+and Rybin:
+
+"We three are authorized by all the comrades to ask you to revoke your
+order about the kopeck discount."
+
+"Why?" asked the manager, without looking at Pavel.
+
+"We do not consider such a tax just!" Pavel replied loudly.
+
+"So, in my plan to drain the marsh you see only a desire to exploit the
+workingmen and not a desire to better their conditions; is that it?"
+
+"Yes!" Pavel replied.
+
+"And you, also?" the manager asked Rybin.
+
+"The very same!"
+
+"How about you, my worthy friend?" The manager turned to Sizov.
+
+"I, too, want to ask you to let us keep our kopecks." And drooping his
+head again, Sizov smiled guiltily. The manager slowly bent his look upon
+the crowd again, shrugged his shoulders, and then, regarding Pavel
+searchingly, observed:
+
+"You appear to be a fairly intelligent man. Do you not understand the
+usefulness of this measure?"
+
+Pavel replied loudly:
+
+"If the factory should drain the marsh at its own expense, we would all
+understand it!"
+
+"This factory is not in the philanthropy business!" remarked the manager
+dryly. "I order you all to start work at once!"
+
+And he began to descend, cautiously feeling the iron with his feet, and
+without looking at anyone.
+
+A dissatisfied hum was heard in the crowd.
+
+"What!" asked the manager, halting.
+
+All were silent; then from the distance came a solitary voice:
+
+"You go to work yourself!"
+
+"If in fifteen minutes you do not start work, I'll order every single
+one of you to be discharged!" the manager announced dryly and
+distinctly.
+
+He again proceeded through the crowd, but now an indistinct murmur
+followed him, and the shouting grew louder as his figure receded.
+
+"Speak to him!"
+
+"That's what you call justice! Worse luck!"
+
+Some turned to Pavel and shouted:
+
+"Say, you great lawyer, you, what's to be done now? You talked and
+talked, but the moment he came it all went up in the air!"
+
+"Well, Vlasov, what now?"
+
+When the shouts became more insistent, Pavel raised his hand and said:
+
+"Comrades, I propose that we quit work until he gives up that kopeck!"
+
+Excited voices burst out:
+
+"He thinks we're fools!"
+
+"We ought to do it!"
+
+"A strike?"
+
+"For one kopeck?"
+
+"Why not? Why not strike?"
+
+"We'll all be discharged!"
+
+"And who is going to do the work?"
+
+"There are others!"
+
+"Who? Judases?"
+
+"Every year I would have to give three rubles and sixty kopecks to the
+mosquitoes!"
+
+"All of us would have to give it!"
+
+Pavel walked down and stood at the side of his mother. No one paid any
+attention to him now. They were all yelling and debating hotly with one
+another.
+
+"You cannot get them to strike!" said Rybin, coming up to Pavel. "Greedy
+as these people are for a penny, they are too cowardly. You may,
+perhaps, induce about three hundred of them to follow you, no more. It's
+a heap of dung you won't lift with one toss of the pitchfork, I tell
+you!"
+
+Pavel was silent. In front of him the huge black face of the crowd was
+rocking wildly, and fixed on him an importunate stare. His heart beat in
+alarm. It seemed to him as if all the words he had spoken vanished in
+the crowd without leaving any trace, like scattered drops of rain
+falling on parched soil. One after the other, workmen approached him
+praising his speech, but doubting the success of a strike, and
+complaining how little the people understood their own interests and
+realized their own strength.
+
+Pavel had a sense of injury and disappointment as to his own power. His
+head ached; he felt desolate. Hitherto, whenever he pictured the triumph
+of his truth, he wanted to cry with the delight that seized his heart.
+But here he had spoken his truth to the people, and behold! when clothed
+in words it appeared so pale, so powerless, so incapable of affecting
+anyone. He blamed himself; it seemed to him that he had concealed his
+dream in a poor, disfiguring garment and no one could, therefore, detect
+its beauty.
+
+He went home, tired and moody. He was followed by his mother and Sizov,
+while Rybin walked alongside, buzzing into his ear:
+
+"You speak well, but you don't speak to the heart! That's the trouble!
+The spark must be thrown into the heart, into its very depths!"
+
+"It's time we lived and were guided by reason," Pavel said in a low
+voice.
+
+"The boot does not fit the foot; it's too thin and narrow! The foot
+won't get in! And if it does, it will wear the boot out mighty quick.
+That is the trouble."
+
+Sizov, meanwhile, talked to the mother.
+
+"It's time for us old folks to get into our graves. Nilovna! A new
+people is coming. What sort of a life have we lived? We crawled on our
+knees, and always crouched on the ground! But here are the new people.
+They have either come to their senses, or else are blundering worse than
+we; but they are not like us, anyway. Just look at those youngsters
+talking to the manager as to their equal! Yes, ma'am! Oh, if only my son
+Matvey were alive! Good-by, Pavel Vlasov! You stand up for the people
+all right, brother. God grant you his favor! Perhaps you'll find a way
+out. God grant it!" And he walked away.
+
+"Yes, you may as well die straight off!" murmured Rybin. "You are no
+men, now. You are only putty--good to fill cracks with, that's all! Did
+you see, Pavel, who it was that shouted to make you a delegate? It was
+those who call you socialist--agitator--yes!--thinking you'd be
+discharged, and it would serve you right!"
+
+"They are right, according to their lights!" said Pavel.
+
+"So are wolves when they tear one another to pieces!" Rybin's face was
+sullen, his voice unusually tremulous.
+
+The whole day Pavel felt ill at ease, as if he had lost something, he
+did not know what, and anticipated a further loss.
+
+At night when the mother was asleep and he was reading in bed, gendarmes
+appeared and began to search everywhere--in the yard, in the attic. They
+were sullen; the yellow-faced officer conducted himself as on the first
+occasion, insultingly, derisively, delighting in abuse, endeavoring to
+cut down to the very heart. The mother, in a corner, maintained silence,
+never removing her eyes from her son's face. He made every effort not to
+betray his emotion; but whenever the officer laughed, his fingers
+twitched strangely, and the old woman felt how hard it was for him not
+to reply, and to bear the jesting. This time the affair was not so
+terrorizing to her as at the first search. She felt a greater hatred to
+these gray, spurred night callers, and her hatred swallowed up her
+alarm.
+
+Pavel managed to whisper:
+
+"They'll arrest me."
+
+Inclining her head, she quietly replied:
+
+"I understand."
+
+She did understand--they would put him in jail for what he had said to
+the workingmen that day. But since all agreed with what he had said, and
+all ought to stand up for him, he would not be detained long.
+
+She longed to embrace him and cry over him; but there stood the officer,
+watching her with a malevolent squint of his eyes. His lips trembled,
+his mustache twitched. It seemed to Vlasova that the officer was but
+waiting for her tears, complaints, and supplications. With a supreme
+effort endeavoring to say as little as possible, she pressed her son's
+hand, and holding her breath said slowly, in a low tone:
+
+[Illustration: "It seemed to Vlasova that the officer was but waiting
+for her tears."]
+
+"Good-by, Pasha. Did you take everything you need?"
+
+"Everything. Don't worry!"
+
+"Christ be with you!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+
+When the police had led Pavel away, the mother sat down on the bench,
+and closing her eyes began to weep quietly. She leaned her back against
+the wall, as her husband used to do, her head thrown backward. Bound up
+in her grief and the injured sense of her impotence, she cried long,
+gently, and monotonously, pouring out all the pain of her wounded heart
+in her sobs. And before her, like an irremovable stain, hung that yellow
+face with the scant mustache, and the squinting eyes staring at her with
+malicious pleasure. Resentment and bitterness were winding themselves
+about her breast like black threads on a spool; resentment and
+bitterness toward those who tear a son away from his mother because he
+is seeking truth.
+
+It was cold; the rain pattered against the window panes; something
+seemed to be creeping along the walls. She thought she heard, walking
+watchfully around the house, gray, heavy figures, with broad, red faces,
+without eyes, and with long arms. It seemed to her that she almost heard
+the jingling of their spurs.
+
+"I wish they had taken me, too!" she thought.
+
+The whistle blew, calling the people to work. This time its sounds were
+low, indistinct, uncertain. The door opened and Rybin entered. He stood
+before her, wiping the raindrops from his beard.
+
+"They snatched him away, did they?" he asked.
+
+"Yes, they did, the dogs!" she replied, sighing.
+
+"That's how it is," said Rybin, with a smile; "they searched me, too;
+went all through me--yes! Abused me to their heart's content, but did me
+no harm beyond that. So they carried off Pavel, did they? The manager
+tipped the wink, the gendarme said 'Amen!' and lo! a man has
+disappeared. They certainly are thick together. One goes through the
+people's pockets while the other holds the gun."
+
+"You ought to stand up for Pavel!" cried the mother, rising to her feet.
+"It's for you all that he's gone!"
+
+"Who ought to stand up for him?" asked Rybin.
+
+"All of you!"
+
+"You want too much! We'll do nothing of the kind! Our masters have been
+gathering strength for thousands of years; they have driven our hearts
+full of nails. We cannot unite at once. We must first extract from
+ourselves, each from the other, the iron spikes that prevent us from
+standing close to one another."
+
+And thus he departed, with his heavy gait, leaving the mother to her
+grief, aggravated by the stern hopelessness of his words.
+
+The day passed in a thick mist of empty, senseless longing. She made no
+fire, cooked no dinner, drank no tea, and only late in the evening ate a
+piece of bread. When she went to bed it occurred to her that her life
+had never yet been so humiliating, so lonely and void. During the last
+years she had become accustomed to live constantly in the expectation of
+something momentous, something good. Young people were circling around
+her, noisy, vigorous, full of life. Her son's thoughtful and earnest
+face was always before her, and he seemed to be the master and creator
+of this thrilling and noble life. Now he was gone, everything was gone.
+In the whole day, no one except the disagreeable Rybin had called.
+
+Beyond the window, the dense, cold rain was sighing and knocking at the
+panes. The rain and the drippings from the roof filled the air with a
+doleful, wailing melody. The whole house appeared to be rocking gently
+to and fro, and everything around her seemed aimless and unnecessary.
+
+A gentle rap was heard at the door. It came once, and then a second
+time. She had grown accustomed to these noises; they no longer
+frightened her. A soft, joyous sensation thrilled her heart, and a vague
+hope quickly brought her to her feet. Throwing a shawl over her
+shoulders, she hurried to the door and opened it.
+
+Samoylov walked in, followed by another man with his face hidden behind
+the collar of his overcoat and under a hat thrust over his eyebrows.
+
+"Did we wake you?" asked Samoylov, without greeting the mother, his face
+gloomy and thoughtful, contrary to his wont.
+
+"I was not asleep," she said, looking at them with expectant eyes.
+
+Samoylov's companion took off his hat, and breathing heavily and
+hoarsely said in a friendly basso, like an old acquaintance, giving her
+his broad, short-fingered hand:
+
+"Good evening, granny! You don't recognize me?"
+
+"Is it you?" exclaimed Nilovna, with a sudden access of delight. "Yegor
+Ivanovich?"
+
+"The very same identical one!" replied he, bowing his large head with
+its long hair. There was a good-natured smile on his face, and a clear,
+caressing look in his small gray eyes. He was like a samovar--rotund,
+short, with thick neck and short arms. His face was shiny and glossy,
+with high cheek bones. He breathed noisily, and his chest kept up a
+continuous low wheeze.
+
+"Step into the room. I'll be dressed in a minute," the mother said.
+
+"We have come to you on business," said Samoylov thoughtfully, looking
+at her out of the corner of his eyes.
+
+Yegor Ivanovich passed into the room, and from there said:
+
+"Nikolay got out of jail this morning, granny. You know him?"
+
+"How long was he there?" she asked.
+
+"Five months and eleven days. He saw the Little Russian there, who sends
+you his regards, and Pavel, who also sends you his regards and begs you
+not to be alarmed. As a man travels on his way, he says, the jails
+constitute his resting places, established and maintained by the
+solicitous authorities! Now, granny, let us get to the point. Do you
+know how many people were arrested yesterday?"
+
+"I do not. Why, were there any others arrested besides Pavel?" she
+exclaimed.
+
+"He was the forty-ninth!" calmly interjected Yegor Ivanovich. "And we
+may expect about ten more to be taken! This gentleman here, for
+example."
+
+"Yes; me, too!" said Samoylov with a frown.
+
+Nilovna somehow felt relieved.
+
+"He isn't there alone," she thought.
+
+When she had dressed herself, she entered the room and, smiling bravely,
+said:
+
+"I guess they won't detain them long, if they arrested so many."
+
+"You are right," assented Yegor Ivanovich; "and if we can manage to
+spoil this mess for them, we can make them look altogether like fools.
+This is the way it is, granny. If we were now to cease smuggling our
+literature into the factory, the gendarmes would take advantage of such
+a regrettable circumstance, and would use it against Pavel and his
+comrades in jail."
+
+"How is that? Why should they?" the mother cried in alarm.
+
+"It's very plain, granny," said Yegor Ivanovich softly. "Sometimes even
+gendarmes reason correctly. Just think! Pavel was, and there were books
+and there were papers; Pavel is not, and no books and no papers! Ergo,
+it was Pavel who distributed these books! Aha! Then they'll begin to eat
+them all alive. Those gendarmes dearly love so to unman a man that what
+remains of him is only a shred of himself, and a touching memory."
+
+"I see, I see," said the mother dejectedly. "O God! What's to be done,
+then?"
+
+"They have trapped them all, the devil take them!" came Samoylov's voice
+from the kitchen. "Now we must continue our work the same as before, and
+not only for the cause itself, but also to save our comrades!"
+
+"And there is no one to do the work," added Yegor, smiling. "We have
+first-rate literature. I saw to that myself. But how to get it into the
+factory, that's the question!"
+
+"They search everybody at the gates now," said Samoylov.
+
+The mother divined that something was expected of her. She understood
+that she could be useful to her son, and she hastened to ask:
+
+"Well, now? What are we to do?"
+
+Samoylov stood in the doorway to answer.
+
+"Pelagueya Nilovna, you know Marya Korsunova, the peddler."
+
+"I do. Well?"
+
+"Speak to her; see if you can't get her to smuggle in our wares."
+
+"We could pay her, you know," interjected Yegor.
+
+The mother waved her hands in negation.
+
+"Oh, no! The woman is a chatterbox. No! If they find out it comes from
+me, from this house--oh, no!"
+
+Then, inspired by a sudden idea, she began gladly and in a low voice:
+
+"Give it to me, give it to me. I'll manage it myself. I'll find a way. I
+will ask Marya to make me her assistant. I have to earn my living, I
+have to work. Don't I? Well, then, I'll carry dinners to the factory.
+Yes, I'll manage it!"
+
+Pressing her hands to her bosom, she gave hurried assurances that she
+would carry out her mission well and escape detection. Finally she
+exclaimed in triumph: "They'll find out--Pavel Vlasov is away, but his
+arm reaches out even from jail. They'll find out!"
+
+All three became animated. Briskly rubbing his hands, Yegor smiled and
+said:
+
+"It's wonderful, stupendous! I say, granny, it's superb--simply
+magnificent!"
+
+"I'll sit in jail as in an armchair, if this succeeds," said Samoylov,
+laughing and rubbing his hands.
+
+"You are fine, granny!" Yegor hoarsely cried.
+
+The mother smiled. It was evident to her that if the leaflets should
+continue to appear in the factory, the authorities would be forced to
+recognize that it was not her son who distributed them. And feeling
+assured of success, she began to quiver all over with joy.
+
+"When you go to see Pavel," said Yegor, "tell him he has a good mother."
+
+"I'll see him very soon, I assure you," said Samoylov, smiling.
+
+The mother grasped his hand and said earnestly:
+
+"Tell him that I'll do everything, everything necessary. I want him to
+know it."
+
+"And suppose they don't put him in prison?" asked Yegor, pointing at
+Samoylov.
+
+The mother sighed and said sadly:
+
+"Well, then, it can't be helped!"
+
+Both of them burst out laughing. And when she realized her ridiculous
+blunder, she also began to laugh in embarrassment, and lowering her eyes
+said somewhat slyly:
+
+"Bothering about your own folk keeps you from seeing other people
+straight."
+
+"That's natural!" exclaimed Yegor. "And as to Pavel, you need not worry
+about him. He'll come out of prison a still better man. The prison is
+our place of rest and study--things we have no time for when we are at
+large. I was in prison three times, and each time, although I got scant
+pleasure, I certainly derived benefit for my heart and mind."
+
+"You breathe with difficulty," she said, looking affectionately at his
+open face.
+
+"There are special reasons for that," he replied, raising his finger.
+"So the matter's settled, granny? Yes? To-morrow we'll deliver the
+matter to you--and the wheels that grind the centuried darkness to
+destruction will again start a-rolling. Long live free speech! And long
+live a mother's heart! And in the meantime, good-by."
+
+"Good-by," said Samoylov, giving her a vigorous handshake. "To my
+mother, I don't dare even hint about such matters. Oh, no!"
+
+"Everybody will understand in time," said Nilovna, wishing to please
+him. "Everybody will understand."
+
+When they left, she locked the door, and kneeling in the middle of the
+room began to pray, to the accompaniment of the patter of the rain. It
+was a prayer without words, one great thought of men, of all those
+people whom Pavel introduced into her life. It was as if they passed
+between her and the ikons upon which she held her eyes riveted. And they
+all looked so simple, so strangely near to one another, yet so lone in
+life.
+
+Early next morning the mother went to Marya Korsunova. The peddler,
+noisy and greasy as usual, greeted her with friendly sympathy.
+
+"You are grieving?" Marya asked, patting the mother on the back. "Now,
+don't. They just took him, carried him off. Where is the calamity? There
+is no harm in it. It used to be that men were thrown into dungeons for
+stealing, now they are there for telling the truth. Pavel may have said
+something wrong, but he stood up for all, and they all know it. Don't
+worry! They don't all say so, but they all know a good man when they see
+him. I was going to call on you right along, but had no time. I am
+always cooking and selling, but will end my days a beggar, I guess, all
+the same. My needs get the best of me, confound them! They keep nibbling
+and nibbling like mice at a piece of cheese. No sooner do I manage to
+scrape together ten rubles or so, when along comes some heathen, and
+makes away with all my money. Yes. It's hard to be a woman! It's a
+wretched business! To live alone is hard, to live with anyone, still
+harder!"
+
+"And I came to ask you to take me as your assistant," Vlasova broke in,
+interrupting her prattle.
+
+"How is that?" asked Marya. And after hearing her friend's explanation,
+she nodded her head assentingly.
+
+"That's possible! You remember how you used to hide me from my husband?
+Well, now I am going to hide you from want. Everyone ought to help you,
+for your son is perishing for the public cause. He is a fine chap, your
+son is! They all say so, every blessed soul of them. And they all pity
+him. I'll tell you something. No good is going to come to the
+authorities from these arrests, mark my word! Look what's going on in
+the factory! Hear them talk! They are in an ugly mood, my dear! The
+officials imagine that when they've bitten at a man's heel, he won't be
+able to go far. But it turns out that when ten men are hit, a hundred
+men get angry. A workman must be handled with care! He may go on
+patiently enduring and suffering everything that's heaped upon him for a
+long, long time, but then he can also explode all of a sudden!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+
+The upshot of the conversation was that the next day at noon the mother
+was seen in the factory yard with two pots of eatables from Marya's
+culinary establishment, while Marya herself transferred her base of
+operations to the market place.
+
+The workmen immediately noticed their new caterer. Some of them
+approached her and said approvingly:
+
+"Gone into business, Nilovna?"
+
+They comforted her, arguing that Pavel would certainly be released soon
+because his cause was a good one. Others filled her sad heart with alarm
+by their cautious condolence, while still others awoke a responsive echo
+in her by openly and bitterly abusing the manager and the gendarmes.
+Some there were who looked at her with a vindictive expression, among
+them Isay Gorbov, who, speaking through his teeth, said:
+
+"If I were the governor, I would have your son hanged! Let him not
+mislead the people!"
+
+This vicious threat went through her like the chill blast of death. She
+made no reply, glanced at his small, freckled face, and with a sigh cast
+down her eyes.
+
+She observed considerable agitation in the factory; the workmen gathered
+in small groups and talked in an undertone, with great animation; the
+foremen walked about with careworn faces, poking their noses into
+everything; here and there were heard angry oaths and irritated
+laughter.
+
+Two policemen escorted Samoylov past her. He walked with one hand in his
+pocket, the other smoothing his red hair.
+
+A crowd of about a hundred workmen followed him, and plied the policemen
+with oaths and banter.
+
+"Going to take a promenade, Grisha?" shouted one.
+
+"They do honor to us fellows!" chimed in another.
+
+"When we go to promenading, we have a bodyguard to escort us," said a
+third, and uttered a harsh oath.
+
+"It does not seem to pay any longer to catch thieves!" exclaimed a tall,
+one-eyed workingman in a loud, bitter voice. "So they take to arresting
+honest people."
+
+"They don't even do it at night!" broke in another. "They come and drag
+them away in broad daylight, without shame, the impudent scoundrels!"
+
+The policemen walked on rapidly and sullenly, trying to avoid the sight
+of the crowd, and feigning not to hear the angry exclamations showered
+upon them from all sides. Three workmen carrying a big iron bar happened
+to come in front of them, and thrusting the bar against them, shouted:
+
+"Look out there, fishermen!"
+
+As he passed Nilovna, Samoylov nodded to her, and smiling, said:
+
+"Behold, this is Gregory, the servant of God, being arrested."
+
+She made a low bow to him in silence. These men, so young, sober, and
+clever, who went to jail with a smile, moved her, and she unconsciously
+felt for them the pitying affection of a mother. It pleased her to hear
+the sharp comments leveled against the authorities. She saw therein her
+son's influence.
+
+Leaving the factory, she passed the remainder of the day at Marya's
+house, assisting her in her work, and listening to her chatter. Late in
+the evening she returned home and found it bare, chilly and
+disagreeable. She moved about from corner to corner, unable to find a
+resting place, and not knowing what to do with herself. Night was fast
+approaching, and she grew worried, because Yegor Ivanovich had not yet
+come and brought her the literature which he had promised.
+
+Behind the window, gray, heavy flakes of spring snow fluttered and
+settled softly and noiselessly upon the pane. Sliding down and melting,
+they left a watery track in their course. The mother thought of her son.
+
+A cautious rap was heard. She rushed to the door, lifted the latch, and
+admitted Sashenka. She had not seen her for a long while, and the first
+thing that caught her eye was the girl's unnatural stoutness.
+
+"Good evening!" she said, happy to have a visitor at such a time, to
+relieve her solitude for a part of the night. "You haven't been around
+for a long while! Were you away?"
+
+"No, I was in prison," replied the girl, smiling, "with Nikolay
+Ivanovich. Do you remember him?"
+
+"I should think I do!" exclaimed the mother. "Yegor Ivanovich told me
+yesterday that he had been released, but I knew nothing about you.
+Nobody told me that you were there."
+
+"What's the good of telling? I should like to change my dress before
+Yegor Ivanovich comes!" said the girl, looking around.
+
+"You are all wet."
+
+"I've brought the booklets."
+
+"Give them here, give them to me!" cried the mother impatiently.
+
+"Directly," replied the girl. She untied her skirt and shook it, and
+like leaves from a tree, down fluttered a lot of thin paper parcels on
+the floor around her. The mother picked them up, laughing, and said:
+
+"I was wondering what made you so stout. Oh, what a heap of them you
+have brought! Did you come on foot?"
+
+"Yes," said Sashenka. She was again her graceful, slender self. The
+mother noticed that her cheeks were shrunken, and that dark rings were
+under her unnaturally large eyes.
+
+"You are just out of prison. You ought to rest, and there you are
+carrying a load like that for seven versts!" said the mother, sighing
+and shaking her head.
+
+"It's got to be done!" said the girl. "Tell me, how is Pavel? Did he
+stand it all right? He wasn't very much worried, was he?" Sashenka asked
+the question without looking at the mother. She bent her head and her
+fingers trembled as she arranged her hair.
+
+"All right," replied the mother. "You can rest assured he won't betray
+himself."
+
+"How strong he is!" murmured the girl quietly.
+
+"He has never been sick," replied the mother. "Why, you are all in a
+shiver! I'll get you some tea, and some raspberry jam."
+
+"That's fine!" exclaimed the girl with a faint smile. "But don't you
+trouble! It's too late. Let me do it myself."
+
+"What! Tired as you are?" the mother reproached her, hurrying into the
+kitchen, where she busied herself with the samovar. The girl followed
+into the kitchen, sat down on the bench, and folded her hands behind her
+head before she replied:
+
+"Yes, I'm very tired! After all, the prison makes one weak. The awful
+thing about it is the enforced inactivity. There is nothing more
+tormenting. We stay a week, five weeks. We know how much there is to be
+done. The people are waiting for knowledge. We're in a position to
+satisfy their wants, and there we are locked up in a cage like animals!
+That's what is so trying, that's what dries up the heart!"
+
+"Who will reward you for all this?" asked the mother; and with a sigh
+she answered the question herself. "No one but God! Of course you don't
+believe in Him either?"
+
+"No!" said the girl briefly, shaking her head.
+
+"And I don't believe you!" the mother ejaculated in a sudden burst of
+excitement. Quickly wiping her charcoal-blackened hands on her apron she
+continued, with deep conviction in her voice:
+
+"You don't understand your own faith! How could you live the kind of
+life you are living, without faith in God?"
+
+A loud stamping of feet and a murmur of voices were heard on the porch.
+The mother started; the girl quickly rose to her feet, and whispered
+hurriedly:
+
+"Don't open the door! If it's the gendarmes, you don't know me. I walked
+into the wrong house, came here by accident, fainted away, you undressed
+me, and found the books around me. You understand?"
+
+"Why, my dear, what for?" asked the mother tenderly.
+
+"Wait a while!" said Sashenka listening. "I think it's Yegor."
+
+It was Yegor, wet and out of breath.
+
+"Aha! The samovar!" he cried. "That's the best thing in life, granny!
+You here already, Sashenka?"
+
+His hoarse voice filled the little kitchen. He slowly removed his heavy
+ulster, talking all the time.
+
+"Here, granny, is a girl who is a thorn in the flesh of the police!
+Insulted by the overseer of the prison, she declared that she would
+starve herself to death if he did not ask her pardon. And for eight days
+she went without eating, and came within a hair's breadth of dying. It's
+not bad! She must have a mighty strong little stomach."
+
+"Is it possible you took no food for eight days in succession?" asked
+the mother in amazement.
+
+"I had to get him to beg my pardon," answered the girl with a stoical
+shrug of her shoulders. Her composure and her stern persistence seemed
+almost like a reproach to the mother.
+
+"And suppose you had died?" she asked again.
+
+"Well, what can one do?" the girl said quietly. "He did beg my pardon
+after all. One ought never to forgive an insult, never!"
+
+"Ye-es!" responded the mother slowly. "Here are we women who are
+insulted all our lives long."
+
+"I have unloaded myself!" announced Yegor from the other room. "Is the
+samovar ready? Let me take it in!"
+
+He lifted the samovar and talked as he carried it.
+
+"My own father used to drink not less than twenty glasses of tea a day,
+wherefor his days upon earth were long, peaceful, and strong; for he
+lived to be seventy-three years old, never having suffered from any
+ailment whatsoever. In weight he reached the respectable figure of three
+hundred and twenty pounds, and by profession he was a sexton in the
+village of Voskresensk."
+
+"Are you Ivan's son?" exclaimed the mother.
+
+"I am that very mortal. How did you know his name?"
+
+"Why, I am a Voskresenskian myself!"
+
+"A fellow countrywoman! Who were your people?"
+
+"Your neighbors. I am a Sereguin."
+
+"Are you a daughter of Nil the Lame? I thought your face was familiar!
+Why, I had my ears pulled by him many and many a time!"
+
+They stood face to face plying each other with questions and laughing.
+Sashenka looked at them and smiled, and began to prepare the tea. The
+clatter of the dishes recalled the mother to the realities of the
+present.
+
+"Oh, excuse me! I quite forgot myself, talking about old times. It is so
+sweet to recall your youth."
+
+"It's I who ought to beg your pardon for carrying on like this in your
+house!" said Sashenka. "But it is eleven o'clock already, and I have so
+far to go."
+
+"Go where? To the city?" the mother asked in surprise.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"What are you talking about! It's dark and wet, and you are so tired.
+Stay here overnight. Yegor Ivanovich will sleep in the kitchen, and you
+and I here."
+
+"No, I must go," said the girl simply.
+
+"Yes, countrywoman, she must go. The young lady must disappear. It would
+be bad if she were to be seen on the street to-morrow."
+
+"But how can she go? By herself?"
+
+"By herself," said Yegor, laughing.
+
+The girl poured tea for herself, took a piece of rye bread, salted it,
+and started to eat, looking at the mother contemplatively.
+
+"How can you go that way? Both you and Natasha. I wouldn't. I'm afraid!"
+
+"She's afraid, too," said Yegor. "Aren't you afraid, Sasha?"
+
+"Of course!"
+
+The mother looked at her, then at Yegor, and said in a low voice, "What
+strange----"
+
+"Give me a glass of tea, granny," Yegor interrupted her.
+
+When Sashenka had drunk her glass of tea, she pressed Yegor's hand in
+silence, and walked out into the kitchen. The mother followed her. In
+the kitchen Sashenka said:
+
+"When you see Pavel, give him my regards, please." And taking hold of
+the latch, she suddenly turned around, and asked in a low voice: "May I
+kiss you?"
+
+The mother embraced her in silence, and kissed her warmly.
+
+"Thank you!" said the girl, and nodding her head, walked out.
+
+Returning to the room, the mother peered anxiously through the window.
+Wet flakes of snow fluttered through the dense, moist darkness.
+
+"And do you remember Prozorov, the storekeeper?" asked Yegor. "He used
+to sit with his feet sprawling, and blow noisily into his glass of tea.
+He had a red, satisfied, sweet-covered face."
+
+"I remember, I remember," said the mother, coming back to the table. She
+sat down, and looking at Yegor with a mournful expression in her eyes,
+she spoke pityingly: "Poor Sashenka! How will she ever get to the city?"
+
+"She will be very much worn out," Yegor agreed. "The prison has shaken
+her health badly. She was stronger before. Besides, she has had a
+delicate bringing up. It seems to me she has already ruined her lungs.
+There is something in her face that reminds one of consumption."
+
+"Who is she?"
+
+"The daughter of a landlord. Her father is a rich man and a big
+scoundrel, according to what she says. I suppose you know, granny, that
+they want to marry?"
+
+"Who?"
+
+"She and Pavel. Yes, indeed! But so far they have not yet been able.
+When he is free, she is in prison, and _vice versa_." Yegor laughed.
+
+"I didn't know it!" the mother replied after a pause. "Pasha never
+speaks about himself."
+
+Now she felt a still greater pity for the girl, and looking at her guest
+with involuntary hostility, she said:
+
+"You ought to have seen her home."
+
+"Impossible!" Yegor answered calmly. "I have a heap of work to do here,
+and the whole day to-morrow, from early morning, I shall have to walk
+and walk and walk. No easy job, considering my asthma."
+
+"She's a fine girl!" said the mother, vaguely thinking of what Yegor had
+told her. She felt hurt that the news should have come to her, not from
+her son, but from a stranger, and she pressed her lips together tightly,
+and lowered her eyebrows.
+
+"Yes, a fine girl!" Yegor nodded assent. "There's a bit of the
+noblewoman in her yet, but it's growing less and less all the time. You
+are sorry for her, I see. What's the use? You won't find heart enough,
+if you start to grieve for all of us rebels, granny dear. Life is not
+made very easy for us, I admit. There, for instance, is the case of a
+friend of mine who returned a short while ago from exile. When he went
+through Novgorod, his wife and child awaited him in Smolensk, and when
+he arrived in Smolensk, they were already in prison in Moscow. Now it's
+the wife's turn to go to Siberia. To be a revolutionary and to be
+married is a very inconvenient arrangement--inconvenient for the
+husband, inconvenient for the wife and in the end for the cause also! I,
+too, had a wife, an excellent woman, but five years of this kind of life
+landed her in the grave."
+
+He emptied the glass of tea at one gulp, and continued his narrative. He
+enumerated the years and months he had passed in prison and in exile,
+told of various accidents and misfortunes, of the slaughters in prisons,
+and of hunger in Siberia. The mother looked at him, listened with
+wonderment to the simple way in which he spoke of this life, so full of
+suffering, of persecution, of wrong, and abuse of men.
+
+"Well, let's get down to business!"
+
+His voice changed, and his face grew more serious. He asked questions
+about the way in which the mother intended to smuggle the literature
+into the factory, and she marveled at his clear knowledge of all the
+details.
+
+Then they returned to reminiscences of their native village. He joked,
+and her mind roved thoughtfully through her past. It seemed to her
+strangely like a quagmire uniformly strewn with hillocks, which were
+covered with poplars trembling in constant fear; with low firs, and with
+white birches straying between the hillocks. The birches grew slowly,
+and after standing for five years on the unstable, putrescent soil, they
+dried up, fell down, and rotted away. She looked at this picture, and a
+vague feeling of insufferable sadness overcame her. The figure of a girl
+with a sharp, determined face stood before her. Now the figure walks
+somewhere in the darkness amid the snowflakes, solitary, weary. And her
+son sits in a little cell, with iron gratings over the window. Perhaps
+he is not yet asleep, and is thinking. But he is thinking not of his
+mother. He has one nearer to him than herself. Heavy, chaotic thoughts,
+like a tangled mass of clouds, crept over her, and encompassed her and
+oppressed her bosom.
+
+"You are tired, granny! Let's go to bed!" said Yegor, smiling.
+
+She bade him good night, and sidled carefully into the kitchen, carrying
+away a bitter, caustic feeling in her heart.
+
+In the morning, after breakfast, Yegor asked her:
+
+"Suppose they catch you and ask you where you got all these heretical
+books from. What will you say?"
+
+"I'll say, 'It's none of your business!'" she answered, smiling.
+
+"You'll never convince them of that!" Yegor replied confidently. "On the
+contrary, they are profoundly convinced that this is precisely their
+business. They will question you very, very diligently, and very, very
+long!"
+
+"I won't tell, though!"
+
+"They'll put you in prison!"
+
+"Well, what of it? Thank God that I am good at least for that," she said
+with a sigh. "Thank God! Who needs me? Nobody!"
+
+"H'm!" said Yegor, fixing his look upon her. "A good person ought to
+take care of himself."
+
+"I couldn't learn that from you, even if I were good," the mother
+replied, laughing.
+
+Yegor was silent, and paced up and down the room; then he walked up to
+her and said: "This is hard, countrywoman! I feel it, it's very hard for
+you!"
+
+"It's hard for everybody," she answered, with a wave of her hand. "Maybe
+only for those who understand, it's easier. But I understand a little,
+too. I understand what it is the good people want."
+
+"If you do understand, granny, then it means that everybody needs you,
+everybody!" said Yegor earnestly and solemnly.
+
+She looked at him and laughed without saying anything.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+
+At noon, calmly and in a businesslike way she put the books around her
+bosom, and so skillfully and snugly that Yegor announced, smacking his
+lips with satisfaction:
+
+"_Sehr gut!_ as the German says when he has drunk a keg of beer.
+Literature has not changed you, granny. You still remain the good, tall,
+portly, elderly woman. May all the numberless gods grant you their
+blessings on your enterprise!"
+
+Within half an hour she stood at the factory gate, bent with the weight
+of her burden, calm and assured. Two guards, irritated by the oaths and
+raillery of the workingmen, examined all who entered the gate, handling
+them roughly and swearing at them. A policeman and a thin-legged man
+with a red face and alert eyes stood at one side. The mother, shifting
+the rod resting on her shoulders, with a pail suspended from either end
+of it, watched the man from the corner of her eye. She divined that he
+was a spy.
+
+A tall, curly-headed fellow with his hat thrown back over his neck,
+cried to the guardsmen who searched him:
+
+"Search the head and not the pockets, you devils!"
+
+"There is nothing but lice on your head," retorted one of the guardsmen.
+
+"Catching lice is an occupation more suited to you than hunting human
+game!" rejoined the workman. The spy scanned him with a rapid glance.
+
+"Will you let me in?" asked the mother. "See, I'm bent double with my
+heavy load. My back is almost breaking."
+
+"Go in! Go in!" cried the guard sullenly. "She comes with arguments,
+too."
+
+The mother walked to her place, set her pails on the ground, and wiping
+the perspiration from her face looked around her.
+
+The Gusev brothers, the locksmiths, instantly came up to her, and the
+older of them, Vasily, asked aloud, knitting his eyebrows:
+
+"Got any pirogs?"
+
+"I'll bring them to-morrow," she answered.
+
+This was the password agreed upon. The faces of the brothers brightened.
+Ivan, unable to restrain himself, exclaimed:
+
+"Oh, you jewel of a mother!"
+
+Vasily squatted down on his heels, looked into the pot, and a bundle of
+books disappeared into his bosom.
+
+"Ivan!" he said aloud. "Let's not go home, let's get our dinner here
+from her!" And he quickly shoved the books into the legs of his boots.
+"We must give our new peddler a lift, don't you think so?"
+
+"Yes, indeed!" Ivan assented, and laughed aloud.
+
+The mother looked carefully about her, and called out:
+
+"Sour cabbage soup! Hot vermicelli soup! Roast meat!"
+
+Then deftly and secretly taking out one package of books after the
+other, she shoved them into the hands of the brothers. Each time a
+bundle disappeared from her hands, the sickly, sneering face of the
+officer of gendarmes flashed up before her like a yellow stain, like the
+flame of a match in a dark room, and she said to him in her mind, with a
+feeling of malicious pleasure:
+
+"Take this, sir!" And when she handed over the last package she added
+with an air of satisfaction: "And here is some more, take it!"
+
+[Illustration: "Taking out one package of books after the other, she
+shoved them into the hands of the brothers."]
+
+Workmen came up to her with cups in their hands, and when they were near
+Ivan and Vasily, they began to laugh aloud. The mother calmly suspended
+the transfer of the books, and poured sour soup and vermicelli soup,
+while the Gusevs joked her.
+
+"How cleverly Nilovna does her work!"
+
+"Necessity drives one even to catching mice," remarked a stoker
+somberly. "They have snatched away your breadgiver, the scoundrels!
+Well, give us three cents' worth of vermicelli. Never mind, mother!
+You'll pull through!"
+
+"Thanks for the good word!" she returned, smiling.
+
+He walked off to one side and mumbled, "It doesn't cost me much to say a
+good word!"
+
+"But there's no one to say it to!" observed a blacksmith, with a smile,
+and shrugging his shoulders in surprise added: "There's a life for you,
+fellows! There's no one to say a good word to; no one is worth it. Yes,
+sir!"
+
+Vasily Gusev rose, wrapped his coat tightly around him, and exclaimed:
+
+"What I ate was hot, and yet I feel cold."
+
+Then he walked away. Ivan also rose, and ran off whistling merrily.
+
+Cheerful and smiling, Nilovna kept on calling her wares:
+
+"Hot! Hot! Sour soup! Vermicelli soup! Porridge!"
+
+She thought of how she would tell her son about her first experience;
+and the yellow face of the officer was still standing before her,
+perplexed and spiteful. His black mustache twitched uneasily, and his
+upper lip turned up nervously, showing the gleaming white enamel of his
+clenched teeth. A keen joy beat and sang in her heart like a bird, her
+eyebrows quivered, and continuing deftly to serve her customers she
+muttered to herself:
+
+"There's more! There's more!"
+
+Through the whole day she felt a sensation of delightful newness which
+embraced her heart as with a fondling caress. And in the evening, when
+she had concluded her work at Marya's house, and was drinking tea, the
+splash of horses' hoofs in the mud was heard, and the call of a familiar
+voice. She jumped up, hurried into the kitchen, and made straight for
+the door. Somebody walked quickly through the porch; her eyes grew dim,
+and leaning against the doorpost, she pushed the door open with her
+foot.
+
+"Good evening, mother!" a familiar, melodious voice rang out, and a pair
+of dry, long hands were laid on her shoulders.
+
+The joy of seeing Andrey was mingled in her bosom with the sadness of
+disappointment; and the two contrary feelings blended into one burning
+sensation which embraced her like a hot wave. She buried her face in
+Andrey's bosom. He pressed her tightly to himself, his hands trembled.
+The mother wept quietly without speaking, while he stroked her hair, and
+spoke in his musical voice:
+
+"Don't cry, mother. Don't wring my heart. Upon my honest word, they will
+let him out soon! They haven't a thing against him; all the boys will
+keep quiet as cooked fish."
+
+Putting his long arm around the mother's shoulders he led her into the
+room, and nestling up against him with the quick gesture of a squirrel,
+she wiped the tears from her face, while her heart greedily drank in his
+tender words.
+
+"Pavel sends you his love. He is as well and cheerful as can be. It's
+very crowded in the prison. They have thrown in more than a hundred of
+our people, both from here and from the city. Three and four persons
+have been put into one cell. The prison officials are rather a good set.
+They are exhausted with the quantity of work the gendarmes have been
+giving them. The prison authorities are not extremely rigorous, they
+don't order you about roughly. They simply say: 'Be quiet as you can,
+gentlemen. Don't put us in an awkward position!' So everything goes
+well. We talk with one another, we give books to one another, and we
+share our food. It's a good prison! Old and dirty, but so soft and so
+light. The criminals are also nice people; they help us a good deal.
+Bukin, four others, and myself were released. It got too crowded.
+They'll let Pavel go soon, too. I'm telling you the truth, believe me.
+Vyesovshchikov will be detained the longest. They are very angry at him.
+He scolds and swears at everybody all the time. The gendarmes can't bear
+to look at him. I guess he'll get himself into court, or receive a sound
+thrashing some day. Pavel tries to dissuade him. 'Stop, Nikolay!' he
+says to him. 'Your swearing won't reform them.' But he bawls: 'Wipe them
+off the face of the earth like a pest!' Pavel conducts himself finely
+out there; he treats all alike, and is as firm as a rock! They'll soon
+let him go."
+
+"Soon?" said the mother, relieved now and smiling. "I know he'll be let
+out soon!"
+
+"Well, if you know, it's all right! Give me tea, mother. Tell me how
+you've been, how you've passed your time."
+
+He looked at her, smiling all over, and seemed so near to her, such a
+splendid fellow. A loving, somewhat melancholy gleam flashed from the
+depths of his round, blue eyes.
+
+"I love you dearly, Andriusha!" the mother said, heaving a deep sigh, as
+she looked at his thin face grotesquely covered with tufts of hair.
+
+"People are satisfied with little from me! I know you love me; you are
+capable of loving everybody; you have a great heart," said the Little
+Russian, rocking in his chair, his eyes straying about the room.
+
+"No, I love you very differently!" insisted the mother. "If you had a
+mother, people would envy her because she had such a son."
+
+The Little Russian swayed his head, and rubbed it vigorously with both
+hands.
+
+"I have a mother, somewhere!" he said in a low voice.
+
+"Do you know what I did to-day?" she exclaimed, and reddening a little,
+her voice choking with satisfaction, she quickly recounted how she had
+smuggled literature into the factory.
+
+For a moment he looked at her in amazement with his eyes wide open; then
+he burst out into a loud guffaw, stamped his feet, thumped his head with
+his fingers, and cried joyously:
+
+"Oho! That's no joke any more! That's business! Won't Pavel be glad,
+though! Oh, you're a trump. That's good, mother! You have no idea _how_
+good it is! Both for Pavel and all who were arrested with him!"
+
+He snapped his fingers in ecstasy, whistled, and fairly doubled over,
+all radiant with joy. His delight evoked a vigorous response from the
+mother.
+
+"My dear, my Andriusha!" she began, as if her heart had burst open, and
+gushed over merrily with a limpid stream of living words full of serene
+joy. "I've thought all my life, 'Lord Christ in heaven! what did I live
+for?' Beatings, work! I saw nothing except my husband. I knew nothing
+but fear! And how Pasha grew I did not see, and I hardly know whether I
+loved him when my husband was alive. All my concerns, all my thoughts
+were centered upon one thing--to feed my beast, to propitiate the master
+of my life with enough food, pleasing to his palate, and served on time,
+so as not to incur his displeasure, so as to escape the terrors of a
+beating, to get him to spare me but once! But I do not remember that he
+ever did spare me. He beat me so--not as a wife is beaten, but as one
+whom you hate and detest. Twenty years I lived like that, and what was
+up to the time of my marriage I do not recall. I remember certain
+things, but I see nothing! I am as a blind person. Yegor Ivanovich was
+here--we are from the same village--and he spoke about this and about
+that. I remember the houses, the people, but how they lived, what they
+spoke about, what happened to this one and what to that one--I forget, I
+do not see! I remember fires--two fires. It seems that everything has
+been beaten out of me, that my soul has been locked up and sealed tight.
+It's grown blind, it does not hear!"
+
+Her quick-drawn breath was almost a sob. She bent forward, and continued
+in a lowered voice: "When my husband died I turned to my son; but he
+went into this business, and I was seized with a pity for him, such a
+yearning pity--for if he should perish, how was I to live alone? What
+dread, what fright I have undergone! My heart was rent when I thought of
+his fate.
+
+"Our woman's love is not a pure love! We love that which we need. And
+here are you! You are grieving about your mother. What do you want her
+for? And all the others go and suffer for the people, they go to prison,
+to Siberia, they die for them, many are hung. Young girls walk alone at
+night, in the snow, in the mud, in the rain. They walk seven versts from
+the city to our place. Who drives them? Who pursues them? They love! You
+see, theirs is pure love! They believe! Yes, indeed, they believe,
+Andriusha! But here am I--I can't love like that! I love my own, the
+near ones!"
+
+"Yes, you can!" said the Little Russian, and turning away his face from
+her, he rubbed his head, face, and eyes vigorously as was his wont.
+"Everybody loves those who are near," he continued. "To a large heart,
+what is far is also near. You, mother, are capable of a great deal. You
+have a large capacity of motherliness!"
+
+"God grant it!" she said quietly. "I feel that it is good to live like
+that! Here are you, for instance, whom I love. Maybe I love you better
+than I do Pasha. He is always so silent. Here he wants to get married to
+Sashenka, for example, and he never told me, his mother, a thing about
+it."
+
+"That's not true," the Little Russian retorted abruptly. "I know it
+isn't true. It's true he loves her, and she loves him. But marry? No,
+they are not going to marry! She'd want to, but Pavel--he can't! He
+doesn't want to!"
+
+"See how you are!" said the mother quietly, and she fixed her eyes sadly
+and musingly on the Little Russian's face. "You see how you are! You
+offer up your own selves!"
+
+"Pavel is a rare man!" the Little Russian uttered in a low voice. "He is
+a man of iron!"
+
+"Now he sits in prison," continued the mother reflectively. "It's awful,
+it's terrible! It's not as it used to be before! Life altogether is not
+as it used to be, and the terror is different from the old terror. You
+feel a pity for everybody, and you are alarmed for everybody! And the
+heart is different. The soul has opened its eyes, it looks on, and is
+sad and glad at the same time. There's much I do not understand, and I
+feel so bitter and hurt that you do not believe in the Lord God. Well, I
+guess I can't help that! But I see and know that you are good people.
+And you have consecrated yourselves to a stern life for the sake of the
+people, to a life of hardship for the sake of truth. The truth you stand
+for, I comprehend: as long as there will be the rich, the people will
+get nothing, neither truth nor happiness, nothing! Indeed, that's so,
+Andriusha! Here am I living among you, while all this is going on.
+Sometimes at night my thoughts wander off to my past. I think of my
+youthful strength trampled under foot, of my young heart torn and
+beaten, and I feel sorry for myself and embittered. But for all that I
+live better now, I see myself more and more, I feel myself more."
+
+The Little Russian arose, and trying not to scrape with his feet, began
+to walk carefully up and down the room, tall, lean, absorbed in thought.
+
+"Well said!" he exclaimed in a low voice. "Very well! There was a young
+Jew in Kerch who wrote verses, and once he wrote:
+
+   "And the innocently slain,
+    Truth will raise to life again.
+
+"He himself was killed by the police in Kerch, but that's not the point.
+He knew the truth and did a great deal to spread it among the people. So
+here you are one of the innocently slain. He spoke the truth!"
+
+"There, I am talking now," the mother continued. "I talk and do not hear
+myself, don't believe my own ears! All my life I was silent, I always
+thought of one thing--how to live through the day apart, how to pass it
+without being noticed, so that nobody should touch me! And now I think
+about everything. Maybe I don't understand your affairs so very well;
+but all are near me, I feel sorry for all, and I wish well to all. And
+to you, Andriusha, more than all the rest."
+
+He took her hand in his, pressed it tightly, and quickly turned aside.
+Fatigued with emotion and agitation, the mother leisurely and silently
+washed the cups; and her breast gently glowed with a bold feeling that
+warmed her heart.
+
+Walking up and down the room the Little Russian said:
+
+"Mother, why don't you sometimes try to befriend Vyesovshchikov and be
+kind to him? He is a fellow that needs it. His father sits in prison--a
+nasty little old man. Nikolay sometimes catches sight of him through the
+window and he begins to swear at him. That's bad, you know. He is a good
+fellow, Nikolay is. He is fond of dogs, mice, and all sorts of animals,
+but he does not like people. That's the pass to which a man can be
+brought."
+
+"His mother disappeared without a trace, his father is a thief and a
+drunkard," said Nilovna pensively.
+
+When Andrey left to go to bed, the mother, without being noticed, made
+the sign of the cross over him, and after about half an hour, she asked
+quietly, "Are you asleep, Andriusha?"
+
+"No. Why?"
+
+"Nothing! Good night!"
+
+"Thank you, mother, thank you!" he answered gently.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+
+The next day when Nilovna came up to the gates of the factory with her
+load, the guides stopped her roughly, and ordering her to put the pails
+down on the ground, made a careful examination.
+
+"My eatables will get cold," she observed calmly, as they felt around
+her dress.
+
+"Shut up!" said a guard sullenly.
+
+Another one, tapping her lightly on the shoulder, said with assurance:
+
+"Those books are thrown across the fence, I say!"
+
+Old man Sizov came up to her and looking around said in an undertone:
+
+"Did you hear, mother?"
+
+"What?"
+
+"About the pamphlets. They've appeared again. They've just scattered
+them all over like salt over bread. Much good those arrests and searches
+have done! My nephew Mazin has been hauled away to prison, your son's
+been taken. Now it's plain it isn't he!" And stroking his beard Sizov
+concluded, "It's not people, but thoughts, and thoughts are not fleas;
+you can't catch them!"
+
+He gathered his beard in his hand, looked at her, and said as he walked
+away:
+
+"Why don't you come to see me some time? I guess you are lonely all by
+yourself."
+
+She thanked him, and calling her wares, she sharply observed the unusual
+animation in the factory. The workmen were all elated, they formed
+little circles, then parted, and ran from one group to another. Animated
+voices and happy, satisfied faces all around! The soot-filled atmosphere
+was astir and palpitating with something bold and daring. Now here, now
+there, approving ejaculations were heard, mockery, and sometimes
+threats.
+
+"Aha! It seems truth doesn't agree with them," she heard one say.
+
+The younger men were in especially good spirits, while the elder workmen
+had cautious smiles on their faces. The authorities walked about with a
+troubled expression, and the police ran from place to place. When the
+workingmen saw them, they dispersed, and walked away slowly, or if they
+remained standing, they stopped their conversation, looking silently at
+the agitated, angry faces.
+
+The workingmen seemed for some reason to be all washed and clean. The
+figure of Gusev loomed high, and his brother stalked about like a drake,
+and roared with laughter. The joiner's foreman, Vavilov, and the record
+clerk, Isay, walked slowly past the mother. The little, wizened clerk,
+throwing up his head and turning his neck to the left, looked at the
+frowning face of the foreman, and said quickly, shaking his reddish
+beard:
+
+"They laugh, Ivan Ivanovich. It's fun to them. They are pleased,
+although it's no less a matter than the destruction of the government,
+as the manager said. What must be done here, Ivan Ivanovich, is not
+merely to weed but to plow!"
+
+Vavilov walked with his hands folded behind his back, and his fingers
+tightly clasped.
+
+"You print there what you please, you blackguards!" he cried aloud. "But
+don't you dare say a word about me!"
+
+Vasily Gusev came up to Nilovna and declared:
+
+"I am going to eat with you again. Is it good to-day?" And lowering his
+head and screwing up his eyes, he added in an undertone: "You see? It
+hit exactly! Good! Oh, mother, very good!"
+
+She nodded her head affably to him, flattered that Gusev, the sauciest
+fellow in the village, addressed her with a respectful plural "you," as
+he talked to her in secret. The general stir and animation in the
+factory also pleased her, and she thought to herself: "What would they
+do without me?"
+
+Three common laborers stopped at a short distance from her, and one of
+them said with disappointment in his voice: "I couldn't find any
+anywhere!"
+
+Another remarked: "I'd like to hear it, though. I can't read myself, but
+I understand it hits them just in the right place."
+
+The third man looked around him, and said: "Let's go into the boiler
+room. I'll read it for you there!"
+
+"It works!" Gusev whispered, a wink lurking in his eye.
+
+Nilovna came home in gay spirits. She had now seen for herself how
+people are moved by books.
+
+"The people down there are sorry they can't read," she said to Andrey,
+"and here am I who could when I was young, but have forgotten."
+
+"Learn over again, then," suggested the Little Russian.
+
+"At my age? What do you want to make fun of me for?"
+
+Andrey, however, took a book from the shelf and pointing with the tip of
+a knife at a letter on the cover, asked: "What's this?"
+
+"R," she answered, laughing.
+
+"And this?"
+
+"A."
+
+She felt awkward, hurt, and offended. It seemed to her that Andrey's
+eyes were laughing at her, and she avoided their look. But his voice
+sounded soft and calm in her ears. She looked askance at his face, once,
+and a second time. It was earnest and serious.
+
+"Do you really wish to teach me to read?" she asked with an involuntary
+smile.
+
+"Why not?" he responded. "Try! If you once knew how to read, it will
+come back to you easily. 'If no miracle it's no ill, and if a miracle
+better still!'"
+
+"But they say that one does not become a saint by looking at a sacred
+image!"
+
+"Eh," said the Little Russian, nodding his head. "There are proverbs
+galore! For example: 'The less you know, the better you sleep'--isn't
+that it? Proverbs are the material the stomach thinks with; it makes
+bridles for the soul, to be able to control it better. What the stomach
+needs is a rest, and the soul needs freedom. What letter is this?"
+
+"M."
+
+"Yes, see how it sprawls. And this?"
+
+Straining her eyes and moving her eyebrows heavily, she recalled with an
+effort the forgotten letters, and unconsciously yielding to the force of
+her exertions, she was carried away by them, and forgot herself. But
+soon her eyes grew tired. At first they became moist with tears of
+fatigue; and then tears of sorrow rapidly dropped down on the page.
+
+"I'm learning to read," she said, sobbing. "It's time for me to die, and
+I'm just learning to read!"
+
+"You mustn't cry," said the Little Russian gently. "It wasn't your fault
+you lived the way you did; and yet you understand that you lived badly.
+There are thousands of people who could live better than you, but who
+live like cattle and then boast of how well they live. But what is good
+in their lives? To-day, their day's work over, they eat, and to-morrow,
+their day's work over, they eat, and so on through all their years--work
+and eat, work and eat! Along with this they bring forth children, and at
+first amuse themselves with them, but when they, too, begin to eat much,
+they grow surly and scold: 'Come on, you gluttons! Hurry along! Grow up
+quick! It's time you get to work!' and they would like to make beasts of
+burden of their children. But the children begin to work for their own
+stomachs, and drag their lives along as a thief drags a worthless stolen
+mop. Their souls are never stirred with joy, never quickened with a
+thought that melts the heart. Some live like mendicants--always begging;
+some like thieves--always snatching out of the hands of others. They've
+made thieves' laws, placed men with sticks over the people, and said to
+them: 'Guard our laws; they are very convenient laws; they permit us to
+suck the blood out of the people!' They try to squeeze the people from
+the outside, but the people resist, and so they drive the rules inside
+so as to crush the reason, too."
+
+Leaning his elbows on the table and looking into the mother's face with
+pensive eyes, he continued in an even, flowing voice:
+
+"Only those are men who strike the chains from off man's body and from
+off his reason. And now you, too, are going into this work according to
+the best of your ability."
+
+"I? Now, now! How can I?"
+
+"Why not? It's just like rain. Every drop goes to nourish the seed! And
+when you are able to read, then--" He stopped and began to laugh; then
+rose and paced up and down the room.
+
+"Yes, you must learn to read! And when Pavel gets back, won't you
+surprise him, eh?"
+
+"Oh, Andriusha! For a young man everything is simple and easy! But when
+you have lived to my age, you have lots of trouble, little strength, and
+no mind at all left."
+
+In the evening the Little Russian went out. The mother lit a lamp and
+sat down at a table to knit stockings. But soon she rose again, walked
+irresolutely into the kitchen, bolted the outer door, and straining her
+eyebrows walked back into the living room. She pulled down the window
+curtains, and taking a book from the shelf, sat down at the table again,
+looked around, bent down over the book, and began to move her lips. When
+she heard a noise on the street, she started, clapped the book shut with
+the palm of her hand, and listened intently. And again, now closing, now
+opening her eyes, she whispered:
+
+"E--z--a."
+
+With even precision and stern regularity the dull tick of the pendulum
+marked the dying seconds.
+
+A knock at the door was heard; the mother jumped quickly to her feet,
+thrust the book on the shelf, and walking up to the door asked
+anxiously:
+
+"Who's there?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+
+Rybin came in, greeted her, and stroking his beard in a dignified manner
+and peeping into the room with his dark eyes, remarked:
+
+"You used to let people into your house before, without inquiring who
+they were. Are you alone?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"You are? I thought the Little Russian was here. I saw him to-day. The
+prison doesn't spoil a man. Stupidity, that's what spoils most of all."
+
+He walked into the room, sat down and said to the mother:
+
+"Let's have a talk together. I have something to tell you. I have a
+theory!" There was a significant and mysterious expression in his face
+as he said this. It filled the mother with a sense of foreboding. She
+sat down opposite him and waited in mute anxiety for him to speak.
+
+"Everything costs money!" he began in his gruff, heavy voice. "It takes
+money to be born; it takes money to die. Books and leaflets cost money,
+too. Now, then, do you know where all this money for the books comes
+from?"
+
+"No, I don't know," replied the mother in a low voice, anticipating
+danger.
+
+"Nor do I! Another question I've got to ask is: Who writes those books?
+The educated folks. The masters!" Rybin spoke curtly and decisively, his
+voice grew gruffer and gruffer, and his bearded face reddened as with
+the strain of exertion. "Now, then, the masters write the books and
+distribute them. But the writings in the books are against these very
+masters. Now, tell me, why do they spend their money and their time to
+stir up the people against themselves? Eh?"
+
+Nilovna blinked, then opened her eyes wide and exclaimed in fright:
+
+"What do you think? Tell me."
+
+"Aha!" exclaimed Rybin, turning in his chair like a bear. "There you
+are! When I reached that thought I was seized with a cold shiver, too."
+
+"Now what is it? Tell me! Did you find out anything?"
+
+"Deception! Fraud! I feel it. It's deception. I know nothing, but I feel
+sure there's deception in it. Yes! The masters are up to some clever
+trick, and I want nothing of it. I want the truth. I understand what it
+is; I understand it. But I will not go hand in hand with the masters.
+They'll push me to the front when it suits them, and then walk over my
+bones as over a bridge to get where they want to."
+
+At the sound of his morose words, uttered in a stubborn, thick, and
+forceful voice, the mother's heart contracted in pain.
+
+"Good Lord!" she exclaimed in anguish. "Where is the truth? Can it be
+that Pavel does not understand? And all those who come here from the
+city--is it possible that they don't understand?" The serious, honest
+faces of Yegor, Nikolay Ivanovich, and Sashenka passed before her mind,
+and her heart fluttered.
+
+"No, no!" she said, shaking her head as if to dismiss the thought. "I
+can't believe it. They are for truth and honor and conscience; they have
+no evil designs; oh, no!"
+
+"Whom are you talking about?" asked Rybin thoughtfully.
+
+"About all of them! Every single one I met. They are not the people who
+will traffic in human blood, oh, no!" Perspiration burst out on her
+face, and her fingers trembled.
+
+"You are not looking in the right place, mother; look farther back,"
+said Rybin, drooping his head. "Those who are directly working in the
+movement may not know anything about it themselves. They think it must
+be so; they have the truth at heart. But there may be people behind them
+who are looking out only for their own selfish interests. Men won't go
+against themselves." And with the firm conviction of a peasant fed on
+centuries of distrust, he added: "No good will ever come from the
+masters! Take my word for it!"
+
+"What concoction has your brain put together?" the mother asked, again
+seized with anxious misgiving.
+
+"I?" Rybin looked at her, was silent for a while, then repeated: "Keep
+away from the masters! That's what!" He grew morosely silent again, and
+seemed to shrink within himself.
+
+"I'll go away, mother," he said after a pause. "I wanted to join the
+fellows, to work along with them. I'm fit for the work. I can read and
+write. I'm persevering and not a fool. And the main thing is, I know
+what to say to people. But now I will go. I can't believe, and therefore
+I must go. I know, mother, that the people's souls are foul and
+besmirched. All live on envy, all want to gorge themselves; and since
+there's little to eat, each seeks to eat the other up."
+
+He let his head droop, and remained absorbed in thought for a while.
+Finally he said:
+
+"I'll go all by myself through village and hamlet and stir the people
+up. It's necessary that the people should take the matter in their own
+hands and get to work themselves. Let them but understand--they'll find
+a way themselves. And so, I'm going to try to make them understand.
+There is no hope for them except in themselves; there's no understanding
+for them except in their own understanding! And that's the truth!"
+
+"They will seize you!" said the mother in a low voice.
+
+"They will seize me, and let me out again. And then I'll go ahead
+again!"
+
+"The peasants themselves will bind you, and you will be thrown into
+jail."
+
+"Well, I'll stay in jail for a time, then be released, and I'll go on
+again. As for the peasants, they'll bind me once, twice, and then they
+will understand that they ought not to bind me, but listen to me. I'll
+tell them: "I don't ask you to believe me; I want you just to listen to
+me!" And if they listen, they will believe."
+
+Both the mother and Rybin spoke slowly, as if testing every word before
+uttering it.
+
+"There's little joy for me in this, mother," said Rybin. "I have lived
+here of late, and gobbled up a deal of stuff. Yes; I understand some,
+too! And now I feel as if I were burying a child."
+
+"You'll perish, Mikhail Ivanych!" said the mother, shaking her head
+sadly.
+
+His dark, deep eyes looked at her with a questioning, expectant look.
+His powerful body bent forward, propped by his hands resting on the seat
+of the chair, and his swarthy face seemed pale in the black frame of his
+beard.
+
+"Did you hear what Christ said about the seed? 'Thou shalt not die, but
+rise to life again in the new ear.' I don't regard myself as near death
+at all. I am shrewd. I follow a straighter course than the others. You
+can get further that way. Only, you see, I feel sorry--I don't know
+why." He fidgeted on his chair, then slowly rose. "I'll go to the tavern
+and be with the people a while. The Little Russian is not coming. Has he
+gotten busy already?"
+
+"Yes!" The mother smiled. "No sooner out of prison than they rush to
+their work."
+
+"That's the way it should be. Tell him about me."
+
+They walked together slowly into the kitchen, and without looking at
+each other exchanged brief remarks:
+
+"I'll tell him," she promised.
+
+"Well, good-by!"
+
+"Good-by! When do you quit your job?"
+
+"I have already."
+
+"When are you going?"
+
+"To-morrow, early in the morning. Good-by!"
+
+He bent his head and crawled off the porch reluctantly, it seemed, and
+clumsily. The mother stood for a moment at the door listening to the
+heavy departing footsteps and to the doubts that stirred in her heart.
+Then she noiselessly turned away into the room, and drawing the curtain
+peered through the window. Black darkness stood behind, motionless,
+waiting, gaping, with its flat, abysmal mouth.
+
+"I live in the night!" she thought. "In the night forever!" She felt a
+pity for the black-bearded, sedate peasant. He was so broad and
+strong--and yet there was a certain helplessness about him, as about all
+the people.
+
+Presently Andrey came in gay and vivacious. When the mother told him
+about Rybin, he exclaimed:
+
+"Going, is he? Well, let him go through the villages. Let him ring forth
+the word of truth. Let him arouse the people. It's hard for him here
+with us."
+
+"He was talking about the masters. Is there anything in it?" she
+inquired circumspectly. "Isn't it possible that they want to deceive
+you?"
+
+"It bothers you, mother, doesn't it?" The Little Russian laughed. "Oh,
+mother dear--money! If we only had money! We are still living on
+charity. Take, for instance, Nikolay Ivanych. He earns seventy-five
+rubles a month, and gives us fifty! And others do the same. And the
+hungry students send us money sometimes, which they collect penny by
+penny. And as to the masters, of course there are different kinds among
+them. Some of them will deceive us, and some will leave us; but the best
+will stay with us and march with us up to our holiday." He clapped his
+hands, and rubbing them vigorously against each other continued: "But
+not even the flight of an eagle's wings will enable anyone to reach that
+holiday, so we'll make a little one for the first of May. It will be
+jolly."
+
+His words and his vivacity dispelled the alarm excited in the mother's
+heart by Rybin. The Little Russian walked up and down the room, his feet
+sounding on the floor. He rubbed his head with one hand and his chest
+with the other, and spoke looking at the floor:
+
+"You know, sometimes you have a wonderful feeling living in your heart.
+It seems to you that wherever you go, all men are comrades; all burn
+with one and the same fire; all are merry; all are good. Without words
+they all understand one another; and no one wants to hinder or insult
+the other. No one feels the need of it. All live in unison, but each
+heart sings its own song. And the songs flow like brooks into one
+stream, swelling into a huge river of bright joys, rolling free and wide
+down its course. And when you think that this will be--that it cannot
+help being if we so wish it--then the wonderstruck heart melts with joy.
+You feel like weeping--you feel so happy."
+
+He spoke and looked as if he were searching something within himself.
+The mother listened and tried not to stir, so as not to disturb him and
+interrupt his speech. She always listened to him with more attention
+than to anybody else. He spoke more simply than all the rest, and his
+words gripped her heart more powerfully. Pavel, too, was probably
+looking to the future. How could it be otherwise, when one is following
+such a course of life? But when he looked into the remote future it was
+always by himself; he never spoke of what he saw. This Little Russian,
+however, it seemed to her, was always there with a part of his heart;
+the legend of the future holiday for all upon earth, always sounded in
+his speech. This legend rendered the meaning of her son's life, of his
+work, and that of all of his comrades, clear to the mother.
+
+"And when you wake up," continued the Little Russian, tossing his head
+and letting his hands drop alongside his body, "and look around, you see
+it's all filthy and cold. All are tired and angry; human life is all
+churned up like mud on a busy highway, and trodden underfoot!"
+
+He stopped in front of the mother, and with deep sorrow in his eyes, and
+shaking his head, added in a low, sad voice:
+
+"Yes, it hurts, but you must--you must distrust man; you must fear him,
+and even hate him! Man is divided, he is cut in two by life. You'd like
+only to love him; but how is it possible? How can you forgive a man if
+he goes against you like a wild beast, does not recognize that there is
+a living soul in you, and kicks your face--a human face! You must not
+forgive. It's not for yourself that you mustn't. I'd stand all the
+insults as far as I myself am concerned; but I don't want to show
+indulgence for insults. I don't want to let them learn on my back how to
+beat others!"
+
+His eyes now sparkled with a cold gleam; he inclined his head doggedly,
+and continued in a more resolute tone:
+
+"I must not forgive anything that is noxious, even though it does not
+hurt! I'm not alone in the world. If I allow myself to be insulted
+to-day--maybe I can afford to laugh at the insult, maybe it doesn't
+sting me at all--but, having tested his strength on me, the offender
+will proceed to flay some one else the next day! That's why one is
+compelled to discriminate between people, to keep a firm grip on one's
+heart, and to classify mankind--these belong to me, those are
+strangers."
+
+The mother thought of the officer and Sashenka, and said with a sigh:
+
+"What sort of bread can you expect from unbolted meal?"
+
+"That's it; that's the trouble!" the Little Russian exclaimed. "You must
+look with two kinds of eyes; two hearts throb in your bosom. The one
+loves all; the other says: 'Halt! You mustn't!'"
+
+The figure of her husband, somber and ponderous, like a huge
+moss-covered stone, now rose in her memory. She made a mental image for
+herself of the Little Russian as married to Natasha, and her son as the
+husband of Sashenka.
+
+"And why?" asked the Little Russian, warming up. "It's so plainly
+evident that it's downright ridiculous--simply because men don't stand
+on an equal footing. Then let's equalize them, put them all in one row!
+Let's divide equally all that's produced by the brains and all that's
+made by the hands. Let's not keep one another in the slavery of fear and
+envy, in the thraldom of greed and stupidity!"
+
+The mother and the Little Russian now began to carry on such
+conversations with each other frequently. He was again taken into the
+factory. He turned over all his earnings to the mother, and she took the
+money from him with as little fuss as from Pavel. Sometimes Andrey would
+suggest with a twinkle in his eyes:
+
+"Shall we read a little, mother, eh?"
+
+She would invariably refuse, playfully but resolutely. The twinkle in
+his eyes discomfited her, and she thought to herself, with a slight
+feeling of offense: "If you laugh at me, then why do you ask me to read
+with you?"
+
+He noticed that the mother began to ask him with increasing frequency
+for the meaning of this or that book word. She always looked aside when
+asking for such information, and spoke in a monotonous tone of
+indifference. He divined that she was studying by herself in secret,
+understood her bashfulness, and ceased to invite her to read with him.
+Shortly afterwards she said to him:
+
+"My eyes are getting weak, Andriusha. I guess I need glasses."
+
+"All right! Next Sunday I'll take you to a physician in the city, a
+friend of mine, and you shall have glasses!"
+
+She had already been three times in the prison to ask for a meeting with
+Pavel, and each time the general of the gendarmes, a gray old man with
+purple cheeks and a huge nose, turned her gently away.
+
+"In about a week, little mother, not before! A week from now we shall
+see, but at present it's impossible!"
+
+He was a round, well-fed creature, and somehow reminded her of a ripe
+plum, somewhat spoiled by too long keeping, and already covered with a
+downy mold. He kept constantly picking his small, white teeth with a
+sharp yellow toothpick. There was a little smile in his small greenish
+eyes, and his voice had a friendly, caressing sound.
+
+"Polite!" said the mother to the Little Russian with a thoughtful air.
+"Always with a smile on him. I don't think it's right. When a man is
+tending to affairs like these, I don't think he ought to grin."
+
+"Yes, yes. They are so gentle, always smiling. If they should be told:
+'Look here, this man is honest and wise, he is dangerous to us; hang
+him!' they would still smile and hang him, and keep on smiling."
+
+"The one who made the search in our place is the better of the two; he
+is simpler. You can see at once that he is a dog."
