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Title: Mother

Author: Maksim Gorky

Illustrator: Sigismond de Ivanowski

Release date: February 1, 2003 [eBook #3783]
Most recently updated: November 26, 2011

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/3783

Credits: E-text prepared by Jarrod Newton and revised by Al Haines,

*** 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)

Frontispiece:
"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

TABLE OF CONTENTS
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

PART I
Chapter I Chapter II Chapter III Chapter IV
Chapter V Chapter VI Chapter VII Chapter VIII
Chapter IX Chapter X Chapter XI Chapter XII
Chapter XIII Chapter XIV Chapter XV Chapter XVI
Chapter XVII Chapter XVIII Chapter XIX Chapter XX

PART II
Chapter I Chapter II Chapter III Chapter IV
Chapter V Chapter VI Chapter VII Chapter VIII
Chapter IX Chapter X Chapter XI Chapter XII
Chapter XIII Chapter XIV Chapter XV Chapter XVI
Chapter XVII Chapter XVIII Chapter XIX

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
FACING
PAGE
"With somber faces ... their
muscles stiff with insufficient Frontispiece
sleep"
"The mother ... strained her
34
untrained mind to listen"
"It seemed to Vlasova that the
officer was but waiting for her 92
tears"
"Taking out one package of books
after the other, she shoved them 116
into the hands of the brothers"
"The mother's heart quivered with
142
impatience"
"'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 naïveté
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.

"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 Cæsar. 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:

"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!"

"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, Mikhaïl 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.

"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, Mikhaïl 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, Mikhaïl
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:
"Mikhaïl 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 Mikhaïl 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."
"Mikhaïl!" 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, Daniïl 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."

"'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 Mikhaïl?" 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 Mikhaïl'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, Mikhaïl 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 Mikhaïl, 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.

"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
Mikhaïl, 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
zoölogical 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!"