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.