+
+"None of them are human beings; they are used to stun the people and
+render them insensible. They are tools, the means wherewith our kind is
+rendered more convenient to the state. They themselves have already been
+so fixed that they have become convenient instruments in the hand that
+governs us. They can do whatever they are told to do without thought,
+without asking why it is necessary to do it."
+
+At last Vlasova got permission to see her son, and one Sunday she was
+sitting modestly in a corner of the prison office, a low, narrow, dingy
+apartment, where a few more people were sitting and waiting for
+permission to see their relatives and friends. Evidently it was not the
+first time they were here, for they knew one another and in a low voice
+kept up a lazy, languid conversation.
+
+"Have you heard?" said a stout woman with a wizened face and a traveling
+bag on her lap. "At early mass to-day the church regent again ripped up
+the ear of one of the choir boys."
+
+An elderly man in the uniform of a retired soldier coughed aloud and
+remarked:
+
+"These choir boys are such loafers!"
+
+A short, bald, little man with short legs, long arms, and protruding
+jaw, ran officiously up and down the room. Without stopping he said in a
+cracked, agitated voice:
+
+"The cost of living is getting higher and higher. An inferior quality of
+beef, fourteen cents; bread has again risen to two and a half."
+
+Now and then prisoners came into the room--gray, monotonous, with
+coarse, heavy, leather shoes. They blinked as they entered; iron chains
+rattled at the feet of one of them. The quiet and calm and simplicity
+all around produced a strange, uncouth impression. It seemed as if all
+had grown accustomed to their situation. Some sat there quietly, others
+looked on idly, while still others seemed to pay their regular visits
+with a sense of weariness. The mother's heart quivered with impatience,
+and she looked with a puzzled air at everything around her, amazed at
+the oppressive simplicity of life in this corner of the world.
+
+[Illustration: "The mother's heart quivered with impatience."]
+
+Next to Vlasova sat a little old woman with a wrinkled face, but
+youthful eyes. She kept her thin neck turned to listen to the
+conversation, and looked about on all sides with a strange expression of
+eagerness in her face.
+
+"Whom have you here?" Vlasova asked softly.
+
+"A son, a student," answered the old woman in a loud, brusque voice.
+"And you?"
+
+"A son, also. A workingman."
+
+"What's the name?"
+
+"Vlasov."
+
+"Never heard of him. How long has he been in prison?"
+
+"Seven weeks."
+
+"And mine has been in for ten months," said the old woman, with a
+strange note of pride in her voice which did not escape the notice of
+the mother.
+
+A tall lady dressed in black, with a thin, pale face, said lingeringly:
+
+"They'll soon put all the decent people in prison. They can't endure
+them, they loathe them!"
+
+"Yes, yes!" said the little old bald man, speaking rapidly. "All
+patience is disappearing. Everybody is excited; everybody is clamoring,
+and prices are mounting higher and higher. As a consequence the value of
+men is depreciating. And there is not a single, conciliatory voice
+heard, not one!"
+
+"Perfectly true!" said the retired military man. "It's monstrous! What's
+wanted is a voice, a firm voice to cry, 'Silence!' Yes, that's what we
+want--a firm voice!"
+
+The conversation became more general and animated. Everybody was in a
+hurry to give his opinion about life; but all spoke in a half-subdued
+voice, and the mother noticed a tone of hostility in all, which was new
+to her. At home they spoke differently, more intelligibly, more simply,
+and more loudly.
+
+The fat warden with a square red beard called out her name, looked her
+over from head to foot, and telling her to follow him, walked off
+limping. She followed him, and felt like pushing him to make him go
+faster. Pavel stood in a small room, and on seeing his mother smiled and
+put out his hand to her. She grasped it, laughed, blinked swiftly, and
+at a loss for words merely asked softly:
+
+"How are you? How are you?"
+
+"Compose yourself, mother." Pavel pressed her hand.
+
+"It's all right! It's all right!"
+
+"Mother," said the warden, fetching a sigh, "suppose you move away from
+each other a bit. Let there be some distance between you." He yawned
+aloud.
+
+Pavel asked the mother about her health and about home. She waited for
+some other questions, sought them in her son's eyes, but could not find
+them. He was calm as usual, although his face had grown paler, and his
+eyes seemed larger.
+
+"Sasha sends you her regards," she said. Pavel's eyelids quivered and
+fell. His face became softer and brightened with a clear, open smile. A
+poignant bitterness smote the mother's heart.
+
+"Will they let you out soon?" she inquired in a tone of sudden injury
+and agitation. "Why have they put you in prison? Those papers and
+pamphlets have appeared in the factory again, anyway."
+
+Pavel's eyes flashed with delight.
+
+"Have they? When? Many of them?"
+
+"It is forbidden to talk about this subject!" the warden lazily
+announced. "You may talk only of family matters."
+
+"And isn't this a family matter?" retorted the mother.
+
+"I don't know. I only know it's forbidden. You may talk about his wash
+and underwear and food, but nothing else!" insisted the warden, his
+voice, however, expressing utter indifference.
+
+"All right," said Pavel. "Keep to domestic affairs, mother. What are you
+doing?"
+
+She answered boldly, seized with youthful ardor:
+
+"I carry all this to the factory." She paused with a smile and
+continued: "Sour soup, gruel, all Marya's cookery, and other stuff."
+
+Pavel understood. The muscles of his face quivered with restrained
+laughter. He ran his fingers through his hair and said in a tender tone,
+such as she had never heard him use:
+
+"My own dear mother! That's good! It's good you've found something to
+do, so it isn't tedious for you. You don't feel lonesome, do you,
+mother?"
+
+"When the leaflets appeared, they searched me, too," she said, not
+without a certain pride.
+
+"Again on this subject!" said the warden in an offended tone. "I tell
+you it's forbidden, it's not allowed. They have deprived him of liberty
+so that he shouldn't know anything about it; and here you are with your
+news. You ought to know it's forbidden!"
+
+"Well, leave it, mother," said Pavel. "Matvey Ivanovich is a good man.
+You mustn't do anything to provoke him. We get along together very well.
+It's by chance he's here to-day with us. Usually, it's the assistant
+superintendent who is present on such occasions. That's why Matvey
+Ivanovich is afraid you will say something you oughtn't to."
+
+"Time's up!" announced the warden looking at his watch. "Take your
+leave!"
+
+"Well, thank you," said Pavel. "Thank you, my darling mother! Don't
+worry now. They'll let me out soon."
+
+He embraced her, pressed her warmly to his bosom, and kissed her.
+Touched by his endearments, and happy, she burst into tears.
+
+"Now separate!" said the warden, and as he walked off with the mother he
+mumbled:
+
+"Don't cry! They'll let him out; they'll let everybody out. It's too
+crowded here."
+
+At home the mother told the Little Russian of her conversation with
+Pavel, and her face wore a broad smile.
+
+"I told him! Yes, indeed! And cleverly, too. He understood!" and,
+heaving a melancholy sigh: "Oh, yes, he understood; otherwise he
+wouldn't have been so tender and affectionate. He has never been that
+way before."
+
+"Oh, mother!" the Little Russian laughed. "No matter what other people
+may want, a mother always wants affection. You certainly have a heart
+plenty big enough for one man!"
+
+"But those people! Just think, Andriusha!" she suddenly exclaimed,
+amazement in her tone. "How used they get to all this! Their children
+are taken away from them, are thrown into dungeons, and, mind you, it's
+as nothing to them! They come, sit about, wait, and talk. What do you
+think of that? If intelligent people are that way, if they can so easily
+get accustomed to a thing like that, then what's to be said about the
+common people?"
+
+"That's natural," said the Little Russian with his usual smile. "The law
+after all is not so harsh toward them as toward us. And they need the
+law more than we do. So that when the law hits them on the head,
+although they cry out they do not cry very loud. Your own stick does not
+fall upon you so heavily. For them the laws are to some extent a
+protection, but for us they are only chains to keep us bound so we can't
+kick."
+
+Three days afterwards in the evening, when the mother sat at the table
+knitting stockings and the Little Russian was reading to her from a book
+about the revolt of the Roman slaves, a loud knock was heard at the
+door. The Little Russian went to open it and admitted Vyesovshchikov
+with a bundle under his arm, his hat pushed back on his head, and mud up
+to his knees.
+
+"I was passing by, and seeing a light in your house, I dropped in to ask
+you how you are. I've come straight from the prison."
+
+He spoke in a strange voice. He seized Vlasov's hand and wrung it
+violently as he added: "Pavel sends you his regards." Irresolutely
+seating himself in a chair he scanned the room with his gloomy,
+suspicious look.
+
+The mother was not fond of him. There was something in his angular,
+close-cropped head and in his small eyes that always scared her; but now
+she was glad to see him, and with a broad smile lighting her face she
+said in a tender, animated voice:
+
+"How thin you've become! Say, Andriusha, let's dose him with tea."
+
+"I'm putting up the samovar already!" the Little Russian called from the
+kitchen.
+
+"How is Pavel? Have they let anybody else out besides yourself?"
+
+Nikolay bent his head and answered:
+
+"I'm the only one they've let go." He raised his eyes to the mother's
+face and said slowly, speaking through his teeth with ponderous
+emphasis: "I told them: 'Enough! Let me go! Else I'll kill some one
+here, and myself, too!' So they let me go!"
+
+"Hm, hm--ye-es," said the mother, recoiling from him and involuntarily
+blinking when her gaze met his sharp, narrow eyes.
+
+"And how is Fedya Mazin?" shouted the Little Russian from the kitchen.
+"Writing poetry, is he?"
+
+"Yes! I don't understand it," said Nikolay, shaking his head. "They've
+put him in a cage and he sings. There's only one thing I'm sure about,
+and that is I have no desire to go home."
+
+"Why should you want to go home? What's there to attract you?" said the
+mother pensively. "It's empty, there's no fire burning, and it's chilly
+all over."
+
+Vyesovshchikov sat silent, his eyes screwed up. Taking a box of
+cigarettes from his pocket he leisurely lit one of them, and looking at
+the gray curl of smoke dissolve before him he grinned like a big, surly
+dog.
+
+"Yes, I guess it's cold. And the floor is filled with frozen
+cockroaches, and even the mice are frozen, too, I suppose. Pelagueya
+Nilovna, will you let me sleep here to-night, please?" he asked hoarsely
+without looking at her.
+
+"Why, of course, Nikolay! You needn't even ask it!" the mother quickly
+replied. She felt embarrassed and ill at ease in Nikolay's presence, and
+did not know what to speak to him about. But he himself went on to talk
+in a strangely broken voice.
+
+"We live in a time when children are ashamed of their own parents."
+
+"What!" exclaimed the mother, starting.
+
+He glanced up at her and closed his eyes. His pockmarked face looked
+like that of a blind man.
+
+"I say that children have to be ashamed of their parents," he repeated,
+sighing aloud. "Now, don't you be afraid. It's not meant for you. Pavel
+will never be ashamed of you. But I am ashamed of my father, and shall
+never enter his house again. I have no father, no home! They have put me
+under the surveillance of the police, else I'd go to Siberia. I think a
+man who won't spare himself could do a great deal in Siberia. I would
+free convicts there and arrange for their escape."
+
+The mother understood, with her ready feelings, what agony this man must
+be undergoing, but his pain awoke no sympathetic response in her.
+
+"Well, of course, if that's the case, then it's better for you to go,"
+she said, in order not to offend him by silence.
+
+Andrey came in from the kitchen, and said, smiling:
+
+"Well, are you sermonizing, eh?"
+
+The mother rose and walked away, saying:
+
+"I'm going to get something to eat."
+
+Vyesovshchikov looked at the Little Russian fixedly and suddenly
+declared:
+
+"I think that some people ought to be killed off!"
+
+"Oho! And pray what for?" asked the Little Russian calmly.
+
+"So they cease to be."
+
+"Ahem! And have you the right to make corpses out of living people?"
+
+"Yes, I have."
+
+"Where did you get it from?"
+
+"The people themselves gave it to me."
+
+The Little Russian stood in the middle of the room, tall and spare,
+swaying on his legs, with his hands thrust in his pockets, and looked
+down on Nikolay. Nikolay sat firmly in his chair, enveloped in clouds of
+smoke, with red spots on his face showing through.
+
+"The people gave it to me!" he repeated clenching his fist. "If they
+kick me I have the right to strike them and punch their eyes out! Don't
+touch me, and I won't touch you! Let me live as I please, and I'll live
+in peace and not touch anybody. Maybe I'd prefer to live in the woods.
+I'd build myself a cabin in the ravine by the brook and live there. At
+any rate, I'd live alone."
+
+"Well, go and live that way, if it pleases you," said the Little
+Russian, shrugging his shoulders.
+
+"Now?" asked Nikolay. He shook his head in negation and replied,
+striking his fist on his knee:
+
+"Now it's impossible!"
+
+"Who's in your way?"
+
+"The people!" Vyesovshchikov retorted brusquely. "I'm hitched to them
+even unto death. They've hedged my heart around with hatred and tied me
+to themselves with evil. That's a strong tie! I hate them, and I will
+not go away; no, never! I'll be in their way. I'll harass their lives.
+They are in my way, I'll be in theirs. I'll answer only for myself, only
+for myself, and for no one else. And if my father is a thief----"
+
+"Oh!" said the Little Russian in a low voice, moving up to Nikolay.
+
+"And as for Isay Gorbov, I'll wring his head off! You shall see!"
+
+"What for?" asked the Little Russian in a quiet, earnest voice.
+
+"He shouldn't be a spy; he shouldn't go about denouncing people. It's
+through him my father's gone to the dogs, and it's owing to him that he
+now is aiming to become a spy," said Vyesovshchikov, looking at Andrey
+with a dark, hostile scowl.
+
+"Oh, that's it!" exclaimed the Little Russian. "And pray, who'd blame
+you for that? Fools!"
+
+"Both the fools and the wise are smeared with the same oil!" said
+Nikolay heavily. "Here are you a wise fellow, and Pavel, too. And do you
+mean to say that I am the same to you as Fedya Mazin or Samoylov, or as
+you two are to each other? Don't lie! I won't believe you, anyway. You
+all push me aside to a place apart, all by myself."
+
+"Your heart is aching, Nikolay!" said the Little Russian softly and
+tenderly sitting down beside him.
+
+"Yes, it's aching, and so is your heart. But your aches seem nobler to
+you than mine. We are all scoundrels toward one another, that's what I
+say. And what have you to say to that?"
+
+He fixed his sharp gaze on Andrey, and waited with set teeth. His
+mottled face remained immobile, and a quiver passed over his thick lips,
+as if scorched by a flame.
+
+"I have nothing to say!" said the Little Russian, meeting
+Vyesovshchikov's hostile glance with a bright, warm, yet melancholy look
+of his blue eyes. "I know that to argue with a man at a time when all
+the wounds of his heart are bleeding, is only to insult him. I know it,
+brother."
+
+"It's impossible to argue with me; I can't," mumbled Nikolay, lowering
+his eyes.
+
+"I think," continued the Little Russian, "that each of us has gone
+through that, each of us has walked with bare feet over broken glass,
+each of us in his dark hour has gasped for breath as you are now."
+
+"You have nothing to tell me!" said Vyesovshchikov slowly. "Nothing! My
+heart is so--it seems to me as if wolves were howling there!"
+
+"And I don't want to say anything to you. Only I know that you'll get
+over this, perhaps not entirely, but you'll get over it!" He smiled, and
+added, tapping Nikolay on the back: "Why, man, this is a children's
+disease, something like measles! We all suffer from it, the strong less,
+the weak more. It comes upon a man at the period when he has found
+himself, but does not yet understand life, and his own place in life.
+And when you do not see your place, and are unable to appraise your own
+value, it seems that you are the only, the inimitable cucumber on the
+face of the earth, and that no one can measure, no one can fathom your
+worth, and that all are eager only to eat you up. After a while you'll
+find out that the hearts in other people's breasts are no worse than a
+good part of your own heart, and you'll begin to feel better. And
+somewhat ashamed, too! Why should you climb up to the belfry tower, when
+your bell is so small that it can't be heard in the great peal of the
+holiday bells? Moreover, you'll see that in chorus the sound of your
+bell will be heard, too, but by itself the old church bells will drown
+it in their rumble as a fly is drowned in oil. Do you understand what I
+am saying?"
+
+"Maybe I understand," Nikolay said, nodding his head. "Only I don't
+believe it."
+
+The Little Russian broke into a laugh, jumped to his feet, and began to
+run noisily up and down the room.
+
+"I didn't believe it either. Ah, you--wagonload!"
+
+"Why a wagonload?" Nikolay asked with a sad smile, looking at the Little
+Russian.
+
+"Because there's a resemblance!"
+
+Suddenly Nikolay broke into a loud guffaw, his mouth opening wide.
+
+"What is it?" the Little Russian asked in surprise, stopping in front of
+him.
+
+"It struck me that he'd be a fool who'd want to insult you!" Nikolay
+declared, shaking his head.
+
+"Why, how can you insult me?" asked the Little Russian, shrugging his
+shoulders.
+
+"I don't know," said Vyesovshchikov, grinning good-naturedly or perhaps
+condescendingly. "I only wanted to say that a man must feel mighty
+ashamed of himself after he'd insulted you."
+
+"There now! See where you got to!" laughed the Little Russian.
+
+"Andriusha!" the mother called from the kitchen. "Come get the samovar.
+It's ready!"
+
+Andrey walked out of the room, and Vyesovshchikov, left alone, looked
+about, stretched out his foot sheathed in a coarse, heavy boot, looked
+at it, bent down, and felt the stout calf of his legs. Then he raised
+one hand to his face, carefully examined the palm, and turned it around.
+His short-fingered hand was thick, and covered with yellowish hair. He
+waved it in the air, and arose.
+
+When Andrey brought in the samovar, Vyesovshchikov was standing before
+the mirror, and greeted him with these words:
+
+"It's a long time since I've seen my face." Then he laughed and added:
+"It's an ugly face I have!"
+
+"What's that to you?" asked Andrey, turning a curious look upon him.
+
+"Sashenka says the face is the mirror of the heart!" Nikolay replied,
+bringing out the words slowly.
+
+"It's not true, though!" the little Russian ejaculated. "She has a nose
+like a mushroom, cheek bones like a pair of scissors; yet her heart is
+like a bright little star."
+
+They sat down to drink tea.
+
+Vyesovshchikov took a big potato, heavily salted a slice of bread, and
+began to chew slowly and deliberately, like an ox.
+
+"And how are matters here?" he asked, with his mouth full.
+
+When Andrey cheerfully recounted to him the growth of the socialist
+propaganda in the factory, he again grew morose and remarked dully:
+
+"It takes too long! Too long, entirely! It ought to go faster!"
+
+The mother regarded him, and was seized with a feeling of hostility
+toward this man.
+
+"Life is not a horse; you can't set it galloping with a whip," said
+Andrey.
+
+But Vyesovshchikov stubbornly shook his head, and proceeded:
+
+"It's slow! I haven't the patience. What am I to do?" He opened his arms
+in a gesture of helplessness, and waited for a response.
+
+"We all must learn and teach others. That's our business!" said Andrey,
+bending his head.
+
+Vyesovshchikov asked:
+
+"And when are we going to fight?"
+
+"There'll be more than one butchery of us up to that time, that I know!"
+answered the Little Russian with a smile. "But when we shall be called
+on to fight, that I don't know! First, you see, we must equip the head,
+and then the hand. That's what I think."
+
+"The heart!" said Nikolay laconically.
+
+"And the heart, too."
+
+Nikolay became silent, and began to eat again. From the corner of her
+eye the mother stealthily regarded his broad, pockmarked face,
+endeavoring to find something in it to reconcile her to the unwieldy,
+square figure of Vyesovshchikov. Her eyebrows fluttered whenever she
+encountered the shooting glance of his little eyes. Andrey held his head
+in his hands; he became restless--he suddenly laughed, and then abruptly
+stopped, and began to whistle.
+
+It seemed to the mother that she understood his disquietude. Nikolay sat
+at the table without saying anything; and when the Little Russian
+addressed a question to him, he answered briefly, with evident
+reluctance.
+
+The little room became too narrow and stifling for its two occupants,
+and they glanced, now the one, now the other, at their guest.
+
+At length Nikolay rose and said: "I'd like to go to bed. I sat and sat
+in prison--suddenly they let me go; I'm off!--I'm tired!"
+
+He went into the kitchen and stirred about for a while. Then a sudden
+stillness settled down. The mother listened for a sound, and whispered
+to Andrey: "He has something terrible in his mind!"
+
+"Yes, he's hard to understand!" the Little Russian assented, shaking his
+head. "But you go to bed, mother, I am going to stay and read a while."
+
+She went to the corner where the bed was hidden from view by chintz
+curtains. Andrey, sitting at the table, for a long while listened to the
+warm murmur of her prayers and sighs. Quickly turning the pages of the
+book Andrey nervously rubbed his lips, twitched his mustache with his
+long fingers, and scraped his feet on the floor. Ticktock, ticktock went
+the pendulum of the clock; and the wind moaned as it swept past the
+window.
+
+Then the mother's low voice was heard:
+
+"Oh, God! How many people there are in the world, and each one wails in
+his own way. Where, then, are those who feel rejoiced?"
+
+"Soon there will be such, too, soon!" announced the Little Russian.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+
+Life flowed on swiftly. The days were diversified and full of color.
+Each one brought with it something new, and the new ceased to alarm the
+mother. Strangers came to the house in the evening more and more
+frequently, and they talked with Andrey in subdued voices with an
+engrossed air. Late at night they went out into the darkness, their
+collars up, their hats thrust low over their faces, noiselessly,
+cautiously. All seemed to feel a feverish excitement, which they kept
+under restraint, and had the air of wanting to sing and laugh if they
+only had the time. They were all in a perpetual hurry. All of them--the
+mocking and the serious, the frank, jovial youth with effervescing
+strength, the thoughtful and quiet--all of them in the eyes of the
+mother were identical in the persistent faith that characterized them;
+and although each had his own peculiar cast of countenance, for her all
+their faces blended into one thin, composed, resolute face with a
+profound expression in its dark eyes, kind yet stern, like the look in
+Christ's eyes on his way to Emmaus.
+
+The mother counted them, and mentally gathered them together into a
+group around Pavel. In that throng he became invisible to the eyes of
+the enemy.
+
+One day a vivacious, curly-haired girl appeared from the city, bringing
+some parcel for Andrey; and on leaving she said to Vlasova, with a gleam
+in her merry eyes:
+
+"Good-by, comrade!"
+
+"Good-by!" the mother answered, restraining a smile. After seeing the
+girl to the door, she walked to the window and, smiling, looked out on
+the street to watch her comrade as she trotted away, nimbly raising and
+dropping her little feet, fresh as a spring flower and light as a
+butterfly.
+
+"Comrade!" said the mother when her guest had disappeared from her view.
+"Oh, you dear! God grant you a comrade for all your life!"
+
+She often noticed in all the people from the city a certain
+childishness, for which she had the indulgent smile of an elderly
+person; but at the same time she was touched and joyously surprised by
+their faith, the profundity of which she began to realize more and more
+clearly. Their visions of the triumph of justice captivated her and
+warmed her heart. As she listened to their recital of future victories,
+she involuntarily sighed with an unknown sorrow. But what touched her
+above all was their simplicity, their beautiful, grand, generous
+unconcern for themselves.
+
+She had already come to understand a great deal of what was said about
+life. She felt they had in reality discovered the true source of the
+people's misfortune, and it became a habit with her to agree with their
+thoughts. But at the bottom of her heart she did not believe that they
+could remake the whole of life according to their idea, or that they
+would have strength enough to gather all the working people about their
+fire. Everyone, she knew, wants to fill his stomach to-day, and no one
+wants to put his dinner off even for a week, if he can eat it up at
+once. Not many would consent to travel the long and difficult road; and
+not all eyes could see at the end the promised kingdom where all men are
+brothers. That's why all these good people, despite their beards and
+worn faces, seemed to her mere children.
+
+"My dear ones!" she thought, shaking her head.
+
+But they all now lived a good, earnest, and sensible life; they all
+spoke of the common weal; and in their desire to teach other people what
+they knew, they did not spare themselves. She understood that it was
+possible to love such a life, despite its dangers; and with a sigh she
+looked back to bygone days in which her past dragged along flatly and
+monotonously, a thin, black thread. Imperceptibly she grew conscious of
+her usefulness in this new life--a consciousness that gave her poise and
+assurance. She had never before felt herself necessary to anybody. When
+she had lived with her husband, she knew that if she died he would marry
+another woman. It was all the same to him whether a dark-haired or a
+red-haired woman lived with him and prepared his meals. When Pavel grew
+up and began to run about in the street, she saw that she was not needed
+by him. But now she felt that she was helping a good work. It was new to
+her and pleasant. It set her head erect on her shoulders.
+
+She considered it her duty to carry the books regularly to the factory.
+Indeed, she elaborated a number of devices for escaping detection. The
+spies, grown accustomed to her presence on the factory premises, ceased
+to pay attention to her. She was searched several times, but always the
+day after the appearance of the leaflets in the factory. When she had no
+literature about her, she knew how to arouse the suspicion of the guards
+and spies. They would halt her, and she would pretend to feel insulted,
+and would remonstrate with them, and then walk off blushing, proud of
+her clever ruse. She began to enjoy the fun of the game.
+
+Vyesovshchikov was not taken back to the factory, and went to work for a
+lumberman. The whole day long he drove about the village with a pair of
+black horses pulling planks and beams after them. The mother saw him
+almost daily with the horses as they plodded along the road, their feet
+trembling under the strain and dropping heavily upon the ground. They
+were both old and bare-boned, their heads shook wearily and sadly, and
+their dull, jaded eyes blinked heavily. Behind them jerkingly trailed a
+long beam, or a pile of boards clattering loudly. And by their side
+Nikolay trudged along, holding the slackened reins in his hand, ragged,
+dirty, with heavy boots, his hat thrust back, uncouth as a stump just
+turned up from the ground. He, too, shook his head and looked down at
+his feet, refusing to see anything. His horses blindly ran into the
+people and wagons going the opposite direction. Angry oaths buzzed about
+him like hornets, and sinister shouts rent the air. He did not raise his
+head, did not answer them, but went on, whistling a sharp, shrill
+whistle, mumbling dully to the horses.
+
+Every time that Andrey's comrades gathered at the mother's house to read
+pamphlets or the new issue of the foreign papers, Nikolay came also, sat
+down in a corner, and listened in silence for an hour or two. When the
+reading was over the young people entered into long discussions; but
+Vyesovshchikov took no part in the arguments. He remained longer than
+the rest, and when alone, face to face with Andrey, he glumly put to him
+the question:
+
+"And who is the most to blame? The Czar?"
+
+"The one to blame is he who first said: 'This is mine.' That man has now
+been dead some several thousand years, and it's not worth the while to
+bear him a grudge," said the Little Russian, jesting. His eyes, however,
+had a perturbed expression.
+
+"And how about the rich, and those who stand up for them? Are they
+right?"
+
+The Little Russian clapped his hands to his head; then pulled his
+mustache, and spoke for a long time in simple language about life and
+about the people. But from his talk it always appeared as if all the
+people were to blame, and this did not satisfy Nikolay. Compressing his
+thick lips tightly, he shook his head in demur, and declared that he
+could not believe it was so, and that he did not understand it. He left
+dissatisfied and gloomy. Once he said:
+
+"No, there must be people to blame! I'm sure there are! I tell you, we
+must plow over the whole of life like a weedy field, showing no mercy!"
+
+"That's what Isay, the record clerk, once said about us!" the mother
+said. For a while the two were silent.
+
+"Isay?"
+
+"Yes, he's a bad man. He spies after everybody, fishes about everywhere
+for information. He has begun to frequent this street, and peers into
+our windows."
+
+"Peers into your windows?"
+
+The mother was already in bed and did not see his face. But she
+understood that she had said too much, because the Little Russian
+hastened to interpose in order to conciliate Nikolay.
+
+"Let him peer! He has leisure. That's his way of killing time."
+
+"No hold on!" said Nikolay. "_There!_ He is to blame!"
+
+"To blame for what?" the Little Russian asked brusquely. "Because he's a
+fool?"
+
+But Vyesovshchikov did not stop to answer and walked away.
+
+The Little Russian began to pace up and down the room, slowly and
+languidly. He had taken off his boots as he always did when the mother
+was in bed in order not to disturb her. But she was not asleep, and when
+Nikolay had left she said anxiously:
+
+"I'm so afraid of that man. He's just like an overheated oven. He does
+not warm things, but scorches them."
+
+"Yes, yes!" the Little Russian drawled. "He's an irascible boy. I
+wouldn't talk to him about Isay, mother. That fellow Isay is really
+spying and getting paid for it, too."
+
+"What's so strange in that? His godfather is a gendarme," observed the
+mother.
+
+"Well, Nikolay will give him a dressing. What of it?" the Little Russian
+continued uneasily. "See what hard feelings the rulers of our life have
+produced in the rank and file? When such people as Nikolay come to
+recognize their wrong and lose their patience, what will happen then?
+The sky will be sprinkled with blood, and the earth will froth and foam
+with it like the suds of soap water."
+
+"It's terrible, Andriusha!" the mother exclaimed in a low voice.
+
+"They have swallowed flies, and have to vomit them now!" said Andrey
+after a pause. "And after all, mother, every drop of their blood that
+may be shed will have been washed in seas of the people's tears."
+
+Suddenly he broke into a low laugh and added:
+
+"That's true; but it's no comfort!"
+
+Once on a holiday the mother, on returning home from a store, opened the
+door of the porch, and remained fixed to the spot, suddenly bathed in
+the sunshine of joy. From the room she heard the sound of Pavel's voice.
+
+"There she is!" cried the Little Russian.
+
+The mother saw Pavel turn about quickly, and saw how his face lighted up
+with a feeling that held out the promise of something great to her.
+
+"There you are--come home!" she mumbled, staggered by the unexpectedness
+of the event. She sat down.
+
+He bent down to her with a pale face, little tears glistened brightly in
+the corners of his eyes, and his lips trembled. For a moment he was
+silent. The mother looked at him, and was silent also.
+
+The Little Russian, whistling softly, passed by them with bent head and
+walked out into the yard.
+
+"Thank you, mother," said Pavel in a deep, low voice, pressing her hand
+with his trembling fingers. "Thank you, my dear, my own mother!"
+
+Rejoiced at the agitated expression of her son's face and the touching
+sound of his voice, she stroked his hair and tried to restrain the
+palpitation of her heart. She murmured softly:
+
+"Christ be with you! What have I done for you? It isn't I who have made
+you what you are. It's you yourself----"
+
+"Thank you for helping our great cause!" he said. "When a man can call
+his mother his own in spirit also--that's rare fortune!"
+
+She said nothing, and greedily swallowed his words. She admired her son
+as he stood before her so radiant and so near.
+
+"I was silent, mother dear. I saw that many things in my life hurt you.
+I was sorry for you, and yet I could not help it. I was powerless! I
+thought you could never get reconciled to us, that you could never adopt
+our ideas as yours, but that you would suffer in silence as you had
+suffered all your life long. It was hard."
+
+"Andriusha made me understand many things!" she declared, in her desire
+to turn her son's attention to his comrade.
+
+"Yes, he told me about you," said Pavel, laughing.
+
+"And Yegor, too! He is a countryman of mine, you know. Andriusha wanted
+to teach me to read, also."
+
+"And you got offended, and began to study by yourself in secret."
+
+"Oh, so he found me out!" she exclaimed in embarrassment. Then troubled
+by this abundance of joy which filled her heart she again suggested to
+Pavel:
+
+"Shan't we call him in? He went out on purpose, so as not to disturb us.
+He has no mother."
+
+"Andrey!" shouted Pavel, opening the door to the porch. "Where are you?"
+
+"Here. I want to chop some wood."
+
+"Never mind! There's time enough! Come here!"
+
+"All right! I'm coming!"
+
+But he did not come at once; and on entering the kitchen he said in a
+housekeeper-like fashion:
+
+"We must tell Nikolay to bring us wood. We have very little wood left.
+You see, mother, how well Pavel looks? Instead of punishing the rebels,
+the government only fattens them."
+
+The mother laughed. Her heart was still leaping with joy. She was fairly
+intoxicated with happiness. But a certain, cautious, chary feeling
+already called forth in her the wish to see her son calm as he always
+was. She wanted this first joy in her life to remain fixed in her heart
+forever as live and strong as at first. In order to guard against the
+diminution of her happiness, she hastened to hide it, as a fowler
+secrets some rare bird that has happened to fall into his hands.
+
+"Let's have dinner! Pasha, haven't you had anything to eat yet?" she
+asked with anxious haste.
+
+"No. I learned yesterday from the warden that I was to be released, and
+I couldn't eat or drink anything to-day."
+
+"The first person I met here was Sizov," Pavel communicated to Andrey.
+"He caught sight of me and crossed the street to greet me. I told him
+that he ought to be more careful now, as I was a dangerous man under the
+surveillance of the police. But he said: 'Never mind!' and you ought to
+have heard him inquire about his nephew! 'Did Fedor conduct himself
+properly in prison?' I wanted to know what is meant by proper behavior
+in prison, and he declared: 'Well, did he blab anything he shouldn't
+have against his comrades?' And when I told him that Fedya was an honest
+and wise young man, he stroked his beard and declared proudly: 'We, the
+Sizovs, have no trash in our family.'"
+
+"He's a brainy old man!" said the Little Russian, nodding his head. "We
+often have talks with him. He's a fine peasant. Will they let Fedya out
+soon?"
+
+"Yes, one of these days, I suppose. They'll let out all, I think. They
+have no evidence except Isay's, and what can he say?"
+
+The mother walked up and down the room, and looked at her son. Andrey
+stood at the window with his hands clasped behind his back, listening to
+Pavel's narrative. Pavel also paced up and down the room. His beard had
+grown, and small ringlets of thin, dark hair curled in a dense growth
+around his cheeks, softening the swarthy color of his face. His dark
+eyes had their stern expression.
+
+"Sit down!" said the mother, serving a hot dish.
+
+At dinner Andrey told Pavel about Rybin. When he had concluded Pavel
+exclaimed regretfully:
+
+"If I had been home, I would not have let him go that way. What did he
+take along with him? A feeling of discontent and a muddle in his head!"
+
+"Well," said Andrey, laughing, "when a man's grown to the age of forty
+and has fought so long with the bears in his heart, it's hard to make
+him over."
+
+Pavel looked at him sternly and asked:
+
+"Do you think it's impossible for enlightenment to destroy all the
+rubbish that's been crammed into a man's brains?"
+
+"Don't fly up into the air at once, Pavel! Your flight will knock you up
+against the belfry tower and break your wings," said the Little Russian
+in admonition.
+
+And they started one of those discussions in which words were used that
+were unintelligible to the mother. The dinner was already at an end, but
+they still continued a vehement debate, flinging at each other veritable
+rattling hailstones of big words. Sometimes their language was simpler:
+
+"We must keep straight on our path, turning neither to the right nor to
+the left!" Pavel asserted firmly.
+
+"And run headlong into millions of people who will regard us as their
+enemies!"
+
+"You can't avoid that!"
+
+"And what, my dear sir, becomes of your enlightenment?"
+
+The mother listened to the dispute, and understood that Pavel did not
+care for the peasants, but that the Little Russian stood up for them,
+and tried to show that the peasants, too, must be taught to comprehend
+the good. She understood Andrey better, and he seemed to her to be in
+the right; but every time he spoke she waited with strained ears and
+bated breath for her son's answer to find out whether the Little Russian
+had offended Pavel. But although they shouted at the top of their
+voices, they gave each other no offense.
+
+Occasionally the mother asked:
+
+"Is it so, Pavel?"
+
+And he answered with a smile:
+
+"Yes, it's so."
+
+"Say, my dear sir," the Little Russian said with a good-natured sneer,
+"you have eaten well, but you have chewed your food up badly, and a
+piece has remained sticking in your throat. You had better gargle."
+
+"Don't go fooling now!" said Pavel.
+
+"I am as solemn as a funeral."
+
+The mother laughed quietly and shook her head.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+
+Spring was rapidly drawing near; the snow melted and laid bare the mud
+and the soot of the factory chimneys. Mud, mud! Wherever the villagers
+looked--mud! Every day more mud! The entire village seemed unwashed and
+dressed in rags and tatters. During the day the water dripped
+monotonously from the roofs, and damp, weary exhalations emanated from
+the gray walls of the houses. Toward night whitish icicles glistened
+everywhere in dim outline. The sun appeared in the heavens more
+frequently, and the brooks began to murmur hesitatingly on their way to
+the marsh. At noon the throbbing song of spring hopes hung tremblingly
+and caressingly over the village.
+
+They were preparing to celebrate the first of May. Leaflets appeared in
+the factory explaining the significance of this holiday, and even the
+young men not affected by the propaganda said, as they read them:
+
+"Yes, we must arrange a holiday!"
+
+Vyesovshchikov exclaimed with a sullen grin:
+
+"It's time! Time we stopped playing hide and seek!"
+
+Fedya Mazin was in high spirits. He had grown very thin. With his
+nervous, jerky gestures, and the trepidation in his speech, he was like
+a caged lark. He was always with Yakob Somov, taciturn and serious
+beyond his years.
+
+Samoylov, who had grown still redder in prison, Vasily Gusev,
+curly-haired Dragunov, and a number of others argued that it was
+necessary to come out armed, but Pavel and the Little Russian, Somov,
+and others said it was not.
+
+Yegor always came tired, perspiring, short of breath, but always joking.
+
+"The work of changing the present order of things, comrades, is a great
+work, but in order to advance it more rapidly, I must buy myself a pair
+of boots!" he said, pointing to his wet, torn shoes. "My overshoes, too,
+are torn beyond the hope of redemption, and I get my feet wet every day.
+I have no intention of migrating from the earth even to the nearest
+planet before we have publicly and openly renounced the old order of
+things; and I am therefore absolutely opposed to comrade Samoylov's
+motion for an armed demonstration. I amend the motion to read that I be
+armed with a pair of strong boots, inasmuch as I am profoundly convinced
+that this will be of greater service for the ultimate triumph of
+socialism than even a grand exhibition of fisticuffs and black eyes!"
+
+In the same playfully pretentious language, he told the workingmen the
+story of how in various foreign countries the people strove to lighten
+the burden of their lives. The mother loved to listen to his tales, and
+carried away a strange impression from them. She conceived the shrewdest
+enemies of the people, those who deceived them most frequently and most
+cruelly, as little, big-bellied, red-faced creatures, unprincipled and
+greedy, cunning and heartless. When life was hard for them under the
+domination of the czars, they would incite the common people against the
+ruler; and when the people arose and wrested the power from him, these
+little creatures got it into their own hands by deceit, and drove the
+people off to their holes; and if the people remonstrated, they killed
+them by the hundreds and thousands.
+
+Once she summoned up courage and told him of the picture she had formed
+of life from his tales, and asked him:
+
+"Is it so, Yegor Ivanovich?"
+
+He burst into a guffaw, turned up his eyes, gasped for breath, and
+rubbed his chest.
+
+"Exactly, granny! You caught the idea to a dot! Yes, yes! You've placed
+some ornaments on the canvas of history, you've added some flourishes,
+but that does not interfere with the correctness of the whole. It's
+these very little, pot-bellied creatures who are the chief sinners and
+deceivers and the most poisonous insects that harass the human race. The
+Frenchmen call them '_bourgeois_.' Remember that word, dear
+granny--_bourgeois_! Brr! How they chew us and grind us and suck the
+life out of us!"
+
+"The rich, you mean?"
+
+"Yes, the rich. And that's their misfortune. You see, if you keep adding
+copper bit by bit to a child's food, you prevent the growth of its
+bones, and he'll be a dwarf; and if from his youth up you poison a man
+with gold, you deaden his soul."
+
+Once, speaking about Yegor, Pavel said:
+
+"Do you know, Andrey, the people whose hearts are always aching are the
+ones who joke most?"
+
+The Little Russian was silent a while, and then answered, blinking his
+eyes:
+
+"No, that's not true. If it were, then the whole of Russia would split
+its sides with laughter."
+
+Natasha made her appearance again. She, too, had been in prison, in
+another city, but she had not changed. The mother noticed that in her
+presence the Little Russian grew more cheerful, was full of jokes, poked
+fun at everybody, and kept her laughing merrily. But after she had left
+he would whistle his endless songs sadly, and pace up and down the room
+for a long time, wearily dragging his feet along the floor.
+
+Sashenka came running in frequently, always gloomy, always in haste, and
+for some reason more and more angular and stiff. Once when Pavel
+accompanied her out onto the porch, the mother overheard their abrupt
+conversation.
+
+"Will you carry the banner?" the girl asked in a low voice.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Is it settled?"
+
+"Yes, it's my right."
+
+"To prison again?" Pavel was silent. "Is it not possible for you--" She
+stopped.
+
+"What?"
+
+"To give it up to somebody else?"
+
+"No!" he said aloud.
+
+"Think of it! You're a man of such influence; you are so much liked--you
+and Nakhodka are the two foremost revolutionary workers here. Think how
+much you could accomplish for the cause of freedom! You know that for
+this they'll send you off far, far, and for a long time!"
+
+Nilovna thought she heard in the girl's voice the familiar sound of fear
+and anguish, and her words fell upon the mother's heart like heavy, icy
+drops of water.
+
+"No, I have made up my mind. Nothing can make me give it up!"
+
+"Not even if I beg you--if I----"
+
+Pavel suddenly began to speak rapidly with a peculiar sternness.
+
+"You ought not to speak that way. Why you? You ought not!"
+
+"I am a human being!" she said in an undertone.
+
+"A good human being, too!" he said also in an undertone, and in a
+peculiar voice, as if unable to catch his breath. "You are a dear human
+being to me, yes! And that's why--why you mustn't talk that way!"
+
+"Good-by!" said the girl.
+
+The mother heard the sound of her departing footsteps, and knew that she
+was walking away very fast, nay, almost running. Pavel followed her into
+the yard.
+
+A heavy oppressive fear fell like a load on the mother's breast. She did
+not understand what they had been talking about, but she felt that a new
+misfortune was in store for her, a great and sad misfortune. And her
+thoughts halted at the question, "What does he want to do?" Her thoughts
+halted, and were driven into her brain like a nail. She stood in the
+kitchen by the oven, and looked through the window into the profound,
+starry heaven.
+
+Pavel walked in from the yard with Andrey, and the Little Russian said,
+shaking his head:
+
+"Oh, Isay, Isay! What's to be done with him?"
+
+"We must advise him to give up his project," said Pavel glumly.
+
+"Then he'll hand over those who speak to him to the authorities," said
+the Little Russian, flinging his hat away in a corner.
+
+"Pasha, what do you want to do?" asked the mother, drooping her head.
+
+"When? Now?"
+
+"The first of May--the first of May."
+
+"Aha!" exclaimed Pavel, lowering his voice. "You heard! I am going to
+carry our banner. I will march with it at the head of the procession. I
+suppose they'll put me in prison for it again."
+
+The mother's eyes began to burn. An unpleasant, dry feeling came into
+her mouth. Pavel took her hand and stroked it.
+
+"I must do it! Please understand me! It is my happiness!"
+
+"I'm not saying anything," she answered, slowly raising her head; but
+when her eyes met the resolute gleam in his, she again lowered it. He
+released her hand, and with a sigh said reproachfully:
+
+"You oughtn't to be grieved. You ought to feel rejoiced. When are we
+going to have mothers who will rejoice in sending their children even to
+death?"
+
+"Hopp! Hopp!" mumbled the Little Russian. "How you gallop away!"
+
+"Why; do I say anything to you?" the mother repeated. "I don't interfere
+with you. And if I'm sorry for you--well, that's a mother's way."
+
+Pavel drew away from her, and she heard his sharp, harsh words:
+
+"There is a love that interferes with a man's very life."
+
+She began to tremble, and fearing that he might deal another blow at her
+heart by saying something stern, she rejoined quickly:
+
+"Don't, Pasha! Why should you? I understand. You can't act otherwise,
+you must do it for your comrades."
+
+"No!" he replied. "I am doing it for myself. For their sake I can go
+without carrying the banner, but I'm going to do it!"
+
+Andrey stationed himself in the doorway. It was too low for him, and he
+had to bend his knees oddly. He stood there as in a frame, one shoulder
+leaning against the jamb, his head and other shoulder thrust forward.
+
+"I wish you would stop palavering, my dear sir," he said with a frown,
+fixing his protuberant eyes on Pavel's face. He looked like a lizard in
+the crevice of a stone wall.
+
+The mother was overcome with a desire to weep, but she did not want her
+son to see her tears, and suddenly mumbled: "Oh, dear!--I forgot--" and
+walked out to the porch. There, her head in a corner, she wept
+noiselessly; and her copious tears weakened her, as though blood oozed
+from her heart along with them.
+
+Through the door standing ajar the hollow sound of disputing voices
+reached her ear.
+
+"Well, do you admire yourself for having tortured her?"
+
+"You have no right to speak like that!" shouted Pavel.
+
+"A fine comrade I'd be to you if I kept quiet when I see you making a
+fool of yourself. Why did you say all that to your mother?"
+
+"A man must always speak firmly and without equivocation. He must be
+clear and definite when he says 'Yes.' He must be clear and definite
+when he says 'No.'"
+
+"To her--to her must you speak that way?"
+
+"To everybody! I want no love, I want no friendship which gets between
+my feet and holds me back."
+
+"Bravo! You're a hero! Go say all this to Sashenka. You should have said
+that to her."
+
+"I have!"
+
+"You have! The way you spoke to your mother? You have not! To her you
+spoke softly; you spoke gently and tenderly to her. I did not hear you,
+but I know it! But you trot out your heroism before your mother. Of
+course! Your heroism is not worth a cent."
+
+Vlasova began to wipe the tears from her face in haste. For fear a
+serious quarrel should break out between the Little Russian and Pavel,
+she quickly opened the door and entered the kitchen, shivering,
+terrified, and distressed.
+
+"Ugh! How cold! And it's spring, too!"
+
+She aimlessly removed various things in the kitchen from one place to
+another, and in order to drown the subdued voices in the room, she
+continued in a louder voice:
+
+"Everything's changed. People have grown hotter and the weather colder.
+At this time of the year it used to get warm; the sky would clear, and
+the sun would be out."
+
+Silence ensued in the room. The mother stood waiting in the middle of
+the floor.
+
+"Did you hear?" came the low sound of the Little Russian's voice. "You
+must understand it, the devil take it! That's richer than yours."
+
+"Will you have some tea?" the mother called with a trembling voice, and
+without waiting for an answer she exclaimed, in order to excuse the
+tremor in her voice:
+
+"How cold I am!"
+
+Pavel came up slowly to her, looking at her from the corners of his
+eyes, a guilty smile quivering on his lips.
+
+"Forgive me, mother!" he said softly. "I am still a boy, a fool."
+
+"You mustn't hurt me!" she cried in a sorrowful voice, pressing his head
+to her bosom. "Say nothing! God be with you. Your life is your own! But
+don't wound my heart. How can a mother help sorrowing for her son?
+Impossible! I am sorry for all of you. You are all dear to me as my own
+flesh and blood; you are all such good people! And who will be sorry for
+you if I am not? You go and others follow you. They have all left
+everything behind them, Pasha, and gone into this thing. It's just like
+a sacred procession."
+
+A great ardent thought burned in her bosom, animating her heart with an
+exalted feeling of sad, tormenting joy; but she could find no words, and
+she waved her hands with the pang of muteness. She looked into her son's
+face with eyes in which a bright, sharp pain had lit its fires.
+
+"Very well, mother! Forgive me. I see all now!" he muttered, lowering
+his head. Glancing at her with a light smile, he added, embarrassed but
+happy: "I will not forget this, mother, upon my word."
+
+She pushed him from her, and looking into the room she said to Andrey in
+a good-natured tone of entreaty:
+
+"Andriusha, please don't you shout at him so! Of course, you are older
+than he, and so you----"
+
+The Little Russian was standing with his back toward her. He sang out
+drolly without turning around to face her:
+
+"Oh, oh, oh! I'll bawl at him, be sure! And I'll beat him some day,
+too."
+
+She walked up slowly to him, with outstretched hand, and said:
+
+"My dear, dear man!"
+
+The Little Russian turned around, bent his head like an ox, and folding
+his hands behind his back walked past her into the kitchen. Thence his
+voice issued in a tone of mock sullenness:
+
+"You had better go away, Pavel, so I shan't bite your head off! I am
+only joking, mother; don't believe it! I want to prepare the samovar.
+What coals these are! Wet, the devil take them!"
+
+He became silent, and when the mother walked into the kitchen he was
+sitting on the floor, blowing the coals in the samovar. Without looking
+at her the Little Russian began again:
+
+"Yes, mother, don't be afraid. I won't touch him. You know, I'm a
+good-natured chap, soft as a stewed turnip. And then--you hero out
+there, don't listen--I love him! But I don't like the waistcoat he
+wears. You see, he has put on a new waistcoat, and he likes it very
+much, so he goes strutting about, and pushes everybody, crying: 'See,
+see what a waistcoat I have on!' It's true, it's a fine waistcoat. But
+what's the use of pushing people? It's hot enough for us without it."
+
+Pavel smiled and asked:
+
+"How long do you mean to keep up your jabbering? You gave me one
+thrashing with your tongue. That's enough!"
+
+Sitting on the floor, the Little Russian spread his legs around the
+samovar, and regarded Pavel. The mother stood at the door, and fixed a
+sad, affectionate gaze at Andrey's long, bent neck and the round back of
+his head. He threw his body back, supporting himself with his hands on
+the floor, looked at the mother and at the son with his slightly
+reddened and blinking eyes, and said in a low, hearty voice:
+
+"You are good people, yes, you are!"
+
+Pavel bent down and grasped his hand.
+
+"Don't pull my hand," said the Little Russian gruffly. "You'll let go
+and I'll fall. Go away!"
+
+"Why are you so shy?" the mother said pensively. "You'd better embrace
+and kiss. Press hard, hard!"
+
+"Do you want to?" asked Pavel softly.
+
+"We--ell, why not?" answered the Little Russian, rising.
+
+Pavel dropped on his knees, and grasping each other firmly, they sank
+for a moment into each other's embrace--two bodies and one soul
+passionately and evenly burning with a profound feeling of friendship.
+
+Tears ran down the mother's face, but this time they were easy tears.
+Drying them she said in embarrassment:
+
+"A woman likes to cry. She cries when she is in sorrow; she cries when
+she is in joy!"
+
+The Little Russian pushed Pavel away, and with a light movement, also
+wiping his eyes with his fingers, he said:
+
+"Enough! When the calves have had their frolic, they must go to the
+shambles. What beastly coal this is! I blew and blew on it, and got some
+of the dust in my eyes."
+
+Pavel sat at the window with bent head, and said mildly:
+
+"You needn't be ashamed of such tears."
+
+The mother walked up to him, and sat down beside him. Her heart was
+wrapped in a soft, warm, daring feeling. She felt sad, but pleasant and
+at ease.
+
+"It's all the same!" she thought, stroking her son's hand. "It can't be
+helped; it must be so!"
+
+She recalled other such commonplace words, to which she had been
+accustomed for a long time; but they did not give adequate expression to
+all she had lived through that moment.
+
+"I'll put the dishes on the table; you stay where you are, mother," said
+the Little Russian, rising from the floor, and going into the room.
+"Rest a while. Your heart has been worn out with such blows!"
+
+And from the room his singing voice, raised to a higher pitch, was
+heard.
+
+"It's not a nice thing to boast of, yet I must say we tasted the right
+life just now, real, human, loving life. It does us good."
+
+"Yes," said Pavel, looking at the mother.
+
+"It's all different now," she returned. "The sorrow is different, and
+the joy is different. I do not know anything, of course! I do not
+understand what it is I live by--and I can't express my feelings in
+words!"
+
+"This is the way it ought to be!" said the Little Russian, returning.
+"Because, mark you, mother dear, a new heart is coming into existence, a
+new heart is growing up in life. All hearts are smitten in the conflict
+of interests, all are consumed with a blind greed, eaten up with envy,
+stricken, wounded, and dripping with filth, falsehood, and cowardice.
+All people are sick; they are afraid to live; they wander about as in a
+mist. Everyone feels only his own toothache. But lo, and behold! Here is
+a Man coming and illuminating life with the light of reason, and he
+shouts: 'Oh, ho! you straying roaches! It's time, high time, for you to
+understand that all your interests are one, that everyone has the need
+to live, everyone has the desire to grow!' The Man who shouts this is
+alone, and therefore he cries aloud; he needs comrades, he feels dreary
+in his loneliness, dreary and cold. And at his call the stanch hearts
+unite into one great, strong heart, deep and sensitive as a silver bell
+not yet cast. And hark! This bell rings forth the message: 'Men of all
+countries, unite into one family! Love is the mother of life, not hate!'
+My brothers! I hear this message sounding through the world!"
+
+"And I do, too!" cried Pavel.
+
+The mother compressed her lips to keep them from trembling, and shut her
+eyes tight so as not to cry.
+
+"When I lie in bed at night or am out walking alone--everywhere I hear
+this sound, and my heart rejoices. And the earth, too--I know it--weary
+of injustice and sorrow, rings out like a bell, responding to the call,
+and trembles benignly, greeting the new sun arising in the breast of
+Man."
+
+Pavel rose, lifted his hand, and was about to say something, but the
+mother took his other hand, and pulling him down whispered in his ear:
+
+"Don't disturb him!"
+
+"Do you know?" said the Little Russian, standing in the doorway, his
+eyes aglow with a bright flame, "there is still much suffering in store
+for the people, much of their blood will yet flow, squeezed out by the
+hands of greed; but all that--all my suffering, all my blood, is a small
+price for that which is already stirring in my breast, in my mind, in
+the marrow of my bones! I am already rich, as a star is rich in golden
+rays. And I will bear all, I will suffer all, because there is within me
+a joy which no one, which nothing can ever stifle! In this joy there is
+a world of strength!"
+
+They drank tea and sat around the table until midnight, and conversed
+heart to heart and harmoniously about life, about people, and about the
+future.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+
+Whenever a thought was clear to the mother, she would find confirmation
+of the idea by drawing upon some of her rude, coarse experiences. She
+now felt as on that day when her father said to her roughly:
+
+"What are you making a wry face about? A fool has been found who wants
+to marry you. Marry him! All girls must get husbands; all women must
+bear children, and all children become a burden to their parents!"
+
+After these words she saw before her an unavoidable path running for
+some inexplicable reason through a dark, dreary waste. Thus it was at
+the present moment. In anticipation of a new approaching misfortune, she
+uttered speechless words, addressing some imaginary person.
+
+This lightened her mute pain, which reverberated in her heart like a
+tight chord.
+
+The next day, early in the morning, very soon after Pavel and Andrey had
+left, Korsunova knocked at the door alarmingly, and called out hastily:
+
+"Isay is killed! Come, quick!"
+
+The mother trembled; the name of the assassin flashed through her mind.
+
+"Who did it?" she asked curtly, throwing a shawl over her shoulders.
+
+"The man's not sitting out there mourning over Isay. He knocked him down
+and fled!"
+
+On the street Marya said:
+
+"Now they'll begin to rummage about again and look for the murderer.
+It's a good thing your folks were at home last night. I can bear witness
+to that. I walked past here after midnight and glanced into the window,
+and saw all of you sitting around the table."
+
+"What are you talking about, Marya? Why, who could dream of such a thing
+about them?" the mother ejaculated in fright.
+
+"Well, who killed him? Some one from among your people, of course!" said
+Korsunova, regarding the idea as a matter to be taken for granted.
+"Everybody knows he spied on them."
+
+The mother stopped to fetch breath, and put her hand to her bosom.
+
+"What are you going on that way for? Don't be afraid! Whoever it is will
+reap the harvest of his own rashness. Let's go quick, or else they'll
+take him away!"
+
+The mother walked on without asking herself why she went, and shaken by
+the thought of Vyesovshchikov.
+
+"There--he's done it!" Her mind was held fast by the one idea.
+
+Not far from the factory walls, on the grounds of a building recently
+burned down, a crowd was gathered, tramping down the coal and stirring
+up ash dust. It hummed and buzzed like a swarm of bees. There were many
+women in the crowd, even more children, and storekeepers, tavern
+waiters, policemen, and the gendarme Petlin, a tall old man with a
+woolly, silvery beard, and decorations on his breast.
+
+Isay half reclined on the ground, his back resting against a burned
+joist, his bare head hanging over his right shoulder, his right hand in
+his trousers' pocket, and the fingers of his left hand clutching the
+soil.
+
+The mother looked at Isay's face. One eye, wide open, had its dim glance
+fixed upon his hat lying between his lazily outstretched legs. His mouth
+was half open in astonishment, his little shriveled body, with its
+pointed head and bony face, seemed to be resting. The mother crossed
+herself and heaved a sigh. He had been repulsive to her when alive, but
+now she felt a mild pity for him.
+
+"No blood!" some one remarked in an undertone. "He was evidently knocked
+down with a fist blow."
+
+A stout woman, tugging at the gendarme's hand, asked:
+
+"Maybe he is still alive?"
+
+"Go away!" the gendarme shouted not very loudly, withdrawing his hand.
+
+"The doctor was here and said it was all over," somebody said to the
+woman.
+
+A sarcastic, malicious voice cried aloud:
+
+"They've choked up a denouncer's mouth. Serves him right!"
+
+The gendarme pushed aside the women, who were crowded close about him,
+and asked in a threatening tone:
+
+"Who was that? Who made that remark?"
+
+The people scattered before him as he thrust them aside. A number took
+quickly to their heels, and some one in the crowd broke into a mocking
+laugh.
+
+The mother went home.
+
+"No one is sorry," she thought. The broad figure of Nikolay stood before
+her like a shadow, his narrow eyes had a cold, cruel look, and he wrung
+his right hand as if it had been hurt.
+
+When Pavel and Andrey came to dinner, her first question was:
+
+"Well? Did they arrest anybody for Isay's murder?"
+
+"We haven't heard anything about it," answered the Little Russian.
+
+She saw that they were both downhearted and sullen.
+
+"Nothing is said about Nikolay?" the mother questioned again in a low
+voice.
+
+Pavel fixed his stern eyes on the mother, and said distinctly:
+
+"No, there is no talk of him. He is not even thought of in connection
+with this affair. He is away. He went off on the river yesterday, and
+hasn't returned yet. I inquired for him."
+
+"Thank God!" said the mother with a sigh of relief. "Thank God!"
+
+The Little Russian looked at her, and drooped his head.
+
+"He lies there," the mother recounted pensively, "and looks as though he
+were surprised; that's the way his face looks. And no one pities him; no
+one bestows a good word on him. He is such a tiny bit of a fellow, such
+a wretched-looking thing, like a bit of broken china. It seems as if he
+had slipped on something and fallen, and there he lies!"
+
+At dinner Pavel suddenly dropped his spoon and exclaimed:
+
+"That's what I don't understand!"
+
+"What?" asked the Little Russian, who had been sitting at the table
+dismal and silent.
+
+"To kill anything living because one wants to eat, that's ugly enough.
+To kill a beast--a beast of prey--that I can understand. I think I
+myself could kill a man who had turned into a beast preying upon
+mankind. But to kill such a disgusting, pitiful creature--I don't
+understand how anyone could lift his hand for an act like that!"
+
+The Little Russian raised his shoulders and dropped them again; then
+said:
+
+"He was no less noxious than a beast."
+
+"I know."
+
+"We kill a mosquito for sucking just a tiny bit of our blood," the
+Little Russian added in a low voice.
+
+"Well, yes, I am not saying anything about that. I only mean to say it's
+so disgusting."
+
+"What can you do?" returned Andrey with another shrug of his shoulders.
+
+After a long pause Pavel asked:
+
+"Could you kill a fellow like that?"
+
+The Little Russian regarded him with his round eyes, threw a glance at
+the mother, and said sadly, but firmly:
+
+"For myself, I wouldn't touch a living thing. But for comrades, for the
+cause, I am capable of everything. I'd even kill. I'd kill my own son."
+
+"Oh, Andriusha!" the mother exclaimed under her breath.
+
+He smiled and said:
+
+"It can't be helped! Such is our life!"
+
+"Ye-es," Pavel drawled. "Such is our life."
+
+With sudden excitation, as if obeying some impulse from within, Andrey
+arose, waved his hands, and said:
+
+"How can a man help it? It so happens that we sometimes must abhor a
+certain person in order to hasten the time when it will be possible only
+to take delight in one another. You must destroy those who hinder the
+progress of life, who sell human beings for money in order to buy quiet
+or esteem for themselves. If a Judas stands in the way of honest people,
+lying in wait to betray them, I should be a Judas myself if I did not
+destroy him. It's sinful, you say? And do they, these masters of life,
+do they have the right to keep soldiers and executioners, public houses
+and prisons, places of penal servitude, and all that vile abomination by
+which they hold themselves in quiet security and in comfort? If it
+happens sometimes that I am compelled to take their stick into my own
+hands, what am I to do then? Why, I am going to take it, of course. I
+will not decline. They kill us out by the tens and hundreds. That gives
+me the right to raise my hand and level it against one of the enemy,
+against that one of their number who comes closest to me, and makes
+himself more directly noxious to the work of my life than the others.
+This is logic; but I go against logic for once. I do not need your logic
+now. I know that their blood can bring no results, I know that their
+blood is barren, fruitless! Truth grows well only on the soil irrigated
+with the copious rain of our own blood, and their putrid blood goes to
+waste, without a trace left. I know it! But I take the sin upon myself.
+I'll kill, if I see a need for it! I speak only for myself, mind you. My
+crime dies with me. It will not remain a blot upon the future. It will
+sully no one but myself--no one but myself."
+
+He walked to and fro in the room, waving his hands in front of him, as
+if he were cutting something in the air out of his way. The mother
+looked at him with an expression of melancholy and alarm. She felt as
+though something had hit him, and that he was pained. The dangerous
+thoughts about murder left her. If Vyesovshchikov had not killed Isay,
+none of Pavel's comrades could have done the deed. Pavel listened to the
+Little Russian with drooping head, and Andrey stubbornly continued in a
+forceful tone:
+
+"In your forward march it sometimes chances that you must go against
+your very own self. You must be able to give up everything--your heart
+and all. To give your life, to die for the cause--that's simple. Give
+more! Give that which is dearer to you than your life! Then you will see
+that grow with a vigorous growth which is dearest to you--your truth!"
+
+He stopped in the middle of the room, his face grown pale and his eyes
+half closed. Raising his hand and shaking it, he began slowly in a
+solemn tone of assurance with faith and with strength:
+
+"There will come a time, I know, when people will take delight in one
+another, when each will be like a star to the other, and when each will
+listen to his fellow as to music. The free men will walk upon the earth,
+men great in their freedom. They will walk with open hearts, and the
+heart of each will be pure of envy and greed, and therefore all mankind
+will be without malice, and there will be nothing to divorce the heart
+from reason. Then life will be one great service to man! His figure will
+be raised to lofty heights--for to free men all heights are attainable.
+Then we shall live in truth and freedom and in beauty, and those will be
+accounted the best who will the more widely embrace the world with their
+hearts, and whose love of it will be the profoundest; those will be the
+best who will be the freest; for in them is the greatest beauty. Then
+will life be great, and the people will be great who live that life."
+
+He ceased and straightened himself. Then swinging to and fro like the
+tongue of a bell, he added in a resonant voice that seemed to issue from
+the depths of his breast:
+
+"So for the sake of this life I am prepared for everything! I will tear
+my heart out, if necessary, and will trample it with my own feet!"
+
+His face quivered and stiffened with excitement, and great, heavy tears
+rolled down one after the other.
+
+Pavel raised his head and looked at him with a pale face and wide-open
+eyes. The mother raised herself a little over the table with a feeling
+that something great was growing and impending.
+
+"What is the matter with you, Andrey?" Pavel asked softly.
+
+The Little Russian shook his head, stretched himself like a violin
+string, and said, looking at the mother:
+
+"I struck Isay."
+
+She rose, and quickly walked up to him, all in a tremble, and seized his
+hands. He tried to free his right hand, but she held it firmly in her
+grasp and whispered hotly:
+
+"My dear, my own, hush! It's nothing--it's nothing--nothing, Pasha!
+Andriushenka--oh, what a calamity! You sufferer! My darling heart!"
+
+"Wait, mother," the Little Russian muttered hoarsely. "I'll tell you how
+it happened."
+
+"Don't!" she whispered, looking at him with tears in her eyes. "Don't,
+Andriusha! It isn't our business. It's God's affair!"
+
+Pavel came up to him slowly, looking at his comrade with moist eyes. He
+was pale, and his lips trembled. With a strange smile he said softly and
+slowly:
+
+"Come, give me your hand, Andrey. I want to shake hands with you. Upon
+my word, I understand how hard it is for you!"
+
+"Wait!" said the Little Russian without looking at them, shaking his
+head, and tearing himself away from their grasp. When he succeeded in
+freeing his right hand from the mother's, Pavel caught it, pressing it
+vigorously and wringing it.
+
+"And you mean to tell me you killed that man?" said the mother. "No,
+_you_ didn't do it! If I saw it with my own eyes I wouldn't believe it."
+
+"Stop, Andrey! Mother is right. This thing is beyond our judgment."
+
+With one hand pressing Andrey's, Pavel laid the other on his shoulder,
+as if wishing to stop the tremor in his tall body. The Little Russian
+bent his head down toward him, and said in a broken, mournful voice:
+
+"I didn't want to do it, you know, Pavel. It happened when you walked
+ahead, and I remained behind with Ivan Gusev. Isay came from around a
+corner and stopped to look at us, and smiled at us. Ivan walked off
+home, and I went on toward the factory--Isay at my side!" Andrey
+stopped, heaved a deep sigh, and continued: "No one ever insulted me in
+such an ugly way as that dog!"
+
+The mother pulled the Little Russian by the hand toward the table, gave
+him a shove, and finally succeeded in seating him on a chair. She sat
+down at his side close to him, shoulder to shoulder. Pavel stood in
+front of them, holding Andrey's hand in his and pressing it.
+
+"I understand how hard it is for you," he said.
+
+"He told me that they know us all, that we are all on the gendarme's
+record, and that we are going to be dragged in before the first of May.
+I didn't answer, I laughed, but my blood boiled. He began to tell me
+that I was a clever fellow, and that I oughtn't to go on the way I was
+going, but that I should rather----"
+
+The Little Russian stopped, wiped his face with his right hand, shook
+his head, and a dry gleam flashed in his eyes.
+
+"I understand!" said Pavel.
+
+"Yes," he said, "I should rather enter the service of the law." The
+Little Russian waved his hand, and swung his clenched fist. "The
+law!--curse his soul!" he hissed between his teeth. "It would have been
+better if he had struck me in the face. It would have been easier for
+me, and better for him, perhaps, too! But when he spit his dirty thought
+into my heart that way, I could not bear it."
+
+Andrey pulled his hand convulsively from Pavel's, and said more hoarsely
+with disgust in his face:
+
+"I dealt him a back-hand blow like that, downward and aslant, and walked
+away. I didn't even stop to look at him; I heard him fall. He dropped
+and was silent. I didn't dream of anything serious. I walked on
+peacefully, just as if I had done no more than kick a frog with my foot.
+And then--what's all this? I started to work, and I heard them shouting:
+'Isay is killed!' I didn't even believe it, but my hand grew numb--and I
+felt awkward in working with it. It didn't hurt me, but it seemed to
+have grown shorter."
+
+He looked at his hand obliquely and said:
+
+"All my life, I suppose, I won't be able to wash off that dirty stain
+from it."
+
+"If only your heart is pure, my dear boy!" the mother said softly,
+bursting into tears.
+
+"I don't regard myself as guilty; no, I don't!" said the Little Russian
+firmly. "But it's disgust. It disgusts me to carry such dirt inside of
+me. I had no need of it. It wasn't called for."
+
+"What do you think of doing?" asked Pavel, giving him a suspicious look.
+
+"What am I going to do?" the Little Russian repeated thoughtfully,
+drooping his head. Then raising it again he said with a smile: "I am not
+afraid, of course, to say that it was I who struck him. But I am ashamed
+to say it. I am ashamed to go to prison, and even to hard labor, maybe,
+for such a--nothing. If some one else is accused, then I'll go and
+confess. But otherwise, go all of my own accord--I cannot!"
+
+He waved his hands, rose, and repeated:
+
+"I cannot! I am ashamed!"
+
+The whistle blew. The Little Russian, bending his head to one side,
+listened to the powerful roar, and shaking himself, said:
+
+"I am not going to work."
+
+"Nor I," said Pavel.
+
+"I'll go to the bath house," said the Little Russian, smiling. He got
+ready in silence and walked off, sullen and low-spirited.
+
+The mother followed him with a compassionate look.
+
+"Say what you please, Pasha, I cannot believe him! And even if I did
+believe him, I wouldn't lay any blame on him. No, I would not. I know
+it's sinful to kill a man; I believe in God and in the Lord Jesus
+Christ, but still I don't think Andrey guilty. I'm sorry for Isay. He's
+such a tiny bit of a manikin. He lies there in astonishment. When I
+looked at him I remembered how he threatened to have you hanged. And yet
+I neither felt hatred toward him nor joy because he was dead. I simply
+felt sorry. But now that I know by whose hand he fell I am not even
+sorry for him."
+
+She suddenly became silent, reflected a while, and with a smile of
+surprise, exclaimed:
+
+"Lord Jesus Christ! Do you hear what I am saying, Pasha?"
+
+Pavel apparently had not heard her. Slowly pacing up and down the room
+with drooping head, he said pensively and with exasperation:
+
+"Andrey won't forgive himself soon, if he'll forgive himself at all!
+There is life for you, mother. You see the position in which people are
+placed toward one another. You don't want to, but you must strike! And
+strike whom? Such a helpless being. He is more wretched even than you
+because he is stupid. The police, the gendarmes, the soldiers, the
+spies--they are all our enemies, and yet they are all such people as we
+are. Their blood is sucked out of them just as ours is, and they are no
+more regarded as human beings than we are. That's the way it is. But
+they have set one part of the people against the other, blinded them
+with fear, bound them all hand and foot, squeezed them, and drained
+their blood, and used some as clubs against the others. They've turned
+men into weapons, into sticks and stones, and called it civilization,
+government."
+
+He walked up to his mother and said to her firmly:
+
+"That's crime, mother! The heinous crime of killing millions of people,
+the murder of millions of souls! You understand--they kill the soul! You
+see the difference between them and us. He killed a man unwittingly. He
+feels disgusted, ashamed, sick--the main thing is he feels disgusted!
+But they kill off thousands calmly, without a qualm, without pity,
+without a shudder of the heart. They kill with pleasure and with
+delight. And why? They stifle everybody and everything to death merely
+to keep the timber of their houses secure, their furniture, their
+silver, their gold, their worthless papers--all that cheap trash which
+gives them control over the people. Think, it's not for their own
+selves, for their persons, that they protect themselves thus, using
+murder and the mutilation of souls as a means--it's not for themselves
+they do it, but for the sake of their possessions. They do not guard
+themselves from within, but from without."
+
+He bent over to her, took her hands, and shaking them said:
+
+"If you felt the abomination of it all, the disgrace and rottenness, you
+would understand our truth; you would then perceive how great it is, how
+glorious!"
+
+The mother arose agitated, full of a desire to sink her heart into the
+heart of her son, and to join them in one burning, flaming torch.
+
+"Wait, Pasha, wait!" she muttered, panting for breath. "I am a human
+being. I feel. Wait."
+
+There was a loud noise of some one entering the porch. Both of them
+started and looked at each other.
+
+"If it's the police coming for Andrey--" Pavel whispered.
+
+"I know nothing--nothing!" the mother whispered back. "Oh, God!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+
+The door opened slowly, and bending to pass through, Rybin strode in
+heavily.
+
+"Here I am!" he said, raising his head and smiling.
+
+He wore a short fur overcoat, all stained with tar, a pair of dark
+mittens stuck from his belt, and his head was covered with a shaggy fur
+cap.
+
+"Are you well? Have they let you out of prison, Pavel? So, how are you,
+Nilovna?"
+
+"Why, you? How glad I am to see you!"
+
+Slowly removing his overclothes, Rybin said:
+
+"Yes, I've turned muzhik again. You're gradually turning gentlemen, and
+I am turning the other way. That's it!"
+
+Pulling his ticking shirt straight, he passed through the room, examined
+it attentively, and remarked:
+
+"You can see your property has not increased, but you've grown richer in
+books. So! That's the dearest possession, books are, it's true. Well,
+tell me how things are going with you."
+
+"Things are going forward," said Pavel.
+
+"Yes," said Rybin.
+
+   "We plow and we sow,
+    All high and low,
+    Boasting is cheap,
+    But the harvest we reap,
+    A feast we'll make,
+    And a rest we'll take."
+
+"Will you have some tea?" asked the mother.
+
+"Yes, I'll have some tea, and I'll take a sip of vodka, too; and if
+you'll give me something to eat, I won't decline it, either. I am glad
+to see you--that's what!"
+
+"How's the world wagging with you, Mikhail Ivanych?" Pavel inquired,
+taking a seat opposite Rybin.
+
+"So, so. Fairly well. I settled at Edilgeyev. Have you ever heard of
+Edilgeyev? It's a fine village. There are two fairs a year there; over
+two thousand inhabitants. The people are an evil pack. There's no land.
+It's leased out in lots. Poor soil!"
+
+"Do you talk to them?" asked Pavel, becoming animated.
+
+"I don't keep mum. You know I have all your leaflets with me. I grabbed
+them away from here--thirty-four of them. But I carry on my propaganda
+chiefly with the Bible. You can get something out of it. It's a thick
+book. It's a government book. It's published by the Holy Synod. It's
+easy to believe!" He gave Pavel a wink, and continued with a laugh: "But
+that's not enough! I have come here to you to get books. Yefim is here,
+too. We are transporting tar; and so we turned aside to stop at your
+house. You stock me up with books before Yefim comes. He doesn't have to
+know too much!"
+
+"Mother," said Pavel, "go get some books! They'll know what to give you.
+Tell them it's for the country."
+
+"All right. The samovar will be ready in a moment, and then I'll go."
+
+"You have gone into this movement, too, Nilovna?" asked Rybin with a
+smile. "Very well. We have lots of eager candidates for books. There's a
+teacher there who creates a desire for them. He's a fine fellow, they
+say, although he belongs to the clergy. We have a woman teacher, too,
+about seven versts from the village. But they don't work with illegal
+books; they're a 'law and order' crowd out there; they're afraid. But I
+want forbidden books--sharp, pointed books. I'll slip them through their
+fingers. When the police commissioners or the priest see that they are
+illegal books, they'll think it's the teachers who circulate them. And
+in the meantime I'll remain in the background."
+
+Well content with his hard, practical sense, he grinned merrily.
+
+"Hm!" thought the mother. "He looks like a bear and behaves like a fox."
+
+Pavel rose, and pacing up and down the room with even steps, said
+reproachfully:
+
+"We'll let you have the books, but what you want to do is not right,
+Mikhail Ivanovich."
+
+"Why is it not right?" asked Rybin, opening his eyes in astonishment.
+
+"You yourself ought to answer for what you do. It is not right to manage
+matters so that others should suffer for what you do." Pavel spoke
+sternly.
+
+Rybin looked at the floor, shook his head, and said:
+
+"I don't understand you."
+
+"If the teachers are suspected," said Pavel, stationing himself in front
+of Rybin, "of distributing illegal books, don't you think they'll be put
+in jail for it?"
+
+"Yes. Well, what if they are?"
+
+"But it's you who distribute the books, not they. Then it's you that
+ought to go to prison."
+
+"What a strange fellow you are!" said Rybin with a smile, striking his
+hand on his knee. "Who would suspect me, a muzhik, of occupying myself
+with such matters? Why, does such a thing happen? Books are affairs of
+the masters, and it's for them to answer for them."
+
+The mother felt that Pavel did not understand Rybin, and she saw that he
+was screwing up his eyes--a sign of anger. So she interjected in a
+cautious, soft voice:
+
+"Mikhail Ivanovich wants to fix it so that he should be able to go on
+with his work, and that others should take the punishment for it."
+
+"That's it!" said Rybin, stroking his beard.
+
+"Mother," Pavel asked dryly, "suppose some of our people, Andrey, for
+example, did something behind my back, and I were put in prison for it,
+what would you say to that?"
+
+The mother started, looked at her son in perplexity, and said, shaking
+her head in negation:
+
+"Why, is it possible to act that way toward a comrade?"
+
+"Aha! Yes!" Rybin drawled. "I understand you, Pavel." And with a comical
+wink toward the mother, he added: "This is a delicate matter, mother."
+And again turning to Pavel he held forth in a didactic manner: "Your
+ideas on this subject are very green, brother. In secret work there is
+no honor. Think! In the first place, they'll put those persons in prison
+on whom they find the books, and not the teachers. That's number one!
+Secondly, even though the teachers give the people only legal books to
+read, you know that they contain prohibited things just the same as in
+the forbidden books; only they are put in a different language. The
+truths are fewer. That's number two. I mean to say, they want the same
+thing that I do; only they proceed by side paths, while I travel on the
+broad highway. And thirdly, brother, what business have I with them? How
+can a traveler on foot strike up friendship with a man on horseback?
+Toward a muzhik, maybe, I wouldn't want to act that way. But these
+people, one a clergyman, the other the daughter of a land proprietor,
+why they want to uplift the people, I cannot understand. Their ideas,
+the ideas of the masters, are unintelligible to me, a muzhik. What I do
+myself, I know, but what they are after I cannot tell. For thousands of
+years they have punctiliously and consistently pursued the business of
+being masters, and have fleeced and flayed the skins of the muzhiks; and
+all of a sudden they wake up and want to open the muzhik's eyes. I am
+not a man for fairy tales, brother, and that's in the nature of a fairy
+tale. That's why I can't get interested in them. The ways of the masters
+are strange to me. You travel in winter, and you see some living
+creature in front of you. But what it is--a wolf, a fox, or just a plain
+dog--you don't know."
+
+The mother glanced at her son. His face wore a gloomy expression.
+
+Rybin's eyes sparkled with a dark gleam. He looked at Pavel, combing
+down his beard with his fingers. His air was at once complacent and
+excited.
+
+"I have no time to flirt," he said. "Life is a stern matter. We live in
+dog houses, not in sheep pens, and every pack barks after its own
+fashion."
+
+"There are some masters," said the mother, recalling certain familiar
+faces, "who die for the people, and let themselves be tortured all their
+lives in prison."
+
+"Their calculations are different, and their deserts are different,"
+said Rybin. "The muzhik grown rich turns into a gentleman, and the
+gentleman grown poor goes to the muzhik. Willy-nilly, he must have a
+pure soul, if his purse is empty. Do you remember, Pavel, you explained
+to me that as a man lives, so he also thinks, and that if the workingman
+says 'Yes,' the master must say 'No,' and if the workingman says 'No,'
+the master, because of the nature of the beast, is bound to cry 'Yes.'
+So you see, their natures are different one from the other. The muzhik
+has his nature, and the gentleman has his. When the peasant has a full
+stomach, the gentleman passes sleepless nights. Of course, every fold
+has its black sheep, and I have no desire to defend the peasants
+wholesale."
+
+Rybin rose to his feet somber and powerful. His face darkened, his beard
+quivered as if he ground his teeth inaudibly, and he continued in a
+lowered voice:
+
+"For five years I beat about from factory to factory, and got
+unaccustomed to the village. Then I went to the village again, looked
+around, and I found I could not live like that any more! You understand?
+I _can't_. You live here, you don't know hunger, you don't see such
+outrages. There hunger stalks after a man all his life like a shadow,
+and he has no hope for bread--no hope! Hunger destroys the soul of the
+people; the very image of man is effaced from their countenances. They
+do not live, they rot in dire unavoidable want. And around them the
+government authorities watch like ravens to see if a crumb is not left
+over. And if they do find a crumb, they snatch that away, too, and give
+you a punch in the face besides."
+
+Rybin looked around, bent down to Pavel, his hand resting on the table:
+
+"I even got sick and faint when I saw that life again. I looked around
+me--but I couldn't! However, I conquered my repulsion. 'Fiddlesticks!' I
+said. 'I won't let my feelings get the better of me. I'll stay here. I
+won't get your bread for you; but I'll cook you a pretty mess, I will.'
+I carry within me the wrongs of my people and hatred of the oppressor. I
+feel these wrongs like a knife constantly cutting at my heart."
+
+Perspiration broke out on his forehead; he shrugged his shoulders and
+slowly bent toward Pavel, laying a tremulous hand on his shoulder:
+
+"Give me your help! Let me have books--such books that when a man has
+read them he will not be able to rest. Put a prickly hedgehog to his
+brains. Tell those city folks who write for you to write for the
+villagers also. Let them write such hot truth that it will scald the
+village, that the people will even rush to their death."
+
+He raised his hand, and laying emphasis on each word, he said hoarsely:
+
+"Let death make amends for death. That is, die so that the people should
+arise to life again. And let thousands die in order that hosts of people
+all over the earth may arise to life again. That's it! It's easy to
+die--but let the people rise to life again! That's a different thing!
+Let them rise up in rebellion!"
+
+The mother brought in the samovar, looking askance at Rybin. His strong,
+heavy words oppressed her. Something in him reminded her of her husband.
+He, too, showed his teeth, waved his hands, and rolled up his sleeves;
+in him, too, there was that impatient wrath, impatient but dumb. Rybin
+was not dumb; he was not silent; he spoke, and therefore was less
+terrible.
+
+"That's necessary," said Pavel, nodding his head. "We need a newspaper
+for the villages, too. Give us material, and we'll print you a
+newspaper."
+
+The mother looked at her son with a smile, and shook her head. She had
+quietly put on her wraps and now went out of the house.
+
+"Yes, do it. We'll give you everything. Write as simply as possible, so
+that even calves could understand," Rybin cried. Then, suddenly stepping
+back from Pavel, he said, as he shook his head:
+
+"Ah, me, if I were a Jew! The Jew, my dear boy, is the most believing
+man in the world! Isaiah, the prophet, or Job, the patient, believed
+more strongly than Christ's apostles. They could say words to make a
+man's hair stand on end. But the apostles, you see, Pavel, couldn't. The
+prophets believed not in the church, but in themselves; they had their
+God in themselves. The apostles--they built churches; and the church is
+law. Man must believe in himself, not in law. Man carries the truth of
+God in his soul; he is not a police captain on earth, nor a slave! All
+the laws are in myself."
+
+The kitchen door opened, and somebody walked in.
+
+"It's Yefim," said Rybin, looking into the kitchen. "Come here, Yefim.
+As for you, Pavel, think! Think a whole lot. There is a great deal to
+think about. This is Yefim. And this man's name is Pavel. I told you
+about him."
+
+A light-haired, broad-faced young fellow in a short fur overcoat, well
+built and evidently strong, stood before Pavel, holding his cap in both
+hands and looking at him from the corners of his gray eyes.
+
+"How do you do?" he said hoarsely, as he shook hands with Pavel, and
+stroked his curly hair with both hands. He looked around the room,
+immediately spied the bookshelf, and walked over to it slowly.
+
+"Went straight to them!" Rybin said, winking to Pavel.
+
+Yefim started to examine the books, and said:
+
+"A whole lot of reading here! But I suppose you haven't much time for
+it. Down in the village they have more time for reading."
+
+"But less desire?" Pavel asked.
+
+"Why? They have the desire, too," answered the fellow, rubbing his chin.
+"The times are so now that if you don't think, you might as well lie
+down and die. But the people don't want to die; and so they've begun to
+make their brains work. 'Geology'--what's that?"
+
+Pavel explained.
+
+"We don't need it!" Yefim said, replacing the book on the shelf.
+
+Rybin sighed noisily, and said:
+
+"The peasant is not so much interested to know where the land came from
+as where it's gone to, how it's been snatched from underneath his feet
+by the gentry. It doesn't matter to him whether it's fixed or whether it
+revolves--that's of no importance--you can hang it on a rope, if you
+want to, provided it feeds him; you can nail it to the skies, provided
+it gives him enough to eat."
+
+"'The History of Slavery,'" Yefim read out again, and asked Pavel: "Is
+it about us?"
+
+"Here's an account of Russian serfdom, too," said Pavel, giving him
+another book. Yefim took it, turned it in his hands, and putting it
+aside, said calmly:
+
+"That's out of date."
+
+"Have you an apportionment of land for yourself?" inquired Pavel.
+
+"We? Yes, we have. We are three brothers, and our portion is about ten
+acres and a half--all sand--good for polishing brass, but poor for
+making bread." After a pause he continued: "I've freed myself from the
+soil. What's the use? It does not feed; it ties one's hands. This is the
+fourth year that I'm working as a hired man. I've got to become a
+soldier this fall. Uncle Mikhail says: 'Don't go. Now,' he says, 'the
+soldiers are being sent to beat the people.' However, I think I'll go.
+The army existed at the time of Stepan Timofeyevich Razin and Pugachev.
+The time has come to make an end of it. Don't you think so?" he asked,
+looking firmly at Pavel.
+
+"Yes, the time has come." The answer was accompanied by a smile. "But
+it's hard. You must know what to say to soldiers, and how to say it."
+
+"We'll learn; we'll know how," Yefim said.
+
+"And if the superiors catch you at it, they may shoot you down," Pavel
+concluded, looking curiously at Yefim.
+
+"They will show no mercy," the peasant assented calmly, and resumed his
+examination of the books.
+
+"Drink your tea, Yefim; we've got to leave soon," said Rybin.
+
+"Directly." And Yefim asked again: "Revolution is an uprising, isn't
+it?"
+
+Andrey came, red, perspiring, and dejected. He shook Yefim's hand
+without saying anything, sat down by Rybin's side, and smiled as he
+looked at him.
+
+"What's the trouble? Why so blue?" Rybin asked, tapping his knee.
+
+"Nothing."
+
+"Are you a workingman, too?" asked Yefim, nodding his head toward the
+Little Russian.
+
+"Yes," Andrey answered. "Why?"
+
+"This is the first time he's seen factory workmen," explained Rybin. "He
+says they're different from others."
+
+"How so?" Pavel asked.
+
+Yefim looked carefully at Andrey and said:
+
+"You have sharp bones; peasants' bones are rounder."
+
+"The peasant stands more firmly on his feet," Rybin supplemented. "He
+feels the ground under him although he does not possess it. Yet he feels
+the earth. But the factory workingman is something like a bird. He has
+no home. To-day he's here, to-morrow there. Even his wife can't attach
+him to the same spot. At the least provocation--farewell, my dear! and
+off he goes to look for something better. But the peasant wants to
+improve himself just where he is without moving off the spot. There's
+your mother!" And Rybin went out into the kitchen.
+
+Yefim approached Pavel, and with embarrassment asked:
+
+"Perhaps you will give me a book?"
+
+"Certainly."
+
+The peasant's eyes flashed, and he said rapidly:
+
+"I'll return it. Some of our folks bring tar not far from here. They
+will return it for me. Thank you! Nowadays a book is like a candle in
+the night to us."
+
+Rybin, already dressed and tightly girt, came in and said to Yefim:
+
+"Come, it's time for us to go."
+
+"Now, I have something to read!" exclaimed Yefim, pointing to the book
+and smiling inwardly. When he had gone, Pavel animatedly said, turning
+to Andrey:
+
+"Did you notice those fellows?"
+
+"Y-yes!" slowly uttered the Little Russian. "Like clouds in the
+sunset--thick, dark clouds, moving slowly."
+
+"Mikhail!" exclaimed the mother. "He looks as if he had never been in a
+factory! A peasant again. And how formidable he looks!"
+
+"I'm sorry you weren't here," said Pavel to Andrey, who was sitting at
+the table, staring gloomily into his glass of tea. "You could have seen
+the play of hearts. You always talk about the heart. Rybin got up a lot
+of steam; he upset me, crushed me. I couldn't even reply to him. How
+distrustful he is of people, and how cheaply he values them! Mother is
+right. That man has a formidable power in him."
+
+"I noticed it," the Little Russian replied glumly. "They have poisoned
+people. When the peasants rise up, they'll overturn absolutely
+everything! They need bare land, and they will lay it bare, tear down
+everything." He spoke slowly, and it was evident that his mind was on
+something else. The mother cautiously tapped him on the shoulder.
+
+"Pull yourself together, Andriusha."
+
+"Wait a little, my dear mother, my own!" he begged softly and kindly.
+"All this is so ugly--although I didn't mean to do any harm. Wait!" And
+suddenly rousing himself, he said, striking the table with his hand:
+"Yes, Pavel, the peasant will lay the land bare for himself when he
+rises to his feet. He will burn everything up, as if after a plague, so
+that all traces of his wrongs will vanish in ashes."
+
+"And then he will get in our way," Pavel observed softly.
+
+"It's our business to prevent that. We are nearer to him; he trusts us;
+he will follow us."
+
+"Do you know, Rybin proposes that we should publish a newspaper for the
+village?"
+
+"We must do it, too. As soon as possible."
+
+Pavel laughed and said:
+
+"I feel bad I didn't argue with him."
+
+"We'll have a chance to argue with him still," the Little Russian
+rejoined. "You keep on playing your flute; whoever has gay feet, if they
+haven't grown into the ground, will dance to your tune. Rybin would
+probably have said that we don't feel the ground under us, and need not,
+either. Therefore it's our business to shake it. Shake it once, and the
+people will be loosened from it; shake it once more, and they'll tear
+themselves away."
+
+The mother smiled.
+
+"Everything seems to be simple to you, Andriusha."
+
+"Yes, yes, it's simple," said the Little Russian, and added gloomily:
+"Like life." A few minutes later he said: "I'll go take a walk in the
+field."
+
+"After the bath? The wind will blow through you," the mother warned.
+
+"Well, I need a good airing."
+
+"Look out, you'll catch a cold," Pavel said affectionately. "You'd
+better lie down and try to sleep."
+
+"No, I'm going." He put on his wraps, and went out without speaking.
+
+"It's hard for him," the mother sighed.
+
+"You know what?" Pavel observed to her. "It's very good that you started
+to say 'thou' to him after that."
+
+She looked at him in astonishment, and after reflecting a moment, said:
+
+"Um, I didn't even notice how it came. It came all of itself. He has
+grown so near to me. I can't tell you in words just how I feel. Oh, such
+a misfortune!"
+
+"You have a good heart, mamma," Pavel said softly.
+
+"I'm very glad if I have. If I could only help you in some way, all of
+you. If I only could!"
+
+"Don't fear, you will."
+
+She laughed softly:
+
+"I can't help fearing; that's exactly what I can't help. But thank you
+for the good word, my dear son."
+
+"All right, mother; don't let's talk about it any more. Know that I love
+you; and I thank you most heartily."
+
+She walked into the kitchen in order not to annoy him with her tears.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+
+Several days later Vyesovshchikov came in, as shabby, untidy, and
+disgruntled as ever.
+
+"Haven't you heard who killed Isay?" He stopped in his clumsy pacing of
+the room to turn to Pavel.
+
+"No!" Pavel answered briefly.
+
+"There you got a man who wasn't squeamish about the job! And I'd always
+been preparing to do it myself. It was my job--just the thing for me!"
+
+"Don't talk nonsense, Nikolay," Pavel said in a friendly manner.
+
+"Now, really, what's the matter with you?" interposed the mother kindly.
+"You have a soft heart, and yet you keep barking like a vicious dog.
+What do you go on that way for?"
+
+At this moment she was actually pleased to see Nikolay. Even his
+pockmarked face looked more agreeable to her. She pitied him as never
+before.
+
+"Well, I'm not fit for anything but jobs like that!" said Nikolay dully,
+shrugging his shoulders. "I keep thinking, and thinking where my place
+in the world is. There is no place for me! The people require to be
+spoken to, and I cannot. I see everything; I feel all the people's
+wrongs; but I cannot express myself: I have a dumb soul." He went over
+to Pavel with drooping head; and scraping his fingers on the table, he
+said plaintively, and so unlike himself, childishly, sadly: "Give me
+some hard work to do, comrade. I can't live this life any longer. It's
+so senseless, so useless. You are all working in the movement, and I see
+that it is growing, and I'm outside of it all. I haul boards and beams.
+Is it possible to live for the sake of hauling timber? Give me some hard
+work."
+
+Pavel clasped his hand, pulling him toward himself.
+
+"We will!"
+
+From behind the curtains resounded the Little Russian's voice:
+
+"Nikolay, I'll teach you typesetting, and you'll work as a compositor
+for us. Yes?"
+
+Nikolay went over to him and said:
+
+"If you'll teach me that, I'll give you my knife."
+
+"To the devil with your knife!" exclaimed the Little Russian and burst
+out laughing.
+
+"It's a good knife," Nikolay insisted. Pavel laughed, too.
+
+Vyesovshchikov stopped in the middle of the room and asked:
+
+"Are you laughing at me?"
+
+"Of course," replied the Little Russian, jumping out of bed. "I'll tell
+you what! Let's take a walk in the fields! The night is fine; there's
+bright moonshine. Let's go!"
+
+"All right," said Pavel.
+
+"And I'll go with you, too!" declared Nikolay. "I like to hear you
+laugh, Little Russian."
+
+"And I like to hear you promise presents," answered the Little Russian,
+smiling.
+
+While Andrey was dressing in the kitchen, the mother scolded him:
+
+"Dress warmer! You'll get sick." And when they all had left, she watched
+them through the window; then looked at the ikon, and said softly: "God
+help them!"
+
+She turned off the lamp and began to pray alone in the moonlit room.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The days flew by in such rapid succession that the mother could not give
+much thought to the first of May. Only at night, when, exhausted by the
+noise and the exciting bustle of the day, she went to bed, tired and
+worn out, her heart would begin to ache.
+
+"Oh, dear, if it would only be over soon!"
+
+At dawn, when the factory whistle blew, the son and the Little Russian,
+after hastily drinking tea and snatching a bite, would go, leaving a
+dozen or so small commissions for the mother. The whole day long she
+would move around like a squirrel in a wheel, cook dinner, and boil
+lilac-colored gelatin and glue for the proclamations. Some people would
+come, leave notes with her to deliver to Pavel, and disappear, infecting
+her with their excitement.
+
+The leaflets appealing to the working people to celebrate the first of
+May flooded the village and the factory. Every night they were posted on
+the fences, even on the doors of the police station; and every day they
+were found in the factory. In the mornings the police would go around,
+swearing, tearing down and scraping off the lilac-covered bills from the
+fences. At noon, however, these bills would fly over the streets again,
+rolling to the feet of the passers-by. Spies were sent from the city to
+stand at the street corners and carefully scan the working people on
+their gay passages from and to the factory at dinner time. Everybody was
+pleased to see the impotence of the police, and even the elder
+workingmen would smile at one another:
+
+"Things are happening, aren't they?"
+
+All over, people would cluster into groups hotly discussing the stirring
+appeals. Life was at boiling point. This spring it held more of interest
+to everybody, it brought forth something new to all; for some it was a
+good excuse to excite themselves--they could pour out their malicious
+oaths on the agitators; to others, it brought perplexed anxiety as well
+as hope; to others again, the minority, an acute delight in the
+consciousness of being the power that set the village astir.
+
+Pavel and Andrey scarcely ever went to bed. They came home just before
+the morning whistle sounded, tired, hoarse, and pale. The mother knew
+that they held meetings in the woods and the marsh; that squads of
+mounted police galloped around the village, that spies were crawling all
+over, holding up and searching single workingmen, dispersing groups, and
+sometimes making an arrest. She understood that her son and Andrey might
+be arrested any night. Sometimes she thought that this would be the best
+thing for them.
+
+Strangely enough, the investigation of the murder of Isay, the record
+clerk, suddenly ceased. For two days the local police questioned the
+people in regard to the matter, examining about ten men or so, and
+finally lost interest in the affair.
+
+Marya Korsunova, in a chat with the mother, reflected the opinion of the
+police, with whom she associated as amicably as with everybody:
+
+"How is it possible to find the guilty man? That morning some hundred
+people met Isay, and ninety of them, if not more, might have given him
+the blow. During these eight years he has galled everybody."
+
+The Little Russian changed considerably. His face became hollow-cheeked;
+his eyelids got heavy and drooped over his round eyes, half covering
+them. His smiles were wrung from him unwillingly, and two thin wrinkles
+were drawn from his nostrils to the corners of his lips. He talked less
+about everyday matters; on the other hand, he was more frequently
+enkindled with a passionate fire; and he intoxicated his listeners with
+his ecstatic words about the future, about the bright, beautiful
+holiday, when they would celebrate the triumph of freedom and reason.
+Listening to his words, the mother felt that he had gone further than
+anybody else toward the great, glorious day, and that he saw the joys of
+that future more vividly than the rest. When the investigations of
+Isay's murder ceased, he said in disgust and smiling sadly:
+
+"It's not only the people they treat like trash, but even the very men
+whom they set on the people like dogs. They have no concern for their
+faithful Judases, they care only for their shekels--only for them." And
+after a sullen silence, he added: "And I pity that man the more I think
+of him. I didn't intend to kill him--didn't want to!"
+
+"Enough, Andrey," said Pavel severely.
+
+"You happened to knock against something rotten, and it fell to pieces,"
+added the mother in a low voice.
+
+"You're right--but that's no consolation."
+
+He often spoke in this way. In his mouth the words assumed a peculiar,
+universal significance, bitter and corrosive.
+
+At last, it was the first of May! The whistle shrilled as usual,
+powerful and peremptory. The mother, who hadn't slept a minute during
+the night, jumped out of bed, made a fire in the samovar, which had been
+prepared the evening before, and was about, as always, to knock at the
+door of her son's and Andrey's room, when, with a wave of her hand she
+recollected the day, and went to seat herself at the window, leaning her
+cheek on her hand.
+
+Clusters of light clouds, white and rosy, sailed swiftly across the pale
+blue sky, like huge birds frightened by the piercing shriek of the
+escaping steam. The mother watched the clouds, absorbed in herself. Her
+head was heavy, her eyes dry and inflamed from the sleepless night. A
+strange calm possessed her breast, her heart was beating evenly, and her
+mind dwelt on only common, everyday things.
+
+"I prepared the samovar too early; it will boil away. Let them sleep
+longer to-day; they've worn themselves out, both of them."
+
+A cheerful ray of sun looked into the room. She held her hand out to it,
+and with the other gently patted the bright young beam, smiling kindly
+and thoughtfully. Then she rose, removed the pipe from the samovar,
+trying not to make a noise, washed herself, and began to pray, crossing
+herself piously, and noiselessly moving her lips. Her face was radiant,
+and her right eyebrow kept rising gradually and suddenly dropping.
+
+The second whistle blew more softly with less assurance, a tremor in its
+thick and mellow sound. It seemed to the mother that the whistle lasted
+longer to-day than ever. The clear, musical voice of the Little Russian
+sounded in the room:
+
+"Pavel, do you hear? They're calling."
+
+The mother heard the patter of bare feet on the floor and some one yawn
+with gusto.
+
+"The samovar is ready," she cried.
+
+"We're getting up," Pavel answered merrily.
+
+"The sun is rising," said the Little Russian. "The clouds are racing;
+they're out of place to-day." He went into the kitchen all disheveled
+but jolly after his sleep. "Good morning, mother dear; how did you
+sleep?"
+
+The mother went to him and whispered:
+
+"Andriusha, keep close to him."
+
+"Certainly. As long as it depends on us, we'll always stick to each
+other, you may be sure."
+
+"What's that whispering about?" Pavel asked.
+
+"Nothing. She told me to wash myself better, so the girls will look at
+me," replied the Little Russian, going out on the porch to wash himself.
+
+"'Rise up, awake, you workingmen,'" Pavel sang softly.
+
+As the day grew, the clouds dispersed, chased by the wind. The mother
+got the dishes ready for the tea, shaking her head over the thought of
+how strange it was for both of them to be joking and smiling all the
+time on this morning, when who knew what would befall them in the
+afternoon. Yet, curiously enough, she felt herself calm, almost happy.
+
+They sat a long time over the tea to while away the hours of
+expectation. Pavel, as was his wont, slowly and scrupulously mixed the
+sugar in the glass with his spoon, and accurately salted his favorite
+crust from the end of the loaf. The Little Russian moved his feet under
+the table--he never could at once settle his feet comfortably--and
+looked at the rays of sunlight playing on the wall and ceiling.
+
+"When I was a youngster of ten years," he recounted, "I wanted to catch
+the sun in a glass. So I took the glass, stole to the wall, and bang! I
+cut my hand and got a licking to boot. After the licking I went out in
+the yard and saw the sun in a puddle. So I started to trample the mud
+with my feet. I covered myself with mud, and got another drubbing. What
+was I to do? I screamed to the sun: 'It doesn't hurt me, you red devil;
+it doesn't hurt me!' and stuck out my tongue at him. And I felt
+comforted."
+
+"Why did the sun seem red to you?" Pavel asked, laughing.
+
+"There was a blacksmith opposite our house, with fine red cheeks, and a
+huge red beard. I thought the sun resembled him."
+
+The mother lost patience and said:
+
+"You'd better talk about your arrangements for the procession."
+
+"Everything's been arranged," said Pavel.
+
+"No use talking of things once decided upon. It only confuses the mind,"
+the Little Russian added. "If we are all arrested, Nikolay Ivanovich
+will come and tell you what to do. He will help you in every way."
+
+"All right," said the mother with a heavy sigh.
+
+"Let's go out," said Pavel dreamily.
+
+"No, rather stay indoors," replied Andrey. "No need to annoy the eyes of
+the police so often. They know you well enough."
+
+Fedya Mazin came running in, all aglow, with red spots on his cheeks,
+quivering with youthful joy. His animation dispelled the tedium of
+expectation for them.
+
+"It's begun!" he reported. "The people are all out on the street, their
+faces sharp as the edge of an ax. Vyesovshchikov, the Gusevs, and
+Samoylov have been standing at the factory gates all the time, and have
+been making speeches. Most of the people went back from the factory, and
+returned home. Let's go! It's just time! It's ten o'clock already."
+
+"I'm going!" said Pavel decidedly.
+
+"You'll see," Fedya assured them, "the whole factory will rise up after
+dinner."
+
+And he hurried away, followed by the quiet words of the mother:
+
+"Burning like a wax candle in the wind."
+
+She rose and went into the kitchen to dress.
+
+"Where are you going, mother?"
+
+"With you," she said.
+
+Andrey looked at Pavel pulling his mustache. Pavel arranged his hair
+with a quick gesture, and went to his mother.
+
+"Mother, I will not tell you anything; and don't you tell me anything,
+either. Right, mother?"
+
+"All right, all right! God bless you!" she murmured.
+
+When she went out and heard the holiday hum of the people's voices--an
+anxious and expectant hum--when she saw everywhere, at the gates and
+windows, crowds of people staring at Andrey and her son, a blur quivered
+before her eyes, changes from a transparent green to a muddy gray.
+
+People greeted them--there was something peculiar in their greetings.
+She caught whispered, broken remarks:
+
+"Here they are, the leaders!"
+
+"We don't know who the leaders are!"
+
+"Why, I didn't say anything wrong."
+
+At another place some one in a yard shouted excitedly:
+
+"The police will get them, and that'll be the end of them!"
+
+"What if they do?" retorted another voice.
+
+Farther on a crying woman's voice leaped frightened from the window to
+the street:
+
+"Consider! Are you a single man, are you? They are bachelors and don't
+care!"
+
+When they passed the house of Zosimov, the man without legs, who
+received a monthly allowance from the factory because of his mutilation,
+he stuck his head through the window and cried out:
+
+"Pavel, you scoundrel, they'll wring your head off for your doings,
+you'll see!"
+
+The mother trembled and stopped. The exclamation aroused in her a sharp
+sensation of anger. She looked up at the thick, bloated face of the
+cripple, and he hid himself, cursing. Then she quickened her pace,
+overtook her son, and tried not to fall behind again. He and Andrey
+seemed not to notice anything, not to hear the outcries that pursued
+them. They moved calmly, without haste, and talked loudly about
+commonplaces. They were stopped by Mironov, a modest, elderly man,
+respected by everybody for his clean, sober life.
+
+"Not working either, Daniil Ivanovich?" Pavel asked.
+
+"My wife is going to be confined. Well, and such an exciting day, too,"
+Mironov responded, staring fixedly at the comrades. He said to them in
+an undertone:
+
+"Boys, I hear you're going to make an awful row--smash the
+superintendent's windows."
+
+"Why, are we drunk?" exclaimed Pavel.
+
+"We are simply going to march along the streets with flags, and sing
+songs," said the Little Russian. "You'll have a chance to hear our
+songs. They're our confession of faith."
+
+"I know your confession of faith," said Mironov thoughtfully. "I read
+your papers. You, Nilovna," he exclaimed, smiling at the mother with
+knowing eyes, "are you going to revolt, too?"
+
+"Well, even if it's only before death, I want to walk shoulder to
+shoulder with the truth."
+
+"I declare!" said Mironov. "I guess they were telling the truth when
+they said you carried forbidden books to the factory."
+
+"Who said so?" asked Pavel.
+
+"Oh, people. Well, good-by! Behave yourselves!"
+
+The mother laughed softly; she was pleased to hear that such things were
+said of her. Pavel smilingly turned to her:
+
+"Oh, you'll get into prison, mother!"
+
+"I don't mind," she murmured.
+
+The sun rose higher, pouring warmth into the bracing freshness of the
+spring day. The clouds floated more slowly, their shadows grew thinner
+and more transparent, and crawled gently over the streets and roofs. The
+bright sunlight seemed to clean the village, to wipe the dust and dirt
+from the walls and the tedium from the faces. Everything assumed a more
+cheerful aspect; the voices sounded louder, drowning the far-off rumble
+and heavings of the factory machines.
+
+Again, from all sides, from the windows and the yards, different words
+and voices, now uneasy and malicious, now thoughtful and gay, found
+their way to the mother's ears. But this time she felt a desire to
+retort, to thank, to explain, to participate in the strangely variegated
+life of the day.
+
+Off a corner of the main thoroughfare, in a narrow by-street, a crowd of
+about a hundred people had gathered, and from its depths resounded
+Vyesovshchikov's voice:
+
+"They squeeze our blood like juice from huckleberries." His words fell
+like hammer blows on the people.
+
+"That's true!" the resonant cry rang out simultaneously from a number of
+throats.
+
+"The boy is doing his best," said the Little Russian. "I'll go help
+him." He bent low and before Pavel had time to stop him he twisted his
+tall, flexible body into the crowd like a corkscrew into a cork, and
+soon his singing voice rang out:
+
+"Comrades! They say there are various races on the earth--Jews and
+Germans, English and Tartars. But I don't believe it. There are only two
+nations, two irreconcilable tribes--the rich and the poor. People dress
+differently and speak differently; but look at the rich Frenchman, the
+rich German, or the rich Englishman, you'll see that they are all
+Tartars in the way they treat their workingman--a plague on them!"
+
+A laugh broke out in the crowd.
+
+"On the other hand, we can see the French workingmen, the Tartar
+workingmen, the Turkish workingmen, all lead the same dog's life, as
+we--we, the Russian workingmen."
+
+More and more people joined the crowd; one after the other they thronged
+into the by-street, silent, stepping on tiptoe, and craning their necks.
+Andrey raised his voice:
+
+"The workingmen of foreign countries have already learned this simple
+truth, and to-day, on this bright first of May, the foreign working
+people fraternize with one another. They quit their work, and go out
+into the streets to look at themselves, to take stock of their immense
+power. On this day, the workingmen out there throb with one heart; for
+all hearts are lighted with the consciousness of the might of the
+working people; all hearts beat with comradeship, each and every one of
+them is ready to lay down his life in the war for the happiness of all,
+for freedom and truth to all--comrades!"
+
+"The police!" some one shouted.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+
+From the main street four mounted policemen flourishing their knouts
+came riding into the by-street directly at the crowd.
+
+"Disperse!"
+
+"What sort of talking is going on?"
+
+"Who's speaking?"
+
+The people scowled, giving way to the horses unwillingly. Some climbed
+up on fences; raillery was heard here and there.
+
+"They put pigs on horses; they grunt: 'Here we are, leaders, too!'"
+resounded a sonorous, provoking voice.
+
+The Little Russian was left alone in the middle of the street; two
+horses shaking their manes pressed at him. He stepped aside, and at the
+same time the mother grasped his hand, pulling him away grumbling:
+
+"You promised to stick to Pasha; and here you are running up against the
+edge of a knife all by yourself."
+
+"I plead guilty," said the Little Russian, smiling at Pavel. "Ugh! What
+a force of police there is in the world!"
+
+"All right," murmured the mother.
+
+An alarming, crushing exhaustion came over her. It rose from within her
+and made her dizzy. There was a strange alternation of sadness and joy
+in her heart. She wished the afternoon whistle would sound.
+
+They reached the square where the church stood. Around the church within
+the paling a thick crowd was sitting and standing. There were some five
+hundred gay youth and bustling women with children darting around the
+groups like butterflies. The crowd swung from side to side. The people
+raised their heads and looked into the distance in different directions,
+waiting impatiently.
+
+"Mitenka!" softly vibrated a woman's voice. "Have pity on yourself!"
+
+"Stop!" rang out the response.
+
+And the grave Sizov spoke calmly, persuasively:
+
+"No, we mustn't abandon our children. They have grown wiser than
+ourselves; they live more boldly. Who saved our cent for the marshes?
+They did. We must remember that. For doing it they were dragged to
+prison; but we derived the benefit. The benefit was for all."
+
+The whistle blew, drowning the talk of the crowd. The people started.
+Those sitting rose to their feet. For a moment the silence of death
+prevailed; all became watchful, and many faces grew pale.
+
+"Comrades!" resounded Pavel's voice, ringing and firm.
+
+A dry, hot haze burned the mother's eyes, and with a single movement of
+her body, suddenly strengthened, she stood behind her son. All turned
+toward Pavel, and drew up to him, like iron filings attracted by a
+magnet.
+
+"Brothers! The hour has come to give up this life of ours, this life of
+greed, hatred, and darkness, this life of violence and falsehood, this
+life where there is no place for us, where we are no human beings."
+
+He stopped, and everybody maintained silence, moving still closer to
+him. The mother stared at her son. She saw only his eyes, his proud,
+brave, burning eyes.
+
+"Comrades! We have decided to declare openly who we are; we raise our
+banner to-day, the banner of reason, of truth, of liberty! And now I
+raise it!"
+
+A flag pole, white and slender, flashed in the air, bent down, cleaving
+the crowd. For a moment it was lost from sight; then over the uplifted
+faces the broad canvas of the working people's flag spread its wings
+like a red bird.
+
+Pavel raised his hand--the pole swung, and a dozen hands caught the
+smooth white rod. Among them was the mother's hand.
+
+"Long live the working people!" he shouted.
+
+Hundreds of voices responded to his sonorous call.
+
+"Long live the Social Democratic Workingmen's Party, our party,
+comrades, our spiritual mother."
+
+The crowd seethed and hummed. Those who understood the meaning of the
+flag squeezed their way up to it. Mazin, Samoylov, and the Gusevs stood
+close at Pavel's side. Nikolay with bent head pushed his way through the
+crowd. Some other people unknown to the mother, young and with burning
+eyes, jostled her.
+
+"Long live the working people of all countries!" shouted Pavel.
+
+And ever increasing in force and joy, a thousand-mouthed echo responded
+in a soul-stirring acclaim.
+
+The mother clasped Pavel's hand, and somebody else's, too. She was
+breathless with tears, yet refrained from shedding them. Her legs
+trembled, and with quivering lips she cried:
+
+"Oh, my dear boys, that's true. There you are now----"
+
+A broad smile spread over Nikolay's pockmarked face; he stared at the
+flag and, stretching his hand toward it, roared out something; then
+caught the mother around the neck with the same hand, kissed her, and
+laughed.
+
+"Comrades!" sang out the Little Russian, subduing the noise of the crowd
+with his mellow voice. "Comrades! We have now started a holy procession
+in the name of the new God, the God of Truth and Light, the God of
+Reason and Goodness. We march in this holy procession, comrades, over a
+long and hard road. Our goal is far, far away, and the crown of thorns
+is near! Those who don't believe in the might of truth, who have not the
+courage to stand up for it even unto death, who do not believe in
+themselves and are afraid of suffering--such of you, step aside! We call
+upon those only who believe in our triumph. Those who cannot see our
+goal, let them not walk with us; only misery is in store for them! Fall
+into line, comrades! Long live the first of May, the holiday of
+freemen!"
+
+The crowd drew closer. Pavel waved the flag. It spread out in the air
+and sailed forward, sunlit, smiling, red, and glowing.
+
+"Let us renounce the old world!" resounded Fedya Mazin's ringing voice;
+and scores of voices took up the cry. It floated as on a mighty wave.
+
+"Let us shake its dust from our feet."
+
+The mother marched behind Mazin with a smile on her dry lips, and looked
+over his head at her son and the flag. Everywhere, around her, was the
+sparkle of fresh young cheerful faces, the glimmer of many-colored eyes;
+and at the head of all--her son and Andrey. She heard their voices,
+Andrey's, soft and humid, mingled in friendly accord with the heavy bass
+of her son:
+
+   "Rise up, awake, you workingmen!
+    On, on, to war, you hungry hosts!"
+
+Men ran toward the red flag, raising a clamor; then joining the others,
+they marched along, their shouts lost in the broad sounds of the song of
+the revolution.
+
+The mother had heard that song before. It had often been sung in a
+subdued tone; and the Little Russian had often whistled it. But now she
+seemed for the first time to hear this appeal to unite in the struggle.
+
+   "We march to join our suffering mates."
+
+The song flowed on, embracing the people.
+
+Some one's face, alarmed yet joyous, moved along beside the mother's,
+and a trembling voice spoke, sobbing:
+
+"Mitya! Where are you going?"
+
+The mother interfered without stopping:
+
+"Let him go! Don't be alarmed! Don't fear! I myself was afraid at first,
+too. Mine is right at the head--he who bears the standard--that's my
+son!"
+
+"Murderers! Where are you going? There are soldiers over there!" And
+suddenly clasping the mother's hand in her bony hands, the tall, thin
+woman exclaimed: "My dear! How they sing! Oh, the sectarians! And Mitya
+is singing!"
+
+"Don't be troubled!" murmured the mother. "It's a sacred thing. Think of
+it! Christ would not have been, either, if men hadn't perished for his
+sake."
+
+This thought had flashed across the mother's mind all of a sudden and
+struck her by its simple, clear truth. She stared at the woman, who held
+her hand firmly in her clasp, and repeated, smiling:
+
+"Christ would not have been, either, if men hadn't suffered for his
+sake."
+
+Sizov appeared at her side. He took off his hat and waving it to the
+measure of the song, said:
+
+"They're marching openly, eh, mother? And composed a song, too! What a
+song, mother, eh?"
+
+   "The Czar for the army soldiers must have,
+    Then give him your sons----"
+
+"They're not afraid of anything," said Sizov. "And my son is in the
+grave. The factory crushed him to death, yes!"
+
+The mother's heart beat rapidly, and she began to lag behind. She was
+soon pushed aside hard against a fence, and the close-packed crowd went
+streaming past her. She saw that there were many people, and she was
+pleased.
+
+   "Rise up, awake, you workingmen!"
+
+It seemed as if the blare of a mighty brass trumpet were rousing men and
+stirring in some hearts the willingness to fight, in other hearts a
+vague joy, a premonition of something new, and a burning curiosity; in
+still others a confused tremor of hope and curiosity. The song was an
+outlet, too, for the stinging bitterness accumulated during years.
+
+The people looked ahead, where the red banner was swinging and streaming
+in the air. All were saying something and shouting; but the individual
+voice was lost in the song--the new song, in which the old note of
+mournful meditation was absent. It was not the utterance of a soul
+wandering in solitude along the dark paths of melancholy perplexity, of
+a soul beaten down by want, burdened with fear, deprived of
+individuality, and colorless. It breathed no sighs of a strength
+hungering for space; it shouted no provoking cries of irritated courage
+ready to crush both the good and the bad indiscriminately. It did not
+voice the elemental instinct of the animal to snatch freedom for
+freedom's sake, nor the feeling of wrong or vengeance capable of
+destroying everything and powerless to build up anything. In this song
+there was nothing from the old, slavish world. It floated along
+directly, evenly; it proclaimed an iron virility, a calm threat. Simple,
+clear, it swept the people after it along an endless path leading to the
+far distant future; and it spoke frankly about the hardships of the way.
+In its steady fire a heavy clod seemed to burn and melt--the sufferings
+they had endured, the dark load of their habitual feelings, their cursed
+dread of what was coming.
+
+"They all join in!" somebody roared exultantly. "Well done, boys!"
+
+Apparently the man felt something vast, to which he could not give
+expression in ordinary words, so he uttered a stiff oath. Yet the
+malice, the blind dark malice of a slave also streamed hotly through his
+teeth. Disturbed by the light shed upon it, it hissed like a snake,
+writhing in venomous words.
+
+"Heretics!" a man with a broken voice shouted from a window, shaking his
+fist threateningly.
+
+A piercing scream importunately bored into the mother's ears--"Rioting
+against the emperor, against his Majesty the Czar? No, no?"
+
+Agitated people flashed quickly past her, a dark lava stream of men and
+women, carried along by this song, which cleared every obstacle out of
+its path.
+
+Growing in the mother's breast was the mighty desire to shout to the
+crowd:
+
+"Oh, my dear people!"
+
+There, far away from her, was the red banner--she saw her son without
+seeing him--his bronzed forehead, his eyes burning with the bright fire
+of faith. Now she was in the tail of the crowd among the people who
+walked without hurrying, indifferent, looking ahead with the cold
+curiosity of spectators who know beforehand how the show will end. They
+spoke softly with confidence.
+
+"One company of infantry is near the school, and the other near the
+factory."
+
+"The governor has come."
+
+"Is that so?"
+
+"I saw him myself. He's here."
+
+Some one swore jovially and said:
+
+"They've begun to fear our fellows, after all, haven't they? The
+soldiers have come and the governor----"
+
+"Dear boys!" throbbed in the breast of the mother. But the words around
+her sounded dead and cold. She hastened her steps to get away from these
+people, and it was not difficult for her to outstrip their lurching
+gait.
+
+Suddenly the head of the crowd, as it were, bumped against something;
+its body swung backward with an alarming, low hum. The song trembled,
+then flowed on more rapidly and louder; but again the dense wave of
+sounds hesitated in its forward course. Voices fell out of the chorus
+one after the other. Here and there a voice was raised in the effort to
+bring the song to its previous height, to push it forward:
+
+   "Rise up, awake, you workingmen!
+    On, on, to war, you hungry hosts!"
+
+Though she saw nothing and was ignorant of what was happening there in
+front, the mother divined, and elbowed her way rapidly through the
+crowd.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+
+"Comrades!" the voice of Pavel was heard. "Soldiers are people the same
+as ourselves. They will not strike us! Why should they beat us? Because
+we bear the truth necessary for all? This our truth is necessary to
+them, too. Just now they do not understand this; but the time is nearing
+when they will rise with us, when they will march, not under the banner
+of robbers and murderers, the banner which the liars and beasts order
+them to call the banner of glory and honor, but under our banner of
+freedom and goodness! We ought to go forward so that they should
+understand our truth the sooner. Forward, comrades! Ever forward!"
+
+Pavel's voice sounded firm, the words rang in the air distinctly. But
+the crowd fell asunder; one after the other the people dropped off to
+the right or to the left, going toward their homes, or leaning against
+the fences. Now the crowd had the shape of a wedge, and its point was
+Pavel, over whose head the banner of the laboring people was burning
+red.
+
+At the end of the street, closing the exit to the square, the mother saw
+a low, gray wall of men, one just like the other, without faces. On the
+shoulder of each a bayonet was smiling its thin, chill smile; and from
+this entire immobile wall a cold gust blew down on the workmen, striking
+the breast of the mother and penetrating her heart.
+
+She forced her way into the crowd among people familiar to her, and, as
+it were, leaned on them.
+
+She pressed closely against a tall, lame man with a clean-shaven face.
+In order to look at her, he had to turn his head stiffly.
+
+"What do you want? Who are you?" he asked her.
+
+"The mother of Pavel Vlasov," she answered, her knees trembling beneath
+her, her lower lip involuntarily dropping.
+
+"Ha-ha!" said the lame man. "Very well!"
+
+"Comrades!" Pavel cried. "Onward all your lives. There is no other way
+for us! Sing!"
+
+The atmosphere grew tense. The flag rose and rocked and waved over the
+heads of the people, gliding toward the gray wall of soldiers. The
+mother trembled. She closed her eyes, and cried: "Oh--oh!"
+
+None but Pavel, Andrey, Samoylov, and Mazin advanced beyond the crowd.
+
+The limpid voice of Fedya Mazin slowly quivered in the air.
+
+"'In mortal strife--'" he began the song.
+
+"'You victims fell--'" answered thick, subdued voices. The words dropped
+in two heavy sighs. People stepped forward, each footfall audible. A new
+song, determined and resolute, burst out:
+
+   "You yielded up your lives for them."
+
+Fedya's voice wreathed and curled like a bright ribbon.
+
+"A-ha-ha-ha!" some one exclaimed derisively. "They've struck up a
+funeral song, the dirty dogs!"
+
+"Beat him!" came the angry response.
+
+The mother clasped her hands to her breast, looked about, and saw that
+the crowd, before so dense, was now standing irresolute, watching the
+comrades walk away from them with the banner, followed by about a dozen
+people, one of whom, however, at every forward move, jumped aside as if
+the path in the middle of the street were red hot and burned his soles.
+
+"The tyranny will fall--" sounded the prophetic song from the lips of
+Fedya.
+
+"And the people will rise!" the chorus of powerful voices seconded
+confidently and menacingly.
+
+But the harmonious flow of the song was broken by the quiet words:
+
+"He is giving orders."
+
+"Charge bayonets!" came the piercing order from the front.
+
+The bayonets curved in the air, and glittered sharply; then fell and
+stretched out to confront the banner.
+
+"Ma-arch!"
+
+"They're coming!" said the lame man, and thrusting his hands into his
+pockets made a long step to one side.
+
+The mother, without blinking, looked on. The gray line of soldiers
+tossed to and fro, and spread out over the entire width of the street.
+It moved on evenly, coolly, carrying in front of itself a fine-toothed
+comb of sparkling bayonets. Then it came to a stand. The mother took
+long steps to get nearer to her son. She saw how Andrey strode ahead of
+Pavel and fenced him off with his long body. "Get alongside of me!"
+Pavel shouted sharply. Andrey was singing, his hands clasped behind his
+back, his head uplifted. Pavel pushed him with his shoulder, and again
+cried:
+
+"At my side! Let the banner be in front!"
+
+"Disperse!" called a little officer in a thin voice, brandishing a white
+saber. He lifted his feet high, and without bending his knees struck his
+soles on the ground irritably. The high polish on his boots caught the
+eyes of the mother.
+
+To one side and somewhat behind him walked a tall, clean-shaven man,
+with a thick, gray mustache. He wore a long gray overcoat with a red
+underlining, and yellow stripes on his trousers. His gait was heavy, and
+like the Little Russian, he clasped his hands behind his back. He
+regarded Pavel, raising his thick gray eyebrows.
+
+The mother seemed to be looking into infinity. At each breath her breast
+was ready to burst with a loud cry. It choked her, but for some reason
+she restrained it. Her hands clutched at her bosom. She staggered from
+repeated thrusts. She walked onward without thought, almost without
+consciousness. She felt that behind her the crowd was getting thinner; a
+cold wind had blown on them and scattered them like autumn leaves.
+
+The men around the red banner moved closer and closer together. The
+faces of the soldiers were clearly seen across the entire width of the
+street, monstrously flattened, stretched out in a dirty yellowish band.
+In it were unevenly set variously colored eyes, and in front the sharp
+bayonets glittered crudely. Directed against the breasts of the people,
+although not yet touching them, they drove them apart, pushing one man
+after the other away from the crowd and breaking it up.
+
+Behind her the mother heard the trampling noise of those who were
+running away. Suppressed, excited voices cried:
+
+"Disperse, boys!"
+
+"Vlasov, run!"
+
+"Back, Pavel!"
+
+"Drop the banner, Pavel!" Vyesovshchikov said glumly. "Give it to me!
+I'll hide it!"
+
+He grabbed the pole with his hand; the flag rocked backward.
+
+"Let go!" thundered Pavel.
+
+Nikolay drew his hand back as if it had been burned. The song died away.
+Some persons crowded solidly around Pavel; but he cut through to the
+front. A sudden silence fell.
+
+Around the banner some twenty men were grouped, not more, but they stood
+firmly. The mother felt drawn to them by awe and by a confused desire to
+say something to them.
+
+"Take this thing away from him, lieutenant." The even voice of the tall
+old man was heard. He pointed to the banner. A little officer jumped up
+to Pavel, snatched at the flag pole, and shouted shrilly:
+
+"Drop it!"
+
+The red flag trembled in the air, moving to the right and to the left,
+then rose again. The little officer jumped back and sat down. Nikolay
+darted by the mother, shaking his outstretched fist.
+
+"Seize them!" the old man roared, stamping his feet. A few soldiers
+jumped to the front, one of them flourishing the butt end of his gun.
+The banner trembled, dropped, and disappeared in a gray mass of
+soldiers.
+
+"Oh!" somebody groaned aloud. And the mother yelled like a wild animal.
+But the clear voice of Pavel answered her from out of the crowd of
+soldiers:
+
+"Good-by, mother! Good-by, dear!"
+
+"He's alive! He remembered!" were the two strokes at the mother's heart.
+
+"Good-by, mother dear!" came from Andrey.
+
+Waving her hands, she raised herself on tiptoe, and tried to see them.
+There was the round face of Andrey above the soldiers' heads. He was
+smiling and bowing to her.
+
+"Oh, my dear ones! Andriusha! Pasha!" she shouted.
+
+"Good-by, comrades!" they called from among the soldiers.
+
+A broken, manifold echo responded to them. It resounded from the windows
+and the roofs.
+
+The mother felt some one pushing her breast. Through the mist in her
+eyes she saw the little officer. His face was red and strained, and he
+was shouting to her:
+
+"Clear out of here, old woman!"
+
+She looked down on him, and at his feet saw the flag pole broken in two
+parts, a piece of red cloth on one of them. She bent down and picked it
+up. The officer snatched it out of her hands, threw it aside, and
+shouted again, stamping his feet:
+
+"Clear out of here, I tell you!"
+
+A song sprang up and floated from among the soldiers:
+
+   "Arise, awake, you workingmen!"
+
+Everything was whirling, rocking, trembling. A thick, alarming noise,
+resembling the dull hum of telegraph wires, filled the air. The officer
+jumped back, screaming angrily:
+
+"Stop the singing, Sergeant Kraynov!"
+
+The mother staggered to the fragment of the pole, which he had thrown
+down, and picked it up again.
+
+"Gag them!"
+
+The song became confused, trembled, expired. Somebody took the mother by
+the shoulders, turned her around, and shoved her from the back.
+
+"Go, go! Clear the street!" shouted the officer.
+
+About ten paces from her, the mother again saw a thick crowd of people.
+They were howling, grumbling, whistling, as they backed down the street.
+The yards were drawing in a number of them.
+
+"Go, you devil!" a young soldier with a big mustache shouted right into
+the mother's ear. He brushed against her and shoved her onto the
+sidewalk. She moved away, leaning on the flag pole. She went quickly and
+lightly, but her legs bent under her. In order not to fall she clung to
+walls and fences. People in front were falling back alongside of her,
+and behind her were soldiers, shouting: "Go, go!"
+
+The soldiers got ahead of her; she stopped and looked around. Down the
+end of the street she saw them again scattered in a thin chain, blocking
+the entrance to the square, which was empty. Farther down were more gray
+figures slowly moving against the people. She wanted to go back; but
+uncalculatingly went forward again, and came to a narrow, empty
+by-street into which she turned. She stopped again. She sighed
+painfully, and listened. Somewhere ahead she heard the hum of voices.
+Leaning on the pole she resumed her walk. Her eyebrows moved up and
+down, and she suddenly broke into a sweat; her lips quivered; she waved
+her hands, and certain words flashed up in her heart like sparks,
+kindling in her a strong, stubborn desire to speak them, to shout them.
+
+The by-street turned abruptly to the left; and around the corner the
+mother saw a large, dense crowd of people. Somebody's voice was speaking
+loudly and firmly:
+
+"They don't go to meet the bayonets from sheer audacity. Remember that!"
+
+"Just look at them. Soldiers advance against them, and they stand before
+them without fear. Y-yes!"
+
+"Think of Pasha Vlasov!"
+
+"And how about the Little Russian?"
+
+"Hands behind his back and smiling, the devil!"
+
+"My dear ones! My people!" the mother shouted, pushing into the crowd.
+They cleared the way for her respectfully. Somebody laughed:
+
+"Look at her with the flag in her hand!"
+
+"Shut up!" said another man sternly.
+
+The mother with a broad sweep of her arms cried out:
+
+"Listen for the sake of Christ! You are all dear people, you are all
+good people. Open up your hearts. Look around without fear, without
+terror. Our children are going into the world. Our children are going,
+our blood is going for the truth; with honesty in their hearts they open
+the gates of the new road--a straight, wide road for all. For all of
+you, for the sake of your young ones, they have devoted themselves to
+the sacred cause. They seek the sun of new days that shall always be
+bright. They want another life, the life of truth and justice, of
+goodness for all."
+
+[Illustration: "'Listen for the sake of Christ.'"]
+
+Her heart was rent asunder, her breast contracted, her throat was hot
+and dry. Deep inside of her, words were being born, words of a great,
+all-embracing love. They burned her tongue, moving it more powerfully
+and more freely. She saw that the people were listening to her words.
+All were silent. She felt that they were thinking as they surrounded her
+closely; and the desire grew in her, now a clear desire, to drive these
+people to follow her son, to follow Andrey, to follow all those who had
+fallen into the soldiers' hands, all those who were left entirely alone,
+all those who were abandoned. Looking at the sullen, attentive faces
+around her, she resumed with soft force:
+
+"Our children are going in the world toward happiness. They went for the
+sake of all, and for Christ's truth--against all with which our
+malicious, false, avaricious ones have captured, tied, and crushed us.
+My dear ones--why it is for you that our young blood rose--for all the
+people, for all the world, for all the workingmen, they went! Then don't
+go away from them, don't renounce, don't forsake them, don't leave your
+children on a lonely path--they went just for the purpose of showing you
+all the path to truth, to take all on that path! Pity yourselves! Love
+them! Understand the children's hearts. Believe your sons' hearts; they
+have brought forth the truth; it burns in them; they perish for it.
+Believe them!"
+
+Her voice broke down, she staggered, her strength gone. Somebody seized
+her under the arms.
+
+"She is speaking God's words!" a man shouted hoarsely and excitedly.
+"God's words, good people! Listen to her!"
+
+Another man said in pity of her:
+
+"Look how she's hurting herself!"
+
+"She's not hurting herself, but hitting us, fools, understand that!" was
+the reproachful reply.
+
+A high-pitched, quavering voice rose up over the crowd:
+
+"Oh, people of the true faith! My Mitya, pure soul, what has he done? He
+went after his dear comrades. She speaks truth--why did we forsake our
+children? What harm have they done us?"
+
+The mother trembled at these words and replied with soft tears.
+
+"Go home, Nilovna! Go, mother! You're all worn out," said Sizov loudly.
+
+He was pale, his disheveled beard shook. Suddenly knitting his brows he
+threw a stern glance about him on all, drew himself up to his full
+height, and said distinctly:
+
+"My son Matvey was crushed in the factory. You know it! But were he
+alive, I myself would have sent him into the lines of those--along with
+them. I myself would have told him: 'Go you, too, Matvey! That's the
+right cause, that's the honest cause!'"
+
+He stopped abruptly, and a sullen silence fell on all, in the powerful
+grip of something huge and new, but something that no longer frightened
+them. Sizov lifted his hand, shook it, and continued:
+
+"It's an old man who is speaking to you. You know me! I've been working
+here thirty-nine years, and I've been alive fifty-three years. To-day
+they've arrested my nephew, a pure and intelligent boy. He, too, was in
+the front, side by side with Vlasov; right at the banner." Sizov made a
+motion with his hand, shrank together, and said as he took the mother's
+hand: "This woman spoke the truth. Our children want to live honorably,
+according to reason, and we have abandoned them; we walked away, yes!
+Go, Nilovna!"
+
+"My dear ones!" she said, looking at them all with tearful eyes. "The
+life is for our children and the earth is for them."
+
+"Go, Nilovna, take this staff and lean upon it!" said Sizov, giving her
+the fragment of the flag pole.
+
+All looked at the mother with sadness and respect. A hum of sympathy
+accompanied her. Sizov silently put the people out of her way, and they
+silently moved aside, obeying a blind impulse to follow her. They walked
+after her slowly, exchanging brief, subdued remarks on the way. Arrived
+at the gate of her house, she turned to them, leaning on the fragment of
+the flag pole, and bowed in gratitude.
+
+"Thank you!" she said softly. And recalling the thought which she
+fancied had been born in her heart, she said: "Our Lord Jesus Christ
+would not have been, either, if people had not perished for his sake."
+
+The crowd looked at her in silence.
+
+She bowed to the people again, and went into her house, and Sizov,
+drooping his head, went in with her.
+
+The people stood at the gates and talked. Then they began to depart
+slowly and quietly.
+
+
+
+
+PART II
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+
+The day passed in a motley blur of recollections, in a depressing state
+of exhaustion, which tightly clutched at the mother's body and soul. The
+faces of the young men flashed before her mental vision, the banner
+blazed, the songs clamored at her ear, the little officer skipped about,
+a gray stain before her eyes, and through the whirlwind of the
+procession she saw the gleam of Pavel's bronzed face and the smiling
+sky-blue eyes of Andrey.
+
+She walked up and down the room, sat at the window, looked out into the
+street, and walked away again with lowered eyebrows. Every now and then
+she started, and looked about in an aimless search for something. She
+drank water, but could not slake her thirst, nor quench the smoldering
+fire of anguish and injury in her bosom. The day was chopped in two. It
+began full of meaning and content, but now it dribbled away into a
+dismal waste, which stretched before her endlessly. The question swung
+to and fro in her barren, perplexed mind:
+
+"What now?"
+
+Korsunova came in. Waving her hands, she shouted, wept, and went into
+raptures; stamped her feet, suggested this and that, made promises, and
+threw out threats against somebody. All this failed to impress the
+mother.
+
+"Aha!" she heard the squeaking voice of Marya. "So the people have been
+stirred up! At last the whole factory has arisen! All have arisen!"
+
+"Yes, yes!" said the mother in a low voice, shaking her head. Her eyes
+were fixed on something that had already fallen into the past, had
+departed from her along with Andrey and Pavel. She was unable to weep.
+Her heart was dried up, her lips, too, were dry, and her mouth was
+parched. Her hands shook, and a cold, fine shiver ran down her back,
+setting her skin aquiver.
+
+In the evening the gendarmes came. She met them without surprise and
+without fear. They entered noisily, with a peculiarly jaunty air, and
+with a look of gayety and satisfaction in their faces. The yellow-faced
+officer said, displaying his teeth:
+
+"Well, how are you? The third time I have the honor, eh?"
+
+She was silent, passing her dry tongue along her lips. The officer
+talked a great deal, delivering a homily to her. The mother realized
+what pleasure he derived from his words. But they did not reach her;
+they did not disturb her; they were like the insistent chirp of a
+cricket. It was only when he said: "It's your own fault, little mother,
+that you weren't able to inspire your son with reverence for God and the
+Czar," that she answered dully, standing at the door and looking at him:
+"Yes, our children are our judges. They visit just punishment upon us
+for abandoning them on such a road."
+
+"Wha-at?" shouted the officer. "Louder!"
+
+"I say, the children are our judges," the mother repeated with a sigh.
+
+He said something quickly and angrily, but his words buzzed around her
+without touching her. Marya Korsunova was a witness. She stood beside
+the mother, but did not look at her; and when the officer turned to her
+with a question, she invariably answered with a hasty, low bow: "I don't
+know, your Honor. I am just a simple, ignorant woman. I make my living
+by peddling, stupid as I am, and I know nothing."
+
+"Shut up, then!" commanded the officer.
+
+She was ordered to search Vlasova. She blinked her eyes, then opened
+them wide on the officer, and said in fright:
+
+"I can't, your Honor!"
+
+The officer stamped his feet and began to shout. Marya lowered her eyes,
+and pleaded with the mother softly:
+
+"Well, what can be done? You have to submit, Pelagueya Nilovna."
+
+As she searched and felt the mother's dress, the blood mounting to her
+face, she murmured:
+
+"Oh, the dogs!"
+
+"What are you jabbering about there?" the officer cried rudely, looking
+into the corner where she was making the search.
+
+"It's about women's affairs, your Honor," mumbled Marya, terrorized.
+
+On his order to sign the search warrant the mother, with unskilled hand,
+traced on the paper in printed shining letters:
+
+"Pelagueya Nilovna, widow of a workingman."
+
+They went away, and the mother remained standing at the window. With her
+hands folded over her breast, she gazed into vacancy without winking,
+her eyebrows raised. Her lips were compressed, her jaws so tightly set
+that her teeth began to pain her. The oil burned down in the lamp, the
+light flared up for a moment, and then went out. She blew on it, and
+remained in the dark. She felt no malice, she harbored no sense of
+injury in her heart. A dark, cold cloud of melancholy settled on her
+breast, and impeded the beating of her heart. Her mind was a void. She
+stood at the window a long time; her feet and eyes grew weary. She heard
+Marya stop at the window, and shout: "Are you asleep, Pelagueya? You
+unfortunate, suffering woman, sleep! They abuse everybody, the
+heretics!" At last she dropped into bed without undressing, and quickly
+fell into a heavy sleep, as if she had plunged into a deep abyss.
+
+She dreamed she saw a yellow sandy mound beyond the marsh on the road to
+the city. At the edge, which descended perpendicularly to the ditch,
+from which sand was being taken, stood Pavel singing softly and
+sonorously with the voice of Andrey:
+
+   "Rise up, awake, you workingmen!"
+
+She walked past the mound along the road to the city, and putting her
+hand to her forehead looked at her son. His figure was clearly and
+sharply outlined against the sky. She could not make up her mind to go
+up to him. She was ashamed because she was pregnant. And she held an
+infant in her arms, besides. She walked farther on. Children were
+playing ball in the field. There were many of them, and the ball was a
+red one. The infant threw himself forward out of her arms toward them,
+and began to cry aloud. She gave him the breast, and turned back. Now
+soldiers were already at the mound, and they turned the bayonets against
+her. She ran quickly to the church standing in the middle of the field,
+the white, light church that seemed to be constructed out of clouds, and
+was immeasurably high. A funeral was going on there. The coffin was
+wide, black, and tightly covered with a lid. The priest and deacon
+walked around in white canonicals and sang:
+
+"Christ has arisen from the dead."
+
+The deacon carried the incense, bowed to her, and smiled. His hair was
+glaringly red, and his face jovial, like Samoylov's. From the top of the
+dome broad sunbeams descended to the ground. In both choirs the boys
+sang softly:
+
+"Christ has arisen from the dead."
+
+"Arrest them!" the priest suddenly cried, standing up in the middle of
+the church. His vestments vanished from his body, and a gray, stern
+mustache appeared on his face. All the people started to run, and the
+deacon, flinging the censer aside, rushed forward, seizing his head in
+his hands like the Little Russian. The mother dropped the infant on the
+ground at the feet of the people. They ran to the side of her, timidly
+regarding the naked little body. She fell on her knees and shouted to
+them: "Don't abandon the child! Take it with you!"
+
+"Christ has arisen from the dead," the Little Russian sang, holding his
+hands behind his back, and smiling. He bent down, took the child, and
+put it on the wagon loaded with timber, at the side of which Nikolay was
+walking slowly, shaking with laughter. He said:
+
+"They have given me hard work."
+
+The street was muddy, the people thrust their faces from the windows of
+the houses, and whistled, shouted, waved their hands. The day was clear,
+the sun shone brightly, and there was not a single shadow anywhere.
+
+"Sing, mother!" said the Little Russian. "Oh, what a life!"
+
+And he sang, drowning all the other sounds with his kind, laughing
+voice. The mother walked behind him, and complained:
+
+"Why does he make fun of me?"
+
+But suddenly she stumbled and fell in a bottomless abyss. Fearful
+shrieks met her in her descent.
+
+She awoke, shivering and yet perspiring. She put her ear, as it were, to
+her own breast, and marveled at the emptiness that prevailed there. The
+whistle blew insistently. From its sound she realized that it was
+already the second summons. The room was all in disorder; the books and
+clothes lay about in confusion; everything was turned upside down, and
+dirt was trampled over the entire floor.
+
+She arose, and without washing or praying began to set the room in
+order. In the kitchen she caught sight of the stick with the piece of
+red cloth. She seized it angrily, and was about to throw it away under
+the oven, but instead, with a sigh, removed the remnant of the flag from
+the pole, folded it carefully, and put it in her pocket. Then she began
+to wash the windows with cold water, next the floor, and finally
+herself; then dressed herself and prepared the samovar. She sat down at
+the window in the kitchen, and once more the question came to her:
+
+"What now? What am I to do now?"
+
+Recollecting that she had not yet said her prayers, she walked up to the
+images, and after standing before them for a few seconds, she sat down
+again. Her heart was empty.
+
+The pendulum, which always beat with an energy seeming to say: "I must
+get to the goal! I must get to the goal!" slackened its hasty ticking.
+The flies buzzed irresolutely, as if pondering a certain plan of action.
+
+Suddenly she recalled a picture she had once seen in the days of her
+youth. In the old park of the Zansaylovs, there was a large pond densely
+overgrown with water lilies. One gray day in the fall, while walking
+along the pond, she had seen a boat in the middle of it. The pond was
+dark and calm, and the boat seemed glued to the black water, thickly
+strewn with yellow leaves. Profound sadness and a vague sense of
+misfortune were wafted from that boat without a rower and without oars,
+standing alone and motionless out there on the dull water amid the dead
+leaves. The mother had stood a long time at the edge of the pond
+meditating as to who had pushed the boat from the shore and why. Now it
+seemed to her that she herself was like that boat, which at the time had
+reminded her of a coffin waiting for its dead. In the evening of the
+same day she had learned that the wife of one of Zansaylov's clerks had
+been drowned in the pond--a little woman with black disheveled hair, who
+always walked at a brisk gait.
+
+The mother passed her hands over her eyes as if to rub her reminiscences
+away, and her thoughts fluttered like a varicolored ribbon. Overcome by
+her impressions of the day before, she sat for a long time, her eyes
+fixed upon the cup of tea grown cold. Gradually the desire came to see
+some wise, simple person, speak to him, and ask him many things.
+
+As if in answer to her wish, Nikolay Ivanovich came in after dinner.
+When she saw him, however, she was suddenly seized with alarm, and
+failed to respond to his greeting.
+
+"Oh, my friend," she said softly, "there was no use for you to come
+here. If they arrest you here, too, then that will be the end of Pasha
+altogether. It's very careless of you! They'll take you without fail if
+they see you here."
+
+He clasped her hand tightly, adjusted his glasses on his nose, and
+bending his face close to her, explained to her in haste:
+
+"I made an agreement with Pavel and Andrey, that if they were arrested,
+I must see that you move over to the city the very next day." He spoke
+kindly, but with a troubled air. "Did they make a search in your house?"
+
+"They did. They rummaged, searched, and nosed around. Those people have
+no shame, no conscience!" exclaimed the mother indignantly.
+
+"What do they need shame for?" said Nikolay with a shrug of his
+shoulders, and explained to her the necessity of her going to the city.
+
+His friendly, solicitous talk moved and agitated her. She looked at him
+with a pale smile, and wondered at the kindly feeling of confidence he
+inspired in her.
+
+"If Pasha wants it, and I'll be no inconvenience to you----"
+
+"Don't be uneasy on that score. I live all alone; my sister comes over
+only rarely."
+
+"I'm not going to eat my head off for nothing," she said, thinking
+aloud.
+
+"If you want to work, you'll find something to do."
+
+Her conception of work was now indissolubly connected with the work that
+her son, Andrey, and their comrades were doing. She moved a little
+toward Nikolay, and looking in his eyes, asked:
+
+"Yes? You say work will be found for me?"
+
+"My household is a small one, I am a bachelor----"
+
+"I'm not talking about that, not about housework," she said quietly. "I
+mean world work."
+
+And she heaved a melancholy sigh, stung and repelled by his failure to
+understand her. He rose, and bending toward her, with a smile in his
+nearsighted eyes, he said thoughtfully, "You'll find a place for
+yourself in the work world, too, if you want it."
+
+Her mind quickly formulated the simple and clear thought: "Once I was
+able to help Pavel; perhaps I will succeed again. The greater the number
+of those who work for his cause, the clearer will his truth come out
+before the people."
+
+But these thoughts did not fully express the whole force and complexity
+of her desire.
+
+"What could I do?" she asked quietly.
+
+He thought a while, and then began to explain the technical details of
+the revolutionary work. Among other things, he said:
+
+"If, when you go to see Pavel in prison, you tried to find out from him
+the address of the peasant who asked for a newspaper----"
+
+"I know it!" exclaimed the mother in delight. "I know where they are,
+and who they are. Give me the papers, I'll deliver them. I'll find the
+peasants, and do everything just as you say. Who will think that I carry
+illegal books? I carried books to the factory. I smuggled in more than a
+hundred pounds, Heaven be praised!"
+
+The desire came upon her to travel along the road, through forests and
+villages, with a birch-bark sack over her shoulders, and a staff in her
+hand.
+
+"Now, you dear, dear man, you just arrange it for me, arrange it so that
+I can work in this movement. I'll go everywhere for you! I'll keep going
+summer and winter, down to my very grave, a pilgrim for the sake of
+truth. Why, isn't that a splendid lot for a woman like me? The
+wanderer's life is a good life. He goes about through the world, he has
+nothing, he needs nothing except bread, no one abuses him, and so,
+quietly, unnoticed, he roves over the earth. And so I'll go, too; I'll
+go to Andrey, to Pasha, wherever they live."
+
+She was seized with sadness when she saw herself homeless, begging for
+alms, in the name of Christ, at the windows of the village cottages.
+
+Nikolay took her hand gently, and stroked it with his warm hand. Then,
+looking at the watch, he said:
+
+"We'll speak about that later. You are taking a dangerous burden upon
+your shoulders. You must consider very carefully what you intend doing."
+
+"My dear man, what have I to consider? What have I to live for if not
+for this cause? Of what use am I to anybody? A tree grows, it gives
+shade; it's split into wood, and it warms people. Even a mere dumb tree
+is helpful to life, and I am a human being. The children, the best blood
+of man, the best there is of our hearts, give up their liberty and their
+lives, perish without pity for themselves! And I, a mother--am I to
+stand by and do nothing?"
+
+The picture of her son marching at the head of the crowd with the banner
+in his hands flashed before her mind.
+
+"Why should I lie idle when my son gives up his life for the sake of
+truth? I know now--I know that he is working for the truth. It's the
+fifth year now that I live beside the woodpile. My heart has melted and
+begun to burn. I understand what you are striving for. I see what a
+burden you all carry on your shoulders. Take me to you, too, for the
+sake of Christ, that I may be able to help my son! Take me to you!"
+
+Nikolay's face grew pale; he heaved a deep sigh, and smiling, said,
+looking at her with sympathetic attention:
+
+"This is the first time I've heard such words."
+
+"What can I say?" she replied, shaking her head sadly, and spreading her
+hands in a gesture of impotence. "If I had the words to express my
+mother's heart--" She arose, lifted by the power that waxed in her
+breast, intoxicated her, and gave her the words to express her
+indignation. "Then many and many a one would weep, and even the wicked,
+the men without conscience would tremble! I would make them taste gall,
+even as they made Christ drink of the cup of bitterness, and as they now
+do our children. They have bruised a mother's heart!"
+
+Nikolay rose, and pulling his little beard with trembling fingers, he
+said slowly in an unfamiliar tone of voice:
+
+"Some day you will speak to them, I think!"
+
+He started, looked at his watch again, and asked in a hurry:
+
+"So it's settled? You'll come over to me in the city?"
+
+She silently nodded her head.
+
+"When? Try to do it as soon as possible." And he added in a tender
+voice: "I'll be anxious for you; yes, indeed!"
+
+She looked at him in surprise. What was she to him? With bent head,
+smiling in embarrassment, he stood before her, dressed in a simple black
+jacket, stooping, nearsighted.
+
+"Have you money?" he asked, dropping his eyes.
+
+"No."
+
+He quickly whipped his purse out of his pocket, opened it, and handed it
+to her.
+
+"Here, please take some."
+
+She smiled involuntarily, and shaking her head, observed:
+
+"Everything about all of you is different from other people. Even money
+has no value for you. People do anything to get money; they kill their
+souls for it. But for you money is so many little pieces of paper,
+little bits of copper. You seem to keep it by you just out of kindness
+to people."
+
+Nikolay Ivanovich laughed softly.
+
+"It's an awfully bothersome article, money is. Both to take it and to
+give it is embarrassing."
+
+He caught her hand, pressed it warmly, and asked again:
+
+"So you will try to come soon, won't you?"
+
+And he walked away quietly, as was his wont.
+
+She got herself ready to go to him on the fourth day after his visit.
+When the cart with her two trunks rolled out of the village into the
+open country, she turned her head back, and suddenly had the feeling
+that she was leaving the place forever--the place where she had passed
+the darkest and most burdensome period of her life, the place where that
+other varied life had begun, in which the next day swallowed up the day
+before, and each was filled by an abundance of new sorrows and new joys,
+new thoughts and new feelings.
+
+The factory spread itself like a huge, clumsy, dark-red spider, raising
+its lofty smokestacks high up into the sky. The small one-storied houses
+pressed against it, gray, flattened out on the soot-covered ground, and
+crowded up in close clusters on the edge of the marsh. They looked
+sorrowfully at one another with their little dull windows. Above them
+rose the church, also dark red like the factory. The belfry, it seemed
+to her, was lower than the factory chimneys.
+
+The mother sighed, and adjusted the collar of her dress, which choked
+her. She felt sad, but it was a dry sadness like the dust of the hot
+day.
+
+"Gee!" mumbled the driver, shaking the reins over the horse. He was a
+bow-legged man of uncertain height, with sparse, faded hair on his face
+and head, and faded eyes. Swinging from side to side he walked alongside
+the wagon. It was evidently a matter of indifference to him whether he
+went to the right or the left.
+
+"Gee!" he called in a colorless voice, with a comical forward stride of
+his crooked legs clothed in heavy boots, to which clods of mud were
+clinging. The mother looked around. The country was as bleak and dreary
+as her soul.
+
+"You'll never escape want, no matter where you go, auntie," the driver
+said dully. "There's no road leading away from poverty; all roads lead
+to it, and none out of it."
+
+Shaking its head dejectedly the horse sank its feet heavily into the
+deep sun-dried sand, which crackled softly under its tread. The rickety
+wagon creaked for lack of greasing.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+
+Nikolay Ivanovich lived on a quiet, deserted street, in a little green
+wing annexed to a black two-storied structure swollen with age. In front
+of the wing was a thickly grown little garden, and branches of lilac
+bushes, acacias, and silvery young poplars looked benignly and freshly
+into the windows of the three rooms occupied by Nikolay. It was quiet
+and tidy in his place. The shadows trembled mutely on the floor, shelves
+closely set with books stretched across the walls, and portraits of
+stern, serious persons hung over them.
+
+"Do you think you'll find it convenient here?" asked Nikolay, leading
+the mother into a little room with one window giving on the garden and
+another on the grass-grown yard. In this room, too, the walls were lined
+with bookcases and bookshelves.
+
+"I'd rather be in the kitchen," she said. "The little kitchen is bright
+and clean."
+
+It seemed to her that he grew rather frightened. And when she yielded to
+his awkward and embarrassed persuasions to take the room, he immediately
+cheered up.
+
+There was a peculiar atmosphere pervading all the three rooms. It was
+easy and pleasant to breathe in them; but one's voice involuntarily
+dropped a note in the wish not to speak aloud and intrude upon the
+peaceful thoughtfulness of the people who sent down a concentrated look
+from the walls.
+
+"The flowers need watering," said the mother, feeling the earth in the
+flowerpots in the windows.
+
+"Yes, yes," said the master guiltily. "I love them very much, but I have
+no time to take care of them."
+
+The mother noticed that Nikolay walked about in his own comfortable
+quarters just as carefully and as noiselessly as if he were a stranger,
+and as if all that surrounded him were remote from him. He would pick up
+and examine some small article, such as a bust, bring it close to his
+face, and scrutinize it minutely, adjusting his glasses with the thin
+finger of his right hand, and screwing up his eyes. He had the
+appearance of just having entered the rooms for the first time, and
+everything seemed as unfamiliar and strange to him as to the mother.
+Consequently, the mother at once felt herself at home. She followed
+Nikolay, observing where each thing stood, and inquiring about his ways
+and habits of life. He answered with the guilty air of a man who knows
+he is all the time doing things as they ought not to be done, but cannot
+help himself.
+
+After she had watered the flowers and arranged the sheets of music
+scattered in disorder over the piano, she looked at the samovar, and
+remarked, "It needs polishing."
+
+Nikolay ran his finger over the dull metal, then stuck the finger close
+to his nose. He looked at the mother so seriously that she could not
+restrain a good-natured smile.
+
+When she lay down to sleep and thought of the day just past, she raised
+her head from the pillow in astonishment and looked around. For the
+first time in her life she was in the house of a stranger, and she did
+not experience the least constraint. Her mind dwelt solicitously on
+Nikolay. She had a distinct desire to do the best she could for him, and
+to introduce more warmth into his lonely life. She was stirred and
+affected by his embarrassed awkwardness and droll ignorance, and smiled
+to herself with a sigh. Then her thoughts leaped to her son and to
+Andrey. She recalled the high-pitched, sparkling voice of Fedya, and
+gradually the whole day of the first of May unrolled itself before her,
+clothed in new sounds, reflecting new thoughts. The trials of the day
+were peculiar as the day itself. They did not bring her head to the
+ground as with the dull, stunning blow of the fist. They stabbed the
+heart with a thousand pricks, and called forth in her a quiet wrath,
+opening her eyes and straightening her backbone.
+
+"Children go in the world," she thought as she listened to the
+unfamiliar nocturnal sounds of the city. They crept through the open
+window like a sigh from afar, stirring the leaves in the garden and
+faintly expiring in the room.
+
+Early in the morning she polished up the samovar, made a fire in it, and
+filled it with water, and noiselessly placed the dishes on the table.
+Then she sat down in the kitchen and waited for Nikolay to rise.
+Presently she heard him cough. He appeared at the door, holding his
+glasses in one hand, the other hand at his throat. She responded to his
+greeting, and brought the samovar into the room. He began to wash
+himself, splashing the water on the floor, dropping the soap and his
+toothbrush, and grumbling in dissatisfaction at himself.
+
+When they sat down to drink tea, he said to the mother:
+
+"I am employed in the Zemstvo board--a very sad occupation. I see the
+way our peasants are going to ruin."
+
+And smiling he repeated guiltily: "It's literally so--I see! People go
+hungry, they lie down in their graves prematurely, starved to death,
+children are born feeble and sick, and drop like flies in autumn--we
+know all this, we know the causes of this wretchedness, and for
+observing it we receive a good salary. But that's all we do, really;
+truly all we do."
+
+"And what are you, a student?"
+
+"No. I'm a village teacher. My father was superintendent in a mill in
+Vyatka, and I became a teacher. But I began to give books to the
+peasants in the village, and was put in prison for it. When I came out
+of prison I became clerk in a bookstore, but not behaving carefully
+enough I got myself into prison again, and was then exiled to Archangel.
+There I also got into trouble with the governor, and they sent me to the
+White Sea coast, where I lived for five years."
+
+His talk sounded calm and even in the bright room flooded with sunlight.
+The mother had already heard many such stories; but she could never
+understand why they were related with such composure, why no blame was
+laid on anybody for the suffering the people had gone through, why these
+sufferings were regarded as so inevitable.
+
+"My sister is coming to-day," he announced.
+
+"Is she married?"
+
+"She's a widow. Her husband was exiled to Siberia; but he escaped,
+caught a severe cold on the way, and died abroad two years ago."
+
+"Is she younger than you?"
+
+"Six years older. I owe a great deal to her. Wait, and you'll hear how
+she plays. That's her piano. There are a whole lot of her things here,
+my books----"
+
+"Where does she live?"
+
+"Everywhere," he answered with a smile. "Wherever a brave soul is
+needed, there's where you'll find her."
+
+"Also in this movement?"
+
+"Yes, of course."
+
+He soon left to go to work, and the mother fell to thinking of "that
+movement" for which the people worked, day in, day out, calmly and
+resolutely. When confronting them she seemed to stand before a mountain
+looming in the dark.
+
+About noon a tall, well-built lady came. When the mother opened the door
+for her she threw a little yellow valise on the floor, and quickly
+seizing Vlasova's hand, asked:
+
+"Are you the mother of Pavel Mikhaylovich?"
+
+"Yes, I am," the mother replied, embarrassed by the lady's rich
+appearance.
+
+"That's the way I imagined you," said the lady, removing her hat in
+front of the mirror. "We have been friends of Pavel Mikhaylovich a long
+time. He spoke about you often."
+
+Her voice was somewhat dull, and she spoke slowly; but her movements
+were quick and vigorous. Her large, limpid gray eyes smiled youthfully;
+on her temples, however, thin radiate wrinkles were already limned, and
+silver hairs glistened over her ears.
+
+"I'm hungry; can I have a cup of coffee?"
+
+"I'll make it for you at once." The mother took down the coffee
+apparatus from the shelf and quietly asked:
+
+"_Did_ Pasha speak about me?"
+
+"Yes, indeed, a great deal." The lady took out a little leather
+cigarette case, lighted a cigarette, and inquired: "You're extremely
+uneasy about him, aren't you?"
+
+The mother smiled, watching the blue, quivering flame of the spirit
+lamp. Her embarrassment at the presence of the lady vanished in the
+depths of her joy.
+
+"So he talks about me, my dear son!" she thought.
+
+"You asked me whether I'm uneasy? Of course, it's not easy for me. But
+it would have been worse some time ago; now I know that he's not alone,
+and that even I am not alone." Looking into the lady's face, she asked:
+"What is your name?"
+
+"Sofya," the lady answered, and began to speak in a businesslike way.
+"The most important thing is that they should not stay in prison long,
+but that the trial should come off very soon. The moment they are
+exiled, we'll arrange an escape for Pavel Mikhaylovich. There's nothing
+for him to do in Siberia, and he's indispensable here."
+
+The mother incredulously regarded Sofya, who was searching about for a
+place into which to drop her cigarette stump, and finally threw it in a
+flowerpot.
+
+"That'll spoil the flowers," the mother remarked mechanically.
+
+"Excuse me," said Sofya simply. "Nikolay always tells me the same
+thing." She picked up the stump and threw it out of the window. The
+mother looked at her in embarrassment, and said guiltily:
+
+"You must excuse me. I said it without thinking. Is it in my place to
+teach you?"
+
+"Why not? Why not teach me, if I'm a sloven?" Sofya calmly queried with
+a shrug. "I know it; but I always forget--the worse for me. It's an ugly
+habit--to throw cigarette stumps any and everywhere, and to litter up
+places with ashes--particularly in a woman. Cleanliness in a room is the
+result of work, and all work ought to be respected. Is the coffee ready?
+Thank you! Why one cup? Won't you have any?" Suddenly seizing the mother
+by the shoulder, she drew her to herself, and looking into her eyes
+asked in surprise: "Why, are you embarrassed?"
+
+The mother answered with a smile:
+
+"I just blamed you for throwing the cigarette stump away--does that look
+as if I were embarrassed?" Her surprise was unconcealed. "I came to your
+house only yesterday, but I behave as if I were at home, and as if I had
+known you a long time. I'm afraid of nothing; I say anything. I even
+find fault."
+
+"That's the way it ought to be."
+
+"My head's in a whirl. I seem to be a stranger to myself. Formerly I
+didn't dare speak out from my heart until I'd been with a person a long,
+long time. And now my heart is always open, and I at once say things I
+wouldn't have dreamed of before, and a lot of things, too." Sofya lit
+another cigarette, turning the kind glance of her gray eyes on the
+mother. "Yes, you speak of arranging an escape. But how will he be able
+to live as a fugitive?" The mother finally gave expression to the
+thought that was agitating her.
+
+"That's a trifle," Sofya remarked, pouring out a cup of coffee for
+herself. "He'll live as scores of other fugitives live. I just met one,
+and saw him off. Another very valuable man, who worked for the movement
+in the south. He was exiled for five years, but remained only three and
+a half months. That's why I look such a _grande dame_. Do you think I
+always dress this way? I can't bear this fine toggery, this sumptuous
+rustle. A human being is simple by nature, and should dress
+simply--beautifully but simply."
+
+The mother looked at her fixedly, smiled, and shaking her head
+meditatively said:
+
+"No, it seems that day, the first of May, has changed me. I feel awkward
+somehow or other, as if I were walking on two roads at the same time. At
+one moment I understand everything; the next moment I am plunged into a
+mist. Here are you! I see you a lady; you occupy yourself with this
+movement, you know Pasha, and you esteem him. Thank you!"
+
+"Why, you ought to be thanked!" Sofya laughed.
+
+"I? I didn't teach him about the movement," the mother said with a sigh.
+"As I speak now," she continued stubbornly, "everything seems simple and
+near. Then, all of a sudden, I cannot understand this simplicity. Again,
+I'm calm. In a second I grow fearful, because I _am_ calm. I always used
+to be afraid, my whole life long; but now that there's a great deal to
+be afraid of, I have very little fear. Why is it? I cannot understand."
+She stopped, at a loss for words. Sofya looked at her seriously, and
+waited; but seeing that the mother was agitated, unable to find the
+expression she wanted, she herself took up the conversation.
+
+"A time will come when you'll understand everything. The chief thing
+that gives a person power and faith in himself is when he begins to love
+a certain cause with all his heart, and knows it is a good cause of use
+to everybody. There is such a love. There's everything. There's no human
+being too mean to love. But it's time for me to be getting out of all
+this magnificence."
+
+Putting the stump of her cigarette in the saucer, she shook her head.
+Her golden hair fell back in thick waves. She walked away smiling. The
+mother followed her with her eyes, sighed, and looked around. Her
+thoughts came to a halt, and in a half-drowsy, oppressive condition of
+quiet, she began to get the dishes together.
+
+At four o'clock Nikolay appeared. Then they dined. Sofya, laughing at
+times, told how she met and concealed the fugitive, how she feared the
+spies, and saw one in every person she met, and how comically the
+fugitive conducted himself. Something in her tone reminded the mother of
+the boasting of a workingman who had completed a difficult piece of work
+to his own satisfaction. She was now dressed in a flowing, dove-colored
+robe, which fell from her shoulders to her feet in warm waves. The
+effect was soft and noiseless. She appeared to be taller in this dress;
+her eyes seemed darker, and her movements less nervous.
+
+"Now, Sofya," said Nikolay after dinner, "here's another job for you.
+You know we undertook to publish a newspaper for the village. But our
+connection with the people there was broken, thanks to the latest
+arrests. No one but Pelagueya Nilovna can show us the man who will
+undertake the distribution of the newspapers. You go with her. Do it as
+soon as possible."
+
+"Very well," said Sofya. "We'll go, Pelagueya Nilovna."
+
+"Yes, we'll go."
+
+"Is it far?"
+
+"About fifty miles."
+
+"Splendid! And now I'm going to play a little. Do you mind listening to
+music, Pelagueya Nilovna?"
+
+"Don't bother about me. Act as if I weren't here," said the mother,
+seating herself in the corner of the sofa. She saw that the brother and
+the sister went on with their affairs without giving heed to her; yet,
+at the same time, she seemed involuntarily to mix in their conversation,
+imperceptibly drawn into it by them.
+
+"Listen to this, Nikolay. It's by Grieg. I brought it to-day. Shut the
+window."
+
+She opened the piano, and struck the keys lightly with her left hand.
+The strings sang out a thick, juicy melody. Another note, breathing a
+deep, full breath, joined itself to the first, and together they formed
+a vast fullness of sound that trembled beneath its own weight. Strange,
+limpid notes rang out from under the fingers of her right hand, and
+darted off in an alarming flight, swaying and rocking and beating
+against one another like a swarm of frightened birds. And in the dark
+background the low notes sang in measured, harmonious cadence like the
+waves of the sea exhausted by the storm. Some one cried out, a loud,
+agitated, woeful cry of rebellion, questioned and appealed in impotent
+anguish, and, losing hope, grew silent; and then again sang his rueful
+plaints, now resonant and clear, now subdued and dejected. In response
+to this song came the thick waves of dark sound, broad and resonant,
+indifferent and hopeless. They drowned by their depth and force the
+swarm of ringing wails; questions, appeals, groans blended in the
+alarming song. At times the music seemed to take a desperate upward
+flight, sobbing and lamenting, and again precipitated itself, crept low,
+swung hither and thither on the dense, vibratory current of bass notes,
+foundered, and disappeared in them; and once more breaking through to an
+even cadence, in a hopeless, calm rumble, it grew in volume, pealed
+forth, and melted and dissolved in the broad flourish of humid
+notes--which continued to sigh with equal force and calmness, never
+wearying.
+
+At first the sounds failed to touch the mother. They were
+incomprehensible to her, nothing but a ringing chaos. Her ear could not
+gather a melody from the intricate mass of notes. Half asleep she looked
+at Nikolay sitting with his feet crossed under him at the other end of
+the long sofa, and at the severe profile of Sofya with her head
+enveloped in a mass of golden hair. The sun shone into the room. A
+single ray, trembling pensively, at first lighted up her hair and
+shoulder, then settled upon the keys of the piano, and quivered under
+the pressure of her fingers. The branches of the acacia rocked to and
+fro outside the window. The room became music-filled, and unawares to
+her, the mother's heart was stirred. Three notes of nearly the same
+pitch, resonant as the voice of Fedya Mazin, sparkled in the stream of
+sounds, like three silvery fish in a brook. At times another note united
+with these in a simple song, which enfolded the heart in a kind yet sad
+caress. She began to watch for them, to await their warble, and she
+heard only their music, distinguished from the tumultuous chaos of
+sound, to which her ears gradually became deaf.
+
+And for some reason there rose before her out of the obscure depths of
+her past, wrongs long forgotten.
+
+Once her husband came home late, extremely intoxicated. He grasped her
+hand, threw her from the bed to the floor, kicked her in the side with
+his foot, and said:
+
+"Get out! I'm sick of you! Get out!"
+
+In order to protect herself from his blows, she quickly gathered her
+two-year-old son into her arms, and kneeling covered herself with his
+body as with a shield. He cried, struggled in her arms, frightened,
+naked, and warm.
+
+"Get out!" bellowed her husband.
+
+She jumped to her feet, rushed into the kitchen, threw a jacket over her
+shoulders, wrapped the baby in a shawl, and silently, without outcries
+or complaints, barefoot, in nothing but a shirt under her jacket, walked
+out into the street. It was in the month of May, and the night was
+fresh. The cold, damp dust of the street stuck to her feet, and got
+between her toes. The child wept and struggled. She opened her breast,
+pressed her son to her body, and pursued by fear walked down the street,
+quietly lulling the baby.
+
+It began to grow light. She was afraid and ashamed lest some one come
+out on the street and see her half naked. She turned toward the marsh,
+and sat down on the ground under a thick group of aspens. She sat there
+for a long time, embraced by the night, motionless, looking into the
+darkness with wide-open eyes, and timidly wailing a lullaby--a lullaby
+for her baby, which had fallen asleep, and a lullaby for her outraged
+heart.
+
+A gray bird darted over her head, and flew far away. It awakened her,
+and brought her to her feet. Then, shivering with cold, she walked home
+to confront the horror of blows and new insults.
+
+For the last time a heavy and resonant chord heaved a deep breath,
+indifferent and cold; it sighed and died away.
+
+Sofya turned around, and asked her brother softly:
+
+"Did you like it?"
+
+"Very much," he said, nodding his head. "Very much."
+
+Sofya looked at the mother's face, but said nothing.
+
+"They say," said Nikolay thoughtfully, throwing himself deeper back on
+the sofa, "that you should listen to music without thinking. But I
+can't."
+
+"Nor can I," said Sofya, striking a melodious chord.
+
+"I listened, and it seemed to me that people were putting their
+questions to nature, that they grieved and groaned, and protested
+angrily, and shouted, 'Why?' Nature does not answer, but goes on calmly
+creating, incessantly, forever. In her silence is heard her answer: 'I
+do not know.'"
+
+The mother listened to Nikolay's quiet words without understanding them,
+and without desiring to understand. Her bosom echoed with her
+reminiscences, and she wanted more music. Side by side with her memories
+the thought unfolded itself before her: "Here live people, a brother and
+sister, in friendship; they live peacefully and calmly--they have music
+and books--they don't swear at each other--they don't drink whisky--they
+don't quarrel for a relish--they have no desire to insult each other,
+the way all the people at the bottom do."
+
+Sofya quickly lighted a cigarette; she smoked almost without
+intermission.
+
+"This used to be the favorite piece of Kostya," she said, as a veil of
+smoke quickly enveloped her. She again struck a low mournful chord. "How
+I used to love to play for him! You remember how well he translated
+music into language?" She paused and smiled. "How sensitive he was! What
+fine feelings he had--so responsive to everything--so fully a man!"
+
+"She must be recalling memories of her husband," the mother noted, "and
+she smiles!"
+
+"How much happiness that man gave me!" said Sofya in a low voice,
+accompanying her words with light sounds on the keys. "What a capacity
+he had for living! He was always aglow with joy, buoyant, childlike
+joy!"
+
+"Childlike," repeated the mother to herself, and shook her head as if
+agreeing with something.
+
+"Ye-es," said Nikolay, pulling his beard, "his soul was always singing."
+
+"When I played this piece for him the first time, he put it in these
+words." Sofya turned her face to her brother, and slowly stretched out
+her arms. Encircled with blue streaks of smoke, she spoke in a low,
+rapturous voice. "In a barren sea of the far north, under the gray
+canopy of the cold heavens, stands a lonely black island, an unpeopled
+rock, covered with ice; the smoothly polished shore descends abruptly
+into the gray, foaming billows. The transparently blue blocks of ice
+inhospitably float on the shaking cold water and press against the dark
+rock of the island. Their knocking resounds mournfully in the dead
+stillness of the barren sea. They have been floating a long time on the
+bottomless depths, and the waves splashing about them have quietly borne
+them toward the lonely rock in the midst of the sea. The sound is
+grewsome as they break against the shore and against one another, sadly
+inquiring: 'Why?'"
+
+Sofya flung away the cigarette she had begun to smoke, turned to the
+piano, and again began to play the ringing plaints, the plaints of the
+lonely blocks of ice by the shore of the barren island in the sea of the
+far north.
+
+The mother was overcome with unendurable sadness as she listened to the
+simple sketch. It blended strangely with her past, into which her
+recollections kept boring deeper and deeper.
+
+"In music one can hear everything," said Nikolay quietly.
+
+Sofya turned toward the mother, and asked:
+
+"Do you mind my noise?"
+
+The mother was unable to restrain her slight irritation.
+
+"I told you not to pay any attention to me. I sit here and listen and
+think about myself."
+
+"No, you ought to understand," said Sofya. "A woman can't help
+understanding music, especially when in grief."
+
+She struck the keys powerfully, and a loud shout went forth, as if some
+one had suddenly heard horrible news, which pierced him to the heart,
+and wrenched from him this troubled sound. Young voices trembled in
+affright, people rushed about in haste, pellmell. Again a loud, angry
+voice shouted out, drowning all other sounds. Apparently a catastrophe
+had occurred, in which the chief source of pain was an affront offered
+to some one. It evoked not complaints, but wrath. Then some kindly and
+powerful person appeared, who began to sing, just like Andrey, a simple
+beautiful song, a song of exhortation and summons to himself. The voices
+of the bass notes grumbled in a dull, offended tone.
+
+Sofya played a long time. The music disquieted the mother, and aroused
+in her a desire to ask of what it was speaking. Indistinct sensations
+and thoughts passed through her mind in quick succession. Sadness and
+anxiety gave place to moments of calm joy. A swarm of unseen birds
+seemed to be flying about in the room, penetrating everywhere, touching
+the heart with caressing wings, soothing and at the same time alarming
+it. The feelings in the mother's breast could not be fixed in words.
+They emboldened her heart with perplexed hopes, they fondled it in a
+fresh and firm embrace.
+
+A kindly impulse came to her to say something good both to these two
+persons and to all people in general. She smiled softly, intoxicated by
+the music, feeling herself capable of doing work helpful to the brother
+and sister. Her eyes roved about in search of something to do for them.
+She saw nothing but to walk out into the kitchen quietly, and prepare
+the samovar. But this did not satisfy her desire. It struggled
+stubbornly in her breast, and as she poured out the tea she began to
+speak excitedly with an agitated smile. She seemed to bestow the words
+as a warm caress impartially on Sofya and Nikolay and on herself.
+
+"We people at the bottom feel everything; but it is hard for us to speak
+out our hearts. Our thoughts float about in us. We are ashamed because,
+although we understand, we are not able to express them; and often from
+shame we are angry at our thoughts, and at those who inspire them. We
+drive them away from ourselves. For life, you see, is so troublesome.
+From all sides we get blows and beatings; we want rest, and there come
+the thoughts that rouse our souls and demand things of us."
+
+Nikolay listened, and nodded his head, rubbing his eyeglasses briskly,
+while Sofya looked at her, her large eyes wide open and the forgotten
+cigarette burning to ashes. She sat half turned from the piano, supple
+and shapely, at times touching the keys lightly with the slender fingers
+of her right hand. The pensive chord blended delicately with the speech
+of the mother, as she quickly invested her new feelings and thoughts in
+simple, hearty words.
+
+"Now I am able to say something about myself, about my people, because I
+understand life. I began to understand it when I was able to make
+comparisons. Before that time there was nobody to compare myself with.
+In our state, you see, all lead the same life, and now that I see how
+others live, I look back at my life, and the recollection is hard and
+bitter. But it is impossible to return, and even if you could, you
+wouldn't find your youth again. And I think I understand a great deal.
+Here, I am looking at you, and I recollect all your people whom I've
+seen." She lowered her voice and continued: "Maybe I don't say things
+right, and I needn't say them, because you know them yourself; but I'm
+just speaking for myself. You at once set me alongside of you. You don't
+need anything of me; you can't make use of me; you can't get any
+enjoyment out of me, I know it. And day after day my heart grows, thank
+God! It grows in goodness, and I wish good for everybody. This is my
+thanks that I'm saying to you." Tears of happy gratitude affected her
+voice, and looking at them with a smile in her eyes, she went on: "I
+want to open my heart before you, so that you may see how I wish your
+welfare."
+
+"We see it," said Nikolay in a low voice. "You're making a holiday for
+us."
+
+"What do you think I imagined?" the mother asked with a smile and
+lowering her voice. "I imagined I found a treasure, and became rich, and
+I could endow everybody. Maybe it's only my stupidity that's run away
+with me."
+
+"Don't speak like that," said Sofya seriously. "You mustn't be ashamed."
+
+The mother began to speak again, telling Sofya and Nikolay of herself,
+her poor life, her wrongs, and patient sufferings. Suddenly she stopped
+in her narrative. It seemed to her that she was turning aside, away from
+herself, and speaking about somebody else. In simple words, without
+malice, with a sad smile on her lips, she drew the monotonous, gray
+sketch of sorrowful days. She enumerated the beatings she had received
+from her husband; and herself marveled at the trifling causes that led
+to them and her own inability to avert them.
+
+The brother and sister listened to her in attentive silence, impressed
+by the deep significance of the unadorned story of a human being, who
+was regarded as cattle are regarded, and who, without a murmur, for a
+long time felt herself to be that which she was held to be. It seemed to
+them as if thousands, nay millions, of lives spoke through her mouth.
+Her existence had been commonplace and simple; but such is the simple,
+ordinary existence of multitudes, and her story, assuming ever larger
+proportions in their eyes, took on the significance of a symbol.
+Nikolay, his elbows on the table, and his head leaning on his hands,
+looked at her through his glasses without moving, his eyes screwed up
+intently. Sofya flung herself back on her chair. Sometimes she trembled,
+and at times muttered to herself, shaking her head in disapproval. Her
+face grew paler. Her eyes deepened.
+
+"Once I thought myself unhappy. My life seemed a fever," said Sofya,
+inclining her head. "That was when I was in exile. It was in a small
+district town. There was nothing to do, nothing to think about except
+myself. I swept all my misfortunes together into one heap, and weighed
+them, from lack of anything better to do. Then I quarreled with my
+father, whom I loved. I was expelled from the gymnasium, and
+insulted--the prison, the treachery of a comrade near to me, the arrest
+of my husband, again prison and exile, the death of my husband. But all
+my misfortunes, and ten times their number, are not worth a month of
+your life, Pelagueya Nilovna. Your torture continued daily through
+years. From where do the people draw their power to suffer?"
+
+"They get used to it," responded the mother with a sigh.
+
+"I thought I knew that life," said Nikolay softly. "But when I hear it
+spoken of--not when my books, not when my incomplete impressions speak
+about it, but she herself with a living tongue--it is horrible. And the
+details are horrible, the inanities, the seconds of which the years are
+made."
+
+The conversation sped along, thoughtfully and quietly. It branched out
+and embraced the whole of common life on all sides. The mother became
+absorbed in her recollections. From her dim past she drew to light each
+daily wrong, and gave a massive picture of the huge, dumb horror in
+which her youth had been sunk. Finally she said:
+
+"Oh! How I've been chattering to you! It's time for you to rest. I'll
+never be able to tell you all."
+
+The brother and sister took leave of her in silence. Nikolay seemed to
+the mother to bow lower to her than ever before and to press her hand
+more firmly. Sofya accompanied her to her room, and stopping at the door
+said softly: "Now rest. I hope you have a good night."
+
+Her voice blew a warm breath on the mother, and her gray eyes embraced
+the mother's face in a caress. She took Sofya's hand and pressing it in
+hers, answered: "Thank you! You are good people."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+
+Three days passed in incessant conversations with Sofya and Nikolay. The
+mother continued to recount tales of the past, which stubbornly arose
+from the depths of her awakened soul, and disturbed even herself. Her
+past demanded an explanation. The attention with which the brother and
+sister listened to her opened her heart more and more widely, freeing
+her from the narrow, dark cage of her former life.
+
+On the fourth day, early in the morning, she and Sofya appeared before
+Nikolay as burgher women, poorly clad in worn chintz skirts and blouses,
+with birch-bark sacks on their shoulders, and canes in their hands. This
+costume reduced Sofya's height and gave a yet sterner appearance to her
+pale face.
+
+"You look as if you had walked about monasteries all your life,"
+observed Nikolay on taking leave of his sister, and pressed her hand
+warmly. The mother again remarked the simplicity and calmness of their
+relation to each other. It was hard for her to get used to it. No
+kissing, no affectionate words passed between them; but they behaved so
+sincerely, so amicably and solicitously toward each other. In the life
+she had been accustomed to, people kissed a great deal and uttered many
+sentimental words, but always bit at one another like hungry dogs.
+
+The women walked down the street in silence, reached the open country,
+and strode on side by side along the wide beaten road between a double
+row of birches.
+
+"Won't you get tired?" the mother asked.
+
+"Do you think I haven't done much walking? All this is an old story to
+me."
+
+With a merry smile, as if speaking of some glorious childhood frolics,
+Sofya began to tell the mother of her revolutionary work. She had had to
+live under a changed name, use counterfeit documents, disguise herself
+in various costumes in order to hide from spies, carry hundreds and
+hundreds of pounds of illegal books through various cities, arrange
+escapes for comrades in exile, and escort them abroad. She had had a
+printing press fixed up in her quarters, and when on learning of it the
+gendarmes appeared to make a search, she succeeded in a minute's time
+before their arrival in dressing as a servant, and walking out of the
+house just as her guests were entering at the gate. She met them there.
+Without an outer wrap, a light kerchief on her head, a tin kerosene can
+in her hand, she traversed the city from one end to the other in the
+biting cold of a winter's day. Another time she had just arrived in a
+strange city to pay a visit to friends. When she was already on the
+stairs leading to their quarters, she noticed that a search was being
+conducted in their apartments. To turn back was too late. Without a
+second's hesitation she boldly rang the bell at the door of a lower
+floor, and walked in with her traveling bag to unknown people. She
+frankly explained the position she was in.
+
+"You can hand me over to the gendarmes if you want to; but I don't think
+you will," she said confidently.
+
+The people were greatly frightened, and did not sleep the whole night.
+Every minute they expected the sound of the gendarmes knocking at the
+door. Nevertheless, they could not make up their minds to deliver her
+over to them, and the next morning they had a hearty laugh with her over
+the gendarmes.
+
+And once, dressed as a nun, she traveled in the same railroad coach, in
+fact, sat on the very same seat, with a spy, then in search of her. He
+boasted of his skill, and told her how he was conducting his search. He
+was certain she was riding on the same train as himself, in a
+second-class coach; but at every stop, after walking out, he came back
+saying: "Not to be seen. She must have gone to bed. They, too, get
+tired. Their life is a hard one, just like ours."
+
+The mother listening to her stories laughed, and regarded her
+affectionately. Tall and dry, Sofya strode along the road lightly and
+firmly, at an even gait. In her walk, her words, and the very sound of
+her voice--although a bit dull, it was yet bold--in all her straight and
+stolid figure, there was much of robust strength, jovial daring, and
+thirst for space and freedom. Her eyes looked at everything with a
+youthful glance. She constantly spied something that gladdened her heart
+with childlike joy.
+
+"See what a splendid pine!" she exclaimed, pointing out a tree to the
+mother.
+
+The mother looked and stopped. It was a pine neither higher nor thicker
+than others.
+
+"Ye-es, ye-es, a good tree," she said, smiling.
+
+"Do you hear? A lark!" Sofya raised her head, and looked into the blue
+expanse of the sky for the merry songster. Her gray eyes flashed with a
+fond glance, and her body seemed to rise from the ground to meet the
+music ringing from an unseen source in the far-distant height. At times
+bending over, she plucked a field flower, and with light touches of her
+slender, agile fingers, she fondly stroked the quivering petals and
+hummed quietly and prettily.
+
+Over them burned the kindly spring sun. The blue depths flashed softly.
+At the sides of the road stretched a dark pine forest. The fields were
+verdant, birds sang, and the thick, resinous atmosphere stroked the face
+warmly and tenderly.
+
+All this moved the mother's heart nearer to the woman with the bright
+eyes and the bright soul; and, trying to keep even pace with her, she
+involuntarily pressed close to Sofya, as if desiring to draw into
+herself her hearty boldness and freshness.
+
+"How young you are!" the mother sighed.
+
+"I'm thirty-two years old already!"
+
+Vlasova smiled. "I'm not talking about that. To judge by your face, one
+would say you're older; but one wonders that your eyes, your voice are
+so fresh, so springlike, as if you were a young girl. Your life is so
+hard and troubled, yet your heart is smiling."
+
+"The heart is smiling," repeated Sofya thoughtfully. "How well you
+speak--simple and good. A hard life, you say? But I don't feel that it
+is hard, and I cannot imagine a better, a more interesting life than
+this."
+
+"What pleases me more than anything else is to see how you all know the
+roads to a human being's heart. Everything in a person opens itself out
+to you without fear or caution--just so, all of itself, the heart throws
+itself open to meet you. I'm thinking of all of you. You overcome the
+evil in the world--overcome it absolutely."
+
+"We shall be victorious, because we are with the working people," said
+Sofya with assurance. "Our power to work, our faith in the victory of
+truth we obtain from you, from the people; and the people is the
+inexhaustible source of spiritual and physical strength. In the people
+are vested all possibilities, and with them everything is attainable.
+It's necessary only to arouse their consciousness, their soul, the great
+soul of a child, who is not given the liberty to grow." She spoke softly
+and simply, and looked pensively before her down the winding depths of
+the road, where a bright haze was quivering.
+
+Sofya's words awakened a complex feeling in the mother's heart. For some
+reason she felt sorry for her. Her pity, however, was not offensive; not
+bred of familiarity. She marveled that here was a lady walking on foot
+and carrying a dangerous burden on her back.
+
+"Who's going to reward you for your labors?"
+
+Sofya answered the mother's thought with pride:
+
+"We are already rewarded for everything. We have found a life that
+satisfies us; we live broadly and fully, with all the power of our
+souls. What else can we desire?"
+
+Filling their lungs with the aromatic air, they paced along, not
+swiftly, but at a good, round gait. The mother felt she was on a
+pilgrimage. She recollected her childhood, the fine joy with which she
+used to leave the village on holidays to go to a distant monastery,
+where there was a wonder-working icon.
+
+Sometimes Sofya would hum some new unfamiliar songs about the sky and
+about love, or suddenly she would begin to recite poems about the fields
+and forests and the Volga. The mother listened, a smile on her face,
+swinging her head to the measure of the tune or rhythm, involuntarily
+yielding to the music. Her breast was pervaded by a soft, melancholy
+warmth, like the atmosphere in a little old garden on a summer night.
+
+On the third day they arrived at the village, and the mother inquired of
+a peasant at work in the field where the tar works were. Soon they were
+descending a steep woody path, on which the exposed roots of the trees
+formed steps through a small, round glade, which was choked up with coal
+and chips of wood caked with tar.
+
+Outside a shack built of poles and branches, at a table formed simply of
+three unplaned boards laid on a trestle stuck firmly into the ground,
+sat Rybin, all blackened, his shirt open at his breast, Yefim, and two
+other young men. They were just dining. Rybin was the first to notice
+the women. Shading his eyes with his hand, he waited in silence.
+
+"How do you do, brother Mikhail?" shouted the mother from afar.
+
+He arose and leisurely walked to meet them. When he recognized the
+mother, he stopped and smiled and stroked his beard with his black hand.
+
+"We are on a pilgrimage," said the mother, approaching him. "And so I
+thought I would stop in and see my brother. This is my friend Anna."
+
+Proud of her resourcefulness she looked askance at Sofya's serious,
+stern face.
+
+"How are you?" said Rybin, smiling grimly. He shook her hand, bowed to
+Sofya, and continued: "Don't lie. This isn't the city. No need of lies.
+These are all our own people, good people."
+
+Yefim, sitting at the table, looked sharply at the pilgrims, and
+whispered something to his comrades. When the women walked up to the
+table, he arose and silently bowed to them. His comrades didn't stir,
+seeming to take no notice of the guests.
+
+"We live here like monks," said Rybin, tapping the mother lightly on
+the shoulder. "No one comes to us; our master is not in the village;
+the mistress was taken to the hospital. And now I'm a sort of
+superintendent. Sit down at the table. Maybe you're hungry. Yefim, bring
+some milk."
+
+Without hurrying, Yefim walked into the shack. The travelers removed the
+sacks from their shoulders, and one of the men, a tall, lank fellow,
+rose from the table to help them. Another one, resting his elbows
+thoughtfully on the table, looked at them, scratching his head and
+quietly humming a song.
+
+The pungent odor of the fresh tar blended with the stifling smell of
+decaying leaves dizzied the newcomers.
+
+"This fellow is Yakob," said Rybin, pointing to the tall man, "and that
+one Ignaty. Well, how's your son?"
+
+"He's in prison," the mother sighed.
+
+"In prison again? He likes it, I suppose."
+
+Ignaty stopped humming; Yakob took the staff from the mother's hand, and
+said:
+
+"Sit down, little mother."
+
+"Yes, why don't you sit down?" Rybin extended the invitation to Sofya.
+
+She sat down on the stump of a tree, scrutinizing Rybin seriously and
+attentively.
+
+"When did they take him?" asked Rybin, sitting down opposite the mother,
+and shaking his head. "You've bad luck, Nilovna."
+
+"Oh, well!"
+
+"You're getting used to it?"
+
+"I'm not used to it, but I see it's not to be helped."
+
+"That's right. Well, tell us the story."
+
+Yefim brought a pitcher of milk, took a cup from the table, rinsed it
+with water, and after filling it shoved it across the table to Sofya. He
+moved about noiselessly, listening to the mother's narrative. When the
+mother had concluded her short account, all were silent for a moment,
+looking at one another. Ignaty, sitting at the table, drew a pattern
+with his nails on the boards. Yefim stood behind Rybin, resting his
+elbows on his shoulders. Yakob leaned against the trunk of a tree, his
+hands folded over his chest, his head inclined. Sofya observed the
+peasants from the corner of her eye.
+
+"Yes," Rybin drawled sullenly. "That's the course of action they've
+decided on--to go out openly."
+
+"If we were to arrange such a parade here," said Yefim, with a surly
+smile, "they'd hack the peasants to death."
+
+"They certainly would," Ignaty assented, nodding his head. "No, I'll go
+to the factory. It's better there."
+
+"You say Pavel's going to be tried?" asked Rybin.
+
+"Yes. They've decided on a trial."
+
+"Well, what'll he get? Have you heard?"
+
+"Hard labor, or exile to Siberia for life," answered the mother softly.
+The three young men simultaneously turned their look on her, and Rybin,
+lowering his head, asked slowly:
+
+"And when he got this affair up, did he know what was in store for him?"
+
+"I don't know. I suppose he did."
+
+"He did," said Sofya aloud.
+
+All were silent, motionless, as if congealed by one cold thought.
+
+"So," continued Rybin slowly and gravely. "I, too, think he knew. A
+serious man looks before he leaps. There, boys, you see, the man knew
+that he might be struck with a bayonet, or exiled to hard labor; but he
+went. He felt it was necessary for him to go, and he went. If his mother
+had lain across his path, he would have stepped over her body and gone
+his way. Wouldn't he have stepped over you, Nilovna?"
+
+"He would," said the mother shuddering and looking around. She heaved a
+heavy sigh. Sofya silently stroked her hand.
+
+"There's a man for you!" said Rybin in a subdued voice, his dark eyes
+roving about the company. They all became silent again. The thin rays of
+the sun trembled like golden ribbons in the thick, odorous atmosphere.
+Somewhere a crow cawed with bold assurance. The mother looked around,
+troubled by her recollections of the first of May, and grieving for her
+son and Andrey.
+
+Broken barrels lay about in confusion in the small, crowded glade.
+Uprooted stumps stretched out their dead, scraggy roots, and chips of
+wood littered the ground. Dense oaks and birches encircled the clearing,
+and drooped over it slightly on all sides as if desiring to sweep away
+and destroy this offensive rubbish and dirt.
+
+Suddenly Yakob moved forward from the tree, stepped to one side,
+stopped, and shaking his head observed dryly:
+
+"So, when we're in the army with Yefim, it's on such men as Pavel
+Mikhaylovich that they'll set us."
+
+"Against whom did you think they'd make you go?" retorted Rybin glumly.
+"They choke us with our own hands. That's where the jugglery comes in."
+
+"I'll join the army all the same," announced Yefim obstinately.
+
+"Who's trying to dissuade you?" exclaimed Ignaty. "Go!" He looked Yefim
+straight in the face, and said with a smile: "If you're going to shoot
+at me, aim at the head. Don't just wound me; kill me at once."
+
+"I hear what you're saying," Yefim replied sharply.
+
+"Listen, boys," said Rybin, letting his glance stray about the little
+assembly with a deliberate, grave gesture of his raised hand. "Here's a
+woman," pointing to the mother, "whose son is surely done for now."
+
+"Why are you saying this?" the mother asked in a low, sorrowful voice.
+
+"It's necessary," he answered sullenly. "It's necessary that your hair
+shouldn't turn gray in vain, that your heart shouldn't ache for nothing.
+Behold, boys! She's lost her son, but what of it? Has it killed her?
+Nilovna, did you bring books?"
+
+The mother looked at him, and after a pause said:
+
+"I did."
+
+"That's it," said Rybin, striking the table with the palm of his hand.
+"I knew it at once when I saw you. Why need you have come here, if not
+for that?" He again measured the young men with his eyes, and continued,
+solemnly knitting his eyebrows: "Do you see? They thrust the son out of
+the ranks, and the mother drops into his place."
+
+He suddenly struck the table with both hands, and straightening himself
+said with an air that seemed to augur ill:
+
+"Those----"--here he flung out a terrible oath--"those people don't know
+what their blind hands are sowing. They _will_ know when our power is
+complete and we begin to mow down their cursed grass. They'll know it
+then!"
+
+The mother was frightened. She looked at him, and saw that Mikhail's
+face had changed greatly. He had grown thinner; his beard was roughened,
+and his cheek bones seemed to have sharpened. The bluish whites of his
+eyes were threaded with thin red fibers, as if he had gone without sleep
+for a long time. His nose, less fleshy than formerly, had acquired a
+rapacious crook. His open, tar-saturated collar, attached to a shirt
+that had once been red, exposed his dry collar bones and the thick black
+hair on his breast. About his whole figure there was something more
+tragic than before. Red sparks seemed to fly from his inflamed eyes and
+light the lean, dark face with the fire of unconquerable, melancholy
+rage. Sofya paled and was silent, her gaze riveted on the peasant.
+Ignaty shook his head and screwed up his eyes, and Yakob, standing at
+the wall again, angrily tore splinters from the boards with his
+blackened fingers. Yefim, behind the mother, slowly paced up and down
+along the length of the table.
+
+"The other day," continued Rybin, "a government official called me up,
+and, says he, 'You blackguard, what did you say to the priest?' 'Why am
+I a blackguard?' I say. 'I earn my bread in the sweat of my brow, and I
+don't do anything bad to people.' That's what I said. He bawled out at
+me, and hit me in the face. For three days and three nights I sat in the
+lockup." Rybin grew infuriated. "That's the way you speak to the people,
+is it?" he cried. "Don't expect pardon, you devils. My wrong will be
+avenged, if not by me, then by another, if not on you, then on your
+children. Remember! The greed in your breasts has harrowed the people
+with iron claws. You have sowed malice; don't expect mercy!"
+
+The wrath in Rybin seethed and bubbled; his voice shook with sounds that
+frightened the mother.
+
+"And what had I said to the priest?" he continued in a lighter tone.
+"After the village assembly he sits with the peasants in the street, and
+tells them something. 'The people are a flock,' says he, 'and they
+always need a shepherd.' And I joke. 'If,' I say, 'they make the fox the
+chief in the forest, there'll be lots of feathers but no birds.' He
+looks at me sidewise and speaks about how the people ought to be patient
+and pray more to God to give them the power to be patient. And I say
+that the people pray, but evidently God has no time, because he doesn't
+listen to them. The priest begins to cavil with me as to what prayers I
+pray. I tell him I use one prayer, like all the people, 'O Lord, teach
+the masters to carry bricks, eat stones, and spit wood.' He wouldn't
+even let me finish my sentence.--Are you a lady?" Rybin asked Sofya,
+suddenly breaking off his story.
+
+"Why do you think I'm a lady?" she asked quickly, startled by the
+unexpectedness of his question.
+
+"Why?" laughed Rybin. "That's the star under which you were born. That's
+why. You think a chintz kerchief can conceal the blot of the nobleman
+from the eyes of the people? We'll recognize a priest even if he's
+wrapped in sackcloth. Here, for instance, you put your elbows on a wet
+table, and you started and frowned. Besides, your back is too straight
+for a working woman."
+
+Fearing he would insult Sofya with his heavy voice and his raillery, the
+mother said quickly and sternly:
+
+"She's my friend, Mikhail Ivanovich. She's a good woman. Working in this
+movement has turned her hair gray. You're not very----"
+
+Rybin fetched a deep breath.
+
+"Why, was what I said insulting?"
+
+Sofya looked at him dryly and queried:
+
+"You wanted to say something to me?"
+
+"I? Not long ago a new man came here, a cousin of Yakob. He's sick with
+consumption; but he's learned a thing or two. Shall we call him?"
+
+"Call him! Why not?" answered Sofya.
+
+Rybin looked at her, screwing up his eyes.
+
+"Yefim," he said in a lowered voice, "you go over to him, and tell him
+to come here in the evening."
+
+Yefim went into the shack to get his cap; then silently, without looking
+at anybody, he walked off at a leisurely pace and disappeared in the
+woods. Rybin nodded his head in the direction he was going, saying
+dully:
+
+"He's suffering torments. He's stubborn. He has to go into the army, he
+and Yakob, here. Yakob simply says, 'I can't.' And that fellow can't
+either; but he wants to; he has an object in view. He thinks he can stir
+the soldiers. My opinion is, you can't break through a wall with your
+forehead. Bayonets in their hands, off they go--where? They don't
+see--they're going against themselves. Yes, he's suffering. And Ignaty
+worries him uselessly."
+
+"No, not at all!" said Ignaty. He knit his eyebrows, and kept his eyes
+turned away from Rybin. "They'll change him, and he'll become just like
+all the other soldiers."
+
+"No, hardly," Rybin answered meditatively. "But, of course, it's better
+to run away from the army. Russia is large. Where will you find the
+fellow? He gets himself a passport, and goes from village to village."
+
+"That's what I'm going to do, too," remarked Yakob, tapping his foot
+with a chip of wood. "Once you've made up your mind to go against the
+government, go straight."
+
+The conversation dropped off. The bees and wasps circled busily around
+humming in the stifling atmosphere. The birds chirped, and somewhere at
+a distance a song was heard straying through the fields. After a pause
+Rybin said:
+
+"Well, we've got to get to work. Do you want to rest? There are boards
+inside the shanty. Pick up some dry leaves for them, Yakob. And you,
+mother, give us the books. Where are they?"
+
+The mother and Sofya began to untie their sacks. Rybin bent down over
+them, and said with satisfaction:
+
+"That's it! Well, well--not a few, I see. Have you been in this business
+a long time? What's your name?" he turned toward Sofya.
+
+"Anna Ivanovna. Twelve years. Why?"
+
+"Nothing."
+
+"Have you been in prison?"
+
+"I have."
+
+He was silent, taking a pile of books in his hand, and said to her,
+showing his teeth:
+
+"Don't take offense at the way I speak. A peasant and a nobleman are
+like tar and water. It's hard for them to mix. They jump away from each
+other."
+
+"I'm not a lady. I'm a human being," Sofya retorted with a quiet laugh.
+
+"That may be. It's hard for me to believe it; but they say it happens.
+They say that a dog was once a wolf. Now I'll hide these books."
+
+Ignaty and Yakob walked up to him, and both stretched out their hands.
+
+"Give us some."
+
+"Are they all the same?" Rybin asked of Sofya.
+
+"No, they're different. There's a newspaper here, too."
+
+"Oh!"
+
+The three men quickly walked into the shack.
+
+"The peasant is on fire," said the mother in a low voice, looking after
+Rybin thoughtfully.
+
+"Yes," answered Sofya. "I've never seen such a face as his--such a
+martyrlike face. Let's go inside, too. I want to look at them."
+
+When the women reached the door they found the men already engrossed in
+the newspapers. Ignaty was sitting on the board, the newspaper spread on
+his knees, and his fingers run through his hair. He raised his head,
+gave the women a rapid glance, and bent over his paper again. Rybin was
+standing to let the ray of sun that penetrated a chink in the roof fall
+on his paper. He moved his lips as he read. Ignaty read kneeling, with
+his breast against the edge of the board.
+
+Sofya felt the eagerness of the men for the word of truth. Her face
+brightened with a joyful smile. Walking carefully over to a corner, she
+sat down next to the mother, her arm on the mother's shoulder, and gazed
+about silently.
+
+"Uncle Mikhail, they're rough on us peasants," muttered Yakob without
+turning.
+
+Rybin looked around at him, and answered with a smile:
+
+"For love of us. He who loves does not insult, no matter what he says."
+
+Ignaty drew a deep breath, raised his head, smiled satirically, and
+closing his eyes said with a scowl:
+
+"Here it says: 'The peasant has ceased to be a human being.' Of course
+he has." Over his simple, open face glided a shadow of offense. "Well,
+try to wear my skin for a day or so, and turn around in it, and then
+we'll see what you'll be like, you wiseacre, you!"
+
+"I'm going to lie down," said the mother quietly. "I got tired, after
+all. My head is going around. And you?" she asked Sofya.
+
+"I don't want to."
+
+The mother stretched herself on the board and soon fell asleep. Sofya
+sat over her looking at the people reading. When the bees buzzed about
+the mother's face, she solicitously drove them away.
+
+Rybin came up and asked:
+
+"Is she asleep?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+He was silent for a moment, looked fixedly at the calm sleeping face,
+and said softly:
+
+"She is probably the first mother who has followed in the footsteps of
+her son--the first."
+
+"Let's not disturb her; let's go away," suggested Sofya.
+
+"Well, we have to work. I'd like to have a chat with you; but we'll put
+it off until evening. Come, boys."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+
+The three men walked away, leaving Sofya in the cabin. Then from a
+distance came the sound of the ax blows, the echo straying through the
+foliage. In a half-dreamy condition of repose, intoxicated with the
+spicy odor of the forest, Sofya sat just outside the door, humming a
+song, and watching the approach of evening, which gradually enfolded the
+forest. Her gray eyes smiled softly at some one. The reddening rays of
+the sun fell more and more aslant. The busy chirping of the birds died
+away. The forest darkened, and seemed to grow denser. The trees moved in
+more closely about the choked-up glade, and gave it a more friendly
+embrace, covering it with shadows. Cows were lowing in the distance. The
+tar men came, all four together, content that the work was ended.
+
+Awakened by their voices the mother walked out from the cabin, yawning
+and smiling. Rybin was calmer and less gloomy. The surplus of his
+excitement was drowned in exhaustion.
+
+"Ignaty," he said, "let's have our tea. We do housekeeping here by
+turns. To-day Ignaty provides us with food and drink."
+
+"To-day I'd be glad to yield my turn," remarked Ignaty, gathering up
+pieces of wood and branches for an open-air fire.
+
+"We're all interested in our guests," said Yefim, sitting down by
+Sofya's side.
+
+"I'll help you," said Yakob softly.
+
+He brought out a big loaf of bread baked in hot ashes, and began to cut
+it and place the pieces on the table.
+
+"Listen!" exclaimed Yefim. "Do you hear that cough?"
+
+Rybin listened, and nodded.
+
+"Yes, he's coming," he said to Sofya. "The witness is coming. I would
+lead him through cities, put him in public squares, for the people to
+hear him. He always says the same thing. But everybody ought to hear
+it."
+
+The shadows grew closer, the twilight thickened, and the voices sounded
+softer. Sofya and the mother watched the actions of the peasants. They
+all moved slowly and heavily with a strange sort of cautiousness. They,
+too, constantly followed the women with their eyes, listening
+attentively to their conversation.
+
+A tall, stooping man came out of the woods into the glade, and walked
+slowly, firmly supporting himself on a cane. His heavy, raucous
+breathing was audible.
+
+"There is Savely!" exclaimed Yakob.
+
+"Here I am," said the man hoarsely. He stopped, and began to cough.
+
+A shabby coat hung over him down to his very heels. From under his
+round, crumpled hat straggled thin, limp tufts of dry, straight,
+yellowish hair. His light, sparse beard grew unevenly upon his yellow,
+bony face; his mouth stood half-open; his eyes were sunk deep beneath
+his forehead, and glittered feverishly in their dark hollows.
+
+When Rybin introduced him to Sofya he said to her:
+
+"I heard you brought books for the people."
+
+"I did."
+
+"Thank you in the name of the people. They themselves cannot yet
+understand the book of truth. They cannot yet thank; so I, who have
+learned to understand it, render you thanks in their behalf." He
+breathed quickly, with short, eager breaths, strangely drawing in the
+air through his dry lips. His voice broke. The bony fingers of his
+feeble hands crept along his breast trying to button his coat.
+
+"It's bad for you to be in the woods so late; it's damp and close here,"
+remarked Sofya.
+
+"Nothing is good for me any more," he answered, out of breath. "Only
+death!"
+
+It was painful to listen to him. His entire figure inspired a futile
+pity that recognized its own powerlessness, and gave way to a sullen
+feeling of discomfort.
+
+The wood pile blazed up; everything round about trembled and shook; the
+scorched shadows flung themselves into the woods in fright. The round
+face of Ignaty with its inflated cheeks shone over the fire. The flames
+died down, and the air began to smell of smoke. Again the trees seemed
+to draw close and unite with the mist on the glade, listening in
+strained attention to the hoarse words of the sick man.
+
+"But as a witness of the crime, I can still bring good to the people.
+Look at me! I'm twenty-eight years old; but I'm dying. About ten years
+ago I could lift five hundred pounds on my shoulders without an effort.
+With such strength I thought I could go on for seventy years without
+dropping into the grave, and I've lived for only ten years, and can't go
+on any more. The masters have robbed me; they've torn forty years of my
+life from me; they've stolen forty years from me."
+
+"There, that's his song," said Rybin dully.
+
+The fire blazed up again, but now it was stronger and more vivid. Again
+the shadows leaped into the woods, and again darted back to the fire,
+quivering about it in a mute, astonished dance. The wood crackled, and
+the leaves of the trees rustled softly. Alarmed by the waves of the
+heated atmosphere, the merry, vivacious tongues of fire, yellow and red,
+in sportive embrace, soared aloft, sowing sparks. The burning leaves
+flew, and the stars in the sky smiled to the sparks, luring them up to
+themselves.
+
+"That's not _my_ song. Thousands of people sing it. But they sing it to
+themselves, not realizing what a salutary lesson their unfortunate lives
+hold for all. How many men, tormented to death by work, miserable
+cripples, maimed, die silently from hunger! It is necessary to shout it
+aloud, brothers, it is necessary to shout it aloud!" He fell into a fit
+of coughing, bending and all a-shiver.
+
+"Why?" asked Yefim. "My misery is my own affair. Just look at my joy."
+
+"Don't interrupt," Rybin admonished.
+
+"You yourself said a man mustn't boast of his misfortune," observed
+Yefim with a frown.
+
+"That's a different thing. Savely's misfortune is a general affair, not
+merely his own. It's very different," said Rybin solemnly. "Here you
+have a man who has gone down to the depths and been suffocated. Now he
+shouts to the world, 'Look out, don't go there!'"
+
+Yakob put a pail of cider on the table, dropped a bundle of green
+branches, and said to the sick man:
+
+"Come, Savely, I've brought you some milk."
+
+Savely shook his head in declination, but Yakob took him under the arm,
+lifted him, and made him walk to the table.
+
+"Listen," said Sofya softly to Rybin. She was troubled and reproached
+him. "Why did you invite him here? He may die any minute."
+
+"He may," retorted Rybin. "Let him die among people. That's easier than
+to die alone. In the meantime let him speak. He lost his life for
+trifles. Let him suffer a little longer for the sake of the people. It's
+all right!"
+
+"You seem to take particular delight in it," exclaimed Sofya.
+
+"It's the masters who take pleasure in Christ as he groans on the cross.
+But what we want is to learn from a man, and make you learn something,
+too."
+
+At the table the sick man began to speak again:
+
+"They destroy lives with work. What for? They rob men of their lives.
+What for, I ask? My master--I lost my life in the textile mill of
+Nefidov--my master presented one prima donna with a golden wash basin.
+Every one of her toilet articles was gold. That basin holds my
+life-blood, my very life. That's for what my life went! A man killed me
+with work in order to comfort his mistress with my blood. He bought her
+a gold wash basin with my blood."
+
+"Man is created in the image of God," said Yefim, smiling. "And that's
+the use to which they put the image. Fine!"
+
+"Well, then don't be silent!" exclaimed Rybin, striking his palm on the
+table.
+
+"Don't suffer it," added Yakob softly.
+
+Ignaty laughed. The mother observed that all three men spoke little, but
+listened with the insatiable attention of hungry souls, and every time
+that Rybin spoke they looked into his face with watchful eyes. Savely's
+talk produced a strange, sharp smile on their faces. No feeling of pity
+for the sick man was to be detected in their manner.
+
+Bending toward Sofya the mother whispered:
+
+"Is it possible that what he says is true?"
+
+Sofya answered aloud:
+
+"Yes, it's true. The newspapers tell about such gifts. It happened in
+Moscow."
+
+"And the man wasn't executed for it?" asked Rybin dully. "But he should
+have been executed, he should have been led out before the people and
+torn to pieces. His vile, dirty flesh should have been thrown to the
+dogs. The people will perform great executions when once they arise.
+They'll shed much blood to wash away their wrongs. This blood is theirs;
+it has been drained from their veins; they are its masters."
+
+"It's cold," said the sick man. Yakob helped him to rise, and led him to
+the fire.
+
+The wood pile burned evenly and glaringly, and the faceless shadows
+quivered around it. Savely sat down on a stump, and stretched his dry,
+transparent hands toward the fire, coughing. Rybin nodded his head to
+one side, and said to Sofya in an undertone:
+
+"That's sharper than books. That ought to be known. When they tear a
+workingman's hand in a machine or kill him, you can understand--the
+workingman himself is at fault. But in a case like this, when they suck
+a man's blood out of him and throw him away like a carcass--that can't
+be explained in any way. I can comprehend every murder; but torturing
+for mere sport I can't comprehend. And why do they torture the people?
+To what purpose do they torture us all? For fun, for mere amusement, so
+that they can live pleasantly on the earth; so that they can buy
+everything with the blood of the people, a prima donna, horses, silver
+knives, golden dishes, expensive toys for their children. _You_ work,
+work, work, work more and more, and _I'll_ hoard money by your labor and
+give my mistress a golden wash basin."
+
+The mother listened, looked, and once again, before her in the darkness,
+stretched the bright streak of the road that Pavel was going, and all
+those with whom he walked.
+
+When they had concluded their supper, they sat around the fire, which
+consumed the wood quickly. Behind them hung the darkness, embracing
+forest and sky. The sick man with wide-open eyes looked into the fire,
+coughed incessantly, and shivered all over. The remnants of his life
+seemed to be tearing themselves from his bosom impatiently, hastening to
+forsake the dry body, drained by sickness.
+
+"Maybe you'd better go into the shanty, Savely?" Yakob asked, bending
+over him.
+
+"Why?" he answered with an effort. "I'll sit here. I haven't much time
+left to stay with people, very little time." He paused, let his eyes
+rove about the entire group, then with a pale smile, continued: "I feel
+good when I'm with you. I look at you, and think, 'Maybe you will avenge
+the wrongs of all who were robbed, of all the people destroyed because
+of greed.'"
+
+No one replied, and he soon fell into a doze, his head limply hanging
+over his chest. Rybin looked at him, and said in a dull voice:
+
+"He comes to us, sits here, and always speaks of the same thing, of this
+mockery of man. This is his entire soul; he feels nothing else."
+
+"What more do you want?" said the mother thoughtfully. "If people are
+killed by the thousands day after day working so that their masters may
+throw money away for sport, what else do you want?"
+
+"It's endlessly wearying to listen to him," said Ignaty in a low voice.
+"When you hear this sort of thing once, you never forget it, and he
+keeps harping on it all the time."
+
+"But everything is crowded into this one thing. It's his entire life,
+remember," remarked Rybin sullenly.
+
+The sick man turned, opened his eyes, and lay down on the ground. Yakob
+rose noiselessly, walked into the cabin, brought out two short
+overcoats, and wrapped them about his cousin. Then he sat down beside
+Sofya.
+
+The merry, ruddy face of the fire smiled irritatingly as it illumined
+the dark figures about it; and the voices blended mournfully with the
+soft rustle and crackle of the flames.
+
+Sofya began to tell about the universal struggle of the people for the
+right to life, about the conflicts of the German peasants in the olden
+times, about the misfortunes of the Irish, about the great exploits of
+the workingmen of France in their frequent battling for freedom.
+
+In the forest clothed in the velvet of night, in the little glade
+bounded by the dumb trees, before the sportive face of the fire, the
+events that shook the world rose to life again; one nation of the earth
+after the other passed in review, drained of its blood, exhausted by
+combats; the names of the great soldiers for freedom and truth were
+recalled.
+
+The somewhat dull voice of the woman seemed to echo softly from the
+remoteness of the past. It aroused hope, it carried conviction; and the
+company listened in silence to its music, to the great story of their
+brethren in spirit. They looked into her face, lean and pale, and smiled
+in response to the smile of her gray eyes. Before them the cause of all
+the people of the world, the endless war for freedom and equality,
+became more vivid and assumed a greater holiness. They saw their desires
+and thoughts in the distance, overhung with the dark, bloody curtain of
+the past, amid strangers unknown to them; and inwardly, both in mind and
+heart, they became united with the world, seeing in it friends even in
+olden times, friends who had unanimously resolved to obtain right upon
+the earth, and had consecrated their resolve with measureless suffering,
+and shed rivers of their own blood. With this blood, mankind dedicated
+itself to a new life, bright and cheerful. A feeling arose and grew of
+the spiritual nearness of each unto each. A new heart was born on the
+earth, full of hot striving to embrace all and to unite all in itself.
+
+"A day is coming when the workingmen of all countries will raise their
+heads, and firmly declare, 'Enough! We want no more of this life.'"
+Sofya's low but powerful voice rang with assurance. "And then the
+fantastic power of those who are mighty by their greed will crumble; the
+earth will vanish from under their feet, and their support will be
+gone."
+
+"That's how it will be," said Rybin, bending his head. "Don't pity
+yourselves, and you will conquer everything."
+
+The men listened in silence, motionless, endeavoring in no way to break
+the even flow of the narrative, fearing to cut the bright thread that
+bound them to the world. Only occasionally some one would carefully put
+a piece of wood in the fire, and when a stream of sparks and smoke rose
+from the pile he would drive them away from the woman with a wave of his
+hand.
+
+[Illustration: "The men listened in silence."]
+
+Once Yakob rose and said:
+
+"Wait a moment, please." He ran into the shack and brought out wraps.
+With Ignaty's help he folded them about the shoulders and feet of the
+women.
+
+And again Sofya spoke, picturing the day of victory, inspiring people
+with faith in their power, arousing in them a consciousness of their
+oneness with all who give away their lives to barren toil for the
+amusement of the satiated.
+
+At break of dawn, exhausted, she grew silent, and smiling she looked
+around at the thoughtful, illumined faces.
+
+"It's time for us to go," said the mother.
+
+"Yes, it's time," said Sofya wearily.
+
+Some one breathed a noisy sigh.
+
+"I am sorry you're going," said Rybin in an unusually mild tone. "You
+speak well. This great cause will unite people. When you know that
+millions want the same as you do, your heart becomes better, and in
+goodness there is great power."
+
+"You offer goodness, and get the stake in return," said Yefim with a low
+laugh, and quickly jumped to his feet. "But they ought to go, Uncle
+Mikhail, before anybody sees them. We'll distribute the books among the
+people; the authorities will begin to wonder where they came from; then
+some one will remember having seen the pilgrims here."
+
+"Well, thank you, mother, for your trouble," said Rybin, interrupting
+Yefim. "I always think of Pavel when I look at you, and you've gone the
+right way."
+
+He stood before the mother, softened, with a broad, good-natured smile
+on his face. The atmosphere was raw, but he wore only one shirt, his
+collar was unbuttoned, and his breast was bared low. The mother looked
+at his large figure, and smiling also, advised:
+
+"You'd better put on something; it's cold."
+
+"There's a fire inside of me."
+
+The three young men standing at the burning pile conversed in a low
+voice. At their feet the sick man lay as if dead, covered with the short
+fur coats. The sky paled, the shadows dissolved, the leaves shivered
+softly, awaiting the sun.
+
+"Well, then, we must say good-by," said Rybin, pressing Sofya's hand.
+"How are you to be found in the city?"
+
+"You must look for me," said the mother.
+
+The young men in a close group walked up to Sofya, and silently pressed
+her hand with awkward kindness. In each of them was evident grateful and
+friendly satisfaction, though they attempted to conceal the feeling
+which apparently embarrassed them by its novelty. Smiling with eyes dry
+with the sleepless night, they looked in silence into Sofya's eyes,
+shifting from one foot to the other.
+
+"Won't you drink some milk before you go?" asked Yakob.
+
+"Is there any?" queried Yefim.
+
+"There's a little."
+
+Ignaty, stroking his hair in confusion, announced:
+
+"No, there isn't; I spilled it."
+
+All three laughed. They spoke about milk, but the mother and Sofya felt
+that they were thinking of something else, and without words were
+wishing them well. This touched Sofya, and produced in her, too,
+embarrassment and modest reserve, which prevented her from saying
+anything more than a quiet and warm "Thank you, comrades."
+
+They exchanged glances, as if the word "comrade" had given them a mild
+shock. The dull cough of the sick man was heard. The embers of the
+burning woodpile died out.
+
+"Good-by," the peasants said in subdued tones; and the sad word rang in
+the women's ears a long time.
+
+They walked without haste, in the twilight of the dawn, along the wood
+path. The mother striding behind Sofya said:
+
+"All this is good, just as in a dream--so good! People want to know the
+truth, my dear; yes, they want to know the truth. It's like being in a
+church on the morning of a great holiday, when the priest has not yet
+arrived, and it's dark and quiet; then it's raw, and the people are
+already gathering. Here the candles are lighted before the images, and
+there the lamps are lighted; and little by little, they drive away the
+darkness, illumining the House of God."
+
+"True," answered Sofya. "Only here the House of God is the whole earth."
+
+"The whole earth," the mother repeated, shaking her head thoughtfully.
+"It's so good that it's hard to believe."
+
+They walked and talked about Rybin, about the sick man, about the young
+peasants who were so attentively silent, and who so awkwardly but
+eloquently expressed a feeling of grateful friendship by little
+attentions to the women. They came out into the open field; the sun rose
+to meet them. As yet invisible, he spread out over the sky a transparent
+fan of rosy rays, and the dewdrops in the grass glittered with the
+many-colored gems of brave spring joy. The birds awoke fresh from their
+slumber, vivifying the morning with their merry, impetuous voices. The
+crows flew about croaking, and flapping their wings heavily. The black
+rooks jumped about in the winter wheat, conversing in abrupt accents.
+Somewhere the orioles whistled mournfully, a note of alarm in their
+song. The larks sang, soaring up to meet the sun. The distance opened
+up, the nocturnal shadows lifting from the hills.
+
+"Sometimes a man will speak and speak to you, and you won't understand
+him until he succeeds in telling you some simple word; and this one word
+will suddenly lighten up everything," the mother said thoughtfully.
+"There's that sick man, for instance; I've heard and known myself how
+the workingmen in the factories and everywhere are squeezed; but you get
+used to it from childhood on, and it doesn't touch your heart much. But
+he suddenly tells you such an outrageous, vile thing! O Lord! Can it be
+that people give their whole lives away to work in order that the
+masters may permit themselves pleasure? That's without justification."
+
+The thoughts of the mother were arrested by this fact. Its dull,
+impudent gleam threw light upon a series of similar facts, at one time
+known to her, but now forgotten.
+
+"It's evident that they are satiated with everything. I know one country
+officer who compelled the peasants to salute his horse when it was led
+through the village; and he arrested everyone who failed to salute it.
+Now, what need had he of that? It's impossible to understand." After a
+pause she sighed: "The poor people are stupid from poverty, and the rich
+from greed."
+
+Sofya began to hum a song bold as the morning.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+
+The life of Nilovna flowed on with strange placidity. This calmness
+sometimes astonished her. There was her son immured in prison. She knew
+that a severe sentence awaited him, yet every time the idea of it came
+to her mind her thoughts strayed to Andrey, Fedya, and an endless series
+of other people she had never seen, but only heard of. The figure of her
+son appeared to her absorbing all the people into his own destiny. The
+contemplative feeling aroused in her involuntarily and unnoticeably
+diverted her inward gaze away from him to all sides. Like thin, uneven
+rays it touched upon everything, tried to throw light everywhere, and
+make one picture of the whole. Her mind was hindered from dwelling upon
+some one thing.
+
+Sofya soon went off somewhere, and reappeared in about five days, merry
+and vivacious. Then, in a few hours, she vanished again, and returned
+within a couple of weeks. It seemed as if she were borne along in life
+in wide circles.
+
+Nikolay, always occupied, lived a monotonous, methodical existence. At
+eight o'clock in the morning he drank tea, read the newspapers, and
+recounted the news to the mother. He repeated the speeches of the
+merchants in the Douma without malice, and clearly depicted the life in
+the city.
+
+Listening to him the mother saw with transparent clearness the mechanism
+of this life pitilessly grinding the people in the millstones of money.
+At nine o'clock he went off to the office.
+
+She tidied the rooms, prepared dinner, washed herself, put on a clean
+dress, and then sat in her room to examine the pictures and the books.
+She had already learned to read, but the effort of reading quickly
+exhausted her; and she ceased to understand the meaning of the words.
+But the pictures were a constant astonishment to her. They opened up
+before her a clear, almost tangible world of new and marvelous things.
+Huge cities arose before her, beautiful structures, machines, ships,
+monuments, and infinite wealth, created by the people, overwhelming the
+mind by the variety of nature's products. Life widened endlessly; each
+day brought some new, huge wonders. The awakened hungry soul of the
+woman was more and more strongly aroused to the multitude of riches in
+the world, its countless beauties. She especially loved to look through
+the great folios of the zoological atlas, and although the text was
+written in a foreign language, it gave her the clearest conception of
+the beauty, wealth, and vastness of the earth.
+
+"It's an immense world," she said to Nikolay at dinner.
+
+"Yes, and yet the people are crowded for space."
+
+The insects, particularly the butterflies, astonished her most.
+
+"What beauty, Nikolay Ivanovich," she observed. "And how much of this
+fascinating beauty there is everywhere, but all covered up from us; it
+all flies by without our seeing it. People toss about, they know
+nothing, they are unable to take delight in anything, they have no
+inclination for it. How many could take happiness to themselves if they
+knew how rich the earth is, how many wonderful things live in it!"
+
+Nikolay listened to her raptures, smiled, and brought her new
+illustrated books.
+
+In the evening visitors often gathered in his house--Alexey Vasilyevich,
+a handsome man, pale-faced, black-bearded, sedate, and taciturn; Roman
+Petrovich, a pimply, round-headed individual always smacking his lips
+regretfully; Ivan Danilovich, a short, lean fellow with a pointed beard
+and thin hair, impetuous, vociferous, and sharp as an awl, and Yegor,
+always joking with his comrades about his sickness. Sometimes other
+people were present who had come from various distant cities. The long
+conversations always turned on one and the same thing, on the working
+people of the world. The comrades discussed the workingmen, got into
+arguments about them, became heated, waved their hands, and drank much
+tea; while Nikolay, in the noise of the conversation, silently composed
+proclamations. Then he read them to the comrades, who copied them on the
+spot in printed letters. The mother carefully collected the pieces of
+the torn, rough copies, and burned them.
+
+She poured out tea for them, and wondered at the warmth with which they
+discussed life and the working-people, the means whereby to sow truth
+among them the sooner and the better, and how to elevate their spirit.
+These problems were always agitating the comrades; their lives revolved
+about them. Often they angrily disagreed, blamed one another for
+something, got offended, and again discussed.
+
+The mother felt that she knew the life of the workingmen better than
+these people, and saw more clearly than they the enormity of the task
+they assumed. She could look upon them with the somewhat melancholy
+indulgence of a grown-up person toward children who play man and wife
+without understanding the drama of the relation.
+
+Sometimes Sashenka came. She never stayed long, and always spoke in a
+businesslike way without smiling. She did not once fail to ask on
+leaving how Pavel Mikhaylovich was.
+
+"Is he well?" she would ask.
+
+"Thank God! So, so. He's in good spirits."
+
+"Give him my regards," the girl would request, and then disappear.
+
+Sometimes the mother complained to Sashenka because Pavel was detained
+so long and no date was yet set for his trial. Sashenka looked gloomy,
+and maintained silence, her fingers twitching. Nilovna was tempted to
+say to her: "My dear girl, why, I know you love him, I know." But
+Sashenka's austere face, her compressed lips, and her dry, businesslike
+manner, which seemed to betoken a desire for silence as soon as
+possible, forbade any demonstration of sentiment. With a sigh the mother
+mutely clasped the hand that the girl extended to her, and thought: "My
+unhappy girl!"
+
+Once Natasha came. She showed great delight at seeing the mother, kissed
+her, and among other things announced to her quietly, as if she had just
+thought of the thing:
+
+"My mother died. Poor woman, she's dead!" She wiped her eyes with a
+rapid gesture of her hands, and continued: "I'm sorry for her. She was
+not yet fifty. She had a long life before her still. But when you look
+at it from the other side you can't help thinking that death is easier
+than such a life--always alone, a stranger to everybody, needed by no
+one, scared by the shouts of my father. Can you call that living? People
+live waiting for something good, and she had nothing to expect except
+insults."
+
+"You're right, Natasha," said the mother musingly. "People live
+expecting some good, and if there's nothing to expect, what sort of a
+life is it?" Kindly stroking Natasha's hand, she asked: "So you're alone
+now?"
+
+"Alone!" the girl rejoined lightly.
+
+The mother was silent, then suddenly remarked with a smile:
+
+"Never mind! A good person does not live alone. People will always
+attach themselves to a good person."
+
+Natasha was now a teacher in a little town where there was a textile
+mill, and Nilovna occasionally procured illegal books, proclamations,
+and newspapers for her. The distribution of literature, in fact, became
+the mother's occupation. Several times a month, dressed as a nun or as a
+peddler of laces or small linen articles, as a rich merchant's wife or a
+religious pilgrim, she rode or walked about with a sack on her back, or
+a valise in her hand. Everywhere, in the train, in the steamers, in
+hotels and inns, she behaved simply and unobtrusively. She was the first
+to enter into conversations with strangers, fearlessly drawing attention
+to herself by her kind, sociable talk and the confident manner of an
+experienced person who has seen and heard much.
+
+She liked to speak to people, liked to listen to their stories of life,
+their complaints, their perplexities, and lamentations. Her heart was
+bathed in joy each time she noticed in anybody poignant discontent with
+life, that discontent which, protesting against the blows of fate,
+earnestly seeks to find an answer to its questions. Before her the
+picture of human life unrolled itself ever wider and more varicolored,
+that restless, anxious life passed in the struggle to fill the stomach.
+Everywhere she clearly saw the coarse, bare striving, insolent in its
+openness, deceiving man, robbing him, pressing out of him as much sap as
+possible, draining him of his very life-blood. She realized that there
+was plenty of everything upon earth, but that the people were in want,
+and lived half starved, surrounded by inexhaustible wealth. In the
+cities stood churches filled with gold and silver, not needed by God,
+and at the entrance to the churches shivered the beggars vainly awaiting
+a little copper coin to be thrust into their hands. Formerly she had
+seen this, too--rich churches, priestly vestments sewed with gold
+threads, and the hovels of the poor, their ignominious rags. But at that
+time the thing had seemed natural; now the contrast was irreconcilable
+and insulting to the poor, to whom, she knew, the churches were both
+nearer and more necessary than to the rich.
+
+From the pictures and stories of Christ, she knew also that he was a
+friend of the poor, that he dressed simply. But in the churches, where
+poverty came to him for consolation, she saw him nailed to the cross
+with insolent gold, she saw silks and satins flaunting in the face of
+want. The words of Rybin occurred to her: "They have mutilated even our
+God for us, they have turned everything in their hands against us. In
+the churches they set up a scarecrow before us. They have dressed God up
+in falsehood and calumny; they have distorted His face in order to
+destroy our souls!"
+
+Without being herself aware of it, she prayed less; yet, at the same
+time, she meditated more and more upon Christ and the people who,
+without mentioning his name, as though ignorant of him, lived, it seemed
+to her, according to his will, and, like him, regarded the earth as the
+kingdom of the poor, and wanted to divide all the wealth of the earth
+among the poor. Her reflections grew in her soul, deepening and
+embracing everything she saw and heard. They grew and assumed the bright
+aspect of a prayer, suffusing an even glow over the entire dark world,
+the whole of life, and all people.
+
+And it seemed to her that Christ himself, whom she had always loved with
+a perplexed love, with a complicated feeling in which fear was closely
+bound up with hope, and joyful emotion with melancholy, now came nearer
+to her, and was different from what he had been. His position was
+loftier, and he was more clearly visible to her. His aspect turned
+brighter and more cheerful. Now his eyes smiled on her with assurance,
+and with a live inward power, as if he had in reality risen to life for
+mankind, washed and vivified by the hot blood lavishly shed in his name.
+Yet those who had lost their blood modestly refrained from mentioning
+the name of the unfortunate friend of the people.
+
+The mother always returned to Nikolay from her travels delightfully
+exhilarated by what she had seen and heard on the road, bold and
+satisfied with the work she had accomplished.
+
+"It's good to go everywhere, and to see much," she said to Nikolay in
+the evening. "You understand how life is arranged. They brush the people
+aside and fling them to the edge. The people, hurt and wounded, keep
+moving about, even though they don't want to, and though they keep
+thinking: 'What for? Why do they drive us away? Why must we go hungry
+when there is so much of everything? And how much intellect there is
+everywhere! Nevertheless, we must remain in stupidity and darkness. And
+where is He, the merciful God, in whose eyes there are no rich nor poor,
+but all are children dear to His heart.' The people are gradually
+revolting against this life. They feel that untruth will stifle them if
+they don't take thought of themselves."
+
+And in her leisure hours she sat down to the books, and again looked
+over the pictures, each time finding something new, ever widening the
+panorama of life before her eyes, unfolding the beauties of nature and
+the vigorous creative capacity of man. Nikolay often found her poring
+over the pictures. He would smile and always tell her something
+wonderful. Struck by man's daring, she would ask him incredulously, "Is
+it possible?"
+
+Quietly, with unshakable confidence in the truth of his prophecies,
+Nikolay peered with his kind eyes through his glasses into the mother's
+face, and told her stories of the future.
+
+"There is no measure to the desires of man; and his power is
+inexhaustible," he said. "But the world, after all, is still very slow
+in acquiring spiritual wealth. Because nowadays everyone desiring to
+free himself from dependence is compelled to hoard, not knowledge but
+money. However, when the people will have exterminated greed and will
+have freed themselves from the bondage of enslaving labor----"
+
+She listened to him with strained attention. Though she but rarely
+understood the meaning of his words, yet the calm faith animating them
+penetrated her more and more deeply.
+
+"There are extremely few free men in the world--that's its misfortune,"
+he said.
+
+This the mother understood. She knew men who had emancipated themselves
+from greed and evil; she understood that if there were more such people,
+the dark, incomprehensible, and awful face of life would become more
+kindly and simple, better and brighter.
+
+"A man must perforce be cruel," said Nikolay dismally.
+
+The mother nodded her head in confirmation. She recalled the sayings of
+the Little Russian.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+
+Once Nikolay, usually so punctual, came from his work much later than
+was his wont, and said, excitedly rubbing his hands: "Do you know,
+Nilovna, to-day at the visiting hour one of our comrades disappeared
+from prison? But we have not succeeded in finding out who."
+
+The mother's body swayed, overpowered by excitement. She sat down on a
+chair and asked with forced quiet:
+
+"Maybe it's Pasha?"
+
+"Possibly. But the question is how to find him, how to help him keep in
+concealment. Just now I was walking about the streets to see if I
+couldn't detect him. It was a stupid thing of me to do, but I had to do
+something. I'm going out again."
+
+"I'll go, too," said the mother, rising.
+
+"You go to Yegor, and see if he doesn't know anything about it," Nikolay
+suggested, and quickly walked away.
+
+She threw a kerchief on her head, and, seized with hope, swiftly sped
+along the streets. Her eyes dimmed and her heart beat faster. Her head
+drooped; she saw nothing about her. It was hot. The mother lost breath,
+and when she reached the stairway leading to Yegor's quarters, she
+stopped, too faint to proceed farther. She turned around and uttered an
+amazed, low cry, closing her eyes for a second. It seemed to her that
+Nikolay Vyesovshchikov was standing at the gate, his hands thrust into
+his pockets, regarding her with a smile. But when she looked again
+nobody was there.
+
+"I imagined I saw him," she said to herself, slowly walking up the steps
+and listening. She caught the sound of slow steps, and stopping at a
+turn in the stairway, she bent over to look below, and again saw the
+pockmarked face smiling up at her.
+
+"Nikolay! Nikolay!" she whispered, and ran down to meet him. Her heart,
+stung by disappointment, ached for her son.
+
+"Go, go!" he answered in an undertone, waving his hand.
+
+She quickly ran up the stairs, walked into Yegor's room, and found him
+lying on the sofa. She gasped in a whisper:
+
+"Nikolay is out of prison!"
+
+"Which Nikolay?" asked Yegor, raising his head from the pillow. "There
+are two there."
+
+"Vyesovshchikov. He's coming here!"
+
+"Fine! But I can't rise to meet him."
+
+Vyesovshchikov had already come into the room. He locked the door after
+him, and taking off his hat laughed quietly, stroking his hair. Yegor
+raised himself on his elbows.
+
+"Please, signor, make yourself at home," he said with a nod.
+
+Without saying anything, a broad smile on his face, Nikolay walked up to
+the mother and grasped her hand.
+
+"If I had not seen you I might as well have returned to prison. I know
+nobody in the city. If I had gone to the suburbs they would have seized
+me at once. So I walked about, and thought what a fool I was--why had I
+escaped? Suddenly I see Nilovna running; off I am, after you."
+
+"How did you make your escape?"
+
+Vyesovshchikov sat down awkwardly on the edge of the sofa and pressed
+Yegor's hand.
+
+"I don't know how," he said in an embarrassed manner. "Simply a chance.
+I was taking my airing, and the prisoners began to beat the overseer of
+the jail. There's one overseer there who was expelled from the
+gendarmerie for stealing. He's a spy, an informer, and tortures the life
+out of everybody. They gave him a drubbing, there was a hubbub, the
+overseers got frightened and blew their whistles. I noticed the gates
+open. I walked up and saw an open square and the city. It drew me
+forward and I went away without haste, as if in sleep. I walked a little
+and bethought myself: 'Where am I to go?' I looked around and the gates
+of the prison were already closed. I began to feel awkward. I was sorry
+for the comrades in general. It was stupid somehow. I hadn't thought of
+going away."
+
+"Hm!" said Yegor. "Why, sir, you should have turned back, respectfully
+knocked at the prison door, and begged for admission. 'Excuse me,' you
+should have said,'I was tempted; but here I am.'"
+
+"Yes," continued Nikolay, smiling; "that would have been stupid, too, I
+understand. But for all that, it's not nice to the other comrades. I
+walk away without saying anything to anybody. Well, I kept on going, and
+I came across a child's funeral. I followed the hearse with my head bent
+down, looking at nobody. I sat down in the cemetery and enjoyed the
+fresh air. One thought came into my head----"
+
+"One?" asked Yegor. Fetching breath, he added: "I suppose it won't feel
+crowded there."
+
+Vyesovshchikov laughed without taking offense, and shook his head.
+
+"Well, my brain's not so empty now as it used to be. And you, Yegor
+Ivanovich, still sick?"
+
+"Each one does what he can. No one has a right to interfere with him."
+Yegor evaded an answer; he coughed hoarsely. "Continue."
+
+"Then I went to a public museum. I walked about there, looked around,
+and kept thinking all the time: 'Where am I to go next?' I even began to
+get angry with myself. Besides, I got dreadfully hungry. I walked into
+the street and kept on trotting. I felt very down in the mouth. And then
+I saw police officers looking at everybody closely. 'Well,' thinks I to
+myself, 'with my face I'll arrive at God's judgment seat pretty soon.'
+Suddenly Nilovna came running opposite me. I turned about, and off I
+went after her. That's all."
+
+"And I didn't even see you," said the mother guiltily.
+
+"The comrades are probably uneasy about me. They must be wondering where
+I am," said Nikolay, scratching his head.
+
+"Aren't you sorry for the officials? I guess they're uneasy, too,"
+teased Yegor. He moved heavily on the sofa, and said seriously and
+solicitously: "However, jokes aside, we must hide you--by no means as
+easy as pleasant. If I could get up--" His breath gave out. He clapped
+his hand to his breast, and with a weak movement began to rub it.
+
+"You've gotten very sick, Yegor Ivanovich," said Nikolay gloomily,
+drooping his head. The mother sighed and cast an anxious glance about
+the little, crowded room.
+
+"That's my own affair. Granny, you ask about Pavel. No reason to feign
+indifference," said Yegor.
+
+Vyesovshchikov smiled broadly.
+
+"Pavel's all right; he's strong; he's like an elder among us; he
+converses with the officials and gives commands; he's respected. There's
+good reason for it."
+
+Vlasova nodded her head, listening, and looked sidewise at the swollen,
+bluish face of Yegor, congealed to immobility, devoid of expression. It
+seemed strangely flat, only the eyes flashed with animation and
+cheerfulness.
+
+"I wish you'd give me something to eat. I'm frightfully hungry," Nikolay
+cried out unexpectedly, and smiled sheepishly.
+
+"Granny, there's bread on the shelf--give it to him. Then go out in the
+corridor, to the second door on the left, and knock. A woman will open
+it, and you'll tell her to snatch up everything she has to eat and come
+here."
+
+"Why everything?" protested Nikolay.
+
+"Don't get excited. It's not much--maybe nothing at all."
+
+The mother went out and rapped at the door. She strained her ears for an
+answering sound, while thinking of Yegor with dread and grief. He was
+dying, she knew.
+
+"Who is it?" somebody asked on the other side of the door.
+
+"It's from Yegor Ivanovich," the mother whispered. "He asked you to come
+to him."
+
+"I'll come at once," the woman answered without opening the door. The
+mother waited a moment, and knocked again. This time the door opened
+quickly, and a tall woman wearing glasses stepped out into the hall,
+rapidly tidying the ruffled sleeves of her waist. She asked the mother
+harshly:
+
+"What do you want?"
+
+"I'm from Yegor Ivanovich."
+
+"Aha! Come! Oh, yes, I know you!" the woman exclaimed in a low voice.
+"How do you do? It's dark here."
+
+Nilovna looked at her and remembered that this woman had come to
+Nikolay's home on rare occasions.
+
+"All comrades!" flashed through her mind.
+
+The woman compelled Nilovna to walk in front.
+
+"Is he feeling bad?"
+
+"Yes; he's lying down. He asked you to bring something to eat."
+
+"Well, he doesn't need anything to eat."
+
+When they walked into Yegor's room they were met by the words:
+
+"I'm preparing to join my forefathers, my friend. Liudmila Vasilyevna,
+this man walked away from prison without the permission of the
+authorities--a bit of shameless audacity. Before all, feed him, then
+hide him somewhere for a day or two."
+
+The woman nodded her head and looked carefully at the sick man's face.
+
+"Stop your chattering, Yegor," she said sternly. "You know it's bad for
+you. You ought to have sent for me at once, as soon as they came. And I
+see you didn't take your medicine. What do you mean by such negligence?
+You yourself say it's easier for you to breathe after a dose. Comrade,
+come to my place. They'll soon call for Yegor from the hospital."
+
+"So I'm to go to the hospital, after all?" asked Yegor, puckering up his
+face.
+
+"Yes, I'll be there with you."
+
+"There, too?"
+
+"Hush!"
+
+As she talked she adjusted the blanket on Yegor's breast, looked fixedly
+at Nikolay, and with her eyes measured the quantity of medicine in the
+bottle. She spoke evenly, not loud, but in a resonant voice. Her
+movements were easy, her face was pale, with large blue circles around
+her eyes. Her black eyebrows almost met at the bridge of the nose,
+deepening the setting of her dark, stern eyes. Her face did not please
+the mother; it seemed haughty in its sternness and immobility, and her
+eyes were rayless. She always spoke in a tone of command.
+
+"We are going away," she continued. "I'll return soon. Give Yegor a
+tablespoon of this medicine."
+
+"Very well," said the mother.
+
+"And don't let him speak." She walked away, taking Nikolay with her.
+
+"Admirable woman!" said Yegor with a sigh. "Magnificent woman! You ought
+to be working with her, granny. You see, she gets very much worn out.
+It's she that does all the printing for us."
+
+"Don't speak. Here, you'd better take this medicine," the mother said
+gently.
+
+He swallowed the medicine and continued, for some reason screwing up one
+eye:
+
+"I'll die all the same, even if I don't speak."
+
+He looked into the mother's face with his other eye, and his lips slowly
+formed themselves into a smile. The mother bent her head, a sharp
+sensation of pity bringing tears into her eyes.
+
+"Never mind, granny. It's natural. The pleasure of living carries with
+it the obligation to die."
+
+The mother put her hand on his, and again said softly:
+
+"Keep quiet, please!"
+
+He shut his eyes as if listening to the rattle in his breast, and went
+on stubbornly.
+
+"It's senseless to keep quiet, granny. What'll I gain by keeping quiet?
+A few superfluous seconds of agony. And I'll lose the great pleasure of
+chattering with a good person. I think that in the next world there
+aren't such good people as here."
+
+The mother uneasily interrupted him.
+
+"The lady will come, and she'll scold me because you talk."
+
+"She's no lady. She's a revolutionist, the daughter of a village scribe,
+a teacher. She is sure to scold you anyhow, granny. She scolds everybody
+always." And, slowly moving his lips with an effort, Yegor began to
+relate the life history of his neighbor. His eyes smiled. The mother saw
+that he was bantering her purposely. As she regarded his face, covered
+with a moist blueness, she thought distressfully that he was near to
+death.
+
+Liudmila entered, and carefully closing the door after her, said,
+turning to Vlasova:
+
+"Your friend ought to change his clothes without fail, and leave here as
+soon as possible. So go at once; get him some clothes, and bring them
+here. I'm sorry Sofya's not here. Hiding people is her specialty."
+
+"She's coming to-morrow," remarked Vlasova, throwing her shawl over her
+shoulders. Every time she was given a commission the strong desire
+seized her to accomplish it promptly and well, and she was unable to
+think of anything but the task before her. Now, lowering her brows with
+an air of preoccupation, she asked zealously:
+
+"How should we dress him, do you think?"
+
+"It's all the same. It's night, you know."
+
+"At night it's worse. There are less people on the street, and the
+police spy around more; and, you know, he's rather awkward."
+
+Yegor laughed hoarsely.
+
+"You're a young girl yet, granny."
+
+"May I visit you in the hospital?"
+
+He nodded his head, coughing. Liudmila glanced at the mother with her
+dark eyes and suggested:
+
+"Do you want to take turns with me in attending him? Yes? Very well. And
+now go quickly."
+
+She vigorously seized Vlasova by the hand, with perfect good nature,
+however, and led her out of the door.
+
+"You mustn't be offended," she said softly, "because I dismiss you so
+abruptly. I know it's rude; but it's harmful for him to speak, and I
+still have hopes of his recovery." She pressed her hands together until
+the bones cracked. Her eyelids drooped wearily over her eyes.
+
+The explanation disturbed the mother. She murmured:
+
+"Don't talk that way. The idea! Who thought of rudeness? I'm going;
+good-by."
+
+"Look out for the spies!" whispered the woman.
+
+"I know," the mother answered with some pride.
+
+She stopped for a minute outside the gate to look around sharply under
+the pretext of adjusting her kerchief. She was already able to
+distinguish spies in a street crowd almost immediately. She recognized
+the exaggerated carelessness of their gait, their strained attempt to be
+free in their gestures, the expression of tedium on their faces, the
+wary, guilty glimmer of their restless, unpleasantly sharp gaze badly
+hidden behind their feigned candor.
+
+This time she did not notice any familiar faces, and walked along the
+street without hastening. She took a cab, and gave orders to be driven
+to the market place. When buying the clothes for Nikolay she bargained
+vigorously with the salespeople, all the while scolding at her drunken
+husband whom she had to dress anew every month. The tradespeople paid
+little attention to her talk, but she herself was greatly pleased with
+her ruse. On the road she had calculated that the police would, of
+course, understand the necessity for Nikolay to change his clothes, and
+would send spies to the market. With such naive precautions, she
+returned to Yegor's quarters; then she had to escort Nikolay to the
+outskirts of the city. They took different sides of the street, and it
+was amusing to the mother to see how Vyesovshchikov strode along
+heavily, with bent head, his legs getting tangled in the long flaps of
+his russet-colored coat, his hat falling over his nose. In one of the
+deserted streets, Sashenka met them, and the mother, taking leave of
+Vyesovshchikov with a nod of her head, turned toward home with a sigh of
+relief.
+
+"And Pasha is in prison with Andriusha!" she thought sadly.
+
+Nikolay met her with an anxious exclamation:
+
+"You know that Yegor is in a very bad way, very bad! He was taken to the
+hospital. Liudmila was here. She asks you to come to her there."
+
+"At the hospital?"
+
+Adjusting his eyeglasses with a nervous gesture, Nikolay helped her on
+with her jacket and pressed her hand in a dry, hot grasp. His voice was
+low and tremulous. "Yes. Take this package with you. Have you disposed
+of Vyesovshchikov all right?"
+
+"Yes, all right."
+
+"I'll come to Yegor, too!"
+
+The mother's head was in a whirl with fatigue, and Nikolay's emotion
+aroused in her a sad premonition of the drama's end.
+
+"So he's dying--he's dying!" The dark thought knocked at her brain
+heavily and dully.
+
+But when she entered the bright, tidy little room of the hospital and
+saw Yegor sitting on the pallet propped against the wide bosom of the
+pillow, and heard him laugh with zest, she was at once relieved. She
+paused at the door, smiling, and listened to Yegor talk with the
+physician in a hoarse but lively voice.
+
+"A cure is a reform."
+
+"Don't talk nonsense!" the physician cried officiously in a thin voice.
+
+"And I'm a revolutionist! I detest reforms!"
+
+The physician, thoughtfully pulling his beard, felt the dropsical
+swelling on Yegor's face. The mother knew him well. He was Ivan
+Danilovich, one of the close comrades of Nikolay. She walked up to
+Yegor, who thrust forth his tongue by way of welcome to her. The
+physician turned around.
+
+"Ah, Nilovna! How are you? Sit down. What have you in your hand?"
+
+"It must be books."
+
+"He mustn't read."
+
+"The doctor wants to make an idiot of me," Yegor complained.
+
+"Keep quiet!" the physician commanded, and began to write in a little
+book.
+
+The short, heavy breaths, accompanied by rattling in his throat, fairly
+tore themselves from Yegor's breast, and his face became covered with
+thin perspiration. Slowly raising his swollen hand, he wiped his
+forehead with the palm. The strange immobility of his swollen cheeks
+denaturalized his broad, good face, all the features of which
+disappeared under the dead, bluish mask. Only his eyes, deeply sunk
+beneath the swellings, looked out clear and smiling benevolently.
+
+"Oh, Science, I'm tired! May I lie down?"
+
+"No, you mayn't."
+
+"But I'm going to lie down after you go."
+
+"Nilovna, please don't let him. It's bad for him."
+
+The mother nodded. The physician hurried off with short steps. Yegor
+threw back his head, closed his eyes and sank into a torpor, motionless
+save for the twitching of his fingers. The white walls of the little
+room seemed to radiate a dry coldness and a pale, faceless sadness.
+Through the large window peered the tufted tops of the lime trees, amid
+whose dark, dusty foliage yellow stains were blazing, the cold touches
+of approaching autumn.
+
+"Death is coming to me slowly, reluctantly," said Yegor without moving
+and without opening his eyes. "He seems to be a little sorry for me. I
+was such a fine, sociable chap."
+
+"You'd better keep quiet, Yegor Ivanovich!" the mother bade, quietly
+stroking his hand.
+
+"Wait, granny, I'll be silent soon."
+
+Losing breath every once in a while, enunciating the words with a mighty
+effort, he continued his talk, interrupted by long spells of faintness.
+
+"It's splendid to have you with me. It's pleasant to see your face,
+granny, and your eyes so alert, and your _naivete_. 'How will it end?' I
+ask myself. It's sad to think that the prison, exile, and all sorts of
+vile outrages await you as everybody else. Are you afraid of prison?"
+
+"No," answered the mother softly.
+
+"But after all the prison is a mean place. It's the prison that knocked
+me up. To tell you the truth, I don't want to die."
+
+"Maybe you won't die yet," the mother was about to say, but a look at
+his face froze the words on her lips.
+
+"If I hadn't gotten sick I could have worked yet, not badly; but if you
+can't work there's nothing to live for, and it's stupid to live."
+
+"That's true, but it's no consolation." Andrey's words flashed into the
+mother's mind, and she heaved a deep sigh. She was greatly fatigued by
+the day, and hungry. The monotonous, humid, hoarse whisper of the sick
+man filled the room and crept helplessly along the smooth, cold, shining
+walls. At the windows the dark tops of the lime trees trembled quietly.
+It was growing dusk, and Yegor's face on the pillow turned dark.
+
+"How bad I feel," he said. He closed his eyes and became silent. The
+mother listened to his breathing, looked around, and sat for a few
+minutes motionless, seized by a cold sensation of sadness. Finally she
+dozed off.
+
+The muffled sound of a door being carefully shut awakened her, and she
+saw the kind, open eyes of Yegor.
+
+"I fell asleep; excuse me," she said quietly.
+
+"And you excuse me," he answered, also quietly. At the door was heard a
+rustle and Liudmila's voice.
+
+"They sit in the darkness and whisper. Where is the knob?"
+
+The room trembled and suddenly became filled with a white, unfriendly
+light. In the middle of the room stood Liudmila, all black, tall,
+straight, and serious. Yegor transferred his glance to her, and making a
+great effort to move his body, raised his hand to his breast.
+
+"What's the matter?" exclaimed Liudmila, running up to him. He looked at
+the mother with fixed eyes, and now they seemed large and strangely
+bright.
+
+"Wait!" he whispered.
+
+Opening his mouth wide, he raised his head and stretched his hand
+forward. The mother carefully held it up and caught her breath as she
+looked into his face. With a convulsive and powerful movement of his
+neck he flung his head back, and said aloud:
+
+"Give me air!"
+
+A quiver ran through his body; his head dropped limply on his shoulder,
+and in his wide open eyes the cold light of the lamp burning over the
+bed was reflected dully.
+
+"My darling!" whispered the mother, firmly pressing his hand, which
+suddenly grew heavy.
+
+Liudmila slowly walked away from the bed, stopped at the window and
+stared into space.
+
+"He's dead!" she said in an unusually loud voice unfamiliar to Vlasova.
+She bent down, put her elbows on the window sill, and repeated in dry,
+startled tones: "He's dead! He died calmly, like a man, without
+complaint." And suddenly, as if struck a blow on the head, she dropped
+faintly on her knees, covered her face, and gave vent to dull, stifled
+groans.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+
+The mother folded Yegor's hands over his breast and adjusted his head,
+which was strangely warm, on the pillow. Then silently wiping her eyes,
+she went to Liudmila, bent over her, and quietly stroked her thick hair.
+The woman slowly turned around to her, her dull eyes widened in a sickly
+way. She rose to her feet, and with trembling lips whispered:
+
+"I've known him for a long time. We were in exile together. We went
+there together on foot, we sat in prison together; at times it was
+intolerable, disgusting; many fell in spirit."
+
+Her dry, loud groans stuck in her throat. She overcame them with an
+effort, and bringing her face nearer to the mother's she continued in a
+quick whisper, moaning without tears:
+
+"Yet he was unconquerably jolly. He joked and laughed, and covered up
+his suffering in a manly way, always striving to encourage the weak. He
+was always good, alert, kind. There, in Siberia, idleness depraves
+people, and often calls forth ugly feelings toward life. How he mastered
+such feelings! What a comrade he was! If you only knew. His own life was
+hard and tormented; but I know that nobody ever heard him complain, not
+a soul--never! Here was I, nearer to him than others. I'm greatly
+indebted to his heart, to his mind. He gave me all he could of it; and
+though exhausted, he never asked either kindness or attention in
+return."
+
+She walked up to Yegor, bent down and kissed him. Her voice was husky as
+she said mournfully:
+
+"Comrade, my dear, dear friend, I thank you with all my heart! Good-by.
+I shall work as you worked--unassailed by doubt--all my life--good-by!"
+
+The dry, sharp groans shook her body, and gasping for breath she laid
+her head on the bed at Yegor's feet. The mother wept silent tears which
+seared her cheeks. For some reason she tried to restrain them. She
+wanted to fondle Liudmila, and wanted to speak about Yegor with words of
+love and grief. She looked through her tears at his swollen face, at his
+eyes calmly covered by his drooping eyelids as in sleep, and at his dark
+lips set in a light, serene smile. It was quiet, and a bleak brightness
+pervaded the room.
+
+Ivan Danilovich entered, as always, with short, hasty steps. He suddenly
+stopped in the middle of the room, and thrust his hands into his pockets
+with a quick gesture.
+
+"Did it happen long ago?" His voice was loud and nervous.
+
+Neither woman replied. He quietly swung about, and wiping his forehead
+went to Yegor, pressed his hand, and stepped to one side.
+
+"It's not strange--with his heart. It might have happened six months
+ago."
+
+His voice, high-pitched and jarringly loud for the occasion, suddenly
+broke off. Leaning his back against the wall, he twisted his beard with
+nimble fingers, and winking his eyes, rapidly looked at the group by the
+bed.
+
+"One more!" he muttered.
+
+Liudmila rose and walked over to the window. The mother raised her head
+and glanced around with a sigh. A minute afterwards they all three stood
+at the open window, pressing close against one another, and looked at
+the dusky face of the autumn night. On the black tops of the trees
+glittered the stars, endlessly deepening the distance of the sky.
+
+Liudmila took the mother by the hand, and silently pressed her head to
+her shoulders. The physician nervously bit his lips and wiped his
+eyeglasses with his handkerchief. In the stillness beyond the window the
+nocturnal noise of the city heaved wearily, and cold air blew on their
+faces and shoulders. Liudmila trembled; the mother saw tears running
+down her cheeks. From the corridor of the hospital floated confused,
+dismal sounds. The three stood motionless at the window, looking
+silently into the darkness.
+
+The mother felt herself not needed, and carefully freeing her hand, went
+to the door, bowing to Yegor.
+
+"Are you going?" the physician asked softly without looking around.
+
+"Yes."
+
+In the street she thought with pity of Liudmila, remembering her scant
+tears. She couldn't even have a good cry. Then she pictured to herself
+Liudmila and the physician in the extremely light white room, the dead
+eyes of Yegor behind them. A compassion for all people oppressed her.
+She sighed heavily, and hastened her pace, driven along by her
+tumultuous feelings.
+
+"I must hurry," she thought in obedience to a sad but encouraging power
+that jostled her from within.
+
+The whole of the following day the mother was busy with preparations for
+the funeral. In the evening when she, Nikolay, and Sofya were drinking
+tea, quietly talking about Yegor, Sashenka appeared, strangely brimming
+over with good spirits, her cheeks brilliantly red, her eyes beaming
+happily. She seemed to be filled with some joyous hope. Her animation
+contrasted sharply with the mournful gloom of the others. The discordant
+note disturbed them and dazzled them like a fire that suddenly flashes
+in the darkness. Nikolay thoughtfully struck his fingers on the table
+and smiled quietly.
+
+"You're not like yourself to-day, Sasha."
+
+"Perhaps," she laughed happily.
+
+The mother looked at her in mute remonstrance, and Sofya observed in a
+tone of admonishment:
+
+"And we were talking about Yegor Ivanovich."
+
+"What a wonderful fellow, isn't he?" she exclaimed. "Modest, proof
+against doubt, he probably never yielded to sorrow. I have never seen
+him without a joke on his lips; and what a worker! He is an artist of
+the revolution, a great master, who skillfully manipulates revolutionary
+thoughts. With what simplicity and power he always draws his pictures of
+falsehood, violence and untruth! And what a capacity he has for
+tempering the horrible with his gay humor which does not diminish the
+force of facts but only the more brightly illumines his inner thought!
+Always droll! I am greatly indebted to him, and I shall never forget his
+merry eyes, his fun. And I shall always feel the effect of his ideas
+upon me in the time of my doubts--I love him!"
+
+She spoke in a moderated voice, with a melancholy smile in her eyes. But
+the incomprehensible fire of her gaze was not extinguished; her
+exultation was apparent to everybody.
+
+People love their own feelings--sometimes the very feelings that are
+harmful to them--are enamored of them, and often derive keen pleasure
+even from grief, a pleasure that corrodes the heart. Nikolay, the
+mother, and Sofya were unwilling to let the sorrowful mood produced by
+the death of their comrade give way to the joy brought in by Sasha.
+Unconsciously defending their melancholy right to feed on their sadness,
+they tried to impose their feelings on the girl.
+
+"And now he's dead," announced Sofya, watching her carefully.
+
+Sasha glanced around quickly, with a questioning look. She knit her
+eyebrows and lowered her head. She was silent for a short time,
+smoothing her hair with slow strokes of her hand.
+
+"He's dead?" She again cast a searching glance into their faces. "It's
+hard for me to reconcile myself to the idea."
+
+"But it's a fact," said Nikolay with a smile.
+
+Sasha arose, walked up and down the room, and suddenly stopping, said in
+a strange voice:
+
+"What does 'to die' signify? What died? Did my respect for Yegor die? My
+love for him, a comrade? The memory of his mind's labor? Did that labor
+die? Did all our impressions of him as of a hero disappear without
+leaving a trace? Did all this die? This best in him will never die out
+of me, I know. It seems to me we're in too great a hurry to say of a man
+'he's dead.' That's the reason we too soon forget that a man never dies
+if we don't wish our impressions of his manhood, his self-denying toil
+for the triumph of truth and happiness to disappear. We forget that
+everything should always be alive in living hearts. Don't be in a hurry
+to bury the eternally alive, the ever luminous, along with a man's body.
+The church is destroyed, but God is immortal."
+
+Carried away by her emotions she sat down, leaning her elbows on the
+table, and continued more thoughtfully in a lower voice, looking
+smilingly through mist-covered eyes at the faces of the comrades:
+
+"Maybe I'm talking nonsense. But life intoxicates me by its wonderful
+complexity, by the variety of its phenomena, which at times seem like a
+miracle to me. Perhaps we are too sparing in the expenditure of our
+feelings. We live a great deal in our thoughts, and that spoils us to a
+certain extent. We estimate, but we don't feel."
+
+"Did anything good happen to you?" asked Sofya with a smile.
+
+"Yes," said Sasha, nodding her head. "I had a whole night's talk with
+Vyesovshchikov. I didn't use to like him. He seemed rude and dull.
+Undoubtedly that's what he was. A dark, immovable irritation at
+everybody lived in him. He always used to place himself, as it were,
+like a dead weight in the center of things, and wrathfully say, 'I, I,
+I.' There was something bourgeois in this, low, and exasperating." She
+smiled, and again took in everybody with her burning look.
+
+"Now he says: 'Comrades'--and you ought to hear how he says it, with
+what a stirring, tender love. He has grown marvelously simple and
+open-hearted, and possessed with a desire to work. He has found himself,
+he has measured his power, and knows what he is not. But the main thing
+is, a true comradely feeling has been born in him, a broad, loving
+comradeship, which smiles in the face of every difficulty in life."
+
+Vlasova listened to Sasha attentively. She was glad to see this girl,
+always so stern, now softened, cheerful, and happy. Yet from some deeps
+of her soul arose the jealous thought: "And how about Pasha?"
+
+"He's entirely absorbed in thoughts of the comrades," continued Sasha.
+"And do you know of what he assures me? Of the necessity of arranging an
+escape for them. He says it's a very simple, easy matter."
+
+Sofya raised her head, and said animatedly:
+
+"And what do _you_ think, Sasha? Is it feasible?"
+
+The mother trembled as she set a cup of tea on the table. Sasha knit her
+brows, her animation gone from her. After a moment's silence, she said
+in a serious voice, but smiling in joyous confusion:
+
+"_He's_ convinced. If everything is really as he says, we ought to try.
+It's our duty." She blushed, dropped into a chair, and lapsed into
+silence.
+
+"My dear, dear girl!" the mother thought, smiling. Sofya also smiled,
+and Nikolay, looking tenderly into Sasha's face, laughed quietly. The
+girl raised her head with a stern glance for all. Then she paled, and
+her eyes flashed, and she said dryly, the offense she felt evident in
+her voice:
+
+"You're laughing. I understand you. You consider me personally
+interested in the case, don't you?"
+
+"Why, Sasha?" asked Sofya, rising and going over to her.
+
+Agitated, pale, the girl continued:
+
+"But I decline. I'll not take any part in deciding the question if you
+consider it."
+
+"Stop, Sasha," said Nikolay calmly.
+
+The mother understood the girl. She went to her and kissed her silently
+on her head. Sasha seized her hand, leaned her cheek on it, and raised
+her reddened face, looking into the mother's eyes, troubled and happy.
+The mother silently stroked her hair. She felt sad at heart. Sofya
+seated herself at Sasha's side, her arm over her shoulder, and said,
+smiling into the girl's eyes:
+
+"You're a strange person."
+
+"Yes, I think I've grown foolish," Sasha acknowledged. "But I don't like
+shadows."
+
+"That'll do," said Nikolay seriously, but immediately followed up the
+admonition by the businesslike remark: "There can't be two opinions as
+to the escape, if it's possible to arrange it. But before everything, we
+must know whether the comrades in prison want it."
+
+Sasha drooped her head. Sofya, lighting a cigarette, looked at her
+brother, and with a broad sweep of her arm dropped the match in a
+corner.
+
+"How is it possible they should not want it?" asked the mother with a
+sigh. Sofya nodded to her, smiling, and walked over to the window. The
+mother could not understand the failure of the others to respond, and
+looked at them in perplexity. She wanted so much to hear more about the
+possibility of an escape.
+
+"I must see Vyesovshchikov," said Nikolay.
+
+"All right. To-morrow I'll tell you when and where," replied Sasha.
+
+"What is he going to do?" asked Sofya, pacing through the room.
+
+"It's been decided to make him compositor in a new printing place. Until
+then he'll stay with the forester."
+
+Sasha's brow lowered. Her face assumed its usual severe expression. Her
+voice sounded caustic. Nikolay walked up to the mother, who was washing
+cups, and said to her:
+
+"You'll see Pasha day after to-morrow. Hand him a note when you're
+there. Do you understand? We must know."
+
+"I understand. I understand," the mother answered quickly. "I'll deliver
+it to him all right. That's my business."
+
+"I'm going," Sasha announced, and silently shook hands with everybody.
+She strode away, straight and dry-eyed, with a peculiarly heavy tread.
+
+"Poor girl!" said Sofya softly.
+
+"Ye-es," Nikolay drawled. Sofya put her hand on the mother's shoulder
+and gave her a gentle little shake as she sat in the chair.
+
+"Would you love such a daughter?" and Sofya looked into the mother's
+face.
+
+"Oh! If I could see them together, if only for one day!" exclaimed
+Nilovna, ready to weep.
+
+"Yes, a bit of happiness is good for everybody."
+
+"But there are no people who want only a bit of happiness," remarked
+Nikolay; "and when there's much of it, it becomes cheap."
+
+Sofya sat herself at the piano, and began to play something low and
+doleful.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+
+The next morning a number of men and women stood at the gate of the
+hospital waiting for the coffin of their comrade to be carried out to
+the street. Spies watchfully circled about, their ears alert to catch
+each sound, noting faces, manners, and words. From the other side of the
+street a group of policemen with revolvers at their belts looked on. The
+impudence of the spies, the mocking smiles of the police ready to show
+their power, were strong provocatives to the crowd. Some joked to cover
+their excitement; others looked down on the ground sullenly, trying not
+to notice the affronts; still others, unable to restrain their wrath,
+laughed in sarcasm at the government, which feared people armed with
+nothing but words. The pale blue sky of autumn gleamed upon the round,
+gray paving stones of the streets, strewn with yellow leaves, which the
+wind kept whirling about under the people's feet.
+
+The mother stood in the crowd. She looked around at the familiar faces
+and thought with sadness: "There aren't many of you, not many."
+
+The gate opened, and the coffin, decorated with wreaths tied with red
+ribbons, was carried out. The people, as if inspired with one will,
+silently raised their hats. A tall officer of police with a thick black
+mustache on a red face unceremoniously jostled his way through the
+crowd, followed by the soldiers, whose heavy boots trampled loudly on
+the stones. They made a cordon around the coffin, and the officer said
+in a hoarse, commanding voice:
+
+"Remove the ribbons, please!"
+
+The men and women pressed closely about him. They called to him, waving
+their hands excitedly and trying to push past one another. The mother
+caught the flash of pale, agitated countenances, some of them with
+quivering lips and tears.
+
+"Down with violence!" a young voice shouted nervously. But the lonely
+outcry was lost in the general clamor.
+
+The mother also felt bitterness in her heart. She turned in indignation
+to her neighbor, a poorly dressed young man.
+
+"They don't permit a man's comrades even to bury him as they want to.
+What do they mean by it?"
+
+The hubbub increased and hostility waxed strong. The coffin rocked over
+the heads of the people. The silken rustling of the ribbons fluttering
+in the wind about the heads and faces of the carriers could be heard
+amid the noise of the strife.
+
+The mother was seized with a shuddering dread of the possible collision,
+and she quickly spoke in an undertone to her neighbors on the right and
+on the left:
+
+"Why not let them have their way if they're like that? The comrades
+ought to yield and remove the ribbons. What else can they do?"
+
+A loud, sharp voice subdued all the other noises:
+
+"We demand not to be disturbed in accompanying on his last journey one
+whom you tortured to death!"
+
+Somebody--apparently a girl--sang out in a high, piping voice:
+
+   "In mortal strife your victims fell."
+
+"Remove the ribbons, please, Yakovlev! Cut them off!"
+
+A saber was heard issuing from its scabbard. The mother closed her eyes,
+awaiting shouts; but it grew quieter.
+
+The people growled like wolves at bay; then silently drooping their
+heads, crushed by the consciousness of impotence, they moved forward,
+filling the street with the noise of their tramping. Before them swayed
+the stripped cover of the coffin with the crumpled wreaths, and swinging
+from side to side rode the mounted police. The mother walked on the
+pavement; she was unable to see the coffin through the dense crowd
+surrounding it, which imperceptibly grew and filled the whole breadth of
+the street. Back of the crowd also rose the gray figures of the mounted
+police; at their sides, holding their hands on their sabers, marched the
+policemen on foot, and everywhere were the sharp eyes of the spies,
+familiar to the mother, carefully scanning the faces of the people.
+
+"Good-by, comrade, good-by!" plaintively sang two beautiful voices.
+
+"Don't!" a shout was heard. "We will be silent, comrades--for the
+present."
+
+The shout was stern and imposing; it carried an assuring threat, and it
+subdued the crowd. The sad songs broke off; the talking became lower;
+only the noise of heavy tramping on the stones filled the street with
+its dull, even sound. Over the heads of the people, into the transparent
+sky, and through the air it rose like the first peal of distant thunder.
+People silently bore grief and revolt in their breasts. Was it possible
+to carry on the war for freedom peacefully? A vain illusion! Hatred of
+violence, love of freedom blazed up and burned the last remnants of the
+illusion to ashes in the hearts that still cherished it. The steps
+became heavier, heads were raised, eyes looked cold and firm, and
+feeling, outstripping thought, brought forth resolve. The cold wind,
+waxing stronger and stronger, carried an unfriendly cloud of dust and
+street litter in front of the people. It blew through their garments and
+their hair, blinded their eyes and struck against their breasts.
+
+The mother was pained by these silent funerals without priests and
+heart-oppressing chants, with thoughtful faces, frowning brows, and the
+heavy tramp of the feet. Her slowly circling thoughts formulated her
+impression in the melancholy phrase:
+
+"There are not many of you who stand up for the truth, not many; and yet
+they fear you, they fear you!"
+
+Her head bent, she strode along without looking around. It seemed to her
+that they were burying, not Yegor, but something else unknown and
+incomprehensible to her.
+
+At the cemetery the procession for a long time moved in and out along
+the narrow paths amid the tombs until an open space was reached, which
+was sprinkled with wretched little crosses. The people gathered about
+the graves in silence. This austere silence of the living among the dead
+promised something strange, which caused the mother's heart to tremble
+and sink with expectation. The wind whistled and sighed among the
+graves. The flowers trembled on the lid of the coffin.
+
+The police, stretching out in a line, assumed an attitude of guard,
+their eyes on their captain. A tall, long-haired, black-browed, pale
+young man without a hat stood over the fresh grave. At the same time the
+hoarse voice of the captain was heard:
+
+"Ladies and gentlemen!"
+
+"Comrades!" began the black-browed man sonorously.
+
+"Permit me!" shouted the police captain. "In pursuance of the order of
+the chief of police I announce to you that I cannot permit a speech!"
+
+"I will say only a few words," the young man said calmly. "Comrades!
+over the grave of our teacher and friend let us vow in silence never to
+forget his will; let each one of us continue without ceasing to dig the
+grave for the source of our country's misfortune, the evil power that
+crushes it--the autocracy!"
+
+"Arrest him!" shouted the police captain. But his voice was drowned in
+the confused outburst of shouts.
+
+"Down with the autocracy!"
+
+The police rushed through the crowd toward the orator who, closely
+surrounded on all sides, shouted, waving his hand:
+
+"Long live liberty! We will live and die for it!"
+
+The mother shut her eyes in momentary fear. The boisterous tempest of
+confused sounds deafened her. The earth rocked under her feet; terror
+impeded her breathing. The startling whistles of the policemen pierced
+the air. The rude, commanding voice of the captain was heard; the women
+cried hysterically. The wooden fences cracked, and the heavy tread of
+many feet sounded dully on the dry ground. A sonorous voice, subduing
+all the other voices, blared like a war trumpet:
+
+"Comrades! Calm yourselves! Have more respect for yourselves! Let me go!
+Comrades, I insist, let me go!"
+
+The mother looked up, and uttered a low exclamation. A blind impulse
+carried her forward with outstretched hands. Not far from her, on a worn
+path between the graves, the policemen were surrounding the long-haired
+man and repelling the crowd that fell upon them from all sides. The
+unsheathed bayonets flashed white and cold in the air, flying over the
+heads of the people, and falling quickly again with a spiteful hiss.
+Broken bits of the fence were brandished; the baleful shouts of the
+struggling people rose wildly.
+
+The young man lifted his pale face, and his firm, calm voice sounded
+above the storm of irritated outcries:
+
+"Comrades! Why do you spend your strength? Our task is to arm the
+heads."
+
+He conquered. Throwing away their sticks, the people dropped out of the
+throng one after the other; and the mother pushed forward. She saw how
+Nikolay, with his hat fallen back on his neck, thrust aside the people,
+intoxicated with the commotion, and heard his reproachful voice:
+
+"Have you lost your senses? Calm yourselves!"
+
+It seemed to her that one of his hands was red.
+
+"Nikolay Ivanovich, go away!" she shouted, rushing toward him.
+
+"Where are you going? They'll strike you there!"
+
+She stopped. Seizing her by the shoulder, Sofya stood at her side,
+hatless, her jacket open, her other hand grasping a young, light-haired
+man, almost a boy. He held his hands to his bruised face, and he
+muttered with tremulous lips: "Let me go! It's nothing."
+
+"Take care of him! Take him home to us! Here's a handkerchief. Bandage
+his face!" Sofya gave the rapid orders, and putting his hand into the
+mother's ran away, saying:
+
+"Get out of this place quickly, else they'll arrest you!"
+
+The people scattered all over the cemetery. After them the policemen
+strode heavily among the graves, clumsily entangling themselves in the
+flaps of their military coats, cursing, and brandishing their bayonets.
+
+"Let's hurry!" said the mother, wiping the boy's face with the
+handkerchief. "What's your name?"
+
+"Ivan." Blood spurted from his mouth. "Don't be worried; I don't feel
+hurt. He hit me over the head with the handle of his saber, and I gave
+him such a blow with a stick that he howled," the boy concluded, shaking
+his blood-stained fist. "Wait--it'll be different. We'll choke you
+without a fight, when we arise, all the working people."
+
+"Quick--hurry!" The mother urged him on, walking swiftly toward the
+little wicket gate. It seemed to her that there, behind the fence in the
+field, the police were lying in wait for them, ready to pounce on them
+and beat them as soon as they went out. But on carefully opening the
+gate, and looking out over the field clothed in the gray garb of autumn
+dusk, its stillness and solitude at once gave her composure.
+
+"Let me bandage your face."
+
+"Never mind. I'm not ashamed to be seen with it as it is. The fight was
+honorable--he hit me--I hit him----"
+
+The mother hurriedly bandaged his wound. The sight of fresh, flowing
+blood filled her breast with terror and pity. Its humid warmth on her
+fingers sent a cold, fine tremor through her body. Then, holding his
+hand, she silently and quickly conducted the wounded youth through the
+field. Freeing his mouth of the bandage, he said with a smile:
+
+"But where are you taking me, comrade? I can go by myself."
+
+But the mother perceived that he was reeling with faintness, that his
+legs were unsteady, and his hands twitched. He spoke to her in a weak
+voice, and questioned her without waiting for an answer:
+
+"I'm a tinsmith, and who are you? There were three of us in Yegor
+Ivanovich's circle--three tinsmiths--and there were twelve men in all.
+We loved him very much--may he have eternal life!--although I don't
+believe in God--it's they, the dogs, that dupe us with God, so that we
+should obey the authorities and suffer life patiently without kicking."
+
+In one of the streets the mother hailed a cab and put Ivan into it. She
+whispered, "Now be silent," and carefully wrapped his face up in the
+handkerchief. He raised his hand to his face, but was no longer able to
+free his mouth. His hand fell feebly on his knees; nevertheless he
+continued to mutter through the bandages:
+
+"I won't forget those blows; I'll score them against you, my dear sirs!
+With Yegor there was another student, Titovich, who taught us political
+economy--he was a very stern, tedious fellow--he was arrested."
+
+The mother, drawing the boy to her, put his head on her bosom in order
+to muffle his voice. It was not necessary, however, for he suddenly grew
+heavy and silent. In awful fear, she looked about sidewise out of the
+corners of her eyes. She felt that the policemen would issue from some
+corner, would see Ivan's bandaged head, would seize him and kill him.
+
+"Been drinking?" asked the driver, turning on the box with a benignant
+smile.
+
+"Pretty full."
+
+"Your son?"
+
+"Yes, a shoemaker. I'm a cook."
+
+Shaking the whip over the horse, the driver again turned, and continued
+in a lowered voice:
+
+"I heard there was a row in the cemetery just now. You see, they were
+burying one of the politicals, one of those who are against the
+authorities. They have a crow to pick with the authorities. He was
+buried by fellows like him, his friends, it must be; and they up and
+begin to shout: 'Down with the authorities! They ruin the people.' The
+police began to beat them. It's said some were hewed down and killed.
+But the police got it, too." He was silent, shaking his head as if
+afflicted by some sorrow, and uttered in a strange voice: "They don't
+even let the dead alone; they even bother people in their graves."
+
+The cab rattled over the stones. Ivan's head jostled softly against the
+mother's bosom. The driver, sitting half-turned from his horse, mumbled
+thoughtfully:
+
+"The people are beginning to boil. Every now and then some disorder
+crops out. Yes! Last night the gendarmes came to our neighbors, and kept
+up an ado till morning, and in the morning they led away a blacksmith.
+It's said they'll take him to the river at night and drown him. And the
+blacksmith--well--he was a wise man--he understood a great deal--and to
+understand, it seems, is forbidden. He used to come to us and say: 'What
+sort of life is the cabman's life?' 'It's true,' we say, 'the life of a
+cabman is worse than a dog's.'"
+
+"Stop!" the mother said.
+
+Ivan awoke from the shock of the sudden halt, and groaned softly.
+
+"It shook him up!" remarked the driver. "Oh, whisky, whisky!"
+
+Ivan shifted his feet about with difficulty. His whole body swaying, he
+walked through the entrance, and said:
+
+"Nothing--comrade, I can get along."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+
+Sofya was already at home when they reached the house. She met the
+mother with a cigarette in her teeth. She was somewhat ruffled, but, as
+usual, bold and assured of manner. Putting the wounded man on the sofa,
+she deftly unbound his head, giving orders and screwing up her eyes from
+the smoke of her cigarette.
+
+"Ivan Danilovich!" she called out. "He's been brought here. You are
+tired, Nilovna. You've had enough fright, haven't you? Well, rest now.
+Nikolay, quick, give Nilovna some tea and a glass of port."
+
+Dizzied by her experience, the mother breathing heavily and feeling a
+sickly pricking in her breast, said: "Don't bother about me."
+
+But her entire anxious being begged for attention and kindnesses.
+
+From the next room entered Nikolay with a bandaged hand, and the doctor,
+Ivan Danilovich, all disheveled, his hair standing on end like the
+spines of a hedgehog. He quickly stepped to Ivan, bent over him, and
+said:
+
+"Water, Sofya Ivanovich, more water, clean linen strips, and cotton."
+
+The mother walked toward the kitchen; but Nikolay took her by the arm
+with his left hand, and led her into the dining room.
+
+"He didn't speak to you; he was speaking to Sofya. You've had enough
+suffering, my dear woman, haven't you?"
+
+The mother met Nikolay's fixed, sympathetic glance, and, pressing his
+head, exclaimed with a groan she could not restrain:
+
+"Oh, my darling, how fearful it was! They mowed the comrades down! They
+mowed them down!"
+
+"I saw it," said Nikolay, giving her a glass of wine, and nodding his
+head. "Both sides grew a little heated. But don't be uneasy; they used
+the flats of their swords, and it seems only one was seriously wounded.
+I saw him struck, and I myself carried him out of the crowd."
+
+His face and voice, and the warmth and brightness of the room quieted
+Vlasova. Looking gratefully at him, she asked:
+
+"Did they hit you, too?"
+
+"It seems to me that I myself through carelessness knocked my hand
+against something and tore off the skin. Drink some tea. The weather is
+cold and you're dressed lightly."
+
+She stretched out her hand for the cup and saw that her fingers were
+stained with dark clots of blood. She instinctively dropped her hands on
+her knees. Her skirt was damp. Ivan Danilovich came in in his vest, his
+shirt sleeves rolled up, and in response to Nikolay's mute question,
+said in his thin voice:
+
+"The wound on his face is slight. His skull, however, is fractured, but
+not very badly. He's a strong fellow, but he's lost a lot of blood.
+We'll take him over to the hospital."
+
+"Why? Let him stay here!" exclaimed Nikolay.
+
+"To-day he may; and--well--to-morrow, too; but after that it'll be more
+convenient for us to have him at the hospital. I have no time to pay
+visits. You'll write a leaflet about the affair at the cemetery, won't
+you?"
+
+"Of course!"
+
+The mother rose quietly and walked into the kitchen.
+
+"Where are you going, Nilovna?" Nikolay stopped her with solicitude.
+"Sofya can get along by herself."
+
+She looked at him and started and smiled strangely.
+
+"I'm all covered with blood."
+
+While changing her dress she once again thought of the calmness of these
+people, of their ability to recover from the horrible, an ability which
+clearly testified to their manly readiness to meet any demand made on
+them for work in the cause of truth. This thought, steadying the mother,
+drove fear from her heart.
+
+When she returned to the room where the sick man lay, she heard Sofya
+say, as she bent over him:
+
+"That's nonsense, comrade!"
+
+"Yes, I'll incommode you," he said faintly.
+
+"You keep still. That's better for you."
+
+The mother stood back of Sofya, and putting her hand on her shoulders
+peered with a smile into the face of the sick man. She related how he
+had raved in the presence of the cabman and frightened her by his lack
+of caution. Ivan heard her; his eyes turned feverishly, he smacked his
+lips, and at times exclaimed in a confused low voice: "Oh, what a fool I
+am!"
+
+"We'll leave you here," Sofya said, straightening out the blanket.
+"Rest."
+
+The mother and Sofya went to the dining room and conversed there in
+subdued voices about the events of the day. They already regarded the
+drama of the burial as something remote, and looked with assurance
+toward the future in deliberating on the work of the morrow. Their faces
+wore a weary expression, but their thoughts were bold.
+
+They spoke of their dissatisfaction with themselves. Nervously moving in
+his chair and gesticulating animatedly the physician, dulling his thin,
+sharp voice with an effort, said:
+
+"Propaganda! propaganda! There's too little of it now. The young
+workingmen are right. We must extend the field of agitation. The
+workingmen are right, I say."
+
+Nikolay answered somberly:
+
+"From everywhere come complaints of not enough literature, and we still
+cannot get a good printing establishment. Liudmila is wearing herself
+out. She'll get sick if we don't see that she gets assistance."
+
+"And Vyesovshchikov?" asked Sofya.
+
+"He cannot live in the city. He won't be able to go to work until he can
+enter the new printing establishment. And one man is still needed for
+it."
+
+"Won't I do?" the mother asked quietly.
+
+All three looked at her in silence for a short while.
+
+"No, it's too hard for you, Nilovna," said Nikolay. "You'll have to live
+outside the city and stop your visits to Pavel, and in general----"
+
+With a sigh the mother said:
+
+"For Pasha it won't be a great loss. And so far as I am concerned these
+visits, too, are a torment; they tear out my heart. I'm not allowed to
+speak of anything; I stand opposite my son like a fool. And they look
+into my mouth and wait to see something come out that oughtn't."
+
+Sofya groped for the mother's hand under the table and pressed it warmly
+with her thin fingers. Nikolay looked at the mother fixedly while
+explaining to her that she would have to serve in the new printing
+establishment as a protection to the workers.
+
+"I understand," she said. "I'll be a cook. I'll be able to do it; I can
+imagine what's needed."
+
+"How persistent you are!" remarked Sofya.
+
+The events of the last few days had exhausted the mother; and now as she
+heard of the possibility of living outside the city, away from its
+bustle, she greedily grasped at the chance.
+
+But Nikolay changed the subject of conversation.
+
+"What are you thinking about, Ivan?" He turned to the physician.
+
+Raising his head from the table, the physician answered sullenly:
+
+"There are too few of us. That's what I'm thinking of. We positively
+must begin to work more energetically, and we must persuade Pavel and
+Andrey to escape. They are both too invaluable to be sitting there
+idle."
+
+Nikolay lowered his brows and shook his head in doubt, darting a glance
+at the mother.
+
+As she realized the embarrassment they must feel in speaking of her son
+in her presence, she walked out into her own room.
+
+There, lying in bed with open eyes, the murmur of low talking in her
+ears, she gave herself up to anxious thoughts. She wanted to see her son
+at liberty, but at the same time the idea of freeing him frightened her.
+She felt that the struggle around her was growing keener and that a
+sharp collision was threatening. The silent patience of the people was
+wearing away, yielding to a strained expectation of something new. The
+excitement was growing perceptibly. Bitter words were tossed about.
+Something novel and stirring was wafted from all quarters; every
+proclamation evoked lively discussions in the market place, in the
+shops, among servants, among workingmen. Every arrest aroused a timid,
+uncomprehending, and sometimes unconscious sympathy when judgment
+regarding the causes of the arrest was expressed. She heard the words
+that had once frightened her--riot, socialism, politics--uttered more
+and more frequently among the simple folk, though accompanied by
+derision. However, behind their ridicule it was impossible to conceal an
+eagerness to understand, mingled with fear and hope, with hatred of the
+masters and threats against them.
+
+Agitation disturbed the settled, dark life of the people in slow but
+wide circles. Dormant thoughts awoke, and men were shaken from their
+usual forced calm attitude toward daily events. All this the mother saw
+more clearly than others, because she, better than they, knew the
+dismal, dead face of existence; she stood nearer to it, and now saw upon
+it the wrinkles of hesitation and turmoil, the vague hunger for the new.
+She both rejoiced over the change and feared it. She rejoiced because
+she regarded this as the cause of her son; she feared because she knew
+that if he emerged from prison he would stand at the head of all, in the
+most dangerous place, and--he would perish.
+
+She often felt great thoughts needful to everybody stirring in her
+bosom, but scarcely ever was able to make them live in words; and they
+oppressed her heart with a dumb, heavy sadness. Sometimes the image of
+her son grew before her until it assumed the proportions of a giant in
+the old fairy tales. He united within himself all the honest thoughts
+she had heard spoken, all the people that she liked, everything heroic
+of which she knew. Then, moved with delight in him, she exulted in quiet
+rapture. An indistinct hope filled her. "Everything will be
+well--everything!" Her love, the love of a mother, was fanned into a
+flame, a veritable pain to her heart. Then the motherly affection
+hindered the growth of the broader human feeling, burned it; and in
+place of a great sentiment a small, dismal thought beat faint-heartedly
+in the gray ashes of alarm: "He will perish; he will fall!"
+
+Late that night the mother sank into a heavy sleep, but rose early, her
+bones stiff, her head aching. At midday she was sitting in the prison
+office opposite Pavel and looking through a mist in her eyes at his
+bearded, swarthy face. She was watching for a chance to deliver to him
+the note she held tightly in her hand.
+
+"I am well and all are well," said Pavel in a moderated voice. "And how
+are you?"
+
+"So so. Yegor Ivanovich died," she said mechanically.
+
+"Yes?" exclaimed Pavel, and dropped his head.
+
+"At the funeral the police got up a fight and arrested one man," the
+mother continued in her simple-hearted way.
+
+The thin-lipped assistant overseer of the prison jumped from his chair
+and mumbled quickly:
+
+"Cut that out; it's forbidden! Why don't you understand? You know
+politics are prohibited."
+
+The mother also rose from her chair, and as if failing to comprehend
+him, she said guiltily:
+
+"I wasn't discussing politics. I was telling about a fight--and they did
+fight; that's true. They even broke one fellow's head."
+
+"All the same, please keep quiet--that is to say, keep quiet about
+everything that doesn't concern you personally--your family; in general,
+your home."
+
+Aware that his speech was confused, he sat down in his chair and
+arranged papers.
+
+"I'm responsible for what you say," he said sadly and wearily.
+
+The mother looked around and quickly thrust the note into Pavel's hand.
+She breathed a deep sigh of relief.
+
+"I don't know what to speak about."
+
+Pavel smiled:
+
+"I don't know either."
+
+"Then why pay visits?" said the overseer excitedly. "They have nothing
+to say, but they come here anyhow and bother me."
+
+"Will the trial take place soon?" asked the mother after a pause.
+
+"The procurator was here the other day, and he said it will come off
+soon."
+
+"You've been in prison half a year already!"
+
+They spoke to each other about matters of no significance to either. The
+mother saw Pavel's eyes look into her face softly and lovingly. Even and
+calm as before, he had not changed, save that his wrists were whiter,
+and his beard, grown long, made him look older. The mother experienced a
+strong desire to do something pleasant for him--tell him about
+Vyesovshchikov, for instance. So, without changing her tone, she
+continued in the same voice in which she spoke of the needless and
+uninteresting things.
+
+"I saw your godchild." Pavel fixed a silent questioning look on her
+eyes. She tapped her fingers on her cheeks to picture to him the
+pockmarked face of Vyesovshchikov.
+
+"He's all right! The boy is alive and well. He'll soon get his
+position--you remember how he always asked for hard work?"
+
+Pavel understood, and gratefully nodded his head. "Why, of course I
+remember!" he answered, with a cheery smile in his eyes.
+
+"Very well!" the mother uttered in a satisfied tone, content with
+herself and moved by his joy.
+
+On parting with her he held her hand in a firm clasp.
+
+"Thank you, mamma!" The joyous feeling of hearty nearness to him mounted
+to her head like a strong drink. Powerless to answer in words, she
+merely pressed his hand.
+
+At home she found Sasha. The girl usually came to Nilovna on the days
+when the mother had visited Pavel.
+
+"Well, how is he?"
+
+"He's well."
+
+"Did you hand him the note?"
+
+"Of course! I stuck it into his hands very cleverly."
+
+"Did he read it?"
+
+"On the spot? How could he?"
+
+"Oh, yes; I forgot! Let us wait another week, one week longer. Do you
+think he'll agree to it?"
+
+"I don't know--I think he will," the mother deliberated. "Why shouldn't
+he if he can do so without danger?"
+
+Sasha shook her head.
+
+"Do you know what the sick man is allowed to eat? He's asked for some
+food."
+
+"Anything at all. I'll get him something at once." The mother walked
+into the kitchen, slowly followed by Sasha.
+
+"Can I help you?"
+
+"Thank you! Why should you?"
+
+The mother bent at the oven to get a pot. The girl said in a low voice:
+
+"Wait!"
+
+Her face paled, her eyes opened sadly and her quivering lips whispered
+hotly with an effort:
+
+"I want to beg you--I know he will not agree--try to persuade him. He's
+needed. Tell him he's essential, absolutely necessary for the
+cause--tell him I fear he'll get sick. You see the date of the trial
+hasn't been set yet, and six months have already passed--I beg of you!"
+
+It was apparent that she spoke with difficulty. She stood up straight,
+in a tense attitude, and looked aside. Her voice sounded uneven, like
+the snapping of a taut string. Her eyelids drooping wearily, she bit her
+lips, and the fingers of her compressed hand cracked.
+
+The mother was ruffled by her outburst; but she understood it, and a sad
+emotion took possession of her. Softly embracing Sasha, she answered:
+
+"My dear, he will never listen to anybody except himself--never!"
+
+For a short while they were both silent in a close embrace. Then Sasha
+carefully removed the mother's hands from her shoulders.
+
+"Yes, you're right," she said in a tremble. "It's all stupidity and
+nerves. One gets so tired." And, suddenly growing serious, she
+concluded: "Anyway, let's give the sick man something to eat."
+
+In an instant she was sitting at Ivan's bed, kindly and solicitously
+inquiring, "Does your head ache badly?"
+
+"Not very. Only everything is muddled up, and I'm weak," answered Ivan
+in embarrassment. He pulled the blanket up to his chin, and screwed up
+his eyes as if dazzled by too brilliant a light. Noticing that she
+embarrassed him by her presence and that he could not make up his mind
+to eat, Sasha rose and walked away. Then Ivan sat up in bed and looked
+at the door through which she had left.
+
+"Be-au-tiful!" he murmured.
+
+His eyes were bright and merry; his teeth fine and compact; his young
+voice was not yet steady as an adult's.
+
+"How old are you?" the mother asked thoughtfully.
+
+"Seventeen years."
+
+"Where are your parents?"
+
+"In the village. I've been here since I was ten years old. I got through
+school and came here. And what is your name, comrade?"
+
+This word, when applied to her, always brought a smile to the mother's
+face and touched her.
+
+"Why do you want to know?"
+
+The youth, after an embarrassed pause, explained:
+
+"You see, a student of our circle, that is, a fellow who used to read to
+us, told us about Pavel's mother--a workingman, you know--and about the
+first of May demonstration."
+
+She nodded her head and pricked up her ears.
+
+"He was the first one who openly displayed the banner of our party," the
+youth declared with pride--a pride which found a response in the
+mother's heart.
+
+"I wasn't present; we were then thinking of making our own demonstration
+here in the city, but it fizzled out; we were too few of us then. But
+this year we will--you'll see!"
+
+He choked from agitation, having a foretaste of the future event. Then
+waving his spoon in the air, he continued:
+
+"So Vlasova--the mother, as I was telling you--she, too, got into the
+party after that. They say she's a wonder of an old woman."
+
+The mother smiled broadly. It was pleasant for her to hear the boy's
+enthusiastic praise--pleasant, yet embarrassing. She even had to
+restrain herself from telling him that she was Vlasova, and she thought
+sadly, in derision of herself: "Oh, you old fool!"
+
+"Eat more! Get well sooner for the sake of the cause!" She burst out all
+of a sudden, in agitation, bending toward him: "It awaits powerful young
+hands, clean hearts, honest minds. It lives by these forces! With them
+it holds aloof everything evil, everything mean!"
+
+The door opened, admitting a cold, damp, autumn draught. Sofya entered,
+bold, a smile on her face, reddened by the cold.
+
+"Upon my word, the spies are as attentive to me as a bridegroom to a
+rich bride! I must leave this place. Well, how are you, Vanya? All
+right? How's Pavel, Nilovna? What! is Sasha here?"
+
+Lighting a cigarette, she showered questions without waiting for
+answers, caressing the mother and the youth with merry glances of her
+gray eyes. The mother looked at her and smiled inwardly. "What good
+people I'm among!" she thought. She bent over Ivan again and gave him
+back his kindness twofold:
+
+"Get well! Now I must give you wine." She rose and walked into the
+dining room, where Sofya was saying to Sasha:
+
+"She has three hundred copies prepared already. She'll kill herself
+working so hard. There's heroism for you! Unseen, unnoticed, it finds
+its reward and its praise in itself. Do you know, Sasha, it's the
+greatest happiness to live among such people, to be their comrade, to
+work with them?"
+
+"Yes," answered the girl softly.
+
+In the evening at tea Sofya said to the mother:
+
+"Nilovna, you have to go to the village again."
+
+"Well, what of it? When?"
+
+"It would be good if you could go to-morrow. Can you?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Ride there," advised Nikolay. "Hire post horses, and please take a
+different route from before--across the district of Nikolsk." Nikolay's
+somber expression was alarming.
+
+"The way by Nikolsk is long, and it's expensive if you hire horses."
+
+"You see, I'm against this expedition in general. It's already begun to
+be unquiet there--some arrests have been made, a teacher was taken.
+Rybin escaped, that's certain. But we must be more careful. We ought to
+have waited a little while still."
+
+"That can't be avoided," said Nilovna.
+
+Sofya, tapping her fingers on the table, remarked:
+
+"It's important for us to keep spreading literature all the time. You're
+not afraid to go, are you, Nilovna?"
+
+The mother felt offended. "When have I ever been afraid? I was without
+fear even the first time. And now all of a sudden--" She drooped her
+head. Each time she was asked whether she was afraid, whether the thing
+was convenient for her, whether she could do this or that--she detected
+an appeal to her which placed her apart from the comrades, who seemed to
+behave differently toward her than toward one another. Moreover, when
+fuller days came, although at first disquieted by the commotion, by the
+rapidity of events, she soon grew accustomed to the bustle and
+responded, as it were, to the jolts she received from her impressions.
+She became filled with a zealous greed for work. This was her condition
+to-day; and, therefore, Sofya's question was all the more displeasing to
+her.
+
+"There's no use for you to ask me whether or not I'm afraid and various
+other things," she sighed. "I've nothing to be afraid of. Those people
+are afraid who have something. What have I? Only a son. I used to be
+afraid for him, and I used to fear torture for his sake. And if there is
+no torture--well, then?"
+
+"Are you offended?" exclaimed Sofya.
+
+"No. Only you don't ask each other whether you're afraid."
+
+Nikolay removed his glasses, adjusted them to his nose again, and looked
+fixedly at his sister's face. The embarrassed silence that followed
+disturbed the mother. She rose guiltily from her seat, wishing to say
+something to them, but Sofya stroked her hand, and said quietly:
+
+"Forgive me! I won't do it any more."
+
+The mother had to laugh, and in a few minutes the three were speaking
+busily and amicably about the trip to the village.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+
+The next day, early in the morning, the mother was seated in the post
+chaise, jolting along the road washed by the autumn rain. A damp wind
+blew on her face, the mud splashed, and the coachman on the box,
+half-turned toward her, complained in a meditative snuffle:
+
+"I say to him--my brother, that is--let's go halves. We began to
+divide"--he suddenly whipped the left horse and shouted angrily: "Well,
+well, play, your mother is a witch."
+
+The stout autumn crows strode with a businesslike air through the bare
+fields. The wind whistled coldly, and the birds caught its buffets on
+their backs. It blew their feathers apart, and even lifted them off
+their feet, and, yielding to its force, they lazily flapped their wings
+and flew to a new spot.
+
+"But he cheated me; I see I have nothing----"
+
+The mother listened to the coachman's words as in a dream. A dumb
+thought grew in her heart. Memory brought before her a long series of
+events through which she had lived in the last years. On an examination
+of each event, she found she had actively participated in it. Formerly,
+life used to happen somewhere in the distance, remote from where she
+was, uncertain for whom and for what. Now, many things were accomplished
+before her eyes, with her help. The result in her was a confused
+feeling, compounded of distrust of herself, complacency, perplexity, and
+sadness.
+
+The scenery about her seemed to be slowly moving. Gray clouds floated in
+the sky, chasing each other heavily; wet trees flashed along the sides
+of the road, swinging their bare tops; little hills appeared and swam
+asunder. The whole turbid day seemed to be hastening to meet the sun--to
+be seeking it.
+
+The drawling voice of the coachman, the sound of the bells, the humid
+rustle and whistle of the wind, blended in a trembling, tortuous stream,
+which flowed on with a monotonous force, and roused the wind.
+
+"The rich man feels crowded, even in Paradise. That's the way it is.
+Once he begins to oppress, the government authorities are his friends,"
+quoth the coachman, swaying on his seat.
+
+While unhitching the horses at the station he said to the mother in a
+hopeless voice:
+
+"If you gave me only enough for a drink----"
+
+She gave him a coin, and tossing it in the palm of his hand, he informed
+her in the same hopeless tone:
+
+"I'll take a drink for three coppers, and buy myself bread for two."
+
+In the afternoon the mother, shaken up by the ride and chilled, reached
+the large village of Nikolsk. She went to a tavern and asked for tea.
+After placing her heavy valise under the bench, she sat at a window and
+looked out into an open square, covered with yellow, trampled grass, and
+into the town hall, a long, old building with an overhanging roof. Swine
+were straggling about in the square, and on the steps of the town hall
+sat a bald, thin-bearded peasant smoking a pipe. The clouds swam
+overhead in dark masses, and piled up, one absorbing the other. It was
+dark, gloomy, and tedious. Life seemed to be in hiding.
+
+Suddenly the village sergeant galloped up to the square, stopped his
+sorrel at the steps of the town hall, and waving his whip in the air,
+shouted to the peasant. The shouts rattled against the window panes, but
+the words were indistinguishable. The peasant rose and stretched his
+hand, pointing to something. The sergeant jumped to the ground, reeled,
+threw the reins to the peasant, and seizing the rails with his hands,
+lifted himself heavily up the steps, and disappeared behind the doors of
+the town hall.
+
+Quiet reigned again. Only the horse struck the soft earth with the iron
+of his shoes.
+
+A girl came into the room. A short yellow braid lay on her neck, her
+face was round, and her eyes kind. She bit her lips with the effort of
+carrying a ragged-edged tray, with dishes, in her outstretched hands.
+She bowed, nodding her head.
+
+"How do you do, my good girl?" said the mother kindly.
+
+"How do you do?"
+
+Putting the plates and the china dishes on the table, she announced with
+animation:
+
+"They've just caught a thief. They're bringing him here."
+
+"Indeed? What sort of a thief?"
+
+"I don't know."
+
+"What did he do?"
+
+"I don't know. I only heard that they caught him. The watchman of the
+town hall ran off for the police commissioner, and shouted: 'They've
+caught him. They're bringing him here.'"
+
+The mother looked through the window. Peasants gathered in the square;
+some walked slowly, some quickly, while buttoning their overcoats. They
+stopped at the steps of the town hall, and all looked to the left. It
+was strangely quiet. The girl also went to the window to see the street,
+and then silently ran from the room, banging the door after her. The
+mother trembled, pushed her valise farther under the bench, and throwing
+her shawl over her head, hurried to the door. She had to restrain a
+sudden, incomprehensible desire to run.
+
+When she walked up the steps of the town hall a sharp cold struck her
+face and breast. She lost breath, and her legs stiffened. There, in the
+middle of the square, walked Rybin! His hands were bound behind his
+back, and on each side of him a policeman, rhythmically striking the
+ground with his club. At the steps stood a crowd waiting in silence.
+
+Unconscious of the bearing of the thing, the mother's gaze was riveted
+on Rybin. He said something; she heard his voice, but the words did not
+reach the dark emptiness of her heart.
+
+She recovered her senses, and took a deep breath. A peasant with a broad
+light beard was standing at the steps looking fixedly into her face with
+his blue eyes. Coughing and rubbing her throat with her hands, weak with
+fear, she asked him with an effort:
+
+"What's the matter?"
+
+"Well, look." The peasant turned away. Another peasant came up to her
+side.
+
+"Oh, thief! How horrible you look!" shouted a woman's voice.
+
+The policemen stepped in front of the crowd, which increased in size.
+Rybin's voice sounded thick:
+
+"Peasants, I'm not a thief; I don't steal; I don't set things on fire. I
+only fight against falsehood. That's why they seized me. Have you heard
+of the true books in which the truth is written about our peasant life?
+Well, it's because of these writings that I suffer. It's I who
+distributed them among the people."
+
+The crowd surrounded Rybin more closely. His voice steadied the mother.
+
+"Did you hear?" said a peasant in a low voice, nudging a blue-eyed
+neighbor, who did not answer but raised his head and again looked into
+the mother's face. The other peasant also looked at her. He was younger
+than he of the blue eyes, with a dark, sparse beard, and a lean freckled
+face. Then both of them turned away to the side of the steps.
+
+"They're afraid," the mother involuntarily noted. Her attention grew
+keener. From the elevation of the stoop she clearly saw the dark face of
+Rybin, distinguished the hot gleam of his eyes. She wanted that he, too,
+should see her, and raised herself on tiptoe and craned her neck.
+
+The people looked at him sullenly, distrustfully, and were silent. Only
+in the rear of the crowd subdued conversation was heard.
+
+"Peasants!" said Rybin aloud, in a peculiar full voice. "Believe these
+papers! I shall now, perhaps, get death on account of them. The
+authorities beat me, they tortured me, they wanted to find out from
+where I got them, and they're going to beat me more. For in these
+writings the truth is laid down. An honest world and the truth ought to
+be dearer to us than bread. That's what I say."
+
+"Why is he doing this?" softly exclaimed one of the peasants near the
+steps. He of the blue eyes answered:
+
+"Now it's all the same. He won't escape death, anyhow. And a man can't
+die twice."
+
+The sergeant suddenly appeared on the steps of the town hall, roaring in
+a drunken voice:
+
+"What is this crowd? Who's the fellow speaking?"
+
+Suddenly precipitating himself down the steps, he seized Rybin by the
+hair, and pulled his head backward and forward. "Is it you speaking, you
+damned scoundrel? Is it you?"
+
+The crowd, giving way, still maintained silence. The mother, in impotent
+grief, bowed her head; one of the peasants sighed. Rybin spoke again:
+
+"There! Look, good people!"
+
+"Silence!" and the sergeant struck his face.
+
+Rybin reeled.
+
+"They bind a man's hands and then torment him, and do with him whatever
+they please."
+
+"Policemen, take him! Disperse, people!" The sergeant, jumping and
+swinging in front of Rybin, struck him in his face, breast, and stomach.
+
+"Don't beat him!" some one shouted dully.
+
+"Why do you beat him?" another voice upheld the first.
+
+"Lazy, good-for-nothing beast!"
+
+"Come!" said the blue-eyed peasant, motioning with his head; and without
+hastening, the two walked toward the town hall, accompanied by a kind
+look from the mother. She sighed with relief. The sergeant again ran
+heavily up the steps, and shaking his fists in menace, bawled from his
+height vehemently:
+
+"Bring him here, officers, I say! I say----"
+
+"Don't!" a strong voice resounded in the crowd, and the mother knew it
+came from the blue-eyed peasant. "Boys! don't permit it! They'll take
+him in there and beat him to death, and then they'll say we killed him.
+Don't permit it!"
+
+"Peasants!" the powerful voice of Rybin roared, drowning the shouts of
+the sergeant. "Don't you understand your life? Don't you understand how
+they rob you--how they cheat you--how they drink your blood? You keep
+everything up; everything rests on you; you are all the power that is at
+the bottom of everything on earth--its whole power. And what rights have
+you? You have the right to starve--it's your only right!"
+
+"He's speaking the truth, I tell _you_!"
+
+Some men shouted:
+
+"Call the commissioner of police! Where is the commissioner of police?"
+
+"The sergeant has ridden away for him!"
+
+"It's not our business to call the authorities!"
+
+The noise increased as the crowd grew louder and louder.
+
+"Speak! We won't let them beat you!"
+
+"Officers, untie his hands!"
+
+"No, brothers; that's not necessary!"
+
+"Untie him!"
+
+"Look out you don't do something you'll be sorry for!"
+
+"I am sorry for my hands!" Rybin said evenly and resonantly, making
+himself heard above all the other voices. "I'll not escape, peasants. I
+cannot hide from my truth; it lives inside of me!"
+
+Several men walked away from the crowd, formed different circles, and
+with earnest faces and shaking their heads carried on conversations.
+Some smiled. More and more people came running up--excited, bearing
+marks of having dressed quickly. They seethed like black foam about
+Rybin, and he rocked to and fro in their midst. Raising his hands over
+his head and shaking them, he called into the crowd, which responded now
+by loud shouts, now by silent, greedy attention, to the unfamiliar,
+daring words:
+
+"Thank you, good people! Thank you! I stood up for you, for your lives!"
+He wiped his beard and again raised his blood-covered hand. "There's my
+blood! It flows for the sake of truth!"
+
+The mother, without considering, walked down the steps, but immediately
+returned, since on the ground she couldn't see Mikhail, hidden by the
+close-packed crowd. Something indistinctly joyous trembled in her bosom
+and warmed it.
+
+"Peasants! Keep your eyes open for those writings; read them. Don't
+believe the authorities and the priests when they tell you those people
+who carry truth to us are godless rioters. The truth travels over the
+earth secretly; it seeks a nest among the people. To the authorities
+it's like a knife in the fire. They cannot accept it. It will cut them
+and burn them. Truth is your good friend and a sworn enemy of the
+authorities--that's why it hides itself."
+
+"That's so; he's speaking the gospel!" shouted the blue-eyed peasant.
+
+"Ah, brother! You will perish--and soon, too!"
+
+"Who betrayed you?"
+
+"The priest!" said one of the police.
+
+Two peasants gave vent to hard oaths.
+
+"Look out, boys!" a somewhat subdued cry was heard in warning.
+
+The commissioner of police walked into the crowd--a tall, compact man,
+with a round, red face. His cap was cocked to one side; his mustache
+with one end turned up the other drooping made his face seem crooked,
+and it was disfigured by a dull, dead grin. His left hand held a saber,
+his right waved broadly in the air. His heavy, firm tramp was audible.
+The crowd gave way before him. Something sullen and crushed appeared in
+their faces, and the noise died away as if it had sunk into the ground.
+
+"What's the trouble?" asked the police commissioner, stopping in front
+of Rybin and measuring him with his eyes. "Why are his hands not bound?
+Officers, why? Bind them!" His voice was high and resonant, but
+colorless.
+
+"They were tied, but the people unbound them," answered one of the
+policemen.
+
+"The people! What people?" The police commissioner looked at the crowd
+standing in a half-circle before him. In the same monotonous, blank
+voice, neither elevating nor lowering it, he continued: "Who are the
+people?"
+
+With a back stroke he thrust the handle of his saber against the breast
+of the blue-eyed peasant.
+
+"Are you the people, Chumakov? Well, who else? You, Mishin?" and he
+pulled somebody's beard with his right hand.
+
+"Disperse, you curs!"
+
+Neither his voice nor face displayed the least agitation or threat. He
+spoke mechanically, with a dead calm, and with even movements of his
+strong, long hands, pushed the people back. The semicircle before him
+widened. Heads drooped, faces were turned aside.
+
+"Well," he addressed the policeman, "what's the matter with you? Bind
+him!" He uttered a cynical oath and again looked at Rybin, and said
+nonchalantly: "Your hands behind your back, you!"
+
+"I don't want my hands to be bound," said Rybin. "I'm not going to run
+away, and I'm not fighting. Why should my hands be bound?"
+
+"What?" exclaimed the police commissioner, striding up to him.
+
+"It's enough that you torture the people, you beasts!" continued Rybin
+in an elevated voice. "The red day will soon come for you, too. You'll
+be paid back for everything."
+
+The police commissioner stood before him, his mustached upper lip
+twitching. Then he drew back a step, and with a whistling voice sang out
+in surprise:
+
+"Um! you damned scoundrel! Wha-at? What do you mean by your words?
+People, you say? A-a----"
+
+Suddenly he dealt Rybin a quick, sharp blow in the face.
+
+"You won't kill the truth with your fist!" shouted Rybin, drawing on
+him. "And you have no right to beat me, you dog!"
+
+"I won't dare, I suppose?" the police commissioner drawled.
+
+Again he waved his hand, aiming at Rybin's head; Rybin ducked; the blow
+missed, and the police commissioner almost toppled over. Some one in the
+crowd gave a jeering snort, and the angry shout of Mikhail was heard:
+
+"Don't you dare to beat me, I say, you infernal devil! I'm no weaker
+than you! Look out!"
+
+The police commissioner looked around. The people shut down on him in a
+narrower circle, advancing sullenly.
+
+"Nikita!" the police commissioner called out, looking around. "Nikita,
+hey!" A squat peasant in a short fur overcoat emerged from the crowd. He
+looked on the ground, with his large disheveled head drooping.
+
+"Nikita," the police commissioner said deliberately, twirling his
+mustache, "give him a box on the ear--a good one!"
+
+The peasant stepped forward, stopped in front of Rybin and raised his
+hand. Staring him straight in the face, Rybin stammered out heavily:
+
+"Now look, people, how the beasts choke you with your own hands! Look!
+Look! Think! Why does he want to beat me--why? I ask."
+
+The peasant raised his hand and lazily struck Mikhail's face.
+
+"Ah, Nikita! don't forget God!" subdued shouts came from the crowd.
+
+"Strike, I say!" shouted the police commissioner, pushing the peasant on
+the back of his neck.
+
+The peasant stepped aside, and inclining his head, said sullenly:
+
+"I won't do it again."
+
+"What?" The face of the police commissioner quivered. He stamped his
+feet, and, cursing, suddenly flung himself upon Rybin. The blow whizzed
+through the air; Rybin staggered and waved his arms; with the second
+blow the police commissioner felled him to the ground, and, jumping
+around with a growl, he began to kick him on his breast, his side, and
+his head.
+
+The crowd set up a hostile hum, rocked, and advanced upon the police
+commissioner. He noticed it and jumped away, snatching his saber from
+its scabbard.
+
+"So that's what you're up to! You're rioting, are you?"
+
+His voice trembled and broke; it had grown husky. And he lost his
+composure along with his voice. He drew his shoulders up about his head,
+bent over, and turning his blank, bright eyes on all sides, he fell
+back, carefully feeling the ground behind him with his feet. As he
+withdrew he shouted hoarsely in great excitement:
+
+"All right; take him! I'm leaving! But now, do you know, you cursed
+dogs, that he is a political criminal; that he is going against our
+Czar; that he stirs up riots--do you know it?--against the Emperor, the
+Czar? And you protect him; you, too, are rebels. Aha--a----"
+
+Without budging, without moving her eyes, the strength of reason gone
+from her, the mother stood as if in a heavy sleep, overwhelmed by fear
+and pity. The outraged, sullen, wrathful shouts of the people buzzed
+like bees in her head.
+
+"If he has done something wrong, lead him to court."
+
+"And don't beat him!"
+
+"Forgive him, your Honor!"
+
+"Now, really, what does it mean? Without any law whatever!"
+
+"Why, is it possible? If they begin to beat everybody that way, what'll
+happen then?"
+
+"The devils! Our torturers!"
+
+The people fell into two groups--the one surrounding the police
+commissioner shouted and exhorted him; the other, less numerous,
+remained about the beaten man, humming and sullen. Several men lifted
+him from the ground. The policemen again wanted to bind his hands.
+
+"Wait a little while, you devils!" the people shouted.
+
+Rybin wiped the blood from his face and beard and looked about in
+silence. His gaze glided by the face of the mother. She started,
+stretched herself out to him, and instinctively waved her hand. He
+turned away; but in a few minutes his eyes again rested on her face. It
+seemed to her that he straightened himself and raised his head, that his
+blood-covered cheeks quivered.
+
+"Did he recognize me? I wonder if he did?"
+
+She nodded her head to him and started with a sorrowful, painful joy.
+But the next moment she saw that the blue-eyed peasant was standing near
+him and also looking at her. His gaze awakened her to the consciousness
+of the risk she was running.
+
+"What am I doing? They'll take me, too."
+
+The peasant said something to Rybin, who shook his head.
+
+"Never mind!" he exclaimed, his voice tremulous, but clear and bold.
+"I'm not alone in the world. They'll not capture all the truth. In the
+place where I was the memory of me will remain. That's it! Even though
+they destroy the nest, aren't there more friends and comrades there?"
+
+"He's saying this for me," the mother decided quickly.
+
+"The people will build other nests for the truth; and a day will come
+when the eagles will fly from them into freedom. The people will
+emancipate themselves."
+
+A woman brought a pail of water and, wailing and groaning, began to wash
+Rybin's face. Her thin, piteous voice mixed with Mikhail's words and
+hindered the mother from understanding them. A throng of peasants came
+up with the police commissioner in front of them. Some one shouted
+aloud:
+
+"Come; I'm going to make an arrest! Who's next?"
+
+Then the voice of the police commissioner was heard. It had
+changed--mortification now evident in its altered tone.
+
+"I may strike you, but you mayn't strike me. Don't you dare, you dunce!"
+
+"Is that so? And who are you, pray? A god?"
+
+A confused but subdued clamor drowned Rybin's voice.
+
+"Don't argue, uncle. You're up against the authorities."
+
+"Don't be angry, your Honor. The man's out of his wits."
+
+"Keep still, you funny fellow!"
+
+"Here, they'll soon take you to the city!"
+
+"There's more law there!"
+
+The shouts of the crowd sounded pacificatory, entreating; they blended
+into a thick, indistinct babel, in which there was something hopeless
+and pitiful. The policemen led Rybin up the steps of the town hall and
+disappeared with him behind the doors. People began to depart in a
+hurry. The mother saw the blue-eyed peasant go across the square and
+look at her sidewise. Her legs trembled under her knees. A dismal
+feeling of impotence and loneliness gnawed at her heart sickeningly.
+
+"I mustn't go away," she thought. "I mustn't!" and holding on to the
+rails firmly, she waited.
+
+The police commissioner walked up the steps of the town hall and said in
+a rebuking voice, which had assumed its former blankness and
+soullessness:
+
+"You're fools, you damned scoundrels! You don't understand a thing, and
+poke your noses into an affair like this--a government affair. Cattle!
+You ought to thank me, fall on your knees before me for my goodness! If
+I were to say so, you would all be put to hard labor."
+
+About a score of peasants stood with bared heads and listened in
+silence. It began to grow dusk; the clouds lowered. The blue-eyed
+peasant walked up to the steps, and said with a sigh:
+
+"That's the kind of business we have here!"
+
+"Ye-es," the mother rejoined quietly.
+
+He looked at her with an open gaze.
+
+"What's your occupation?" he asked after a pause.
+
+"I buy lace from the women, and linen, too."
+
+The peasant slowly stroked his beard. Then looking up at the town hall
+he said gloomily and softly:
+
+"You won't find anything of that kind here."
+
+The mother looked down on him, and waited for a more suitable moment to
+depart for the tavern. The peasant's face was thoughtful and handsome
+and his eyes were sad. Broad-shouldered and tall, he was dressed in a
+patched-up coat, in a clean chintz shirt, and reddish homespun trousers.
+His feet were stockingless.
+
+The mother for some reason drew a sigh of relief, and suddenly obeying
+an impulse from within, yielding to an instinct that got the better of
+her reason, she surprised herself by asking him:
+
+"Can I stay in your house overnight?"
+
+At the question everything in her muscles, her bones, tightened stiffly.
+She straightened herself, holding her breath, and fixed her eyes on the
+peasant. Pricking thoughts quickly flashed through her mind: "I'll ruin
+everybody--Nikolay Ivanovich, Sonyushka--I'll not see Pasha for a long
+time--they'll kill him----"
+
+Looking on the ground, the peasant answered deliberately, folding his
+coat over his breast:
+
+"Stay overnight? Yes, you can. Why not? Only my home is very poor!"
+
+"Never mind; I'm not used to luxury," the mother answered
+uncalculatingly.
+
+"You can stay with me overnight," the peasant repeated, measuring her
+with a searching glance.
+
+It had already grown dark, and in the twilight his eyes shone cold, his
+face seemed very pale. The mother looked around, and as if dropping
+under distress, she said in an undertone:
+
+"Then I'll go at once, and you'll take my valise."
+
+"All right!" He shrugged his shoulders, again folded his coat and said
+softly:
+
+"There goes the wagon!"
+
+In a few moments, after the crowd had begun to disperse, Rybin appeared
+again on the steps of the town hall. His hands were bound; his head and
+face were wrapped up in a gray cloth, and he was pushed into a waiting
+wagon.
+
+"Farewell, good people!" his voice rang out in the cold evening
+twilight. "Search for the truth. Guard it! Believe the man who will
+bring you the clean word; cherish him. Don't spare yourselves in the
+cause of truth!"
+
+"Silence, you dog!" shouted the voice of the police commissioner.
+"Policeman, start the horses up, you fool!"
+
+"What have you to be sorry for? What sort of life have you?"
+
+The wagon started. Sitting in it with a policeman on either side, Rybin
+shouted dully:
+
+"For the sake of what are you perishing--in hunger? Strive for
+freedom--it'll give you bread and--truth. Farewell, good people!"
+
+The hasty rumble of the wheels, the tramp of the horses, the shout of
+the police officer, enveloped his speech and muffled it.
+
+"It's done!" said the peasant, shaking his head. "You wait at the
+station a little while, and I'll come soon."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+
+The mother went to the room in the tavern, sat herself at the table in
+front of the samovar, took a piece of bread in her hand, looked at it,
+and slowly put it back on the plate. She was not hungry; the feeling in
+her breast rose again and flushed her with nausea. She grew faint and
+dizzy; the blood was sucked from her heart. Before her stood the face of
+the blue-eyed peasant. It was a face that expressed nothing and failed
+to arouse confidence. For some reason the mother did not want to tell
+herself in so many words that he would betray her. The suspicion lay
+deep in her breast--a dead weight, dull and motionless.
+
+"He scented me!" she thought idly and faintly. "He noticed--he guessed."
+Further than this her thoughts would not go, and she sank into an
+oppressive despondency. The nausea, the spiritless stillness beyond the
+window that replaced the noise, disclosed something huge, but subdued,
+something frightening, which sharpened her feeling of solitude, her
+consciousness of powerlessness, and filled her heart with ashen gloom.
+
+The young girl came in and stopped at the door.
+
+"Shall I bring you an omelette?"
+
+"No, thank you, I don't want it; the shouts frightened me."
+
+The girl walked up to the table and began to speak excitedly in hasty,
+terror-stricken tones:
+
+"How the police commissioner beat him! I stood near and could see. All
+his teeth were broken. He spit out and his teeth fell on the ground. The
+blood came thick--thick and dark. You couldn't see his eyes at all; they
+were swollen up. He's a tar man. The sergeant is in there in our place
+drunk, but he keeps on calling for whisky. They say there was a whole
+band of them, and that this bearded man was their elder, the hetman.
+Three were captured and one escaped. They seized a teacher, too; he was
+also with them. They don't believe in God, and they try to persuade
+others to rob all the churches. That's the kind of people they are; and
+our peasants, some of them pitied him--that fellow--and others say they
+should have settled him for good and all. We have such mean peasants
+here! Oh, my! oh, my!"
+
+The mother, by giving the girl's disconnected, rapid talk her fixed
+attention, tried to stifle her uneasiness, to dissipate her dismal
+forebodings. As for the girl, she must have rejoiced in an auditor. Her
+words fairly choked her and she babbled on in lowered voice with greater
+and greater animation:
+
+"Papa says it all comes from the poor crop. This is the second year
+we've had a bad harvest. The people are exhausted. That's the reason we
+have such peasants springing up now. What a shame! You ought to hear
+them shout and fight at the village assemblies. The other day when
+Vosynkov was sold out for arrears he dealt the starosta (bailiff) a
+cracking blow on the face. 'There are my arrears for you!' he says."
+
+Heavy steps were heard at the door. The mother rose to her feet with
+difficulty. The blue-eyed peasant came in, and taking off his hat asked:
+
+"Where is the baggage?"
+
+He lifted the valise lightly, shook it, and said:
+
+"Why, it's empty! Marya, show the guest the way to my house," and he
+walked off without looking around.
+
+"Are you going to stay here overnight?" asked the girl.
+
+"Yes. I'm after lace; I buy lace."
+
+"They don't make lace here. They make lace in Tinkov and in Daryina, but
+not among us."
+
+"I'm going there to-morrow; I'm tired."
+
+On paying for the tea she made the girl very happy by handing her three
+kopecks. On the road the girl's feet splashed quickly in the mud.
+
+"If you want to, I'll run over to Daryina, and I'll tell the women to
+bring their lace here. That'll save your going there. It's about eight
+miles."
+
+"That's not necessary, my dear."
+
+The cold air refreshed the mother as she stepped along beside the girl.
+A resolution slowly formulated itself in her mind--confused, but fraught
+with a promise. She wished to hasten its growth, and asked herself
+persistently: "How shall I behave? Suppose I come straight out with the
+truth?"
+
+It was dark, damp, and cold. The windows of the peasants' huts shone
+dimly with a motionless reddish light; the cattle lowed drowsily in the
+stillness, and short halloos reverberated through the fields. The
+village was clothed in darkness and an oppressive melancholy.
+
+"Here!" said the girl, "you've chosen a poor lodging for yourself. This
+peasant is very poor." She opened the door and shouted briskly into the
+hut: "Aunt Tatyana, a lodger has come!" She ran away, her "Good-by!"
+flying back from the darkness.
+
+The mother stopped at the threshold and peered about with her palm above
+her eyes. The hut was very small, but its cleanness and neatness caught
+the eye at once. From behind the stove a young woman bowed silently and
+disappeared. On a table in a corner toward the front of the room burned
+a lamp. The master of the hut sat at the table, tapping his fingers on
+its edge. He fixed his glance on the mother's eyes.
+
+"Come in!" he said, after a deliberate pause.
+
+"Tatyana, go call Pyotr. Quick!"
+
+The woman hastened away without looking at her guest. The mother seated
+herself on the bench opposite the peasant and looked around--her valise
+was not in sight. An oppressive stillness filled the hut, broken only by
+the scarcely audible sputtering of the lamplight. The face of the
+peasant, preoccupied and gloomy, wavered in vague outline before the
+eyes of the mother, and for some reason caused her dismal annoyance.
+
+"Well, why doesn't he say something? Quick!"
+
+"Where's my valise?" Her loud, stern question coming suddenly was a
+surprise to herself. The peasant shrugged his shoulders and thoughtfully
+gave the indefinite answer:
+
+"It's safe." He lowered his voice and continued gloomily: "Just now, in
+front of the girl, I said on purpose that it was empty. No, it's not
+empty. It's very heavily loaded."
+
+"Well, what of it?"
+
+The peasant rose, approached her, bent over her, and whispered: "Do you
+know that man?"
+
+The mother started, but answered firmly:
+
+"I do."
+
+Her laconic reply, as it were, kindled a light within her which rendered
+everything outside clear. She sighed in relief. Shifting her position on
+the bench, she settled herself more firmly on it, while the peasant
+laughed broadly.
+
+"I guessed it--when you made the sign--and he, too. I asked him,
+whispering in his ear, whether he knows the woman standing on the
+steps."
+
+"And what did he say?"
+
+"He? He says 'there are a great many of us.' Yes--'there are a great
+many of us,' he says."
+
+The peasant looked into the eyes of his guest questioningly, and,
+smiling again, he continued:
+
+"He's a man of great force, he is brave, he speaks straight out. They
+beat him, and he keeps on his own way."
+
+The peasant's uncertain, weak voice, his unfinished, but clear face, his
+open eyes, inspired the mother with more and more confidence. Instead of
+alarm and despondency, a sharp, shooting pity for Rybin filled her
+bosom. Overwhelmed by her feelings, unable to restrain herself, she
+suddenly burst out in bitter malice:
+
+"Robbers, bigots!" and she broke into sobs.
+
+The peasant walked away from her, sullenly nodding his head.
+
+"The authorities have hired a whole lot of assistants to do their dirty
+work for them. Yes, yes." He turned abruptly toward the mother again and
+said softly: "Here's what I guessed--that you have papers in the valise.
+Is that true?"
+
+"Yes," answered the mother simply, wiping away her tears. "I was
+bringing them to him."
+
+He lowered his brows, gathered his beard into his hand, and looking on
+the floor was silent for a time.
+
+"The papers reached us, too; some books, also. We need them all. They
+are so true. I can do very little reading myself, but I have a
+friend--he can. My wife also reads to me." The peasant pondered for a
+moment. "Now, then, what are you going to do with them--with the
+valise?"
+
+The mother looked at him.
+
+"I'll leave it to you."
+
+He was not surprised, did not protest, but only said curtly, "To us,"
+and nodded his head in assent. He let go of his beard, but continued to
+comb it with his fingers as he sat down.
+
+With inexorable, stubborn persistency the mother's memory held up before
+her eyes the scene of Rybin's torture. His image extinguished all
+thoughts in her mind. The pain and injury she felt for the man obscured
+every other sensation. Forgotten was the valise with the books and
+newspapers. She had feelings only for Rybin. Tears flowed constantly;
+her face was gloomy; but her voice did not tremble when she said to her
+host:
+
+"They rob a man, they choke him, they trample him in the mud--the
+accursed! And when he says, 'What are you doing, you godless men?' they
+beat and torture him."
+
+"Power," returned the peasant. "They have great power."
+
+"From where do they get it?" exclaimed the mother, thoroughly aroused.
+"From us, from the people--they get everything from us."
+
+"Ye-es," drawled the peasant. "It's a wheel." He bent his head toward
+the door, listening attentively. "They're coming," he said softly.
+
+"Who?"
+
+"Our people, I suppose."
+
+His wife entered. A freckled peasant, stooping, strode into the hut
+after her. He threw his cap into a corner, and quickly went up to their
+host.
+
+"Well?"
+
+The host nodded in confirmation.
+
+"Stepan," said the wife, standing at the oven, "maybe our guest wants to
+eat something."
+
+"No, thank you, my dear."
+
+The freckled peasant moved toward the mother and said quietly, in a
+broken voice:
+
+"Now, then, permit me to introduce myself to you. My name is Pyotr
+Yegorov Ryabinin, nicknamed Shilo--the Awl. I understand something about
+your affairs. I can read and write. I'm no fool, so to speak." He
+grasped the hand the mother extended to him, and wringing it, turned to
+the master of the house.
+
+"There, Stepan, see, Varvara Nikolayevna is a good lady, true. But in
+regard to all this, she says it is nonsense, nothing but dreams. Boys
+and different students, she says, muddle the people's mind with
+absurdities. However, you saw just now a sober, steady man, as he ought
+to be, a peasant, arrested. Now, here is she, an elderly woman, and as
+to be seen, not of blue blood. Don't be offended--what's your station in
+life?"
+
+He spoke quickly and distinctly, without taking breath. His little beard
+shook nervously, and his dark eyes, which he screwed up, rapidly scanned
+the mother's face and figure. Ragged, crumpled, his hair disheveled, he
+seemed just to have come from a fight, in which he had vanquished his
+opponent, and still to be flushed with the joy of victory. He pleased
+the mother with his sprightliness and his simple talk, which at once
+went straight to the point. She gave him a kind look as she answered his
+question. He once more shook her hand vigorously, and laughed softly.
+
+"You see, Stepan, it's a clean business, an excellent business. I told
+you so. This is the way it is: the people, so to speak, are beginning to
+take things into their own hands. And as to the lady--she won't tell you
+the truth; it's harmful to her. I respect her, I must say; she's a good
+person, and wishes us well--well, a little bit, and provided it won't
+harm her any. But the people want to go straight, and they fear no loss
+and no harm--you see?--all life is harmful to them; they have no place
+to turn to; they have nothing all around except 'Stop!' which is shouted
+at them from all sides."
+
+"I see," said Stepan, nodding and immediately adding: "She's uneasy
+about her baggage."
+
+Pyotr gave the mother a shrewd wink, and again reassured her:
+
+"Don't be uneasy; it's all right. Everything will be all right, mother.
+Your valise is in my house. Just now when he told me about you--that you
+also participate in this work and that you know that man--I said to him:
+'Take care, Stepan! In such a serious business you must keep your mouth
+shut.' Well, and you, too, mother, seem to have scented us when we stood
+near you. The faces of honest people can be told at once. Not many of
+them walk the streets, to speak frankly. Your valise is in my house." He
+sat down alongside of her and looked entreatingly into her eyes. "If you
+wish to empty it we'll help you, with pleasure. We need books."
+
+"She wants to give us everything," remarked Stepan.
+
+"First rate, mother! We'll find a place for all of it." He jumped to his
+feet, burst into a laugh, and quickly pacing up and down the room said
+contentedly: "The matter is perfectly simple: in one place it snaps, and
+in another it is tied up. Very well! And the newspaper, mother, is a
+good one, and does its work--it peels the people's eyes open; it's
+unpleasant to the masters. I do carpentry work for a lady about five
+miles from here--a good woman, I must admit. She gives me various books,
+sometimes very simple books. I read them over--I might as well fall
+asleep. In general we're thankful to her. But I showed her one book and
+a number of a newspaper; she was somewhat offended. 'Drop it, Pyotr!'
+she said. 'Yes, this,' she says, 'is the work of senseless youngsters;
+from such a business your troubles can only increase; prison and Siberia
+for this,' she says."
+
+He grew abruptly silent, reflected for a moment, and asked: "Tell me,
+mother, this man--is he a relative of yours?"
+
+"A stranger."
+
+Pyotr threw his head back and laughed noiselessly, very well satisfied
+with something. To the mother, however, it seemed the very next instant
+that, in reference to Rybin, the word "stranger" was not in place; it
+jarred upon her.
+
+"I'm not a relative of his; but I've known him for a long time, and I
+look up to him as to an elder brother."
+
+She was pained and displeased not to find the word she wanted, and she
+could not suppress a quiet groan. A sad stillness pervaded the hut.
+Pyotr leaned his head upon one shoulder; his little beard, narrow and
+sharp, stuck out comically on one side, and gave his shadow swinging on
+the wall the appearance of a man sticking out his tongue teasingly.
+Stepan sat with his elbows on the table, and beat a tattoo on the
+boards. His wife stood at the oven without stirring; the mother felt her
+look riveted upon herself and often glanced at the woman's face--oval,
+swarthy, with a straight nose, and a chin cut off short; her dark and
+thick eyebrows joined sternly, her eyelids drooped, and from under them
+her greenish eyes shone sharply and intently.
+
+"A friend, that is to say," said Pyotr quietly. "He has character,
+indeed he has; he esteems himself highly, as he ought to; he has put a
+high price on himself, as he ought to. There's a man, Tatyana! You
+say----"
+
+"Is he married?" Tatyana interposed, and compressed the thin lips of her
+small mouth.
+
+"He's a widower," answered the mother sadly.
+
+"That's why he's so brave," remarked Tatyana. Her utterance was low and
+difficult. "A married man like him wouldn't go--he'd be afraid."
+
+"And I? I'm married and everything, and yet--" exclaimed Pyotr.
+
+"Enough!" she said without looking at him and twisting her lips. "Well,
+what are you? You only talk a whole lot, and on rare occasions you read
+a book. It doesn't do people much good for you and Stepan to whisper to
+each other on the corners."
+
+"Why, sister, many people hear me," quietly retorted the peasant,
+offended. "I act as a sort of yeast here. It isn't fair in you to speak
+that way."
+
+Stepan looked at his wife silently and again drooped his head.
+
+"And why should a peasant marry?" asked Tatyana. "He needs a worker,
+they say. What work?"
+
+"You haven't enough? You want more?" Stepan interjected dully.
+
+"But what sense is there in the work we do? We go half-hungry from day
+to day anyhow. Children are born; there's no time to look after them on
+account of the work that doesn't give us bread." She walked up to the
+mother, sat down next to her, and spoke on stubbornly, no plaint nor
+mourning in her voice. "I had two children; one, when he was two years
+old, was boiled to death in hot water; the other was born dead--from
+this thrice-accursed work. Such a happy life! I say a peasant has no
+business to marry. He only binds his hands. If he were free he would
+work up to a system of life needed by everybody. He would come out
+directly and openly for the truth. Am I right, mother?"
+
+"You are. You're right, my dear. Otherwise we can't conquer life."
+
+"Have you a husband?"
+
+"He died. I have a son."
+
+"And where is he? Does he live with you?"
+
+"He's in prison." The mother suddenly felt a calm pride in these words,
+usually painful to her. "This is the second time--all because he came to
+understand God's truth and sowed it openly without sparing himself. He's
+a young man, handsome, intelligent; he planned a newspaper, and gave
+Mikhail Ivanovich a start on his way, although he's only half of
+Mikhail's age. Now they're going to try my son for all this, and
+sentence him; and he'll escape from Siberia and continue with his work."
+
+Her pride waxed as she spoke. It created the image of a hero, and
+demanded expression in words. The mother needed an offset--something
+fine and bright--to balance the gloomy incident she had witnessed that
+day, with its senseless horror and shameless cruelty. Instinctively
+yielding to this demand of a healthy soul, she reached out for
+everything she had seen that was pure and shining and heaped it into one
+dazzling, cleansing fire.
+
+"Many such people have already been born, more and more are being born,
+and they will all stand up for the freedom of the people, for the truth,
+to the very end of their lives."
+
+She forgot precaution, and although she did not mention names, she told
+everything known to her of the secret work for the emancipation of the
+people from the chains of greed. In depicting the personalities she put
+all her force into her words, all the abundance of love awakened in her
+so late by her rousing experiences. And she herself became warmly
+enamored of the images rising up in her memory, illumined and beautified
+by her feeling.
+
+"The common cause advances throughout the world in all the cities.
+There's no measuring the power of the good people. It keeps growing and
+growing, and it will grow until the hour of our victory, until the
+resurrection of truth."
+
+Her voice flowed on evenly, the words came to her readily, and she
+quickly strung them, like bright, varicolored beads, on strong threads
+of her desire to cleanse her heart of the blood and filth of that day.
+She saw that the three people were as if rooted to the spot where her
+speech found them, and that they looked at her without stirring. She
+heard the intermittent breathing of the woman sitting by her side, and
+all this magnified the power of her faith in what she said, and in what
+she promised these people.
+
+"All those who have a hard life, whom want and injustice crush--it's the
+rich and the servitors of the rich who have overpowered them. The whole
+people ought to go out to meet those who perish in the dungeons for
+them, and endure mortal torture. Without gain to themselves they show
+where the road to happiness for all people lies. They frankly admit it
+is a hard road, and they force no one to follow them. But once you take
+your position by their side you will never leave them. You will see it
+is the true, the right road. With such persons the people may travel.
+Such persons will not be reconciled to small achievements; they will not
+stop until they will vanquish all deceit, all evil and greed. They will
+not fold their hands until the people are welded into one soul, until
+the people will say in one voice: 'I am the ruler, and I myself will
+make the laws equal for all.'"
+
+She ceased from exhaustion, and looked about. Her words would not be
+wasted here, she felt assured. The silence lasted for a minute, while
+the peasants regarded her as if expecting more. Pyotr stood in the
+middle of the hut, his hands clasped behind his back, his eyes screwed
+up, a smile quivering on his freckled face. Stepan was leaning one hand
+on the table; with his neck and entire body forward, he seemed still to
+be listening. A shadow on his face gave it more finish. His wife,
+sitting beside the mother, bent over, her elbows on her knees, and
+studied her feet.
+
+"That's how it is," whispered Pyotr, and carefully sat on the bench,
+shaking his head.
+
+Stepan slowly straightened himself, looked at his wife, and threw his
+hands in the air, as if grasping for something.
+
+"If a man takes up this work," he began thoughtfully in a moderated
+voice, "then his entire soul is needed."
+
+Pyotr timidly assented:
+
+"Yes, he mustn't look back."
+
+"The work has spread very widely," continued Stepan.
+
+"Over the whole earth," added Pyotr.
+
+They both spoke like men walking in darkness, groping for the way with
+their feet. The mother leaned against the wall, and throwing back her
+head listened to their careful utterances. Tatyana arose, looked around,
+and sat down again. Her green eyes gleamed dryly as she looked into the
+peasants' faces with dissatisfaction and contempt.
+
+"It seems you've been through a lot of misery," she said, suddenly
+turning to the mother.
+
+"I have."
+
+"You speak well. You draw--you draw the heart after your talk. It makes
+me think, it makes me think, 'God! If I could only take a peep at such
+people and at life through a chink!' How does one live? What life has
+one? The life of sheep. Here am I; I can read and write; I read books, I
+think a whole lot. Sometimes I don't even sleep the entire night because
+I think. And what sense is there in it? If I don't think, my existence
+is a purposeless existence; and if I do, it is also purposeless. And
+everything seems purposeless. There are the peasants, who work and
+tremble over a piece of bread for their homes, and they have nothing. It
+hurts them, enrages them; they drink, fight, and work again--work, work,
+work. But what comes of it? Nothing."
+
+She spoke with scorn in her eyes and in her voice, which was low and
+even, but at times broke off like a taut thread overstrained. The
+peasants were silent, the wind glided by the window panes, buzzed
+through the straw of the roofs, and at times whined softly down the
+chimney. A dog barked, and occasional drops of rain pattered on the
+window. Suddenly the light flared in the lamp, dimmed, but in a second
+sprang up again even and bright.
+
+"I listened to your talk, and I see what people live for now. It's so
+strange--I hear you, and I think, 'Why, I know all this.' And yet, until
+you said it, I hadn't heard such things, and I had no such thoughts.
+Yes."
+
+"I think we ought to take something to eat, and put out the lamp," said
+Stepan, somberly and slowly. "People will notice that at the Chumakovs'
+the light burned late. It's nothing for us, but it might turn out bad
+for the guest."
+
+Tatyana arose and walked to the oven.
+
+"Ye-es," Pyotr said softly, with a smile. "Now, friend, keep your ears
+pricked. When the papers appear among the people----"
+
+"I'm not speaking of myself. If they arrest me, it's no great matter."
+
+The wife came up to the table and asked Stepan to make room.
+
+He arose and watched her spread the table as he stood to one side.
+
+"The price of fellows of our kind is a nickel a bundle, a hundred in a
+bundle," he said with a smile.
+
+The mother suddenly pitied him. He now pleased her more.
+
+"You don't judge right, host," she said. "A man mustn't agree to the
+price put upon him by people from the outside, who need nothing of him
+except his blood. You, knowing yourself within, must put your own
+estimate on yourself--your price, not for your enemies, but for your
+friends."
+
+"What friends have we?" the peasant exclaimed softly. "Up to the first
+piece of bread."
+
+"And I say that the people have friends."
+
+"Yes, they have, but not here--that's the trouble," Stepan deliberated.
+
+"Well, then create them here."
+
+Stepan reflected a while. "We'll try."
+
+"Sit down at the table," Tatyana invited her.
+
+At supper, Pyotr, who had been subdued by the talk of the mother and
+appeared to be at a loss, began to speak again with animation:
+
+"Mother, you ought to get out of here as soon as possible, to escape
+notice. Go to the next station, not to the city--hire the post horses."
+
+"Why? I'm going to see her off!" said Stepan.
+
+"You mustn't. In case anything happens and they ask you whether she
+slept in your house--'She did.' 'When did she go?' 'I saw her off.'
+'Aha! You did? Please come to prison!' Do you understand? And no one
+ought to be in a hurry to get into prison; everybody's turn will come.
+'Even the Czar will die,' as the saying goes. But the other way: she
+simply spent the night in your house, hired horses, and went away. And
+what of it? Somebody passing through the village sleeps with somebody in
+the village. There's nothing in that."
+
+"Where did you learn to be afraid, Pyotr?" Tatyana scoffed.
+
+"A man must know everything, friend!" Pyotr exclaimed, striking his
+knee--"know how to fear, know how to be brave. You remember how a
+policeman lashed Vaganov for that newspaper? Now you'll not persuade
+Vaganov for any amount of money to take a book in his hand. Yes; you
+believe me, mother, I'm a sharp fellow for every sort of a
+trick--everybody knows it. I'm going to scatter these books and papers
+for you in the best shape and form, as much as you please. Of course,
+the people here are not educated; they've been intimidated. However, the
+times squeeze a man and wide open go his eyes, 'What's the matter?' And
+the book answers him in a perfectly simple way: 'That's what's the
+matter--Think! Unite! Nothing else is left for you to do!' There are
+examples of men who can't read or write and can understand more than the
+educated ones--especially if the educated ones have their stomachs full.
+I go about here everywhere; I see much. Well? It's possible to live; but
+you want brains and a lot of cleverness in order not to sit down in the
+cesspool at once. The authorities, too, smell a rat, as though a cold
+wind were blowing on them from the peasants. They see the peasant smiles
+very little, and altogether is not very kindly disposed and wants to
+disaccustom himself to the authorities. The other day in Smolyakov, a
+village not far from here, they came to extort the taxes; and your
+peasants got stubborn and flew into a passion. The police commissioner
+said straight out: 'Oh, you damned scoundrels! why, this is disobedience
+to the Czar!' There was one little peasant there, Spivakin, and says he:
+'Off with you to the evil mother with your Czar! What kind of a Czar is
+he if he pulls the last shirt off your body?' That's how far it went,
+mother. Of course, they snatched Spivakin off to prison. But the word
+remained, and even the little boys know it. It lives! It shouts! And
+perhaps in our days the word is worth more than a man. People are
+stupefied and deadened by their absorption in breadwinning. Yes."
+
+Pyotr did not eat, but kept on talking in a quick whisper, his dark,
+roguish eyes gleaming merrily. He lavishly scattered before the mother
+innumerable little observations on the village life--they rolled from
+him like copper coins from a full purse.
+
+Stepan several times reminded him: "Why don't you eat?" Pyotr would then
+seize a piece of bread and a spoon and fall to talking and sputtering
+again like a goldfinch. Finally, after the meal, he jumped to his feet
+and announced:
+
+"Well, it's time for me to go home. Good-by, mother!" and he shook her
+hand and nodded his head. "Maybe we shall never see each other again. I
+must say to you that all this is very good--to meet you and hear your
+speeches--very good! Is there anything in your valise beside the printed
+matter? A shawl? Excellent! A shawl, remember, Stepan. He'll bring you
+the valise at once. Come, Stepan. Good-by. I wish everything good to
+you."
+
+After he had gone the crawling sound of the roaches became audible in
+the hut, the blowing of the wind over the roof and its knocking against
+the door in the chimney. A fine rain dripped monotonously on the window.
+Tatyana prepared a bed for the mother on the bench with clothing brought
+from the oven and the storeroom.
+
+"A lively man!" remarked the mother.
+
+The hostess looked at her sidewise.
+
+"A light fellow," she answered. "He rattles on and rattles on; you can't
+but hear the rattling at a great distance."
+
+"And how is your husband?" asked the mother.
+
+"So so. A good peasant; he doesn't drink; we live peacefully. So so.
+Only he has a weak character." She straightened herself, and after a
+pause asked:
+
+"Why, what is it that's wanted nowadays? What's wanted is that the
+people should be stirred up to revolt. Of course! Everybody thinks about
+it, but privately, for himself. And what's necessary is that he should
+speak out aloud. Some one person must be the first to decide to do it."
+She sat down on the bench and suddenly asked: "Tell me, do young ladies
+also occupy themselves with this? Do they go about with the workingmen
+and read? Aren't they squeamish and afraid?" She listened attentively to
+the mother's reply and fetched a deep sigh; then drooping her eyelids
+and inclining her head, she said: "In one book I read the words
+'senseless life.' I understood them very well at once. I know such a
+life. Thoughts there are, but they're not connected, and they stray like
+stupid sheep without a shepherd. They stray and stray, with no one to
+bring them together. There's no understanding in people of what must be
+done. That's what a senseless life is. I'd like to run away from it
+without even looking around--such a severe pang one suffers when one
+understands something!"
+
+The mother perceived the pang in the dry gleam of the woman's green
+eyes, in her wizened face, in her voice. She wanted to pet and soothe
+her.
+
+"You understand, my dear, what to do----"
+
+Tatyana interrupted her softly:
+
+"A person must be able-- The bed's ready for you. Lie down and sleep."
+
+She went over to the oven and remained standing there erect, in silence,
+sternly centered in herself. The mother lay down without undressing. She
+began to feel the weariness in her bones and groaned softly. Tatyana
+walked up to the table, extinguished the lamp, and when darkness
+descended on the hut she resumed speech in her low, even voice, which
+seemed to erase something from the flat face of the oppressive darkness.
+
+"You do not pray? I, too, think there is no God, there are no miracles.
+All these things were contrived to frighten us, to make us stupid."
+
+The mother turned about on the bench uneasily; the dense darkness looked
+straight at her from the window, and the scarcely audible crawling of
+the roaches persistently disturbed the quiet. She began to speak almost
+in a whisper and fearfully:
+
+"In regard to God, I don't know; but I do believe in Christ, in the
+Little Father. I believe in his words, 'Love thy neighbor as thyself.'
+Yes, I believe in them." And suddenly she asked in perplexity: "But if
+there is a God, why did He withdraw his good power from us? Why did He
+allow the division of people into two worlds? Why, if He is merciful,
+does He permit human torture--the mockery of one man by another, all
+kinds of evil and beastliness?"
+
+Tatyana was silent. In the darkness the mother saw the faint outline of
+her straight figure--gray on the black background. She stood motionless.
+The mother closed her eyes in anguish. Then the groaning, cold voice
+sullenly broke in upon the stillness again:
+
+"The death of my children I will never forgive, neither God nor man--I
+will never forgive--_never_!"
+
+Nilovna uneasily rose from her bed; her heart understood the mightiness
+of the pain that evoked such words.
+
+"You are young; you will still have children," she said kindly.
+
+The woman did not answer immediately. Then she whispered:
+
+"No, no. I'm spoiled. The doctor says I'll never be able to have a child
+again."
+
+A mouse ran across the floor, something cracked--a flash of sound
+flaring up in the noiselessness. The autumn rain again rustled on the
+thatch like light thin fingers running over the roof. Large drops of
+water dismally fell to the ground, marking the slow course of the autumn
+night. Hollow steps on the street, then on the porch, awoke the mother
+from a heavy slumber. The door opened carefully.
+
+"Tatyana!" came the low call. "Are you in bed already?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Is she asleep?"
+
+"It seems she is."
+
+A light flared up, trembled, and sank into the darkness.
+
+The peasant walked over to the mother's bed, adjusted the sheepskin over
+her, and wrapped up her feet. The attention touched the mother in its
+simplicity. She closed her eyes again and smiled. Stepan undressed in
+silence, crept up to the loft, and all became quiet.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+
+The mother lay motionless, with ears strained in the drowsy stillness,
+and before her in the darkness wavered Rybin's face covered with blood.
+In the loft a dry whisper could be heard.
+
+"You see what sort of people go into this work? Even elderly people who
+have drunk the cup of misery to the bottom, who have worked, and for
+whom it is time to rest. And there they are! But you are young,
+sensible! Ah, Stepan!"
+
+The thick, moist voice of the peasant responded:
+
+"Such an affair--you mustn't take it up without thinking over it. Just
+wait a little while!"
+
+"I've heard you say so before." The sounds dropped, and rose again. The
+voice of Stepan rang out:
+
+"You must do it this way--at first you must take each peasant aside and
+speak to him by himself--for instance, to Makov Alesha, a lively
+man--can read and write--was wronged by the police; Shorin Sergey, also
+a sensible peasant; Knyazev, an honest, bold man, and that'll do to
+begin with. Then we'll get a group together, we look about us--yes. We
+must learn how to find her; and we ourselves must take a look at the
+people about whom she spoke. I'll shoulder my ax and go off to the city
+myself, making out I'm going there to earn money by splitting wood. You
+must proceed carefully in this matter. She's right when she says that
+the price a man has is according to his own estimate of himself--and
+this is an affair in which you must set a high value on yourself when
+once you take it up. There's that peasant! See! You can put him even
+before God, not to speak of before a police commissioner. He won't
+yield. He stands for his own firmly--up to his knees in it. And Nikita,
+why his honor was suddenly pricked--a marvel? No. If the people will set
+out in a friendly way to do something together, they'll draw everybody
+after them."
+
+"Friendly! They beat a man in front of your eyes, and you stand with
+your mouths wide open."
+
+"You just wait a little while. He ought to thank God we didn't beat him
+ourselves, that man. Yes, indeed. Sometimes the authorities compel you
+to beat, and you do beat. Maybe you weep inside yourself with pity, but
+still you beat. People don't dare to decline from beastliness--they'll
+be killed themselves for it. They command you, 'Be what I want you to
+be--a wolf, a pig'--but to be a man is prohibited. And a bold man
+they'll get rid of--send to the next world. No. You must contrive for
+many to get bold at once, and for all to arise suddenly."
+
+He whispered for a long time, now lowering his voice so that the mother
+scarcely could hear, and now bursting forth powerfully. Then the woman
+would stop him. "S-sh, you'll wake her."
+
+The mother fell into a heavy dreamless sleep.
+
+Tatyana awakened her in the early twilight, when the dusk still peered
+through the window with blank eyes, and when brazen sounds of the church
+bell floated and melted over the village in the gray, cold stillness.
+
+"I have prepared the samovar. Take some tea or you'll be cold if you go
+out immediately after getting up."
+
+Stepan, combing his tangled beard, asked the mother solicitously how to
+find her in the city. To-day the peasant's face seemed more finished to
+her. While they drank tea he remarked, smiling:
+
+"How wonderfully things happen!"
+
+"What?" asked Tatyana.
+
+"Why, this acquaintance--so simply."
+
+The mother said thoughtfully, but confidently:
+
+"In this affair there's a marvelous simplicity in everything."
+
+The host and hostess restrained themselves from demonstrativeness in
+parting with her; they were sparing of words, but lavish in little
+attentions for her comfort.
+
+Sitting in the post, the mother reflected that this peasant would begin
+to work carefully, noiselessly, like a mole, without cease, and that at
+his side the discontented voice of his wife would always sound, and the
+dry burning gleam in her green eyes would never die out of her so long
+as she cherished the revengeful wolfish anguish of a mother for lost
+children.
+
+The mother recalled Rybin--his blood, his face, his burning eyes, his
+words. Her heart was compressed again with a bitter feeling of
+impotence; and along the entire road to the city the powerful figure of
+black-bearded Mikhail with his torn shirt, his hands bound behind his
+back, his disheveled head, clothed in wrath and faith in his truth,
+stood out before her on the drab background of the gray day. And as she
+regarded the figure, she thought of the numberless villages timidly
+pressed to the ground; of the people, faint-heartedly and secretly
+awaiting the coming of truth; and of the thousands of people who
+senselessly and silently work their whole lifetime without awaiting the
+coming of anything.
+
+Life represented itself to her as an unplowed, hilly field, which mutely
+awaits the workers and promises a harvest to free and honest hands:
+"Fertilize me with seeds of reason and truth; I will return them to you
+a hundredfold."
+
+When from afar she saw the roofs and spires of the city, a warm joy
+animated and eased her perturbed, worn heart. The preoccupied faces of
+those people flashed up in her memory who, from day to day, without
+cease, in perfect confidence kindle the fire of thought and scatter the
+sparks over the whole earth. Her soul was flooded by the serene desire
+to give these people her entire force, and--doubly the love of a mother,
+awakened and animated by their thoughts.
+
+At home Nikolay opened the door for the mother. He was disheveled and
+held a book in his hand.
+
+"Already?" he exclaimed joyfully. "You've returned very quickly. Well,
+I'm glad, very glad."
+
+His eyes blinked kindly and briskly behind his glasses. He quickly
+helped her off with her wraps, and said with an affectionate smile:
+
+"And here in my place, as you see, there was a search last night. And I
+wondered what the reason for it could possibly be--whether something
+hadn't happened to you. But you were not arrested. If they had arrested
+you they wouldn't have let me go either."
+
+He led her into the dining room, and continued with animation: "However,
+they suggested that I should be discharged from my position. That
+doesn't distress me. I was sick, anyway, of counting the number of
+horseless peasants, and ashamed to receive money for it, too; for the
+money actually comes from them. It would have been awkward for me to
+leave the position of my own accord. I am under obligations to the
+comrades in regard to work. And now the matter has found its own
+solution. I'm satisfied!"
+
+The mother sat down and looked around. One would have supposed that some
+powerful man in a stupid fit of insolence had knocked the walls of the
+house from the outside until everything inside had been jolted down. The
+portraits were scattered on the floor; the wall paper was torn away and
+stuck out in tufts; a board was pulled out of the flooring; a window
+sill was ripped away; the floor by the oven was strewn with ashes. The
+mother shook her head at the sight of this familiar picture.
+
+"They wanted to show that they don't get money for nothing," remarked
+Nikolay.
+
+On the table stood a cold samovar, unwashed dishes, sausages, and cheese
+on paper, along with plates, crumbs of bread, books, and coals from the
+samovar. The mother smiled. Nikolay also laughed in embarrassment,
+following the look of her eyes.
+
+"It was I who didn't waste time in completing the picture of the upset.
+But never mind, Nilovna, never mind! I think they're going to come
+again. That's the reason I didn't pick it all up. Well, how was your
+trip?"
+
+The mother started at the question. Rybin arose before her; she felt
+guilty at not having told of him immediately. Bending over a chair, she
+moved up to Nikolay and began her narrative. She tried to preserve her
+calm in order not to omit something as a result of excitement.
+
+"They caught him!"
+
+A quiver shot across Nikolay's face.
+
+"They did? How?"
+
+The mother stopped his questions with a gesture of her hand, and
+continued as if she were sitting before the very face of justice and
+bringing in a complaint regarding the torture of a man. Nikolay threw
+himself back in his chair, grew pale, and listened, biting his lips. He
+slowly removed his glasses, put them on the table, and ran his hand over
+his face as if wiping away invisible cobwebs. The mother had never seen
+him wear so austere an expression.
+
+When she concluded he arose, and for a minute paced the floor in
+silence, his fists thrust deep into his pockets. Conquering his
+agitation he looked almost calmly with a hard gleam in his eyes into the
+face of the mother, which was covered with silent tears.
+
+"Nilovna, we mustn't waste time! Let us try, dear comrade, to take
+ourselves in hand." Then he remarked through his teeth:
+
+"He must be a remarkable fellow--such nobility! It'll be hard for him in
+prison. Men like him feel unhappy there." Stepping in front of the
+mother he exclaimed in a ringing voice: "Of course, all the
+commissioners and sergeants are nothings. They are sticks in the hands
+of a clever villain, a trainer of animals. But I would kill an animal
+for allowing itself to be turned into a brute!" He restrained his
+excitement, which, however, made itself felt to the mother's
+perceptions. Again he strode through the room, and spoke in wrath: "See
+what horror! A gang of stupid people, protesting their pernicious power
+over the people, beat, stifle, oppress everybody. Savagery grows apace;
+cruelty becomes the law of life. A whole nation is depraved. Think of
+it! One part beats and turns brute; from immunity to punishment, sickens
+itself with a voluptuous greed of torture--that disgusting disease of
+slaves licensed to display all the power of slavish feelings and cattle
+habits. Others are poisoned with the desire for vengeance. Still others,
+beaten down to stupidity, become dumb and blind. They deprave the
+nation, the whole nation!" He stopped, leaning his elbows against the
+doorpost. He clasped his head in both hands, and was silent, his teeth
+set.
+
+"You involuntarily turn a beast yourself in this beastly life!"
+
+Smiling sadly, he walked up to her, and bending over her asked, pressing
+her hand: "Where is your valise?"
+
+"In the kitchen."
+
+"A spy is standing at our gate. We won't be able to get such a big mass
+of papers out of the way unnoticed. There's no place to hide them in and
+I think they'll come again to-night. I don't want you to be arrested.
+So, however sorry we may be for the lost labor, let's burn the papers."
+
+"What?"
+
+"Everything in the valise!"
+
+She finally understood; and though sad, her pride in her success brought
+a complacent smile to her face.
+
+"There's nothing in it--no leaflets." With gradually increasing
+animation she told how she had placed them in the hands of sympathetic
+peasants after Rybin's departure. Nikolay listened, at first with an
+uneasy frown, then in surprise, and finally exclaimed, interrupting her
+story:
+
+"Say, that's capital! Nilovna, do you know--" He stammered, embarrassed,
+and pressing her hand, exclaimed quietly: "You touch me so by your faith
+in people, by your faith in the cause of their emancipation! You have
+such a good soul! I simply love you as I didn't love my own mother!"
+
+Embracing his neck, she burst into happy sobs, and pressed his head to
+her lips.
+
+"Maybe," he muttered, agitated and embarrassed by the newness of his
+feeling, "maybe I'm speaking nonsense; but, upon my honest word, you are
+a beautiful person, Nilovna--yes!"
+
+"My darling, I love you, too; and I love you all with my whole soul,
+every drop of my blood!" she said, choking with a wave of hot joy.
+
+The two voices blended into one throbbing speech, subdued and pulsating
+with the great feeling that was seizing the people.
+
+"Such a large, soft power is in you; it draws the heart toward you
+imperceptibly. How brightly you describe people! How well you see them!"
+
+"I see your life; I understand it, my dear!"
+
+"One loves you. And it's such a marvelous thing to love a person--it's
+so good, you know!"
+
+"It is you, you who raise the people from the dead to life again; you!"
+the mother whispered hotly, stroking his head. "My dear, I think I see
+there's much work for you, much patience needed. Your power must not be
+wasted. It's so necessary for life. Listen to what else happened: there
+was a woman there, the wife of that man----"
+
+Nikolay sat near her, his happy face bent aside in embarrassment, and
+stroked his hair. But soon he turned around again, and looking at the
+mother, listened greedily to her simple and clear story.
+
+"A miracle! Every possibility of your getting into prison and
+suddenly-- Yes, it's evident that the peasants, too, are beginning to
+stir. After all, it's natural. We ought to get special people for the
+villages. People! We haven't enough--nowhere. Life demands hundreds of
+hands!"
+
+"Now, if Pasha could be free--and Andriusha," said the mother softly.
+Nikolay looked at her and drooped his head.
+
+"You see, Nilovna, it'll be hard for you to hear; but I'll say it,
+anyway--I know Pavel well; he won't leave prison. He wants to be tried;
+he wants to rise in all his height. He won't give up a trial, and he
+needn't either. He will escape from Siberia."
+
+The mother sighed and answered softly:
+
+"Well, he knows what's best for the cause."
+
+Nikolay quickly jumped to his feet, suddenly seized with joy again.
+
+"Thank you, Nilovna! I've just lived through a magnificent moment--maybe
+the best moment of my life. Thank you! Now, come, let's give each other
+a good, strong kiss!"
+
+They embraced, looking into each other's eyes. And they gave each other
+firm, comradely kisses.
+
+"That's good!" he said softly.
+
+The mother unclasped her hands from about his neck and laughed quietly
+and happily.
+
+"Um!" said Nikolay the next minute. "If your peasant there would hurry
+up and come here! You see, we must be sure to write a leaflet about
+Rybin for the village. It won't hurt him once he's come out so boldly,
+and it will help the cause. I'll surely do it to-day. Liudmila will
+print it quickly. But then arises the question--how will it get to the
+village?"
+
+"I'll take it!"
+
+"No, thank you!" Nikolay exclaimed quietly. "I'm wondering whether
+Vyesovshchikov won't do for it. Shall I speak to him?"
+
+"Yes; suppose you try and instruct him."
+
+"What'll I do then?"
+
+"Don't worry!"
+
+Nikolay sat down to write, while the mother put the table in order, from
+time to time casting a look at him. She saw how his pen trembled in his
+hand. It traveled along the paper in straight lines. Sometimes the skin
+on his neck quivered; he threw back his head and shut his eyes. All this
+moved her.
+
+"Execute them!" she muttered under her breath. "Don't pity the
+villains!"
+
+"There! It's ready!" he said, rising. "Hide the paper somewhere on your
+body. But know that when the gendarmes come they'll search you, too!"
+
+"The dogs take them!" she answered calmly.
+
+In the evening Dr. Ivan Danilovich came.
+
+"What's gotten into the authorities all of a sudden?" he said, running
+about the room. "There were seven searches last night. Where's the
+patient?"
+
+"He left yesterday. To-day, you see, Saturday, he reads to working
+people. He couldn't bring it over himself to omit the reading."
+
+"That's stupid--to sit at readings with a fractured skull!"
+
+"I tried to prove it to him, but unsuccessfully."
+
+"He wanted to do a bit of boasting before the comrades," observed the
+mother. "Look! I've already shed my blood!"
+
+The physician looked at her, made a fierce face, and said with set
+teeth:
+
+"Ugh! ugh! you bloodthirsty person!"
+
+"Well, Ivan, you've nothing to do here, and we're expecting guests. Go
+away! Nilovna, give him the paper."
+
+"Another paper?"
+
+"There, take it and give it to the printer."
+
+"I've taken it; I'll deliver it. Is that all?"
+
+"That's all. There's a spy at the gate."
+
+"I noticed. At my door, too. Good-by! Good-by, you fierce woman! And do
+you know, friends, a squabble in a cemetery is a fine thing after all!
+The whole city's talking about it. It stirs the people up and compels
+them to think. Your article on that subject was excellent, and it came
+in time. I always said that a good fight is better than a bad peace."
+
+"All right. Go away now!"
+
+"You're polite! Let's shake hands, Nilovna. And that fellow--he
+certainly behaved stupidly. Do you know where he lives?"
+
+Nikolay gave him the address.
+
+"I must go to him to-morrow. He's a fine fellow, eh?"
+
+"Very!"
+
+"We must keep him alive; he has good brains. It's from just such fellows
+that the real proletarian intellectuals ought to grow up--men to take
+our places when we leave for the region where evidently there are no
+class antagonisms. But, after all, who knows?"
+
+"You've taken to chattering, Ivan."
+
+"I feel happy, that's why. Well, I'm going! So you're expecting prison?
+I hope you get a good rest there!"
+
+"Thank you, I'm not tired!"
+
+The mother listened to their conversation. Their solicitude in regard to
+the workingmen was pleasant to her; and, as always, the calm activity of
+these people which did not forsake them even before the gates of the
+prison, astonished her.
+
+After the physician left, Nikolay and the mother conversed quietly while
+awaiting their evening visitors. Then Nikolay told her at length of his
+comrades living in exile; of those who had already escaped and continued
+their work under assumed names. The bare walls of the room echoed the
+low sounds of his voice, as if listening in incredulous amazement to the
+stories of modest heroes who disinterestedly devoted all their powers to
+the great cause of liberty.
+
+A shadow kindly enveloped the woman, warming her heart with love for the
+unseen people, who in her imagination united into one huge person, full
+of inexhaustible, manly force. This giant slowly but incessantly strides
+over the earth, cleansing it, laying bare before the eyes of the people
+the simple and clear truth of life--the great truth that raises humanity
+from the dead, welcomes all equally, and promises all alike freedom from
+greed, from wickedness, and falsehood, the three monsters which enslaved
+and intimidated the whole world. The image evoked in the mother's soul a
+feeling similar to that with which she used to stand before an ikon.
+After she had offered her joyful, grateful prayer, the day had then
+seemed lighter than the other days of her life. Now she forgot those
+days. But the feeling left by them had broadened, had become brighter
+and better, had grown more deeply into her soul. It was more keenly
+alive and burned more luminously.
+
+"But the gendarmes aren't coming!" Nikolay exclaimed suddenly,
+interrupting his story.
+
+The mother looked at him, and after a pause answered in vexation:
+
+"Oh, well, let them go to the dogs!"
+
+"Of course! But it's time for you to go to bed, Nilovna. You must be
+desperately tired. You're wonderfully strong, I must say. So much
+commotion and disturbance, and you live through it all so lightly. Only
+your hair is turning gray very quickly. Now go and rest."
+
+They pressed each other's hand and parted.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+
+The mother fell quickly into a calm sleep, and rose early in the
+morning, awakened by a subdued tap at the kitchen door. The knock was
+incessant and patiently persistent. It was still dark and quiet, and the
+rapping broke in alarmingly on the stillness. Dressing herself rapidly,
+she walked out into the kitchen, and standing at the door asked:
+
+"Who's there?"
+
+"I," answered an unfamiliar voice.
+
+"Who?"
+
+"Open." The quiet word was spoken in entreaty.
+
+The mother lifted the hook, pushed the door with her foot, and Ignaty
+entered, saying cheerfully:
+
+"Well, so I'm not mistaken. I'm at the right place."
+
+He was spattered with mud up to his belt. His face was gray, his eyes
+fallen.
+
+"We've gotten into trouble in our place," he whispered, locking the door
+behind him.
+
+"I know it."
+
+The reply astonished the young man. He blinked and asked:
+
+"How? Where from?"
+
+She explained in a few rapid words, and asked:
+
+"Did they take the other comrades, too?"
+
+"They weren't there. They had gone off to be recruited. Five were
+captured, including Rybin."
+
+He snuffled and said, smiling:
+
+"And I was left over. I guess they're looking for me. Let them look. I'm
+not going back there again, not for anything. There are other people
+there yet, some seven young men and a girl. Never mind! They're all
+reliable."
+
+"How did you find this place?" The mother smiled.
+
+The door from the room opened quietly.
+
+"I?" Seating himself on a bench and looking around, Ignaty exclaimed:
+"They crawled up at night, straight to the tar works. Well, a minute
+before they came the forester ran up to us and knocked on the window.
+'Look out, boys,' says he, 'they're coming on you.'"
+
+He laughed softly, wiped his face with the flap of his coat, and
+continued:
+
+"Well, they can't stun Uncle Mikhail even with a hammer. At once he says
+to me, 'Ignaty, run away to the city, quick! You remember the elderly
+woman.' And he himself writes a note. 'There, go! Good-by, brother.' He
+pushed me in the back. I flung out of the hut. I scrambled along on all
+fours through the bushes, and I hear them coming. There must have been a
+lot of them. You could hear the rustling on all sides, the devils--like
+a moose around the tar works. I lay in the bushes. They passed by me.
+Then I rose and off I went; and for two nights and a whole day I walked
+without stopping. My feet'll ache for a week."
+
+He was evidently satisfied with himself. A smile shone in his hazel
+eyes. His full red lips quivered.
+
+"I'll set you up with some tea soon. You wash yourself while I get the
+samovar ready."
+
+"I'll give you the note." He raised his leg with difficulty, and
+frowning and groaning put his foot on the bench and began to untie the
+leg wrappings.
+
+"I got frightened. 'Well,' thinks I, 'I'm a goner.'"
+
+Nikolay appeared at the door. Ignaty in embarrassment dropped his foot
+to the floor and wanted to rise, but staggered and fell heavily on the
+bench, catching himself with his hands.
+
+"You sit still!" exclaimed the mother.
+
+"How do you do, comrade?" said Nikolay, screwing up his eyes
+good-naturedly and nodding his head. "Allow me, I'll help you."
+
+Kneeling on the floor in front of the peasant, he quickly unwound the
+dirty, damp wrappings.
+
+"Well!" the fellow exclaimed quietly, pulling back his foot and blinking
+in astonishment. He regarded the mother, who said, without paying
+attention to his look:
+
+"His legs ought to be rubbed down with alcohol."
+
+"Of course!" said Nikolay.
+
+Ignaty snorted in embarrassment. Nikolay found the note, straightened it
+out, looked at it, and handed the gray, crumpled piece of paper to the
+mother.
+
+"For you."
+
+"Read it."
+
+"'Mother, don't let the affair go without your attention. Tell the tall
+lady not to forget to have them write more for our cause, I beg of you.
+Good-by. Rybin.'"
+
+"My darling!" said the mother sadly. "They've already seized him by the
+throat, and he----"
+
+Nikolay slowly dropped his hand holding the note.
+
+"That's magnificent!" he said slowly and respectfully. "It both touches
+and teaches."
+
+Ignaty looked at them, and quietly shook his bared feet with his dirty
+hands. The mother, covering her tearful face, walked up to him with a
+basin of water, sat down on the floor, and stretched out her hands to
+his feet. But he quickly thrust them under the bench, exclaiming in
+fright:
+
+"What are you going to do?"
+
+"Give me your foot, quick!"
+
+"I'll bring the alcohol at once," said Nikolay.
+
+The young man shoved his foot still farther under the bench and mumbled:
+
+"What _are_ you going to do? It's not proper."
+
+Then the mother silently unbared his other foot. Ignaty's round face
+lengthened in amazement. He looked around helplessly with his wide-open
+eyes.
+
+"Why, it's going to tickle me!"
+
+"You'll be able to bear it," answered the mother, beginning to wash his
+feet.
+
+Ignaty snorted aloud, and moving his neck awkwardly looked down at her,
+comically drooping his under lip.
+
+"And do you know," she said tremulously, "that they beat Mikhail
+Ivanovich?"
+
+"What?" the peasant exclaimed in fright.
+
+"Yes; he had been beaten when they led him to the village, and in
+Nikolsk the sergeant beat him, the police commissioner beat him in the
+face and kicked him till he bled." The mother became silent, overwhelmed
+by her recollections.
+
+"They can do it," said the peasant, lowering his brows sullenly. His
+shoulders shook. "That is, I fear them like the devils. And the
+peasants--didn't the peasants beat him?"
+
+"One beat him. The police commissioner ordered him to. All the others
+were so so--they even took his part. 'You mustn't beat him!' they said."
+
+"Um! Yes, yes! The peasants are beginning to realize where a man stands,
+and for what he stands."
+
+"There are sensible people there, too."
+
+"Where can't you find sensible people? Necessity! They're everywhere;
+but it's hard to get at them. They hide themselves in chinks and
+crevices, and suck their hearts out each one for himself. Their
+resolution isn't strong enough to make them gather into a group."
+
+Nikolay brought a bottle of alcohol, put coals in the samovar, and
+walked away silently. Ignaty accompanied him with a curious look.
+
+"A gentleman?"
+
+"In this business there are no masters; they're all comrades!"
+
+"It's strange to me," said Ignaty with a skeptical but embarrassed
+smile.
+
+"What's strange?"
+
+"This: at one end they beat you in the face; at the other they wash your
+feet. Is there a middle of any kind?"
+
+The door of the room was flung open and Nikolay, standing on the
+threshold, said:
+
+"And in the middle stand the people who lick the hands of those who beat
+you in the face and suck the blood of those whose faces are beaten.
+That's the middle!"
+
+Ignaty looked at him respectfully, and after a pause said: "That's it!"
+
+The mother sighed. "Mikhail Ivanovich also always used to say, 'That's
+it!' like an ax blow."
+
+"Nilovna, you're evidently tired. Permit me--I----"
+
+The peasant pulled his feet uneasily.
+
+"That'll do;" said the mother, rising. "Well, Ignaty, now wash
+yourself."
+
+The young man arose, shifted his feet about, and stepped firmly on the
+floor.
+
+"They seem like new feet. Thank you! Many, many thanks!"
+
+He drew a wry face, his lips trembled, and his eyes reddened. After a
+pause, during which he regarded the basin of black water, he whispered
+softly:
+
+"I don't even know how to thank you!"
+
+Then they sat down to the table to drink tea. And Ignaty soberly began:
+
+"I was the distributer of literature, a very strong fellow at walking.
+Uncle Mikhail gave me the job. 'Distribute!' says he; 'and if you get
+caught you're alone.'"
+
+"Do many people read?" asked Nikolay.
+
+"All who can. Even some of the rich read. Of course, they don't get it
+from us. They'd clap us right into chains if they did! They understand
+that this is a slipknot for them in all ages."
+
+"Why a slipknot?"
+
+"What else!" exclaimed Ignaty in amazement. "Why, the peasants are
+themselves going to take the land from everyone else. They'll wash it
+out with their blood from under the gentry and the rich; that is to say,
+they themselves are going to divide it, and divide it so that there
+won't be masters or workingmen anymore. How then? What's the use of
+getting into a scrap if not for that?"
+
+Ignaty even seemed to be offended. He looked at Nikolay mistrustfully
+and skeptically. Nikolay smiled.
+
+"Don't get angry," said the mother jokingly.
+
+Nikolay thoughtfully exclaimed:
+
+"How shall we get the leaflets about Rybin's arrest to the village?"
+Ignaty grew attentive.
+
+"I'll speak to Vyesovshchikov to-day."
+
+"Is there a leaflet already?" asked Ignaty.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Give it to me. I'll take it." Ignaty rubbed his hands at the
+suggestion, his eyes flashing. "I know where and how. Let me."
+
+The mother laughed quietly, without looking at him.
+
+"Why, you're tired and afraid, and you said you'd never go there again!"
+
+Ignaty smacked his lips and stroked his curly hair with his broad palm.
+
+"I'm tired; I'll rest; and of course I'm afraid!" His manner was
+businesslike and calm. "They beat a man until the blood comes, as you
+yourself say--then who wants to be mutilated? But I'll pull through
+somehow at night. Never mind! Give me the leaflets; this evening I'll
+get on the go." He was silent, thought a while, his eyebrows working.
+"I'll go to the forest; I'll hide the literature, and then I'll notify
+our fellows: 'Go get it.' That's better. If I myself should distribute
+them I might fall into the hands of the police, and it would be a pity
+for the leaflets. You must act carefully here. There are not many such
+leaflets!"
+
+"And how about your fear?" the mother observed again with a smile. This
+curly-haired, robust fellow put her into a good humor by his sincerity,
+which sounded in his every word, and shone from his round, determined
+face.
+
+"Fear is fear, and business is business!" he answered with a grin. "Why
+are you laughing at me, eh? You, too! Why, isn't it natural to be afraid
+in this matter? Well, and if it's necessary a man'll go into a fire.
+Such an affair, it requires it."
+
+"Ah, you, my child!"
+
+Ignaty, embarrassed, smiled. "Well, there you are--child!" he said.
+
+Nikolay began to speak, all the time looking good-naturedly with
+screwed-up eyes at the young peasant.
+
+"You're not going there!"
+
+"Then what'll I do? Where am I to be?" Ignaty asked uneasily.
+
+"Another fellow will go in place of you. And you'll tell him in detail
+what to do and how to do it."
+
+"All right!" said Ignaty. But his consent was not given at once, and
+then only reluctantly.
+
+"And for you we'll obtain a good passport and make you a forester."
+
+The young fellow quickly threw back his head and asked uneasily:
+
+"But if the peasants come there for wood, or there--in general--what'll
+I do? Bind them? That doesn't suit me."
+
+The mother laughed, and Nikolay, too. This again confused and vexed
+Ignaty.
+
+"Don't be uneasy!" Nikolay soothed him. "You won't have to bind
+peasants. You trust us."
+
+"Well, well," said Ignaty, set at ease, smiling at Nikolay with
+confidence and merriness in his eyes. "If you could get me to the
+factory. There, they say, the fellows are mighty smart."
+
+A fire seemed to be ever burning in his broad chest, unsteady as yet,
+not confident in its own power. It flashed brightly in his eyes, forced
+out from within; but suddenly it would nearly expire in fright and
+flicker behind the smoke of perplexed alarm and embarrassment.
+
+The mother rose from behind the table, and looking through the window
+reflected:
+
+"Ah, life! Five times in the day you laugh and five times you weep. All
+right. Well, are you through, Ignaty? Go to bed and sleep."
+
+"But I don't want to."
+
+"Go on, go on!"
+
+"You're stern in this place. Thank you for the tea, for the sugar, for
+the kindness."
+
+Lying down in the mother's bed he mumbled, scratching his head:
+
+"Now everything'll smell of tar in your place. Ah, it's all for nothing
+all this--plain coddling! I don't want to sleep. You're good people,
+yes. It's more than I can understand--as if I'd gotten a hundred
+thousand miles away from the village--how he hit it off about the
+middle--and in the middle are the people who lick the hands--of those
+who beat the faces--um, yes."
+
+And suddenly he gave a loud short snore and dropped off to sleep, with
+eyebrows raised high and half-open mouth.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Late at night he sat in a little room of a basement at a table opposite
+Vyesovshchikov. He said in a subdued tone, knitting his brows:
+
+"On the middle window, four times."
+
+"Four."
+
+"At first three times like this"--he counted aloud as he tapped thrice
+on the table with his forefinger. "Then waiting a little, once again."
+
+"I understand."
+
+"A red-haired peasant will open the door for you, and will ask you for
+the midwife. You'll tell him, 'Yes, from the boss.' Nothing else. He'll
+understand your business."
+
+They sat with heads bent toward each other, both robust fellows,
+conversing in half tones. The mother, with her arms folded on her bosom,
+stood at the table looking at them. All the secret tricks and passwords
+compelled her to smile inwardly as she thought, "Mere children still."
+
+A lamp burned on the wall, illuminating a dark spot of dampness and
+pictures from journals. On the floor old pails were lying around,
+fragments of slate iron. A large, bright star out in the high darkness
+shone into the window. The odor of mildew, paint, and damp earth filled
+the room.
+
+Ignaty was dressed in a thick autumn overcoat of shaggy material. It
+pleased him; the mother observed how he stroked it admiringly with the
+palm of his hand, how he looked at himself, clumsily turning his
+powerful neck. Her bosom beat tenderly with, "My dears, my children, my
+own."
+
+"There!" said Ignaty, rising. "You'll remember, then? First you go to
+Muratov and ask for grandfather."
+
+"I remember."
+
+But Ignaty was still distrustful of Nikolay's memory, and reiterated all
+the instructions, words, and signs, and finally extended his hand to
+him, saying:
+
+"That's all now. Good-by, comrade. Give my regards to them. I'm alive
+and strong. The people there are good--you'll see." He cast a satisfied
+glance down at himself, stroked the overcoat, and asked the mother,
+"Shall I go?"
+
+"Can you find the way?"
+
+"Yes. Good-by, then, dear comrades."
+
+He walked off, raising his shoulders high, thrusting out his chest, with
+his new hat cocked to one side, and his hands deep in his pockets in
+most dignified fashion. On his forehead and temples his bright, boyish
+curls danced gayly.
+
+"There, now, I have work, too," said Vyesovshchikov, going over to the
+mother quietly. "I'm bored already--jumped out of prison--what for? My
+only occupation is hiding--and there I was learning. Pavel so pressed
+your brains--it was one pure delight. And Andrey, too, polished us
+fellows zealously. Well, Nilovna, did you hear how they decided in
+regard to the escape? Will they arrange it?"
+
+"They'll find out day after to-morrow," she repeated, sighing
+involuntarily. "One day still--day after to-morrow."
+
+Laying his heavy hand on her shoulder, and bringing his face close to
+hers, Nikolay said animatedly:
+
+"You tell them, the older ones there--they'll listen to you. Why, it's
+very easy. You just see for yourself. There's the wall of the prison
+near the lamp-post; opposite is an empty lot, on the left the cemetery,
+on the right the streets--the city. The lamplighter goes to the
+lamp-post; by day he cleans the lamp; he puts the ladder against the
+wall, climbs up, screws hooks for a rope ladder onto the top of the
+wall, lets the rope ladder down into the prison yard, and off he goes.
+There inside the walls they know the time when this will be done, and
+will ask the criminals to arrange an uproar, or they'll arrange it
+themselves, and those who need it will go up the ladder over the
+wall--one, two, it's done. And they calmly proceed to the city because
+the chase throws itself first of all on the vacant lot and the
+cemetery."
+
+He gesticulated rapidly in front of the mother's face, drawing his plan,
+the details of which were clear, simple, and clever. She had known him
+as a clumsy fellow, and it was strange to her to see the pockmarked face
+with the high cheek bones, usually so gloomy, now lively and alert. The
+narrow gray eyes, formerly harsh and cold, looking at the world sullenly
+with malice and distrust, seemed to be chiseled anew, assuming an oval
+form and shining with an even, warm light that convinced and moved the
+mother.
+
+"You think of it--by day, without fail by day. To whom would it occur
+that a prisoner would make up his mind to escape by day in the eyes of
+the whole prison?"
+
+"And they'll shoot him down," the woman said trembling.
+
+"Who? There are no soldiers, and the overseers of the prison use their
+revolvers to drive nails in."
+
+"Why, it's very simple--all this."
+
+"And you'll see it'll all come out all right. No. You speak to them. I
+have everything prepared already--the rope ladder, the screw hooks; I
+spoke to my host, he'll be the lamplighter."
+
+Somebody stirred noisily at the door and coughed, and iron clanked.
+
+"There he is!" exclaimed Nikolay.
+
+At the open door a tin bathtub was thrust in, and a hoarse voice said:
+
+"Get in, you devil."
+
+Then a round, gray, hatless head appeared. It had protruding eyes and a
+mustache, and wore a good-natured expression. Nikolay helped the man in
+with the tub. A tall, stooping figure strode through the door. The man
+coughed, his shaven cheeks puffing up; he spat out and greeted hoarsely:
+
+"Good health to you!"
+
+"There! Ask him!"
+
+"Me? What about?"
+
+"About the escape."
+
+"Ah, ah!" said the host, wiping his mustache with black fingers.
+
+"There, Yakob Vasilyevich! She doesn't believe it's a simple matter!"
+
+"Hm! she doesn't believe! Not to believe means not to want to believe.
+You and I want to, and so we believe." The old man suddenly bent over
+and coughed hoarsely, rubbed his breast for a long time, while he stood
+in the middle of the room panting for breath and scanning the mother
+with wide-open eyes.
+
+"I'm not the one to decide, Nikolay."
+
+"But, mother, you talk with them. Tell them everything is ready. Ah, if
+I could only see them! I'd force them!" He threw out his hands with a
+broad gesture and pressed them together as if embracing something
+firmly, and his voice rang with hot feeling that astounded the mother by
+its power.
+
+"Hm! what a fellow you are!" she thought; but said aloud: "It's for
+Pasha and the comrades to decide."
+
+Nikolay thoughtfully inclined his head.
+
+"Who's this Pasha?" asked the host, seating himself.
+
+"My son."
+
+"What's the family?"
+
+"Vlasov."
+
+He nodded his head, got his tobacco pouch, whipped out his pipe and
+filled it with tobacco. He spoke brokenly:
+
+"I've heard of him. My nephew knows him. He, too, is in prison--my
+nephew Yevchenko. Have you heard of him? And my family is Godun. They'll
+soon shut all the young people in prison, and then there'll be plenty
+and comfort for us old folks. The gendarme assures me that my nephew
+will even be sent to Siberia. They'll exile him--the dogs!"
+
+Lighting his pipe, he turned to Nikolay, spitting frequently on the
+floor:
+
+"So she doesn't want to? Well, that's her affair! A person is free to
+feel as he wants to. Are you tired of sitting in prison? Go. Are you
+tired of going? Sit. They robbed you? Keep still. They beat you? Bear
+it. They have killed you? Stay dead. That's certain. And I'll carry off
+Savka; I'll carry him off!" His curt, barking phrases, full of
+good-natured irony, perplexed the mother. But his last words aroused
+envy in her.
+
+While walking along the street in the face of a cold wind and rain, she
+thought of Nikolay, "What a man he's become! Think of it!" And
+remembering Godun, she almost prayerfully reflected, "It seems I'm not
+the only one who lives for the new. It's a big fire if it so cleanses
+and burns all who see it." Then she thought of her son, "If he only
+agreed!"
+
+On Sunday, taking leave of Pavel in the waiting room of the prison, she
+felt a little lump of paper in her hand. She started as if it burned her
+skin, and cast a look of question and entreaty into her son's face. But
+she found no answer there. Pavel's blue eyes smiled with the usual
+composed smile familiar to her.
+
+"Good-by!" she sighed.
+
+The son again put out his hand to her, and a certain kindness and
+tenderness for her quivered on his face. "Good-by, mamma!"
+
+She waited without letting go of his hand. "Don't be uneasy--don't be
+angry," he said.
+
+These words and the stubborn folds between his brows answered her
+question. "Well, what do you mean?" she muttered, drooping her head.
+"What of it?" And she quickly walked away without looking at him, in
+order not to betray her feelings by the tears in her eyes and the quiver
+of her lips. On the road she thought that the bones of the hand which
+had pressed her son's hand ached and grew heavy, as if she had been
+struck on the shoulder.
+
+At home, after thrusting the note into Nikolay's hand, she stood before
+him, and waited while he smoothed out the tight little roll. She felt a
+tremor of hope again; but Nikolay said:
+
+"Of course, this is what he writes: 'We will not go away, comrade; we
+cannot, not one of us. We should lose respect for ourselves. Take into
+consideration the peasant recently arrested. He has merited your
+solicitude; he deserves that you expend much time and energy on him.
+It's very hard for him here--daily collisions with the authorities. He's
+already had the twenty-four hours of the dark cell. They torture him to
+death. We all intercede for him. Soothe and be kind to my mother; tell
+her; she'll understand all. Pavel.'"
+
+The mother straightened herself easily, and proudly tossed her head.
+
+"Well, what is there to tell me?" she said firmly. "I understand--they
+want to go straight at the authorities again--'there! condemn the
+truth!'"
+
+Nikolay quickly turned aside, took out his handkerchief, blew his nose
+aloud, and mumbled: "I've caught a cold, you see!" Covering his eyes
+with his hands, under the pretext of adjusting his glasses, he paced up
+and down the room, and said: "We shouldn't have been successful anyway."
+
+"Never mind; let the trial come off!" said the mother frowning.
+
+"Here, I've received a letter from a comrade in St. Petersburg----"
+
+"He can escape from Siberia, too, can't he?"
+
+"Of course! The comrade writes: 'The trial is appointed for the near
+future; the sentence is certain--exile for everybody!' You see, these
+petty cheats convert their court into the most trivial comedy. You
+understand? Sentence is pronounced in St. Petersburg before the trial."
+
+"Stop!" the mother said resolutely. "You needn't comfort me or explain
+to me. Pasha won't do what isn't right--he won't torture himself for
+nothing." She paused to catch breath. "Nor will he torture others, and
+he loves me, yes. You see, he thinks of me. 'Explain to her,' he writes;
+'soothe her and comfort her,' eh?"
+
+Her heart beat quickly but boldly, and her head whirled slightly from
+excitement.
+
+"Your son's a splendid man! I respect and love him very much."
+
+"I tell you what--let's think of something in regard to Rybin," she
+suggested.
+
+She wanted to do something forthwith--go somewhere, walk till she
+dropped from exhaustion, and then fall asleep, content with the day's
+work.
+
+"Yes--very well!" said Nikolay, pacing through the room. "Why not? We
+ought to have Sashenka here!"
+
+"She'll be here soon. She always comes on my visiting day to Pasha."
+
+Thoughtfully drooping his head, biting his lips and twisting his beard,
+Nikolay sat on the sofa by the mother's side.
+
+"I'm sorry my sister isn't here. She ought to occupy herself with
+Rybin's case."
+
+"It would be well to arrange it at once, while Pasha is there. It would
+be pleasant for him."
+
+The bell rang. They looked at each other.
+
+"That's Sasha," Nikolay whispered.
+
+"How will you tell her?" the mother whispered back.
+
+"Yes--um!--it's hard!"
+
+"I pity her very much."
+
+The bell rang again, not so loud, as if the person on the other side of
+the door had also fallen to thinking and hesitated. Nikolay and the
+mother rose simultaneously, but at the kitchen door Nikolay turned
+aside.
+
+"You'd better do it," he said.
+
+"He's not willing?" the girl asked the moment the mother opened the
+door.
+
+"No."
+
+"I knew it!" Sasha's face paled. She unbuttoned her coat, fastened two
+buttons again, then tried to remove her coat, unsuccessfully, of course.
+"Dreadful weather--rain, wind; it's disgusting! Is he well?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Well and happy; always the same, and only this--" Her tone was
+disconsolate, and she regarded her hands.
+
+"He writes that Rybin ought to be freed." The mother kept her eyes
+turned from the girl.
+
+"Yes? It seems to me we ought to make use of this plan."
+
+"I think so, too," said Nikolay, appearing at the door. "How do you do,
+Sasha?"
+
+The girl asked, extending her hand to him:
+
+"What's the question about? Aren't all agreed that the plan is
+practicable? I know they are."
+
+"And who'll organize it? Everybody's occupied."
+
+"Give it to me," said Sasha, quickly jumping to her feet. "I have time!"
+
+"Take it. But you must ask others."
+
+"Very well, I will. I'll go at once."
+
+She began to button up her coat again with sure, thin fingers.
+
+"You ought to rest a little," the mother advised.
+
+Sasha smiled and answered in a softer voice:
+
+"Don't worry about me. I'm not tired." And silently pressing their
+hands, she left once more, cold and stern.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+
+The mother and Nikolay, walking up to the window, watched the girl pass
+through the yard and disappear beyond the gate. Nikolay whistled
+quietly, sat down at the table and began to write.
+
+"She'll occupy herself with this affair, and it'll be easier for her,"
+the mother reflected.
+
+"Yes, of course!" responded Nikolay, and turning around to the mother
+with a kind smile on his face, asked: "And how about you, Nilovna--did
+this cup of bitterness escape you? Did you never know the pangs for a
+beloved person?"
+
+"Well!" exclaimed the mother with a wave of her hand. "What sort of a
+pang? The fear they had whether they won't marry me off to this man or
+that man?"
+
+"And you liked no one?"
+
+She thought a little, and answered:
+
+"I don't recall, my dear! How can it be that I didn't like anybody? I
+suppose there was somebody I was fond of, but I don't remember."
+
+She looked at him, and concluded simply, with sad composure: "My husband
+beat me a lot; and everything that was before him was effaced from my
+soul."
+
+Nikolay turned back to the table; the mother walked out of the room for
+a minute. On her return Nikolay looked at her kindly and began to speak
+softly and lovingly. His reminiscences stroked her like a caress.
+
+"And I, you see, was like Sashenka. I loved a girl: a marvelous being, a
+wonder, a--guiding star; she was gentle and bright for me. I met her
+about twenty years ago, and from that time on I loved her. And I love
+her now, too, to speak the truth. I love her all so--with my whole
+soul--gratefully--forever!"
+
+Standing by his side the mother saw his eyes lighted from within by a
+clear, warm light. His hands folded over the back of the chair, and his
+head leaning on them, he looked into the distance; his whole body, lean
+and slender, but powerful, seemed to strive upward, like the stalk of a
+plant toward the sun.
+
+"Why didn't you marry? You should have!"
+
+"Oh, she's been married five years!"
+
+"And before that--what was the matter? Didn't she love you?"
+
+He thought a while, and answered:
+
+"Yes, apparently she loved me; I'm certain she did. But, you see, it was
+always this way: I was in prison, she was free; I was free, she was in
+prison or in exile. That's very much like Sasha's position, really.
+Finally they exiled her to Siberia for ten years. I wanted to follow
+her, but I was ashamed and she was ashamed, and I remained here. Then
+she met another man--a comrade of mine, a very good fellow, and they
+escaped together. Now they live abroad. Yes----"
+
+Nikolay took off his glasses, wiped them, held them up to the light and
+began to wipe them again.
+
+"Ah, you, my dear!" the mother exclaimed lovingly, shaking her head. She
+was sorry for him; at the same time something compelled her to smile a
+warm, motherly smile. He changed his pose, took the pen in his hand, and
+said, punctuating the rhythm of his speed with waves of his hand:
+
+"Family life always diminishes the energy of a revolutionist. Children
+must be maintained in security, and there's the need to work a great
+deal for one's bread. The revolutionist ought without cease to develop
+every iota of his energy; he must deepen and broaden it; but this
+demands time. He must always be at the head, because we--the
+workingmen--are called by the logic of history to destroy the old world,
+to create the new life; and if we stop, if we yield to exhaustion, or
+are attracted by the possibility of a little immediate conquest, it's
+bad--it's almost treachery to the cause. No revolutionist can adhere
+closely to an individual--walk through life side by side with another
+individual--without distorting his faith; and we must never forget that
+our aim is not little conquests, but only complete victory!"
+
+His voice became firm, his face paled, and his eyes kindled with the
+force that characterized him. The bell sounded again. It was Liudmila.
+She wore an overcoat too light for the season, her cheeks were purple
+with the cold. Removing her torn overshoes, she said in a vexed voice:
+
+"The date of the trial is appointed--in a week!"
+
+"Really?" shouted Nikolay from the room.
+
+The mother quickly walked up to him, not understanding whether fright or
+joy agitated her. Liudmila, keeping step with her, said, with irony in
+her low voice:
+
+"Yes, really! The assistant prosecuting attorney, Shostak, just now
+brought the incriminating acts. In the court they say, quite openly,
+that the sentence has already been fixed. What does it mean? Do the
+authorities fear that the judges will deal too mercifully with the
+enemies of the government? Having so long and so assiduously kept
+corrupting their servants, is the government still unassured of their
+readiness to be scoundrels?"
+
+Liudmila sat on the sofa, rubbing her lean cheeks with her palms; her
+dull eyes burned contemptuous scorn, and her voice filled with growing
+wrath.
+
+"You waste your powder for nothing, Liudmila!" Nikolay tried to soothe
+her. "They don't hear you."
+
+"Some day I'll compel them to hear me!"
+
+The black circles under her eyes trembled and threw an ominous shadow on
+her face. She bit her lips.
+
+"You go against me--that's your right; I'm your enemy. But in defending
+your power don't corrupt people; don't compel me to have instinctive
+contempt for them; don't dare to poison my soul with your cynicism!"
+
+Nikolay looked at her through his glasses, and screwing up his eyes,
+shook his head sadly. But she continued to speak as if those whom she
+detested stood before her. The mother listened with strained attention,
+understanding nothing, and instinctively repeating to herself one and
+the same words, "The trial--the trial will come off in a week!"
+
+She could not picture to herself what it would be like; how the judges
+would behave toward Pavel. Her thoughts muddled her brain, covered her
+eyes with a gray mist, and plunged her into something sticky, viscid,
+chilling and paining her body. The feeling grew, entered her blood, took
+possession of her heart, and weighed it down heavily, poisoning in it
+all that was alive and bold.
+
+Thus, in a cloud of perplexity and despondency under the load of painful
+expectations, she lived through one day, and a second day; but on the
+third day Sasha appeared and said to Nikolay:
+
+"Everything is ready--to-day, in an hour!"
+
+"Everything ready? So soon?" He was astonished.
+
+"Why shouldn't everything be ready? The only thing I had to do was to
+get a hiding place and clothes for Rybin. All the rest Godun took on
+himself. Rybin will have to go through only one ward of the city.
+Vyesovshchikov will meet him on the street, all disguised, of course.
+He'll throw an overcoat over him, give him a hat, and show him the way.
+I'll wait for him, change his clothes and lead him off."
+
+"Not bad! And who's this Godun?"
+
+"You've seen him! You gave talks to the locksmiths in his place."
+
+"Oh, I remember! A droll old man."
+
+"He's a soldier who served his time--a roofer, a man of little
+education, but with an inexhaustible fund of hatred for every kind of
+violence and for all men of violence. A bit of a philosopher!"
+
+The mother listened in silence to her, and something indistinct slowly
+dawned upon her.
+
+"Godun wants to free his nephew--you remember him? You liked Yevchenko,
+a blacksmith, quite a dude." Nikolay nodded his head. "Godun has
+arranged everything all right. But I'm beginning to doubt his success.
+The passages in the prison are used by all the inmates, and I think when
+the prisoners see the ladder many will want to run--" She closed her
+eyes and was silent for a while. The mother moved nearer to her.
+"They'll hinder one another."
+
+They all three stood before the window, the mother behind Nikolay and
+Sasha. Their rapid conversation roused in her a still stronger sense of
+uneasiness and anxiety.
+
+"I'm going there," the mother said suddenly.
+
+"Why?" asked Sasha.
+
+"Don't go, darling! Maybe you'll get caught. You mustn't!" Nikolay
+advised.
+
+The mother looked at them and softly, but persistently, repeated: "No;
+I'm going! I'm going!"
+
+They quickly exchanged glances, and Sasha, shrugging her shoulders,
+said:
+
+"Of course--hope is tenacious!"
+
+Turning to the mother she took her by the hand, leaned her head on her
+shoulder, and said in a new, simple voice, near to the heart of the
+mother:
+
+"But I'll tell you after all, mamma, you're waiting in vain--he won't
+try to escape!"
+
+"My dear darling!" exclaimed the mother, pressing Sasha to her
+tremulously. "Take me; I won't interfere with you; I don't believe it is
+possible--to escape!"
+
+"She'll go," said the girl simply to Nikolay.
+
+"That's your affair!" he answered, bowing his head.
+
+"We mustn't be together, mamma. You go to the garden in the lot. From
+there you can see the wall of the prison. But suppose they ask you what
+you are doing there?"
+
+Rejoiced, the mother answered confidently:
+
+"I'll think of what to say."
+
+"Don't forget that the overseers of the prison know you," said Sasha;
+"and if they see you there----"
+
+"They won't see me!" the mother laughed softly.
+
+An hour later she was in the lot by the prison. A sharp wind blew about
+her, pulled her dress, and beat against the frozen earth, rocked the old
+fence of the garden past which the woman walked, and rattled against the
+low wall of the prison; it flung up somebody's shouts from the court,
+scattered them in the air, and carried them up to the sky. There the
+clouds were racing quickly, little rifts opening in the blue height.
+
+Behind the mother lay the city; in front the cemetery; to the right,
+about seventy feet from her, the prison. Near the cemetery a soldier was
+leading a horse by a rein, and another soldier tramped noisily alongside
+him, shouted, whistled, and laughed. There was no one else near the
+prison. On the impulse of the moment the mother walked straight up to
+them. As she came near she shouted:
+
+"Soldiers! didn't you see a goat anywhere around here?"
+
+One of them answered:
+
+"No."
+
+She walked slowly past them, toward the fence of the cemetery, looking
+slantwise to the right and the back. Suddenly she felt her feet tremble
+and grow heavy, as if frozen to the ground. From the corner of the
+prison a man came along, walking quickly, like a lamplighter. He was a
+stooping man, with a little ladder on his shoulder. The mother, blinking
+in fright, quickly glanced at the soldiers; they were stamping their
+feet on one spot, and the horse was running around them. She looked at
+the ladder--he had already placed it against the wall and was climbing
+up without haste. He waved his hand in the courtyard, quickly let
+himself down, and disappeared around the corner. That very second the
+black head of Mikhail appeared on the wall, followed by his entire body.
+Another head, with a shaggy hat, emerged alongside of his. Two black
+lumps rolled to the ground; one disappeared around the corner; Mikhail
+straightened himself up and looked about.
+
+"Run, run!" whispered the mother, treading impatiently. Her ears were
+humming. Loud shouts were wafted to her. There on the wall appeared a
+third head. She clasped her hands in faintness. A light-haired head,
+without a beard, shook as if it wanted to tear itself away, but it
+suddenly disappeared behind the wall. The shouts came louder and louder,
+more and more boisterous. The wind scattered the thin trills of the
+whistles through the air. Mikhail walked along the wall--there! he was
+already beyond it, and traversed the open space between the prison and
+the houses of the city. It seemed to her as if he were walking very,
+very slowly, that he raised his head to no purpose. "Everyone who sees
+his face will remember it forever," and she whispered, "Faster! faster!"
+Behind the wall of the prison something slammed, the thin sound of
+broken glass was heard. One of the soldiers, planting his feet firmly on
+the ground, drew the horse to him, and the horse jumped. The other one,
+his fist at his mouth, shouted something in the direction of the prison,
+and as he shouted he turned his head sidewise, with his ear cocked.
+
+[Illustration: "'Run, run!' whispered the mother."]
+
+All attention, the mother turned her head in all directions, her eyes
+seeing everything, believing nothing. This thing which she had pictured
+as terrible and intricate was accomplished with extreme simplicity and
+rapidity, and the simpleness of the happenings stupefied her. Rybin was
+no longer to be seen--a tall man in a thin overcoat was walking there--a
+girl was running along. Three wardens jumped out from a corner of the
+prison; they ran side by side, stretching out their right hands. One of
+the soldiers rushed in front of them; the other ran around the horse,
+unsuccessfully trying to vault on the refractory animal, which kept
+jumping about. The whistles incessantly cut the air, their alarming,
+desperate shrieks aroused a consciousness of danger in the woman.
+Trembling, she walked along the fence of the cemetery, following the
+wardens; but they and the soldiers ran around the other corner of the
+prison and disappeared. They were followed at a run by the assistant
+overseer of the prison, whom she knew; his coat was unbuttoned. From
+somewhere policemen appeared, and people came running.
+
+The wind whistled, leaped about as if rejoicing, and carried the broken,
+confused shouts to the mother's ears.
+
+"It stands here all the time."
+
+"The ladder?"
+
+"What's the matter with you then? The devil take you!"
+
+"Arrest the soldiers!"
+
+"Policeman!"
+
+Whistles again. This hubbub delighted her and she strode on more boldly,
+thinking, "So, it's possible--_he_ could have done it!"
+
+But now pain for her son no longer entered her heart without pride in
+him also. And only fear for him weighed and oppressed her to
+stupefaction as before.
+
+From the corner of the fence opposite her a constable with a black,
+curly beard, and two policemen emerged.
+
+"Stop!" shouted the constable, breathing heavily. "Did you see--a
+man--with a beard--didn't he run by here?"
+
+She pointed to the garden and answered calmly:
+
+"He went that way!"
+
+"Yegorov, run! Whistle! Is it long ago?"
+
+"Yes--I should say--about a minute!"
+
+But the whistle drowned her voice. The constable, without waiting for an
+answer, precipitated himself in a gallop along the hillocky ground,
+waving his hands in the direction of the garden. After him, with bent
+head, and whistling, the policemen darted off.
+
+The mother nodded her head after them, and, satisfied with herself, went
+home. When she walked out of the field into the street a cab crossed her
+way. Raising her head she saw in the vehicle a young man with light
+mustache and a pale, worn face. He, too, regarded her. He sat slantwise.
+It must have been due to his position that his right shoulder was higher
+than his left.
+
+At home Nikolay met her joyously.
+
+"Alive? How did it go?"
+
+"It seems everything's been successful!"
+
+And slowly trying to reinstate all the details in her memory, she began
+to tell of the escape. Nikolay, too, was amazed at the success.
+
+"You see, we're lucky!" said Nikolay, rubbing his hands. "But how
+frightened I was on your account only God knows. You know what, Nilovna,
+take my friendly advice: don't be afraid of the trial. The sooner it's
+over and done with the sooner Pavel will be free. Believe me. I've
+already written to my sister to try to think what can be done for Pavel.
+Maybe he'll even escape on the road. And the trial is approximately like
+this." He began to describe to her the session of the court. She
+listened, and understood that he was afraid of something--that he wanted
+to inspirit her.
+
+"Maybe you think I'll say something to the judges?" she suddenly
+inquired. "That I'll beg them for something?"
+
+He jumped up, waved his hands at her, and said in an offended tone:
+
+"What are you talking about? You're insulting me!"
+
+"Excuse me, please; excuse me! I really _am_ afraid--of what I don't
+know."
+
+She was silent, letting her eyes wander about the room.
+
+"Sometimes it seems to me that they'll insult Pasha--scoff at him. 'Ah,
+you peasant!' they'll say. 'You son of a peasant! What's this mess
+you've cooked up?' And Pasha, proud as he is, he'll answer them so----!
+Or Andrey will laugh at them--and all the comrades there are hot-headed
+and honest. So I can't help thinking that something will suddenly
+happen. One of them will lose his patience, the others will support him,
+and the sentence will be so severe--you'll never see them again."
+
+Nikolay was silent, pulling his beard glumly as the mother continued:
+
+"It's impossible to drive this thought from my head. The trial is
+terrible to me. When they'll begin to take everything apart and weigh
+it--it's awful! It's not the sentence that's terrible, but the trial--I
+can't express it." She felt that Nikolay didn't understand her fear; and
+his inability to comprehend kept her from further analysis of her
+timidities, which, however, only increased and broadened during the
+three following days. Finally, on the day of the trial, she carried into
+the hall of the session a heavy dark load that bent her back and neck.
+
+In the street, acquaintances from the suburbs had greeted her. She had
+bowed in silence, rapidly making her way through the dense crowd in the
+corridor of the courthouse. In the hall she was met by relatives of the
+defendants, who also spoke to her in undertones. All the words seemed
+needless; she didn't understand them. Yet all the people were sullen,
+filled with the same mournful feeling which infected the mother and
+weighed her down.
+
+"Let's sit next to each other," suggested Sizov, going to a bench.
+
+She sat down obediently, settled her dress, and looked around. Green and
+crimson specks, with thin yellow threads between, slowly swam before her
+eyes.
+
+"Your son has ruined our Vasya," a woman sitting beside her said
+quietly.
+
+"You keep still, Natalya!" Sizov chided her angrily.
+
+Nilovna looked at the woman; it was the mother of Samoylov. Farther
+along sat her husband--bald-headed, bony-faced, dapper, with a large,
+bushy, reddish beard which trembled as he sat looking in front of
+himself, his eyes screwed up.
+
+A dull, immobile light entered through the high windows of the hall,
+outside of which snow glided and fell lingeringly on the ground. Between
+the windows hung a large portrait of the Czar in a massive frame of
+glaring gilt. Straight, austere folds of the heavy crimson window
+drapery dropped over either side of it. Before the portrait, across
+almost the entire breadth of the hall, stretched the table covered with
+green cloth. To the right of the wall, behind the grill, stood two
+wooden benches; to the left two rows of crimson armchairs. Attendants
+with green collars and yellow buttons on their abdomens ran noiselessly
+about the hall. A soft whisper hummed in the turbid atmosphere, and the
+odor was a composite of many odors as in a drug shop. All this--the
+colors, the glitter, the sounds and odors--pressed on the eyes and
+invaded the breast with each inhalation. It forced out live sensations,
+and filled the desolate heart with motionless, dismal awe.
+
+Suddenly one of the people said something aloud. The mother trembled.
+All arose; she, too, rose, seizing Sizov's hand.
+
+In the left corner of the hall a high door opened and an old man
+emerged, swinging to and fro. On his gray little face shook white,
+sparse whiskers; he wore eyeglasses; the upper lip, which was shaven,
+sank into his mouth as by suction; his sharp jawbones and his chin were
+supported by the high collar of his uniform; apparently there was no
+neck under the collar. He was supported under the arm from behind by a
+tall young man with a porcelain face, red and round. Following him three
+more men in uniforms embroidered in gold, and three garbed in civilian
+wear, moved in slowly. They stirred about the table for a long time and
+finally took seats in the armchairs. When they had sat down, one of them
+in unbuttoned uniform, with a sleepy, clean-shaven face, began to say
+something to the little old man, moving his puffy lips heavily and
+soundlessly. The old man listened, sitting strangely erect and immobile.
+Behind the glasses of his _pince-nez_ the mother saw two little
+colorless specks.
+
+At the end of the table, at the desk, stood a tall, bald man, who
+coughed and shoved papers about.
+
+The little old man swung forward and began to speak. He pronounced
+clearly the first words, but what followed seemed to creep without sound
+from his thin, gray lips.
+
+"I open----"
+
+"See!" whispered Sizov, nudging the mother softly and arising.
+
+In the wall behind the grill the door opened, a soldier came out with a
+bared saber on his shoulder; behind him appeared Pavel, Andrey, Fedya
+Mazin, the two Gusevs, Samoylov, Bukin, Somov, and five more young men
+whose names were unknown to the mother. Pavel smiled kindly; Andrey
+also, showing his teeth as he nodded to her. The hall, as it were,
+became lighter and simpler from their smile; the strained, unnatural
+silence was enlivened by their faces and movements. The greasy glitter
+of gold on the uniforms dimmed and softened. A waft of bold assurance,
+the breath of living power, reached the mother's heart and roused it. On
+the benches behind her, where up to that time the people had been
+waiting in crushed silence, a responsive, subdued hum was audible.
+
+"They're not trembling!" she heard Sizov whisper; and at her right side
+Samoylov's mother burst into soft sobs.
+
+"Silence!" came a stern shout.
+
+"I warn you beforehand," said the old man, "I shall have to----"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+
+Pavel and Andrey sat side by side; along with them on the first bench
+were Mazin, Samoylov, and the Gusevs. Andrey had shaved his beard, but
+his mustache had grown and hung down, and gave his round head the
+appearance of a seacow or walrus. Something new lay on his face;
+something sharp and biting in the folds about his mouth; something black
+in his eyes. On Mazin's upper lip two black streaks were limned, his
+face was fuller. Samoylov was just as curly-haired as before; and Ivan
+Gusev smiled just as broadly.
+
+"Ah, Fedka, Fedka!" whispered Sizov, drooping his head.
+
+The mother felt she could breathe more freely. She heard the indistinct
+questions of the old man, which he put without looking at the prisoners;
+and his head rested motionless on the collar of his uniform. She heard
+the calm, brief answers of her son. It seemed to her that the oldest
+judge and his associates could be neither evil nor cruel people. Looking
+carefully at their faces she tried to guess something, softly listening
+to the growth of a new hope in her breast.
+
+The porcelain-faced man read a paper indifferently; his even voice
+filled the hall with weariness, and the people, enfolded by it, sat
+motionless as if benumbed. Four lawyers softly but animatedly conversed
+with the prisoners. They all moved powerfully, briskly, and called to
+mind large blackbirds.
+
+On one side of the old man a judge with small, bleared eyes filled the
+armchair with his fat, bloated body. On the other side sat a stooping
+man with reddish mustache on his pale face. His head was wearily thrown
+on the back of the chair, his eyes, half-closed, he seemed to be
+reflecting over something. The face of the prosecuting attorney was also
+worn, bored, and unexpectant. Behind the judge sat the mayor of the
+city, a portly man, who meditatively stroked his cheek; the marshal of
+the nobility, a gray-haired, large-bearded, ruddy-faced man, with large,
+kind eyes; and the district elder, who wore a sleeveless peasant
+overcoat, and possessed a huge belly which apparently embarrassed him;
+he endeavored to cover it with the folds of his overcoat, but it always
+slid down and showed again.
+
+"There are no criminals here and no judges," Pavel's vigorous voice was
+heard. "There are only captives here, and conquerors!"
+
+Silence fell. For a few seconds the mother's ears heard only the thin,
+hasty scratch of the pen on the paper and the beating of her own heart.
+
+The oldest judge also seemed to be listening to something from afar. His
+associates stirred. Then he said:
+
+"Hm! yes--Andrey Nakhodka, do you admit----"
+
+Somebody whispered, "Rise!"
+
+Andrey slowly rose, straightened himself, and pulling his mustache
+looked at the old man from the corners of his eyes.
+
+"Yes! To what can I confess myself guilty?" said the Little Russian in
+his slow, surging voice, shrugging his shoulders. "I did not murder nor
+steal; I simply am not in agreement with an order of life in which
+people are compelled to rob and kill one another."
+
+"Answer briefly--yes or no?" the old man said with an effort, but
+distinctly.
+
+On the benches back of her the mother felt there was animation; the
+people began to whisper to one another about something and stirred,
+sighing as if freeing themselves from the cobweb spun about them by the
+gray words of the porcelain-faced man.
+
+"Do you hear how they speak?" whispered Sizov.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Fedor Mazin, answer!"
+
+"I don't want to!" said Fedya clearly, jumping to his feet. His face
+reddened with excitation, his eyes sparkled. For some reason he hid his
+hands behind his back.
+
+Sizov groaned softly, and the mother opened her eyes wide in
+astonishment.
+
+"I declined a defense--I'm not going to say anything--I don't regard
+your court as legal! Who are you? Did the people give you the right to
+judge us? No, they did not! I don't know you." He sat down and concealed
+his heated face behind Andrey's shoulders.
+
+The fat judge inclined his head to the old judge and whispered
+something. The old judge, pale-faced, raised his eyelids and slanted his
+eyes at the prisoners, then extended his hand on the table, and wrote
+something in pencil on a piece of paper lying before him. The district
+elder swung his head, carefully shifting his feet, rested his abdomen on
+his knees, and his hands on his abdomen. Without moving his head the old
+judge turned his body to the red-mustached judge, and began to speak to
+him quickly. The red-mustached judge inclined his head to listen. The
+marshal of the nobility conversed with the prosecuting attorney; the
+mayor of the city listened and smiled, rubbing his cheek. Again the dull
+speech of the old judge was heard. All four lawyers listened
+attentively. The prisoners exchanged whispers with one another, and
+Fedya, smiling in confusion, hid his face.
+
+"How he cut them off! Straight, downright, better than all!" Sizov
+whispered in amazement in the ear of the mother. "Ah, you little boy!"
+
+The mother smiled in perplexity. The proceedings seemed to be nothing
+but the necessary preliminary to something terrible, which would appear
+and at once stifle everybody with its cold horror. But the calm words of
+Pavel and Andrey had sounded so fearless and firm, as if uttered in the
+little house of the suburb, and not in the presence of the court.
+Fedya's hot, youthful sally amused her; something bold and fresh grew up
+in the hall, and she guessed from the movement of the people back of her
+that she was not the only one who felt this.
+
+"Your opinion," said the old judge.
+
+The bald-headed prosecuting attorney arose, and, steadying himself on
+the desk with one hand, began to speak rapidly, quoting figures. In his
+voice nothing terrible was heard.
+
+At the same time, however, a sudden dry, shooting attack disturbed the
+heart of the mother. It was an uneasy suspicion of something hostile to
+her, which did not threaten, did not shout, but unfolded itself unseen,
+soundless, intangible. It swung lazily and dully about the judges, as if
+enveloping them with an impervious cloud, through which nothing from the
+outside could reach them. She looked at them. They were incomprehensible
+to her. They were not angry at Pavel or at Fedya; they did not shout at
+the young men, as she had expected; they did not abuse them in words,
+but put all their questions reluctantly, with the air of "What's the
+use?". It cost them an effort to hear the answers to the end. Apparently
+they lacked interest because they knew everything beforehand.
+
+There before her stood the gendarme, and spoke in a bass voice:
+
+"Pavel Vlasov was named as the ringleader."
+
+"And Nakhodka?" asked the fat judge in his lazy undertone.
+
+"He, too."
+
+"May I----"
+
+The old judge asked a question of somebody:
+
+"You have nothing?"
+
+All the judges seemed to the mother to be worn out and ill. A sickened
+weariness marked their poses and voices, a sickened weariness and a
+bored, gray _ennui_. It was an evident nuisance to them, all this--the
+uniforms, the hall, the gendarmes, the lawyers, the obligation to sit in
+armchairs, and to put questions concerning things perforce already known
+to them. The mother in general was but little acquainted with the
+masters; she had scarcely ever seen them; and now she regarded the faces
+of the judges as something altogether new and incomprehensible,
+deserving pity, however, rather than inspiring horror.
+
+The familiar, yellow-faced officer stood before them, and told about
+Pavel and Andrey, stretching the words with an air of importance. The
+mother involuntarily laughed, and thought: "You don't know much, my
+little father."
+
+And now, as she looked at the people behind the grill, she ceased to
+feel dread for them; they did not evoke alarm, pity was not for them;
+they one and all called forth in her only admiration and love, which
+warmly embraced her heart; the admiration was calm, the love joyously
+distinct. There they sat to one side, by the wall, young, sturdy,
+scarcely taking any part in the monotonous talk of the witnesses and
+judges, or in the disputes of the lawyers with the prosecuting attorney.
+They behaved as if the talk did not concern them in the least. Sometimes
+somebody would laugh contemptuously, and say something to the comrades,
+across whose faces, then, a sarcastic smile would also quickly pass.
+Andrey and Pavel conversed almost the entire time with one of their
+lawyers, whom the mother had seen the day before at Nikolay's, and had
+heard Nikolay address as comrade. Mazin, brisker and more animated than
+the others, listened to the conversation. Now and then Samoylov said
+something to Ivan Gusev; and the mother noticed that each time Ivan gave
+a slight elbow nudge to a comrade, he could scarcely restrain a laugh;
+his face would grow red, his cheeks would puff up, and he would have to
+incline his head. He had already sniffed a couple of times, and for
+several minutes afterward sat with blown cheeks trying to be serious.
+Thus, in each comrade his youth played and sparkled after his fashion,
+lightly bursting the restraint he endeavored to put upon its lively
+effervescence. She looked, compared, and reflected. She was unable to
+understand or express in words her uneasy feeling of hostility.
+
+Sizov touched her lightly with his elbow; she turned to him, and found a
+look of contentment and slight preoccupation on his face.
+
+"Just see how they've intrenched themselves in their defiance! Fine
+stuff in 'em! Eh? Barons, eh? Well, and yet they're going to be
+sentenced!"
+
+The mother listened, unconsciously repeating to herself:
+
+"Who will pass the sentence? Whom will they sentence?"
+
+The witnesses spoke quickly, in their colorless voices, the judges
+reluctantly and listlessly. Their bloodless, worn-out faces stared into
+space unconcernedly. They did not expect to see or hear anything new. At
+times the fat judge yawned, covering his smile with his puffy hand,
+while the red-mustached judge grew still paler, and sometimes raised his
+hand to press his finger tightly on the bone of his temple, as he looked
+up to the ceiling with sorrowful, widened eyes. The prosecuting attorney
+infrequently scribbled on his paper, and then resumed his soundless
+conversation with the marshal of the nobility, who stroked his gray
+beard, rolled his large, beautiful eyes, and smiled, nodding his head
+with importance. The city mayor sat with crossed legs, and beat a
+noiseless tattoo on his knee, giving the play of his fingers
+concentrated attention. The only one who listened to the monotonous
+murmur of the voices seemed to be the district elder, who sat with
+inclined head, supporting his abdomen on his knees and solicitously
+holding it up with his hands. The old judge, deep in his armchair, stuck
+there immovably. The proceedings continued to drag on in this way for a
+long, long time; and _ennui_ again numbed the people with its heavy,
+sticky embrace.
+
+The mother saw that this large hall was not yet pervaded by that cold,
+threatening justice which sternly uncovers the soul, examines it, and
+seeing everything estimates its value with incorruptible eyes, weighing
+it rigorously with honest hands. Here was nothing to frighten her by its
+power or majesty.
+
+"I declare--" said the old judge clearly, and arose as he crushed the
+following words with his thin lips.
+
+The noise of sighs and low exclamations, of coughing and scraping of
+feet, filled the hall as the court retired for a recess. The prisoners
+were led away. As they walked out, they nodded their heads to their
+relatives and familiars with a smile, and Ivan Gusev shouted to somebody
+in a modulated voice:
+
+"Don't lose courage, Yegor."
+
+The mother and Sizov walked out into the corridor.
+
+"Will you go to the tavern with me to take some tea?" the old man asked
+her solicitously. "We have an hour and a half's time."
+
+"I don't want to."
+
+"Well, then I won't go, either. No, say! What fellows those are! They
+act as if they were the only real people, and the rest nothing at all.
+They'll all go scot-free, I'm sure. Look at Fedka, eh?"
+
+Samoylov's father came up to them holding his hat in his hand. He smiled
+sullenly and said:
+
+"My Vasily! He declined a defense, and doesn't want to palaver. He was
+the first to have the idea. Yours, Pelagueya, stood for lawyers; and
+mine said: 'I don't want one.' And four declined after him. Hm, ye-es."
+
+At his side stood his wife. She blinked frequently, and wiped her nose
+with the end of her handkerchief. Samoylov took his beard in his hand,
+and continued looking at the floor.
+
+"Now, this is the queer thing about it: you look at them, those devils,
+and you think they got up all this at random--they're ruining themselves
+for nothing. And suddenly you begin to think: 'And maybe they're right!'
+You remember that in the factory more like them keep on coming, keep on
+coming. They always get caught; but they're not destroyed, no more than
+common fish in the river get destroyed. No. And again you think, 'And
+maybe power is with them, too.'"
+
+"It's hard for us, Stepan Petrov, to understand this affair," said
+Sizov.
+
+"It's hard, yes," agreed Samoylov.
+
+His wife noisily drawing in air through her nose remarked:
+
+"They're all strong, those imps!" With an unrestrained smile on her
+broad, wizened face, she continued: "You, Nilovna, don't be angry with
+me because I just now slapped you, when I said that your son is to
+blame. A dog can tell who's the more to blame, to tell you the truth.
+Look at the gendarmes and the spies, what they said about our Vasily! He
+has shown what he can do too!"
+
+She apparently was proud of her son, perhaps even without understanding
+her feeling; but the mother did understand her feeling, and answered
+with a kind smile and quiet words:
+
+"A young heart is always nearer to the truth."
+
+People rambled about the corridor, gathered into groups, speaking
+excitedly and thoughtfully in hollow voices. Scarcely anybody stood
+alone; all faces bore evidence of a desire to speak, to ask, to listen.
+In the narrow white passageway the people coiled about in sinuous
+curves, like dust carried in circles before a powerful wind. Everybody
+seemed to be seeking something hard and firm to stand upon.
+
+The older brother of Bukin, a tall, red-faced fellow, waved his hands
+and turned about rapidly in all directions.
+
+"The district elder Klepanov has no place in this case," he declared
+aloud.
+
+"Keep still, Konstantin!" his father, a little old man, tried to
+dissuade him, and looked around cautiously.
+
+"No; I'm going to speak out! There's a rumor afloat about him that last
+year he killed a clerk of his on account of the clerk's wife. What kind
+of a judge is he? permit me to ask. He lives with the wife of his
+clerk--what have you got to say to that? Besides, he's a well-known
+thief!"
+
+"Oh, my little father--Konstantin!"
+
+"True!" said Samoylov. "True, the court is not a very just one."
+
+Bukin heard his voice and quickly walked up to him, drawing the whole
+crowd after him. Red with excitement, he waved his hands and said:
+
+"For thievery, for murder, jurymen do the trying. They're common people,
+peasants, merchants, if you please; but for going against the
+authorities you're tried by the authorities. How's that?"
+
+"Konstantin! Why are they against the authorities? Ah, you! They----"
+
+"No, wait! Fedor Mazin said the truth. If you insult me, and I land you
+one on your jaw, and you try me for it, of course I'm going to turn out
+guilty. But the first offender--who was it? You? Of course, you!"
+
+The watchman, a gray man with a hooked nose and medals on his chest,
+pushed the crowd apart, and said to Bukin, shaking his finger at him:
+
+"Hey! don't shout! Don't you know where you are? Do you think this is a
+saloon?"
+
+"Permit me, my cavalier, I know where I am. Listen! If I strike you and
+you me, and I go and try you, what would you think?"
+
+"And I'll order you out," said the watchman sternly.
+
+"Where to? What for?"
+
+"Into the street, so that you shan't bawl."
+
+"The chief thing for them is that people should keep their mouths shut."
+
+"And what do you think?" the old man bawled. Bukin threw out his hands,
+and again measuring the public with his eyes, began to speak in a lower
+voice:
+
+"And again--why are the people not permitted to be at the trial, but
+only the relatives? If you judge righteously, then judge in front of
+everybody. What is there to be afraid of?"
+
+Samoylov repeated, but this time in a louder tone:
+
+"The trial is not altogether just, that's true."
+
+The mother wanted to say to him that she had heard from Nikolay of the
+dishonesty of the court; but she had not wholly comprehended Nikolay,
+and had forgotten some of his words. While trying to recall them she
+moved aside from the people, and noticed that somebody was looking at
+her--a young man with a light mustache. He held his right hand in the
+pocket of his trousers, which made his left shoulder seem lower than the
+right, and this peculiarity of his figure seemed familiar to the mother.
+But he turned from her, and she again lost herself in the endeavor to
+recollect, and forgot about him immediately. In a minute, however, her
+ear was caught by the low question:
+
+"This woman on the left?"
+
+And somebody in a louder voice cheerfully answered:
+
+"Yes."
+
+She looked around. The man with the uneven shoulders stood sidewise
+toward her, and said something to his neighbor, a black-bearded fellow
+with a short overcoat and boots up to his knees.
+
+Again her memory stirred uneasily, but did not yield any distinct
+results.
+
+The watchman opened the door of the hall, and shouted:
+
+"Relatives, enter; show your tickets!"
+
+A sullen voice said lazily:
+
+"Tickets! Like a circus!"
+
+All the people now showed signs of a dull excitement, an uneasy passion.
+They began to behave more freely, and hummed and disputed with the
+watchman.
+
+Sitting down on the bench, Sizov mumbled something to the mother.
+
+"What is it?" asked the mother.
+
+"Oh, nothing--the people are fools! They know nothing; they live groping
+about and groping about."
+
+The bellman rang; somebody announced indifferently:
+
+"The session has begun!"
+
+Again all arose, and again, in the same order, the judges filed in and
+sat down; then the prisoners were led in.
+
+"Pay attention!" whispered Sizov; "the prosecuting attorney is going to
+speak."
+
+The mother craned her neck and extended her whole body. She yielded anew
+to expectation of the horrible.
+
+Standing sidewise toward the judges, his head turned to them, leaning
+his elbow on the desk, the prosecuting attorney sighed, and abruptly
+waving his right hand in the air, began to speak:
+
+The mother could not make out the first words. The prosecuting
+attorney's voice was fluent, thick; it sped on unevenly, now a bit
+slower, now a bit faster. His words stretched out in a thin line, like a
+gray seam; suddenly they burst out quickly and whirled like a flock of
+black flies around a piece of sugar. But she did not find anything
+horrible in them, nothing threatening. Cold as snow, gray as ashes, they
+fell and fell, filling the hall with something which recalled a slushy
+day in early autumn. Scant in feeling, rich in words, the speech seemed
+not to reach Pavel and his comrades. Apparently it touched none of them;
+they all sat there quite composed, smiling at times as before, and
+conversed without sound. At times they frowned to cover up their smiles.
+
+"He lies!" whispered Sizov.
+
+She could not have said it. She understood that the prosecuting attorney
+charged all the comrades with guilt, not singling out any one of them.
+After having spoken about Pavel, he spoke about Fedya, and having put
+him side by side with Pavel, he persistently thrust Bukin up against
+them. It seemed as if he packed and sewed them into a sack, piling them
+up on top of one another. But the external sense of his words did not
+satisfy, did not touch, did not frighten her. She still waited for the
+horrible, and rigorously sought something beyond his words--something in
+his face, his eyes, his voice, in his white hand, which slowly glided in
+the air. Something terrible must be there; she felt it, but it was
+impalpable; it did not yield to her consciousness, which again covered
+her heart with a dry, pricking dust.
+
+She looked at the judges. There was no gainsaying that they were bored
+at having to listen to this speech. The lifeless, yellow faces expressed
+nothing. The sickly, the fat, or the extremely lean, motionless dead
+spots all grew dimmer and dimmer in the dull _ennui_ that filled the
+hall. The words of the prosecuting attorney spurted into the air like a
+haze imperceptible to the eye, growing and thickening around the judges,
+enveloping them more closely in a cloud of dry indifference, of weary
+waiting. At times one of them changed his pose; but the lazy movement of
+the tired body did not rouse their drowsy souls. The oldest judge did
+not stir at all; he was congealed in his erect position, and the gray
+blots behind the eyeglasses at times disappeared, seeming to spread over
+his whole face. The mother realized this dead indifference, this
+unconcern without malice in it, and asked herself in perplexity, "Are
+they judging?"
+
+The question pressed her heart, and gradually squeezed out of it her
+expectation of the horrible. It pinched her throat with a sharp feeling
+of wrong.
+
+The speech of the prosecuting attorney snapped off unexpectedly. He made
+a few quick, short steps, bowed to the judges, and sat down, rubbing his
+hands. The marshal of the nobility nodded his head to him, rolling his
+eyes; the city mayor extended his hand, and the district elder stroked
+his belly and smiled.
+
+But the judges apparently were not delighted by the speech, and did not
+stir.
+
+"The scabby devil!" Sizov whispered the oath.
+
+"Next," said the old judge, bringing the paper to his face, "lawyers for
+the defendants, Fedoseyev, Markov, Zagarov."
+
+The lawyer whom the mother had seen at Nikolay's arose. His face was
+broad and good-natured; his little eyes smiled radiantly and seemed to
+thrust out from under his eyebrows two sharp blades, which cut the air
+like scissors. He spoke without haste, resonantly, and clearly; but the
+mother was unable to listen to his speech. Sizov whispered in her ear:
+
+"Did you understand what he said? Did you understand? 'People,' he says,
+'are poor, they are all upset, insensate.' Is that Fedor? He says they
+don't understand anything; they're savages."
+
+The feeling of wrong grew, and passed into revolt. Along with the quick,
+loud voice of the lawyer, time also passed more quickly.
+
+"A live, strong man having in his breast a sensitive, honest
+heart cannot help rebelling with all his force against this life
+so full of open cynicism, corruption, falsehood, and so blunted by
+vapidity. The eyes of honest people cannot help seeing such glaring
+contradictions----"
+
+The judge with the green face bent toward the president and whispered
+something to him; then the old man said dryly:
+
+"Please be more careful!"
+
+"Ha!" Sizov exclaimed softly.
+
+"Are they judging?" thought the mother, and the word seemed hollow and
+empty as an earthen vessel. It seemed to make sport of her fear of the
+terrible.
+
+"They're a sort of dead body," she answered the old man.
+
+"Don't fear; they're livening up."
+
+She looked at them, and she actually saw something like a shadow of
+uneasiness on the faces of the judges. Another man was already speaking,
+a little lawyer with a sharp, pale, satiric face. He spoke very
+respectfully:
+
+"With all due respect, I permit myself to call the attention of the
+court to the solid manner of the honorable prosecuting attorney, to the
+conduct of the safety department, or, as such people are called in
+common parlance, spies----"
+
+The judge with the green face again began to whisper something to the
+president. The prosecuting attorney jumped up. The lawyer continued
+without changing his voice:
+
+"The spy Gyman tells us about the witness: 'I frightened him.' The
+prosecuting attorney also, as the court has heard, frightened witnesses;
+as a result of which act, at the insistence of the defense, he called
+forth a rebuke from the presiding judge."
+
+The prosecuting attorney began to speak quickly and angrily; the old
+judge followed suit; the lawyer listened to them respectfully, inclining
+his head. Then he said:
+
+"I can even change the position of my words if the prosecuting attorney
+deems it is not in the right place; but that will not change the plan of
+my defense. However, I cannot understand the excitement of the
+prosecuting attorney."
+
+"Go for him!" said Sizov. "Go for him, tooth and nail! Pick him open
+down to his soul, wherever that may be!"
+
+The hall became animated; a fighting passion flared up; the defense
+attacked from all sides, provoking and disturbing the judges, driving
+away the cold haze that enveloped them, pricking the old skin of the
+judges with sharp words. The judges had the air of moving more closely
+to one another, or suddenly they would puff and swell, repulsing the
+sharp, caustic raps with the mass of their soft, mellow bodies. They
+acted as if they feared that the blow of the opponent might call forth
+an echo in their empty bosoms, might shake their resolution, which
+sprang not from their own will but from a will strange to them. Feeling
+this conflict, the people on the benches back of the mother sighed and
+whispered.
+
+But suddenly Pavel arose; tense quiet prevailed. The mother stretched
+her entire body forward.
+
+"A party man, I recognize only the court of my party and will not speak
+in my defense. According to the desire of my comrades, I, too, declined
+a defense. I will merely try to explain to you what you don't
+understand. The prosecuting attorney designated our coming out under the
+banner of the Social Democracy as an uprising against the superior
+power, and regarded us as nothing but rebels against the Czar. I must
+declare to you that to us the Czar is not the only chain that fetters
+the body of the country. We are obliged to tear off only the first and
+nearest chain from the people."
+
+The stillness deepened under the sound of the firm voice; it seemed to
+widen the space between the walls of the hall. Pavel, by his words,
+removed the people to a distance from himself, and thereby grew in the
+eyes of the mother. His stony, calm, proud face with the beard, his high
+forehead, and blue eyes, somewhat stern, all became more dazzling and
+more prominent.
+
+The judges began to stir heavily and uneasily; the marshal of the
+nobility was the first to whisper something to the judge with the
+indolent face. The judge nodded his head and turned to the old man; on
+the other side of him the sick judge was talking. Rocking back and forth
+in the armchair, the old judge spoke to Pavel, but his voice was drowned
+in the even, broad current of the young man's speech.
+
+"We are Socialists! That means we are enemies to private property, which
+separates people, arms them against one another, and brings forth an
+irreconcilable hostility of interests; brings forth lies that endeavor
+to cover up, or to justify, this conflict of interests, and corrupt all
+with falsehood, hypocrisy and malice. We maintain that a society that
+regards man only as a tool for its enrichment is anti-human; it is
+hostile to us; we cannot be reconciled to its morality; its double-faced
+and lying cynicism. Its cruel relation to individuals is repugnant to
+us. We want to fight, and will fight, every form of the physical and
+moral enslavement of man by such a society; we will fight every measure
+calculated to disintegrate society for the gratification of the
+interests of gain. We are workers--men by whose labor everything is
+created, from gigantic machines to childish toys. We are people devoid
+of the right to fight for our human dignity. Everyone strives to utilize
+us, and may utilize us, as tools for the attainment of his ends. Now we
+want to have as much freedom as will give us the possibility in time to
+come to conquer all the power. Our slogan is simple: 'All the power for
+the people; all the means of production for the people; work obligatory
+on all. Down with private property!' You see, we are not rebels."
+
+Pavel smiled, and the kindly fire of his blue eyes blazed forth more
+brilliantly.
+
+"Please, more to the point!" said the presiding judge distinctly and
+aloud. He turned his chest to Pavel, and regarded him. It seemed to the
+mother that his dim left eye began to burn with a sinister, greedy fire.
+The look all the judges cast on her son made her uneasy for him. She
+fancied that their eyes clung to his face, stuck to his body, thirsted
+for his blood, by which they might reanimate their own worn-out bodies.
+And he, erect and tall, standing firmly and vigorously, stretched out
+his hand to them while he spoke distinctly:
+
+"We are revolutionists, and will be such as long as private property
+exists, as long as some merely command, and as long as others merely
+work. We take stand against the society whose interests you are bidden
+to protect as your irreconcilable enemies, and reconciliation between us
+is impossible until we shall have been victorious. We will conquer--we
+workingmen! Your society is not at all so powerful as it thinks itself.
+That very property, for the production and preservation of which it
+sacrifices millions of people enslaved by it--that very force which
+gives it the power over us--stirs up discord within its own ranks,
+destroys them physically and morally. Property requires extremely great
+efforts for its protection; and in reality all of you, our rulers, are
+greater slaves than we--you are enslaved spiritually, we only
+physically. _You_ cannot withdraw from under the weight of your
+prejudices and habits, the weight which deadens you spiritually; nothing
+hinders _us_ from being inwardly free. The poisons with which you poison
+us are weaker than the antidote you unwittingly administer to our
+consciences. This antidote penetrates deeper and deeper into the body of
+workingmen; the flames mount higher and higher, sucking in the best
+forces, the spiritual powers, the healthy elements even from among you.
+Look! Not one of you can any longer fight for your power as an ideal!
+You have already expended all the arguments capable of guarding you
+against the pressure of historic justice. You can create nothing new in
+the domain of ideas; you are spiritually barren. Our ideas grow; they
+flare up ever more dazzling; they seize hold of the mass of the people,
+organizing them for the war of freedom. The consciousness of their great
+role unites all the workingmen of the world into one soul. You have no
+means whereby to hinder this renovating process in life except cruelty
+and cynicism. But your cynicism is very evident, your cruelty
+exasperates, and the hands with which you stifle us to-day will press
+our hands in comradeship to-morrow. Your energy, the mechanical energy
+of the increase of gold, separates you, too, into groups destined to
+devour one another. Our energy is a living power, founded on the
+ever-growing consciousness of the solidarity of all workingmen.
+Everything you do is criminal, for it is directed toward the enslavement
+of the people. Our work frees the world from the delusions and monsters
+which are produced by your malice and greed, and which intimidate the
+people. You have torn man away from life and disintegrated him.
+Socialism will unite the world, rent asunder by you, into one huge
+whole. And this will be!"
+
+Pavel stopped for a second, and repeated in a lower tone, with greater
+emphasis, "This will be!"
+
+The judges whispered to one another, making strange grimaces. And still
+their greedy looks were fastened on the body of Nilovna's son. The
+mother felt that their gaze tarnished this supple, vigorous body; that
+they envied its strength, power, freshness. The prisoners listened
+attentively to the speech of their comrade; their faces whitened, their
+eyes flashed joy. The mother drank in her son's words, which cut
+themselves into her memory in regular rows. The old judge stopped Pavel
+several times and explained something to him. Once he even smiled sadly.
+Pavel listened to him silently, and again began to speak in an austere
+but calm voice, compelling everybody to listen to him, subordinating the
+will of the judges to his will. This lasted for a long time. Finally,
+however, the old man shouted, extending his hand to Pavel, whose voice
+in response flowed on calmly, somewhat sarcastically.
+
+"I am reaching my conclusion. To insult you personally was not my
+desire; on the contrary, as an involuntary witness to this comedy which
+you call a court trial, I feel almost compassion for you, I may say. You
+are human beings after all; and it is saddening to see human beings,
+even our enemies, so shamefully debased in the service of violence,
+debased to such a degree that they lose consciousness of their human
+dignity."
+
+He sat down without looking at the judges.
+
+Andrey, all radiant with joy, pressed his hand firmly; Samoylov, Mazin,
+and the rest animatedly stretched toward him. He smiled, a bit
+embarrassed by the transport of his comrades. He looked toward his
+mother, and nodded his head as if asking, "Is it so?"
+
+She answered him all a-tremble, all suffused with warm joy.
+
+"There, now the trial has begun!" whispered Sizov. "How he gave it to
+them! Eh, mother?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+
+She silently nodded her head and smiled, satisfied that her son had
+spoken so bravely, perhaps still more satisfied that he had finished.
+The thought darted through her mind that the speech was likely to
+increase the dangers threatening Pavel; but her heart palpitated with
+pride, and his words seemed to settle in her bosom.
+
+Andrey arose, swung his body forward, looked at the judges sidewise, and
+said:
+
+"Gentlemen of the defense----"
+
+"The court is before you, and not the defense!" observed the judge of
+the sickly face angrily and loudly. By Andrey's expression the mother
+perceived that he wanted to tease them. His mustache quivered. A
+cunning, feline smirk familiar to her lighted up his eyes. He stroked
+his head with his long hands, and fetched a breath.
+
+"Is that so?" he said, swinging his head. "I think not. That you are not
+the judges, but only the defendants----"
+
+"I request you to adhere to what directly pertains to the case,"
+remarked the old man dryly.
+
+"To what directly pertains to the case? Very well! I've already
+compelled myself to think that you are in reality judges, independent
+people, honest----"
+
+"The court has no need of your characterization."
+
+"It has no need of _such_ a characterization? Hey? Well, but after all
+I'm going to continue. You are men who make no distinction between your
+own and strangers. You are free people. Now, here two parties stand
+before you; one complains, 'He robbed me and did me up completely'; and
+the other answers, 'I have a right to rob and to do up because I have
+arms'----"
+
+"Please don't tell anecdotes."
+
+"Why, I've heard that old people like anecdotes--naughty ones in
+particular."
+
+"I'll prohibit you from speaking. You may say something about what
+directly pertains to the case. Speak, but without buffoonery, without
+unbecoming sallies."
+
+The Little Russian looked at the judges, silently rubbing his head.
+
+"About what directly pertains to the case?" he asked seriously. "Yes;
+but why should I speak to you about what directly pertains to the case?
+What you need to know my comrade has told you. The rest will be told
+you; the time will come, by others----"
+
+The old judge rose and declared:
+
+"I forbid you to speak. Vasily Samoylov!"
+
+Pressing his lips together firmly the Little Russian dropped down lazily
+on the bench, and Samoylov arose alongside of him, shaking his curly
+hair.
+
+"The prosecuting attorney called my comrades and me 'savages,' 'enemies
+of civilization'----"
+
+"You must speak only about that which pertains to your case."
+
+"This pertains to the case. There's nothing which does not pertain to
+honest men, and I ask you not to interrupt me. I ask you what sort of a
+thing is your civilization?"
+
+"We are not here for discussions with you. To the point!" said the old
+judge, showing his teeth.
+
+Andrey's demeanor had evidently changed the conduct of the judges; his
+words seemed to have wiped something away from them. Stains appeared on
+their gray faces. Cold, green sparks burned in their eyes. Pavel's
+speech had excited but subdued them; it restrained their agitation by
+its force, which involuntarily inspired respect. The Little Russian
+broke away this restraint and easily bared what lay underneath. They
+looked at Samoylov, and whispered to one another with strange, wry
+faces. They also began to move extremely quickly for them. They gave the
+impression of desiring to seize him and howl while torturing his body
+with voluptuous ecstasy.
+
+"You rear spies, you deprave women and girls, you put men in the
+position which forces them to thievery and murder; you corrupt them with
+whisky--international butchery, universal falsehood, depravity, and
+savagery--that's your civilization! Yes, we are enemies of this
+civilization!"
+
+"Please!" shouted the old judge, shaking his chin; but Samoylov, all
+red, his eyes flashing, also shouted:
+
+"But we respect and esteem another civilization, the creators of which
+you have persecuted, you have allowed to rot in dungeons, you have
+driven mad----"
+
+"I forbid you to speak! Hm-- Fedor Mazin!"
+
+Little Mazin popped up like a cork from a champagne bottle, and said in
+a staccato voice:
+
+"I--I swear!--I know you have convicted me----"
+
+He lost breath and paled; his eyes seemed to devour his entire face. He
+stretched out his hand and shouted:
+
+"I--upon my honest word! Wherever you send me--I'll escape--I'll
+return--I'll work always--all my life! Upon my honest word!"
+
+Sizov quacked aloud. The entire public, overcome by the mounting wave of
+excitement, hummed strangely and dully. One woman cried, some one choked
+and coughed. The gendarmes regarded the prisoners with dull surprise,
+the public with a sinister look. The judges shook, the old man shouted
+in a thin voice:
+
+"Ivan Gusev!"
+
+"I don't want to speak."
+
+"Vasily Gusev!"
+
+"Don't want to."
+
+"Fedor Bukin!"
+
+The whitish, faded fellow lifted himself heavily, and shaking his head
+slowly said in a thick voice:
+
+"You ought to be ashamed. I am a heavy man, and yet I
+understand--justice!" He raised his hand higher than his head and was
+silent, half-closing his eyes as if looking at something at a distance.
+
+"What is it?" shouted the old judge in excited astonishment, dropping
+back in his armchair.
+
+"Oh, well, what's the use?"
+
+Bukin sullenly let himself down on the bench. There was something big
+and serious in his dark eyes, something somberly reproachful and naive.
+Everybody felt it; even the judges listened, as if waiting for an echo
+clearer than his words. On the public benches all commotion died down
+immediately; only a low weeping swung in the air. Then the prosecuting
+attorney, shrugging his shoulders, grinned and said something to the
+marshal of the nobility, and whispers gradually buzzed again excitedly
+through the hall.
+
+Weariness enveloped the mother's body with a stifling faintness. Small
+drops of perspiration stood on her forehead. Samoylov's mother stirred
+on the bench, nudging her with her shoulder and elbow, and said to her
+husband in a subdued whisper:
+
+"How is this, now? Is it possible?"
+
+"You see, it's possible."
+
+"But what is going to happen to him, to Vasily?"
+
+"Keep still. Stop."
+
+The public was jarred by something it did not understand. All blinked in
+perplexity with blinded eyes, as if dazzled by the sudden blazing up of
+an object, indistinct in outline, of unknown meaning, but with horrible
+drawing power. And since the people did not comprehend this great thing
+dawning on them, they contracted its significance into something small,
+the meaning of which was evident and clear to them. The elder Bukin,
+therefore, whispered aloud without constraint:
+
+"Say, please, why don't they permit them to talk? The prosecuting
+attorney can say everything, and as much as he wants to----"
+
+A functionary stood at the benches, and waving his hands at the people,
+said in a half voice:
+
+"Quiet, quiet!"
+
+The father of Samoylov threw himself back, and ejaculated broken words
+behind his wife's ear:
+
+"Of course--let us say they are guilty--but you'll let them explain.
+What is it they have gone against? Against everything--I wish to
+understand--I, too, have my interest." And suddenly: "Pavel says the
+truth, hey? I want to understand. Let them speak."
+
+"Keep still!" exclaimed the functionary, shaking his finger at him.
+
+Sizov nodded his head sullenly.
+
+But the mother kept her gaze fastened unwaveringly on the judges, and
+saw that they got more and more excited, conversing with one another in
+indistinct voices. The sound of their words, cold and tickling, touched
+her face, puckering the skin on it, and filling her mouth with a sickly,
+disgusting taste. The mother somehow conceived that they were all
+speaking of the bodies of her son and his comrades, their vigorous bare
+bodies, their muscles, their youthful limbs full of hot blood, of living
+force. These bodies kindled in the judges the sinister, impotent envy of
+the rich by the poor, the unwholesome greed felt by wasted and sick
+people for the strength of the healthy. Their mouths watered regretfully
+for these bodies, capable of working and enriching, of rejoicing and
+creating. The youths produced in the old judges the revengeful, painful
+excitement of an enfeebled beast which sees the fresh prey, but no
+longer has the power to seize it, and howls dismally at its
+powerlessness.
+
+This thought, rude and strange, grew more vivid the more attentively the
+mother scrutinized the judges. They seemed not to conceal their excited
+greed--the impotent vexation of the hungry who at one time had been able
+to consume in abundance. To her, a woman and a mother, to whom after all
+the body of her son is always dearer than that in him which is called a
+soul, to her it was horrible to see how these sticky, lightless eyes
+crept over his face, felt his chest, shoulders, hands, tore at the hot
+skin, as if seeking the possibility of taking fire, of warming the blood
+in their hardened brains and fatigued muscles--the brains and muscles of
+people already half dead, but now to some degree reanimated by the
+pricks of greed and envy of a young life that they presumed to sentence
+and remove to a distance from themselves. It seemed to her that her son,
+too, felt this damp, unpleasant tickling contact, and, shuddering,
+looked at her.
+
+He looked into the mother's face with somewhat fatigued eyes, but
+calmly, kindly, and warmly. At times he nodded his head to her, and
+smiled--she understood the smile.
+
+"Now quick!" she said.
+
+Resting his hand on the table the oldest judge arose. His head sunk in
+the collar of his uniform, standing motionless, he began to read a paper
+in a droning voice.
+
+"He's reading the sentence," said Sizov, listening.
+
+It became quiet again, and everybody looked at the old man, small, dry,
+straight, resembling the stick held in his unseen hand. The other judges
+also stood up. The district elder inclined his head on one shoulder, and
+looked up to the ceiling; the mayor of the city crossed his hands over
+his chest; the marshal of the nobility stroked his beard. The judge with
+the sickly face, his puffy neighbor, and the prosecuting attorney
+regarded the prisoners sidewise. And behind the judges the Czar in a red
+military coat, with an indifferent white face looked down from his
+portrait over their heads. On his face some insect was creeping, or a
+cobweb was trembling.
+
+"Exile!" Sizov said with a sigh of relief, dropping back on the bench.
+"Well, of course! Thank God! I heard that they were going to get hard
+labor. Never mind, mother, that's nothing."
+
+Fatigued by her thoughts and her immobility, she understood the joy of
+the old man, which boldly raised the soul dragged down by hopelessness.
+But it didn't enliven her much.
+
+"Why, I knew it," she answered.
+
+"But, after all, it's certain now. Who could have told beforehand what
+the authorities would do? But Fedya is a fine fellow, dear soul."
+
+They walked to the grill; the mother shed tears as she pressed the hand
+of her son. He and Fedya spoke kind words, smiled, and joked. All were
+excited, but light and cheerful. The women wept; but, like Vlasova, more
+from habit than grief. They did not experience the stunning pain
+produced by an unexpected blow on the head, but only the sad
+consciousness that they must part with the children. But even this
+consciousness was dimmed by the impressions of the day. The fathers and
+the mothers looked at their children with mingled sensations, in which
+the skepticism of parents toward their children and the habitual sense
+of the superiority of elders over youth blended strangely with the
+feeling of sheer respect for them, with the persistent melancholy
+thought that life had now become dull, and with the curiosity aroused by
+the young men who so bravely and fearlessly spoke of the possibility of
+a new life, which the elders did not comprehend but which seemed to
+promise something good. The very novelty and unusualness of the feeling
+rendered expression impossible. Words were spoken in plenty, but they
+referred only to common matters. The relatives spoke of linen and
+clothes, and begged the comrades to take care of their health, and not
+to provoke the authorities uselessly.
+
+"Everybody, brother, will grow weary, both we and they," said Samoylov
+to his son.
+
+And Bukin's brother, waving his hand, assured the younger brother:
+
+"Merely justice, and nothing else! That they cannot admit."
+
+The younger Bukin answered:
+
+"You look out for the starling. I love him."
+
+"Come back home, and you'll find him in perfect trim."
+
+"I've nothing to do there."
+
+And Sizov held his nephew's hand, and slowly said:
+
+"So, Fedor; so you've started on your trip. So."
+
+Fedya bent over, and whispered something in his ear, smiling roguishly.
+The convoy soldier also smiled; but he immediately assumed a stern
+expression, and shouted, "Go!"
+
+The mother spoke to Pavel, like the others, about the same things, about
+clothes, about his health, yet her breast was choked by a hundred
+questions concerning Sasha, concerning himself, and herself. Underneath
+all these emotions an almost burdensome feeling was slowly growing of
+the fullness of her love for her son--a strained desire to please him,
+to be near to his heart. The expectation of the terrible had died away,
+leaving behind it only a tremor at the recollection of the judges, and
+somewhere in a corner a dark impersonal thought regarding them.
+
+"Young people ought to be tried by young judges, and not by old ones,"
+she said to her son.
+
+"It would be better to arrange life so that it should not force people
+to crime," answered Pavel.
+
+The mother, seeing the Little Russian converse with everybody and
+realizing that he needed affection more than Pavel, spoke to him. Andrey
+answered her gratefully, smiling, joking kindly, as always a bit droll,
+supple, sinewy. Around her the talk went on, crossing and intertwining.
+She heard everything, understood everybody, and secretly marveled at the
+vastness of her own heart, which took in everything with an even joy,
+and gave back a clear reflection of it, like a bright image on a deep,
+placid lake.
+
+Finally the prisoners were led away. The mother walked out of the court,
+and was surprised to see that night already hung over the city, with the
+lanterns alight in the streets, and the stars shining in the sky. Groups
+composed mainly of young men were crowding near the courthouse. The snow
+crunched in the frozen atmosphere; voices sounded. A man in a gray
+Caucasian cowl looked into Sizov's face and asked quickly:
+
+"What was the sentence?"
+
+"Exile."
+
+"For all?"
+
+"All."
+
+"Thank you."
+
+The man walked away.
+
+"You see," said Sizov. "They inquire."
+
+Suddenly they were surrounded by about ten men, youths, and girls, and
+explanations rained down, attracting still more people. The mother and
+Sizov stopped. They were questioned in regard to the sentence, as to how
+the prisoners behaved, who delivered the speeches, and what the speeches
+were about. All the voices rang with the same eager curiosity, sincere
+and warm, which aroused the desire to satisfy it.
+
+"People! This is the mother of Pavel Vlasov!" somebody shouted, and
+presently all became silent.
+
+"Permit me to shake your hand."
+
+Somebody's firm hand pressed the mother's fingers, somebody's voice said
+excitedly:
+
+"Your son will be an example of manhood for all of us."
+
+"Long live the Russian workingman!" a resonant voice rang out.
+
+"Long live the proletariat!"
+
+"Long live the revolution!"
+
+The shouts grew louder and increased in number, rising up on all sides.
+The people ran from every direction, pushing into the crowd around the
+mother and Sizov. The whistles of the police leaped through the air, but
+did not deafen the shouts. The old man smiled; and to the mother all
+this seemed like a pleasant dream. She smilingly pressed the hands
+extended to her and bowed, with joyous tears choking her throat. Near
+her somebody's clear voice said nervously:
+
+"Comrades, friends, the autocracy, the monster which devours the Russian
+people to-day again gulped into its bottomless, greedy mouth----"
+
+"However, mother, let's go," said Sizov. And at the same time Sasha
+appeared, caught the mother under her arm, and quickly dragged her away
+to the other side of the street.
+
+"Come! They're going to make arrests. What? Exile? To Siberia?"
+
+"Yes, yes."
+
+"And how did he speak? I know without your telling me. He was more
+powerful than any of the others, and more simple. And of course, sterner
+than all the rest. He's sensitive and soft, only he's ashamed to expose
+himself. And he's direct, clear, firm, like truth itself. He's very
+great, and there's everything in him, everything! But he often
+constrains himself for nothing, lest he might hinder the cause. I know
+it." Her hot half-whisper, the words of her love, calmed the mother's
+agitation, and restored her exhausted strength.
+
+"When will you go to him?" she asked Sasha, pressing her hand to her
+body. Looking confidently before her the girl answered:
+
+"As soon as I find somebody to take over my work. I have the money
+already, but I might go _per etappe_. You know I am also awaiting a
+sentence. Evidently they are going to send me to Siberia, too. I will
+then declare that I desire to be exiled to the same locality that he
+will be."
+
+Behind them was heard the voice of Sizov:
+
+"Then give him regards from me, from Sizov. He will know. I'm Fedya
+Mazin's uncle."
+
+Sasha stopped, turned around, extending her hand.
+
+"I'm acquainted with Fedya. My name is Alexandra."
+
+"And your patronymic?"
+
+She looked at him and answered:
+
+"I have no father."
+
+"He's dead, you mean?"
+
+"No, he's alive." Something stubborn, persistent, sounded in the girl's
+voice and appeared in her face. "He's a landowner, a chief of a country
+district. He robs the peasants and beats them. I cannot recognize him as
+my father."
+
+"S-s-o-o!" Sizov was taken aback. After a pause he said, looking at the
+girl sidewise:
+
+"Well, mother, good-by. I'm going off to the left. Stop in sometimes for
+a talk and a glass of tea. Good evening, lady. You're pretty hard on
+your father--of course, that's your business."
+
+"If your son were an ugly man, obnoxious to people, disgusting to you,
+wouldn't you say the same about him?" Sasha shouted terribly.
+
+"Well, I would," the old man answered after some hesitation.
+
+"That is to say that justice is dearer to you than your son; and to me
+it's dearer than my father."
+
+Sizov smiled, shaking his head; then he said with a sigh:
+
+"Well, well, you're clever. Good-by. I wish you all good things, and be
+better to people. Hey? Well, God be with you. Good-by, Nilovna. When you
+see Pavel tell him I heard his speech. I couldn't understand every bit
+of it; some things even seemed horrible; but tell him it's true. They've
+found the truth, yes."
+
+He raised his hat, and sedately turned around the corner of the street.
+
+"He seems to be a good man," remarked Sasha, accompanying him with a
+smile of her large eyes. "Such people can be useful to the cause. It
+would be good to hide literature with them, for instance."
+
+It seemed to the mother that to-day the girl's face was softer and
+kinder than usual, and hearing her remarks about Sizov, she thought:
+
+"Always about the cause. Even to-day. It's burned into her heart."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+
+At home they sat on the sofa closely pressed together, and the mother
+resting in the quiet again began to speak about Sasha's going to Pavel.
+Thoughtfully raising her thick eyebrows, the girl looked into the
+distance with her large, dreamy eyes. A contemplative expression rested
+on her pale face.
+
+"Then, when children will be born to you, I will come to you and dandle
+them. We'll begin to live there no worse than here. Pasha will find
+work. He has golden hands."
+
+"Yes," answered Sasha thoughtfully. "That's good--" And suddenly
+starting, as if throwing something away, she began to speak simply in a
+modulated voice. "He won't commence to live there. He'll go away, of
+course."
+
+"And how will that be? Suppose, in case of children?"
+
+"I don't know. We'll see when we are there. In such a case he oughtn't
+to reckon with me, and I cannot constrain him. He's free at any moment.
+I am his comrade--a wife, of course. But the conditions of his work are
+such that for years and years I cannot regard our bond as a usual one,
+like that of others. It will be hard, I know it, to part with him; but,
+of course, I'll manage to. He knows that I'm not capable of regarding a
+man as my possession. I'm not going to constrain him, no."
+
+The mother understood her, felt that she believed what she said, that
+she was capable of carrying it out; and she was sorry for her. She
+embraced her.
+
+"My dear girl, it will be hard for you."
+
+Sasha smiled softly, nestling her body up to the mother's. Her voice
+sounded mild, but powerful. Red mounted to her face.
+
+"It's a long time till then; but don't think that I--that it is hard for
+me now. I'm making no sacrifices. I know what I'm doing, I know what I
+may expect. I'll be happy if I can make him happy. My aim, my desire is
+to increase his energy, to give him as much happiness and love as I
+can--a great deal. I love him very much and he me--I know it--what I
+bring to him, he will give back to me--we will enrich each other by all
+in our power; and, if necessary, we will part as friends."
+
+Sasha remained silent for a long time, during which the mother and the
+young woman sat in a corner of the room, tightly pressed against each
+other, thinking of the man whom they loved. It was quiet, melancholy,
+and warm.
+
+Nikolay entered, exhausted, but brisk. He immediately announced:
+
+"Well, Sashenka, betake yourself away from here, as long as you are
+sound. Two spies have been after me since this morning, and the attempt
+at concealment is so evident that it savors of an arrest. I feel it in
+my bones--somewhere something has happened. By the way, here I have the
+speech of Pavel. It's been decided to publish it at once. Take it to
+Liudmila. Pavel spoke well, Nilovna; and his speech will play a part.
+Look out for spies, Sasha. Wait a little while--hide these papers, too.
+You might give them to Ivan, for example."
+
+While he spoke, he vigorously rubbed his frozen hands, and quickly
+pulled out the drawers of his table, picking out papers, some of which
+he tore up, others he laid aside. His manner was absorbed, and his
+appearance all upset.
+
+"Do you suppose it was long ago that this place was cleared out? And
+look at this mass of stuff accumulated already! The devil! You see,
+Nilovna, it would be better for you, too, not to sleep here to-night.
+It's a sorry spectacle to witness, and they may arrest you, too. And
+you'll be needed for carrying Pavel's speech about from place to place."
+
+"Hm, what do they want me for? Maybe you're mistaken."
+
+Nikolay waved his forearm in front of his eyes, and said with
+conviction:
+
+"I have a keen scent. Besides, you can be of great help to Liudmila.
+Flee far from evil."
+
+The possibility of taking a part in the printing of her son's speech was
+pleasant to her, and she answered:
+
+"If so, I'll go. But don't think I'm afraid."
+
+"Very well. Now, tell me where my valise and my linen are. You've
+grabbed up everything into your rapacious hands, and I'm completely
+robbed of the possibility of disposing of my own private property. I'm
+making complete preparations--this will be unpleasant to them."
+
+Sasha burned the papers in silence, and carefully mixed their ashes with
+the other cinders in the stove.
+
+"Sasha, go," said Nikolay, putting out his hand to her. "Good-by. Don't
+forget books--if anything new and interesting appears. Well, good-by,
+dear comrade. Be more careful."
+
+"Do you think it's for long?" asked Sasha.
+
+"The devil knows them! Evidently. There's something against me. Nilovna,
+are you going with her? It's harder to track two people--all right?"
+
+"I'm going." The mother went to dress herself, and it occurred to her
+how little these people who were striving for the freedom of all cared
+for their personal freedom. The simplicity and the businesslike manner
+of Nikolay in expecting the arrest both astonished and touched her. She
+tried to observe his face carefully; she detected nothing but his air of
+absorption, overshadowing the usual kindly soft expression of his eyes.
+There was no sign of agitation in this man, dearer to her than the
+others; he made no fuss. Equally attentive to all, alike kind to all,
+always calmly the same, he seemed to her just as much a stranger as
+before to everybody and everything except his cause. He seemed remote,
+living a secret life within himself and somewhere ahead of people. Yet
+she felt that he resembled her more than any of the others, and she
+loved him with a love that was carefully observing and, as it were, did
+not believe in itself. Now she felt painfully sorry for him; but she
+restrained her feelings, knowing that to show them would disconcert
+Nikolay, that he would become, as always under such circumstances,
+somewhat ridiculous.
+
+When she returned to the room she found him pressing Sasha's hand and
+saying:
+
+"Admirable! I'm convinced of it. It's very good for him and for you. A
+little personal happiness does not do any harm; but--a little, you know,
+so as not to make him lose his value. Are you ready, Nilovna?" He walked
+up to her, smiling and adjusting his glasses. "Well, good-by. I want to
+think that for three months, four months--well, at most half a
+year--half a year is a great deal of a man's life. In half a year one
+can do a lot of things. Take care of yourself, please, eh? Come, let's
+embrace." Lean and thin he clasped her neck in his powerful arms, looked
+into her eyes, and smiled. "It seems to me I've fallen in love with you.
+I keep embracing you all the time."
+
+She was silent, kissing his forehead and cheeks, and her hands quivered.
+For fear he might notice it, she unclasped them.
+
+"Go. Very well. Be careful to-morrow. This is what you should do--send
+the boy in the morning--Liudmila has a boy for the purpose--let him go
+to the house porter and ask him whether I'm home or not. I'll forewarn
+the porter; he's a good fellow, and I'm a friend of his. Well, good-by,
+comrades. I wish you all good."
+
+On the street Sasha said quietly to the mother:
+
+"He'll go as simply as this to his death, if necessary. And apparently
+he'll hurry up a little in just the same way; when death stares him in
+the face he'll adjust his eyeglasses, and will say 'admirable,' and will
+die."
+
+"I love him," whispered the mother.
+
+"I'm filled with astonishment; but love him--no. I respect him highly.
+He's sort of dry, although good and even, if you please, sometimes soft;
+but not sufficiently human--it seems to me we're being followed. Come,
+let's part. Don't enter Liudmila's place if you think a spy is after
+you."
+
+"I know," said the mother. Sasha, however, persistently added: "Don't
+enter. In that case, come to me. Good-by for the present."
+
+She quickly turned around and walked back. The mother called "Good-by"
+after her.
+
+Within a few minutes she sat all frozen through at the stove in
+Liudmila's little room. Her hostess, Liudmila, in a black dress girded
+up with a strap, slowly paced up and down the room, filling it with a
+rustle and the sound of her commanding voice. A fire was crackling in
+the stove and drawing in the air from the room. The woman's voice
+sounded evenly.
+
+"People are a great deal more stupid than bad. They can see only what's
+near to them, what it's possible to grasp immediately; but everything
+that's near is cheap; what's distant is dear. Why, in reality, it would
+be more convenient and pleasanter for all if life were different, were
+lighter, and the people were more sensible. But to attain the distant
+you must disturb yourself for the immediate present----"
+
+Nilovna tried to guess where this woman did her printing. The room had
+three windows facing the street; there was a sofa and a bookcase, a
+table, chairs, a bed at the wall, in the corner near it a wash basin, in
+the other corner a stove; on the walls photographs and pictures. All was
+new, solid, clean; and over all the austere monastic figure of the
+mistress threw a cold shadow. Something concealed, something hidden,
+made itself felt; but where it lurked was incomprehensible. The mother
+looked at the doors; through one of them she had entered from the little
+antechamber. Near the stove was another door, narrow and high.
+
+"I have come to you on business," she said in embarrassment, noticing
+that the hostess was regarding her.
+
+"I know. Nobody comes to me for any other reason."
+
+Something strange seemed to be in Liudmila's voice. The mother looked in
+her face. Liudmila smiled with the corners of her thin lips, her dull
+eyes gleamed behind her glasses. Turning her glance aside, the mother
+handed her the speech of Pavel.
+
+"Here. They ask you to print it at once."
+
+And she began to tell of Nikolay's preparations for the arrest.
+
+Liudmila silently thrust the manuscript into her belt and sat down on a
+chair. A red gleam of the fire was reflected on her spectacles; its hot
+smile played on her motionless face.
+
+"When they come to me I'm going to shoot at them," she said with
+determination in her moderated voice. "I have the right to protect
+myself against violence; and I must fight with them if I call upon
+others to fight. I cannot understand calmness; I don't like it."
+
+The reflection of the fire glided across her face, and she again became
+austere, somewhat haughty.
+
+"Your life is not very pleasant," the mother thought kindly.
+
+Liudmila began to read Pavel's speech, at first reluctantly; then she
+bent lower and lower over the paper, quickly throwing aside the pages as
+she read them. When she had finished she rose, straightened herself, and
+walked up to the mother.
+
+"That's good. That's what I like; although here, too, there's calmness.
+But the speech is the sepulchral beat of a drum, and the drummer is a
+powerful man."
+
+She reflected a little while, lowering her head for a minute:
+
+"I didn't want to speak with you about your son; I have never met him,
+and I don't like sad subjects of conversation. I know what it means to
+have a near one go into exile. But I want to say to you, nevertheless,
+that your son must be a splendid man. He's young--that's evident; but he
+is a great soul. It must be good and terrible to have such a son."
+
+"Yes, it's good. And now it's no longer terrible."
+
+Liudmila settled her smoothly combed hair with her tawny hand and sighed
+softly. A light, warm shadow trembled on her cheeks, the shadow of a
+suppressed smile.
+
+"We are going to print it. Will you help me?"
+
+"Of course."
+
+"I'll set it up quickly. You lie down; you had a hard day; you're tired.
+Lie down here on the bed; I'm not going to sleep; and at night maybe
+I'll wake you up to help me. When you have lain down, put out the lamp."
+
+She threw two logs of wood into the stove, straightened herself, and
+passed through the narrow door near the stove, firmly closing it after
+her. The mother followed her with her eyes, and began to undress
+herself, thinking reluctantly of her hostess: "A stern person; and yet
+her heart burns. She can't conceal it. Everyone loves. If you don't love
+you can't live."
+
+Fatigue dizzied her brain; but her soul was strangely calm, and
+everything was illumined from within by a soft, kind light which quietly
+and evenly filled her breast. She was already acquainted with this calm;
+it had come to her after great agitation. At first it had slightly
+disturbed her; but now it only broadened her soul, strengthening it with
+a certain powerful but impalpable thought. Before her all the time
+appeared and disappeared the faces of her son, Andrey, Nikolay, Sasha.
+She took delight in them; they passed by without arousing thought, and
+only lightly and sadly touching her heart. Then she extinguished the
+lamp, lay down in the cold bed, shriveled up under the bed coverings,
+and suddenly sank into a heavy sleep.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+
+When she opened her eyes the room was filled by the cold, white glimmer
+of a clear wintry day. The hostess, with a book in her hand, lay on the
+sofa, and smiling unlike herself looked into her face.
+
+"Oh, father!" the mother exclaimed, for some reason embarrassed. "Just
+look! Have I been asleep a long time?"
+
+"Good morning!" answered Liudmila. "It'll soon be ten o'clock. Get up
+and we'll have tea."
+
+"Why didn't you wake me up?"
+
+"I wanted to. I walked up to you; but you were so fast asleep and smiled
+so in your sleep!"
+
+With a supple, powerful movement of her whole body she rose from the
+sofa, walked up to the bed, bent toward the face of the mother, and in
+her dull eyes the mother saw something dear, near, and comprehensible.
+
+"I was sorry to disturb you. Maybe you were seeing a happy vision."
+
+"I didn't see anything."
+
+"All the same--but your smile pleased me. It was so calm, so good--so
+great." Liudmila laughed, and her laugh sounded velvety. "I thought of
+you, of your life--your life is a hard one, isn't it?"
+
+The mother, moving her eyebrows, was silent and thoughtful.
+
+"Of course it's hard!" exclaimed Liudmila.
+
+"I don't know," said the mother carefully. "Sometimes it seems sort of
+hard; there's so much of all, it's all so serious, marvelous, and it
+moves along so quickly, one thing after the other--so quickly----"
+
+The wave of bold excitement familiar to her overflowed her breast,
+filling her heart with images and thoughts. She sat up in bed, quickly
+clothing her thoughts in words.
+
+"It goes, it goes, it goes all to one thing, to one side, and like a
+fire, when a house begins to burn, upward! Here it shoots forth, there
+it blazes out, ever brighter, ever more powerful. There's a great deal
+of hardship, you know. People suffer; they are beaten, cruelly beaten;
+and everyone is oppressed and watched. They hide, live like monks, and
+many joys are closed to them; it's very hard. And when you look at them
+well you see that the hard things, the evil and difficult, are around
+them, on the outside, and not within."
+
+Liudmila quickly threw up her head, looked at her with a deep, embracing
+look. The mother felt that her words did not exhaust her thoughts, which
+vexed and offended her.
+
+"You're not speaking about yourself," said her hostess softly.
+
+The mother looked at her, arose from the bed, and dressing asked:
+
+"Not about myself? Yes; you see in this, in all that I live now, it's
+hard to think of oneself; how can you withdraw into yourself when you
+love this thing, and that thing is dear to you, and you are afraid for
+everybody and are sorry for everybody? Everything crowds into your heart
+and draws you to all people. How can you step to one side? It's hard."
+
+Liudmila laughed, saying softly:
+
+"And maybe it's not necessary."
+
+"I don't know whether it's necessary or not; but this I do know--that
+people are becoming stronger than life, wiser than life; that's
+evident."
+
+Standing in the middle of the room, half-dressed, she fell to reflecting
+for a moment. Her real self suddenly appeared not to exist--the one who
+lived in anxiety and fear for her son, in thoughts for the safekeeping
+of his body. Such a person in herself was no longer; she had gone off to
+a great distance, and perhaps was altogether burned up by the fire of
+agitation. This had lightened and cleansed her soul, and had renovated
+her heart with a new power. She communed with herself, desiring to take
+a look into her own heart, and fearing lest she awaken some anxiety
+there.
+
+"What are you thinking about?" Liudmila asked kindly, walking up to her.
+
+"I don't know."
+
+The two women were silent, looking at each other. Both smiled; then
+Liudmila walked out of the room, saying:
+
+"What is my samovar doing?"
+
+The mother looked through the window. A cold, bracing day shone in the
+street; her breast, too, shone bright, but hot. She wanted to speak much
+about everything, joyfully, with a confused feeling of gratitude to
+somebody--she did not know whom--for all that came into her soul, and
+lighted it with a ruddy evening light. A desire to pray, which she had
+not felt for a long time, arose in her breast. Somebody's young face
+came to her memory, somebody's resonant voice shouted, "That's the
+mother of Pavel Vlasov!" Sasha's eyes flashed joyously and tenderly.
+Rybin's dark, tall figure loomed up, the bronzed, firm face of her son
+smiled. Nikolay blinked in embarrassment; and suddenly everything was
+stirred with a deep but light breath.
+
+"Nikolay was right," said Liudmila, entering again. "He must surely have
+been arrested. I sent the boy there, as you told me to. He said
+policemen are hiding in the yard; he did not see the house porter; but
+he saw the policeman who was hiding behind the gates. And spies are
+sauntering about; the boy knows them."
+
+"So?" The mother nodded her head. "Ah, poor fellow!"
+
+And she sighed, but without sadness, and was quietly surprised at
+herself.
+
+"Lately he's been reading a great deal to the city workingmen; and in
+general it was time for him to disappear," Liudmila said with a frown.
+"The comrades told him to go, but he didn't obey them. I think that in
+such cases you must compel and not try to persuade."
+
+A dark-haired, red-faced boy with beautiful eyes and a hooked nose
+appeared in the doorway.
+
+"Shall I bring in the samovar?" he asked in a ringing voice.
+
+"Yes, please, Seryozha. This is my pupil; have you never met him
+before?"
+
+"No."
+
+"He used to go to Nikolay sometimes; I sent him."
+
+Liudmila seemed to the mother to be different to-day--simpler and nearer
+to her. In the supple swaying of her stately figure there was much
+beauty and power; her sternness had mildened; the circles under her eyes
+had grown larger during the night, her face paler and leaner; her large
+eyes had deepened. One perceived a strained exertion in her, a tightly
+drawn chord in her soul.
+
+The boy brought in the samovar.
+
+"Let me introduce you: Seryozha--Pelagueya Nilovna, the mother of the
+workingman whom they sentenced yesterday."
+
+Seryozha bowed silently and pressed the mother's hand. Then he brought
+in bread, and sat down to the table. Liudmila persuaded the mother not
+to go home until they found out whom the police were waiting for there.
+
+"Maybe they are waiting for you. I'm sure they'll examine you."
+
+"Let them. And if they arrest me, no great harm. Only I'd like to have
+Pasha's speech sent off."
+
+"It's already in type. To-morrow it'll be possible to have it for the
+city and the suburb. We'll have some for the districts, too. Do you know
+Natasha?"
+
+"Of course!"
+
+"Then take it to her."
+
+The boy read the newspaper, and seemed not to be listening to the
+conversation; but at times his eyes looked from the pages of the
+newspaper into the face of the mother; and when she met their animated
+glance she felt pleased and smiled. She reproached herself for these
+smiles. Liudmila again mentioned Nikolay without any expression of
+regret for his arrest and, to the mother, it seemed in perfectly natural
+tones. The time passed more quickly than on the other days. When they
+had done drinking tea it was already near midday.
+
+"However!" exclaimed Liudmila, and at the same time a knock at the door
+was heard. The boy rose, looked inquiringly at Liudmila, prettily
+screwing up his eyes.
+
+"Open the door, Seryozha. Who do you suppose it is?" And with a composed
+gesture she let her hand into the pocket of the skirt, saying to the
+mother: "If it is the gendarmes, you, Pelagueya Nilovna, stand here in
+this corner, and you, Ser----"
+
+"I know. The dark passage," the little boy answered softly,
+disappearing.
+
+The mother smiled. These preparations did not disturb her; she had no
+premonition of a misfortune.
+
+The little physician walked in. He quickly said:
+
+"First of all, Nikolay is arrested. Aha! You here, Nilovna? They're
+interested in you, too. Weren't you there when he was arrested?"
+
+"He packed me off, and told me to come here."
+
+"Hm! I don't think it will be of any use to you. Secondly, last night
+several young people made about five hundred hektograph copies of
+Pavel's speech--not badly done, plain and clear. They want to scatter
+them throughout the city at night. I'm against it. Printed sheets are
+better for the city, and the hektograph copies ought to be sent off
+somewhere."
+
+"Here, I'll carry them to Natasha!" the mother exclaimed animatedly.
+"Give them to me."
+
+She was seized with a great desire to sow them broadcast, to spread
+Pavel's speech as soon as possible. She would have bestrewn the whole
+earth with the words of her son, and she looked into the doctor's face
+with eyes ready to beg.
+
+"The devil knows whether at this time you ought to take up this matter,"
+the physician said irresolutely, and took out his watch. "It's now
+twelve minutes of twelve. The train leaves at 2.05, arrives there 5.15.
+You'll get there in the evening, but not sufficiently late--and that's
+not the point!"
+
+"That's not the point," repeated Liudmila, frowning.
+
+"What then?" asked the mother, drawing up to them. "The point is to do
+it well; and I'll do it all right."
+
+Liudmila looked fixedly at her, and chafing her forehead, remarked:
+
+"It's dangerous for you."
+
+"Why?" the mother challenged hotly.
+
+"That's why!" said the physician quickly and brokenly. "You disappeared
+from home an hour before Nikolay's arrest. You went away to the mill,
+where you are known as the teacher's aunt; after your arrival at the
+mill the naughty leaflets appear. All this will tie itself into a noose
+around your neck."
+
+"They won't notice me there," the mother assured them, warming to her
+desire. "When I return they'll arrest me, and ask me where I was." After
+a moment's pause she exclaimed: "I know what I'll say. From there I'll
+go straight to the suburb; I have a friend there--Sizov. So I'll say
+that I went there straight from the trial; grief took me there; and he,
+too, had the same misfortune, his nephew was sentenced; and I spent the
+whole time with him. He'll uphold me, too. Do you see?"
+
+The mother was aware that they were succumbing to the strength of her
+desire, and strove to induce them to give in as quickly as possible. She
+spoke more and more persistently, joy arising within her. And they
+yielded.
+
+"Well, go," the physician reluctantly assented.
+
+Liudmila was silent, pacing thoughtfully up and down the room. Her face
+clouded over and her cheeks fell in. The muscles of her neck stretched
+noticeably as if her head had suddenly grown heavy; it involuntarily
+dropped on her breast. The mother observed this. The physician's
+reluctant assent forced a sigh from her.
+
+"You all take care of me," the mother said, smiling. "You don't take
+care of yourselves." And the wave of joy mounted higher and higher.
+
+"It isn't true. We look out for ourselves. We ought to; and we very much
+upbraid those who uselessly waste their power. Ye-es. Now, this is the
+way you are to do. You will receive the speeches at the station." He
+explained to her how the matter would be arranged; then looking into her
+face, he said: "Well, I wish you success. You're happy, aren't you?" And
+he walked away still gloomy and dissatisfied. When the door closed
+behind him Liudmila walked up to the mother, smiling quietly.
+
+"You're a fine woman! I understand you." Taking her by the arm, she
+again walked up and down the room. "I have a son, too. He's already
+thirteen years old; but he lives with his father. My husband is an
+assistant prosecuting attorney. Maybe he's already prosecuting attorney.
+And the boy's with him. What is he going to be? I often think." Her
+humid, powerful voice trembled. Then her speech flowed on again
+thoughtfully and quietly. "He's being brought up by a professed enemy of
+those people who are near me, whom I regard as the best people on earth;
+and maybe the boy will grow up to be my enemy. He cannot live with me; I
+live under a strange name. I have not seen him for eight years. That's a
+long time--eight years!"
+
+Stopping at the window, she looked up at the pale, bleak sky, and
+continued: "If he were with me I would be stronger; I would not have
+this wound in my heart, the wound that always pains. And even if he were
+dead it would be easier for me--" She paused again, and added more
+firmly and loudly: "Then I would know he's merely dead, but not an enemy
+of that which is higher than the feeling of a mother, dearer and more
+necessary than life."
+
+"My darling," said the mother quietly, feeling as if something powerful
+were burning her heart.
+
+"Yes, you are happy," Liudmila said with a smile. "It's magnificent--the
+mother and the son side by side. It's rare!"
+
+The mother unexpectedly to herself exclaimed:
+
+"Yes, it is good!" and as if disclosing a secret, she continued in a
+lowered voice: "It is another life. All of you--Nikolay Ivanovich, all
+the people of the cause of truth--are also side by side. Suddenly people
+have become kin--I understand all--the words I don't understand; but
+everything else I understand, everything!"
+
+"That's how it is," Liudmila said. "That's how."
+
+The mother put her hand on Liudmila's breast, pressing her; she spoke
+almost in a whisper, as if herself meditating upon the words she spoke.
+
+"Children go through the world; that's what I understand; children go
+into the world, over all the earth, from everywhere toward one thing.
+The best hearts go; people of honest minds; they relentlessly attack all
+evil, all darkness. They go, they trample falsehood with heavy feet,
+understanding everything, justifying everybody--justifying everybody,
+they go. Young, strong, they carry their power, their invincible power,
+all toward one thing--toward justice. They go to conquer all human
+misery, they arm themselves to wipe away misfortune from the face of the
+earth; they go to subdue what is monstrous, and they will subdue it. We
+will kindle a new sun, somebody told me; and they will kindle it. We
+will create one heart in life, we will unite all the severed hearts into
+one--and they will unite them. We will cleanse the whole of life--and
+they will cleanse it."
+
+She waved her hand toward the sky.
+
+"There's the sun."
+
+And she struck her bosom.
+
+"Here the most glorious heavenly sun of human happiness will be kindled,
+and it will light up the earth forever--the whole of it, and all that
+live upon it--with the light of love, the love of every man toward all,
+and toward everything."
+
+The words of forgotten prayers recurred to her mind, inspiring a new
+faith. She threw them from her heart like sparks.
+
+"The children walking along the road of truth and reason carry love to
+all; and they clothe everything in new skies; they illumine everything
+with an incorruptible fire issuing from the depths of the soul. Thus, a
+new life comes into being, born of the children's love for the entire
+world; and who will extinguish this love--who? What power is higher than
+this? Who will subdue it? The earth has brought it forth; and all life
+desires its victory--all life. Shed rivers of blood, nay, seas of blood,
+you'll never extinguish it."
+
+She shook herself away from Liudmila, fatigued by her exaltation, and
+sat down, breathing heavily. Liudmila also withdrew from her,
+noiselessly, carefully, as if afraid of destroying something. With
+supple movement she walked about the room and looked in front of her
+with the deep gaze of her dim eyes. She seemed still taller, straighter,
+and thinner; her lean, stern face wore a concentrated expression, and
+her lips were nervously compressed. The stillness in the room soon
+calmed the mother, and noticing Liudmila's mood she asked guiltily and
+softly:
+
+"Maybe I said something that wasn't quite right?"
+
+Liudmila quickly turned around and looked at her as if in fright.
+
+"It's all right," she said rapidly, stretching out her hand to the
+mother as if desiring to arrest something. "But we'll not speak about it
+any more. Let it remain as it was said; let it remain. Yes." And in a
+calmer tone she continued: "It's time for you to start soon; it's far."
+
+"Yes, presently. I'm glad! Oh, how glad I am! If you only knew! I'm
+going to carry the word of my son, the word of my blood. Why, it's like
+one's own soul!"
+
+She smiled; but her smile did not find a clear reflection in the face of
+Liudmila. The mother felt that Liudmila chilled her joy by her
+restraint; and the stubborn desire suddenly arose in her to pour into
+that obstinate soul enveloped in misery her own fire, to burn her, too,
+let her, too, sound in unison with her own heart full of joy. She took
+Liudmila's hands and pressed them powerfully.
+
+"My dear, how good it is when you know that light for all the people
+already exists in life, and that there will be a time when they will
+begin to see it, when they will bathe their souls in it, and all, all,
+will take fire in its unquenchable flames."
+
+Her good, large face quivered; her eyes smiled radiantly; and her
+eyebrows trembled over them as if pinioning their flash. The great
+thoughts intoxicated her; she put into them everything that burned her
+heart, everything she had lived through; and she compressed the thoughts
+into firm, capacious crystals of luminous words. They grew up ever more
+powerful in the autumn heart, illuminated by the creative force of the
+spring sun; they blossomed and reddened in it ever more brightly.
+
+"Why, this is like a new god that's born to us, the people. Everything
+for all; all for everything; the whole of life in one, and the whole of
+life for everyone, and everyone for the whole of life! Thus I understand
+all of you; it is for this that you are on this earth, I see. You are in
+truth comrades all, kinsmen all, for you are all children of one mother,
+of truth. Truth has brought you forth; and by her power you live!"
+
+Again overcome by the wave of agitation, she stopped, fetched breath,
+and spread out her arms as if for an embrace.
+
+"And if I pronounce to myself that word 'comrades' then I hear with my
+heart--they are going! They are going from everywhere, the great
+multitude, all to one thing. I hear such a roaring, resonant and joyous,
+like the festive peal of the bells of all the churches of the world."
+
+She had arrived at what she desired. Liudmila's face flashed in
+amazement. Her lips quivered; and one after the other large transparent
+tears dropped from her dull eyes and rolled down her cheeks.
+
+The mother embraced her vigorously and laughed softly, lightly taking
+pride in the victory of her heart. When they took leave of each other
+Liudmila looked into the mother's face, and asked her softly:
+
+"Do you know that it is well with you?" And herself supplied the answer:
+"Very well. Like a morning on a high mountain."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+
+In the street the frozen atmosphere enveloped her body invigoratingly,
+penetrated into her throat, tickled her nose, and for a second
+suppressed the breathing in her bosom. The mother stopped and looked
+around. Near to her, at the corner of the empty street, stood a cabman
+in a shaggy hat; at a slight distance a man was walking, bent, his head
+sunk in his shoulders; and in front of him a soldier was running in a
+jump, rubbing his ears.
+
+"The soldier must have been sent to the store," she thought, and walked
+off listening with satisfaction to the youthful crunching of the snow
+under her feet. She arrived at the station early; her train was not yet
+ready; but in the dirty waiting room of the third class, blackened with
+smoke, there were numerous people already. The cold drove in the
+railroad workmen; cabmen and some poorly dressed, homeless people came
+in to warm themselves; there were passengers, also a few peasants, a
+stout merchant in a raccoon overcoat, a priest and his daughter, a
+pockmarked girl, some five soldiers, and bustling tradesmen. The men
+smoked, talked, drank tea and whisky at the buffet; some one laughed
+boisterously; a wave of smoke was wafted overhead; the door squeaked as
+it opened, the windows rattled when the door was jammed to; the odor of
+tobacco, machine oil, and salt fish thickly beat into the nostrils.
+
+The mother sat near the entrance and waited. When the door opened a
+whiff of fresh air struck her, which was pleasant to her, and she took
+in deep breaths. Heavily dressed people came in with bundles in their
+hands; they clumsily pushed through the door, swore, mumbled, threw
+their things on the bench or on the floor, shook off the dry rime from
+the collars of their overcoats and their sleeves and wiped it off their
+beards and mustaches, all the time puffing and blowing.
+
+A young man entered with a yellow valise in his hand, quickly looked
+around, and walked straight to the mother.
+
+"To Moscow, to your niece?" he asked in a low voice.
+
+"Yes, to Tanya."
+
+"Very well."
+
+He put the valise on the bench near her, quickly whipped out a
+cigarette, lighted it, and raising his hat, silently walked toward the
+other door. The mother stroked the cold skin of the valise, leaned her
+elbows on it, and, satisfied, began again to look around at the people.
+In a few moments she arose and walked over to the other bench, nearer to
+the exit to the platform. She held the valise lightly in her hand; it
+was not large, and she walked with raised head, scanning the faces that
+flashed before her.
+
+One man in a short overcoat and its collar raised jostled against her
+and jumped back, silently waving his hand toward his head. Something
+familiar about him struck her; she glanced around and saw that he was
+looking at her with one eye gleaming out of his collar. This attentive
+eye pricked her; the hand in which she held the valise trembled; she
+felt a dull pain in her shoulder, and the load suddenly grew heavy.
+
+"I've seen him somewhere," she thought, and with the thought suppressed
+the unpleasant, confused feeling in her breast. She would not permit
+herself to define the cold sensation that already pressed her heart
+quietly but powerfully. It grew and rose in her throat, filling her
+mouth with a dry, bitter taste, and compelling her to turn around and
+look once more. As she turned he carefully shifted from one foot to the
+other, standing on the same spot; it seemed he wanted something, but
+could not decide what. His right hand was thrust between the buttons of
+his coat, the other he kept in his pocket. On account of this the right
+shoulder seemed higher than the left.
+
+Without hastening, she walked to the bench and sat down carefully,
+slowly, as if afraid of tearing something in herself or on herself. Her
+memory, aroused by a sharp premonition of misfortune, quickly presented
+this man twice to her imagination--once in the field outside the city,
+after the escape of Rybin; a second time in the evening in the court.
+There at his side stood the constable to whom she had pointed out the
+false way taken by Rybin. They knew her; they were tracking her--this
+was evident.
+
+"Am I caught?" she asked, and in the following second answered herself,
+starting: "Maybe there is still--" and immediately forcing herself with
+a great effort, she said sternly: "I'm caught. No use."
+
+She looked around, and her thoughts flashed up in sparks and expired in
+her brain one after the other.
+
+"Leave the valise? Go away?"
+
+But at the same time another spark darted up more glaringly: "How much
+will be lost? Drop the son's word in such hands?"
+
+She pressed the valise to herself trembling. "And to go away with it?
+Where? To run?"
+
+These thoughts seemed to her those of a stranger, somebody from the
+outside, who was pushing them on her by main force. They burned her, and
+their burns chopped her brain painfully, lashed her heart like fiery
+whipcords. They were an insult to the mother; they seemed to be driving
+her away from her own self, from Pavel, and everything which had grown
+to her heart. She felt that a stubborn, hostile force oppressed her,
+squeezed her shoulder and breast, lowered her stature, plunging her into
+a fatal fear. The veins on her temples began to pulsate vigorously, and
+the roots of her hair grew warm.
+
+Then with one great and sharp effort of her heart, which seemed to shake
+her entire being, she quenched all these cunning, petty, feeble little
+fires, saying sternly to herself: "Enough!"
+
+She at once began to feel better, and she grew strengthened altogether,
+adding: "Don't disgrace your son. Nobody's afraid."
+
+Several seconds of wavering seemed to have the effect of joining
+everything in her; her heart began to beat calmly.
+
+"What's going to happen now? How will they go about it with me?" she
+thought, her senses strung to a keener observation.
+
+The spy called a station guard, and whispered something to him,
+directing his look toward her. The guard glanced at him and moved back.
+Another guard came, listened, grinned, and lowered his brows. He was an
+old man, coarse-built, gray, unshaven. He nodded his head to the spy,
+and walked up to the bench where the mother sat. The spy quickly
+disappeared.
+
+The old man strode leisurely toward the mother, intently thrusting his
+angry eyes into the mother's face. She sat farther back on the bench,
+trembling. "If they only don't beat me, if they only don't beat me!"
+
+He stopped at her side; she raised her eyes to his face.
+
+"What are you looking at?" he asked in a moderated voice.
+
+"Nothing."
+
+"Hm! Thief! So old and yet----"
+
+It seemed to her that his words struck her face once, twice, rough and
+hoarse; they wounded her, as if they tore her cheeks, ripped out her
+eyes.
+
+"I'm not a thief! You lie!" she shouted with all the power of her chest;
+and everything before her jumped and began to whirl in a whirlwind of
+revolt, intoxicating her heart with the bitterness of insult. She jerked
+the valise, and it opened.
+
+"Look! look! All you people!" she shouted, standing up and waving the
+bundle of the proclamations she had quickly seized over her head.
+Through the noise in her ears she heard the exclamations of the people
+who came running up, and she saw them pouring in quickly from all
+directions.
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"There's a spy!"
+
+"What's the matter?"
+
+"She's a thief, they say!"
+
+"She?"
+
+"Would a thief shout?"
+
+"Such a respectable one! My, my, my!"
+
+"Whom did they catch?"
+
+"I'm not a thief," said the mother in a full voice, somewhat calmed at
+the sight of the people who pressed closely upon her from all sides.
+
+"Yesterday they tried the political prisoners; my son was one of them,
+Vlasov. He made a speech. Here it is. I'm carrying it to the people in
+order that they should read, think about the truth."
+
+One paper was carefully pulled from her hands. She waved the papers in
+the air and flung them into the crowd.
+
+"She won't get any praise for that, either!" somebody exclaimed in a
+frightened voice.
+
+"Whee-ee-w!" was the response.
+
+The mother saw that the papers were being snatched up, were being hidden
+in breasts and pockets. This again put her firmly on her feet; more
+composed than forceful, straining herself to her utmost, and feeling how
+agitated pride grew in her raising her high above the people, how
+subdued joy flamed up in her, she spoke, snatching bundles of papers
+from the valise and throwing them right and left into some person's
+quick, greedy hands.
+
+"For this they sentenced my son and all with him. Do you know? I will
+tell you, and you believe the heart of a mother; believe her gray hair.
+Yesterday they sentenced them because they carried to you, to all the
+people, the honest, sacred truth. How do you live?"
+
+The crowd grew silent in amazement, and noiselessly increased in size,
+pressing closer and closer together, surrounding the woman with a ring
+of living bodies.
+
+"Poverty, hunger, and sickness--that's what work gives to the poor
+people. This order of things pushes us to theft and to corruption; and
+over us, satiated and calm, live the rich. In order that we should obey
+the police, the authorities, the soldiers, all are in their hands, all
+are against us, everything is against us. We perish all our lives day
+after day in toil, always in filth, in deceit. And others enjoy
+themselves and gormandize themselves with our labor; and they hold us
+like dogs on chains, in ignorance. We know nothing, and in terror we
+fear everything. Our life is night, a dark night; it is a terrible
+dream. They have poisoned us with strong intoxicating poison, and they
+drink our blood. They glut themselves to corpulence, to vomiting--the
+servants of the devil of greed. Is it not so?"
+
+"It's so!" came a dull answer.
+
+Back of the crowd the mother noticed the spy and two gendarmes. She
+hastened to give away the last bundles; but when her hand let itself
+down into the valise it met another strange hand.
+
+"Take it, take it all!" she said, bending down.
+
+A dirty face raised itself to hers, and a low whisper reached her:
+
+"Whom shall I tell? Whom inform?"
+
+She did not answer.
+
+"In order to change this life, in order to free all the people, to raise
+them from the dead, as I have been raised, some persons have already
+come who secretly saw the truth in life; secretly, because, you know, no
+one can say the truth aloud. They hunt you down, they stifle you; they
+make you rot in prison, they mutilate you. Wealth is a force, not a
+friend to truth. Thus far truth is the sworn enemy to the power of the
+rich, an irreconcilable enemy forever! Our children are carrying the
+truth into the world. Bright people, clean people are carrying it to
+you. Thus far there are few of them; they are not powerful; but they
+grow in number every day. They put their young hearts into free truth,
+they are making it an invincible power. Along the route of their hearts
+it will enter into our hard life; it will warm us, enliven us,
+emancipate us from the oppression of the rich and from all who have sold
+their souls. Believe this."
+
+"Out of the way here!" shouted the gendarmes, pushing the people. They
+gave way to the jostling unwillingly, pressed the gendarmes with their
+mass, hindered them perhaps without desiring to do so. The gray-haired
+woman with the large, honest eyes in her kind face attracted them
+powerfully; and those whom life held asunder, whom it tore from one
+another, now blended into a whole, warmed by the fire of the fearless
+words which, perhaps, they had long been seeking and thirsting for in
+their hearts--their hearts insulted and revolted by the injustice of
+their severe life. Those who were near stood in silence. The mother saw
+their gloomy faces, their frowning brows, their eyes, and felt their
+warm breath on her face.
+
+"Get up on the bench," they said.
+
+"I'll be arrested immediately. It's not necessary."
+
+"Speak quicker! They're coming!"
+
+"Go to meet the honest people. Seek those who advise all the poor
+disinherited. Don't be reconciled, comrades, don't! Don't yield to the
+power of the powerful. Arise, you working people! you are the masters of
+life! All live by your labor; and only for your labor do they untie your
+hands. Behold! you are bound, and they have killed, robbed your soul.
+Unite with your heart and your mind into one power. It will overcome
+everything. You have no friends except yourselves. That's what their
+only friends say to the working people, their friends who go to them and
+perish on the road to prison. Not so would dishonest people speak, not
+so deceivers."
+
+"Out of the way! Disperse!" the shouts of the gendarmes came nearer and
+nearer. There were more of them already; they pushed more forcibly; and
+the people in front of the mother swayed, catching hold of one another.
+
+"Is that all you have in the valise?" whispered somebody.
+
+"Take it! Take all!" said the mother aloud, feeling that the words
+disposed themselves into a song in her breast, and noticing with pain
+that her voice did not hold out, that it was hoarse, trembled, and
+broke.
+
+"The word of my son is the honest word of a workingman, of an unsold
+soul. You will recognize its incorruptibility by its boldness. It is
+fearless, and if necessary it goes even against itself to meet the
+truth. It goes to you, working people, incorruptible, wise, fearless.
+Receive it with an open heart, feed on it; it will give you the power to
+understand everything, to fight against everything for the truth, for
+the freedom of mankind. Receive it, believe it, go with it toward the
+happiness of all the people, to a new life with great joy!"
+
+She received a blow on the chest; she staggered and fell on the bench.
+The gendarmes' hands darted over the heads of the people, and seizing
+collars and shoulders, threw them aside, tore off hats, flung them far
+away. Everything grew dark and began to whirl before the eyes of the
+mother. But overcoming her fatigue, she again shouted with the remnants
+of her power:
+
+"People, gather up your forces into one single force!"
+
+A large gendarme caught her collar with his red hand and shook her.
+
+"Keep quiet!"
+
+The nape of her neck struck the wall; her heart was enveloped for a
+second in the stifling smoke of terror; but it blazed forth again
+clearly, dispelling the smoke.
+
+"Go!" said the gendarme.
+
+"Fear nothing! There are no tortures worse than those which you endure
+all your lives!"
+
+"Silence, I say!" The gendarme took her by the arm and pulled her;
+another seized her by the other arm, and taking long steps, they led her
+away.
+
+"There are no tortures more bitter than those which quietly gnaw at your
+heart every day, waste your breast, and drain your power."
+
+The spy came running up, and shaking his fist in her face, shouted:
+
+"Silence, you old hag!"
+
+Her eyes widened, sparkled; her jaws quivered. Planting her feet firmly
+on the slippery stones of the floor, she shouted, gathering the last
+remnants of her strength:
+
+"The resuscitated soul they will not kill."
+
+"Dog!"
+
+The spy struck her face with a short swing of his hand.
+
+Something black and red blinded her eyes for a second. The salty taste
+of blood filled her mouth.
+
+A clear outburst of shouts animated her:
+
+"Don't dare to beat her!"
+
+"Boys!"
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"Oh, you scoundrel!"
+
+"Give it to him!"
+
+"They will not drown reason in blood; they will not extinguish its
+truth!"
+
+She was pushed in the neck and the back, beaten about the shoulders, on
+the head. Everything began to turn around, grow giddy in a dark
+whirlwind of shouts, howls, whistles. Something thick and deafening
+crept into her ear, beat in her throat, choked her. The floor under her
+feet began to shake, giving way. Her legs bent, her body trembled,
+burned with pain, grew heavy, and staggered powerless. But her eyes were
+not extinguished, and they saw many other eyes which flashed and gleamed
+with the bold sharp fire known to her, with the fire dear to her heart.
+
+She was pushed somewhere into a door.
+
+She snatched her hand away from the gendarmes and caught hold of the
+doorpost.
+
+"You will not drown the truth in seas of blood----"
+
+They struck her hand.
+
+"You heap up only malice on yourself, you unwise ones! It will fall on
+you----"
+
+Somebody seized her neck and began to choke her. There was a rattle in
+her throat.
+
+"You poor, sorry creatures----"
+
+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's note:
+
+Page numbers referred to in the LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS correspond
+with the illustrations' original locations. Tags for illustrations have
+been moved to be closer to their mention in the text.
+
+
+
+***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MOTHER***
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