"Comrades!" the voice of Pavel was heard. "Soldiers are people the same
as ourselves. They will not strike us! Why should they beat us? Because
we bear the truth necessary for all? This our truth is necessary to
them, too. Just now they do not understand this; but the time is nearing
when they will rise with us, when they will march, not under the banner
of robbers and murderers, the banner which the liars and beasts order
them to call the banner of glory and honor, but under our banner of
freedom and goodness! We ought to go forward so that they should
understand our truth the sooner. Forward, comrades! Ever forward!"
Pavel's voice sounded firm, the words rang in the air distinctly. But
the crowd fell asunder; one after the other the people dropped off to
the right or to the left, going toward their homes, or leaning against
the fences. Now the crowd had the shape of a wedge, and its point was
Pavel, over whose head the banner of the laboring people was burning
red.
At the end of the street, closing the exit to the square, the mother saw
a low, gray wall of men, one just like the other, without faces. On the
shoulder of each a bayonet was smiling its thin, chill smile; and from
this entire immobile wall a cold gust blew down on the workmen, striking
the breast of the mother and penetrating her heart.
She forced her way into the crowd among people familiar to her, and, as
it were, leaned on them.
She pressed closely against a tall, lame man with a clean-shaven face.
In order to look at her, he had to turn his head stiffly.
"What do you want? Who are you?" he asked her.
"The mother of Pavel Vlasov," she answered, her knees trembling beneath
her, her lower lip involuntarily dropping.
"Ha-ha!" said the lame man. "Very well!"
"Comrades!" Pavel cried. "Onward all your lives. There is no other way
for us! Sing!"
The atmosphere grew tense. The flag rose and rocked and waved over the
heads of the people, gliding toward the gray wall of soldiers. The
mother trembled. She closed her eyes, and cried: "Oh--oh!"
None but Pavel, Andrey, Samoylov, and Mazin advanced beyond the crowd.
The limpid voice of Fedya Mazin slowly quivered in the air.
"'In mortal strife--'" he began the song.
"'You victims fell--'" answered thick, subdued voices. The words dropped
in two heavy sighs. People stepped forward, each footfall audible. A new
song, determined and resolute, burst out:
"You yielded up your lives for them."
Fedya's voice wreathed and curled like a bright ribbon.
"A-ha-ha-ha!" some one exclaimed derisively. "They've struck up a
funeral song, the dirty dogs!"
"Beat him!" came the angry response.
The mother clasped her hands to her breast, looked about, and saw that
the crowd, before so dense, was now standing irresolute, watching the
comrades walk away from them with the banner, followed by about a dozen
people, one of whom, however, at every forward move, jumped aside as if
the path in the middle of the street were red hot and burned his soles.
"The tyranny will fall--" sounded the prophetic song from the lips of
Fedya.
"And the people will rise!" the chorus of powerful voices seconded
confidently and menacingly.
But the harmonious flow of the song was broken by the quiet words:
"He is giving orders."
"Charge bayonets!" came the piercing order from the front.
The bayonets curved in the air, and glittered sharply; then fell and
stretched out to confront the banner.
"Ma-arch!"
"They're coming!" said the lame man, and thrusting his hands into his
pockets made a long step to one side.
The mother, without blinking, looked on. The gray line of soldiers
tossed to and fro, and spread out over the entire width of the street.
It moved on evenly, coolly, carrying in front of itself a fine-toothed
comb of sparkling bayonets. Then it came to a stand. The mother took
long steps to get nearer to her son. She saw how Andrey strode ahead of
Pavel and fenced him off with his long body. "Get alongside of me!"
Pavel shouted sharply. Andrey was singing, his hands clasped behind his
back, his head uplifted. Pavel pushed him with his shoulder, and again
cried:
"At my side! Let the banner be in front!"
"Disperse!" called a little officer in a thin voice, brandishing a white
saber. He lifted his feet high, and without bending his knees struck his
soles on the ground irritably. The high polish on his boots caught the
eyes of the mother.
To one side and somewhat behind him walked a tall, clean-shaven man,
with a thick, gray mustache. He wore a long gray overcoat with a red
underlining, and yellow stripes on his trousers. His gait was heavy, and
like the Little Russian, he clasped his hands behind his back. He
regarded Pavel, raising his thick gray eyebrows.
The mother seemed to be looking into infinity. At each breath her breast
was ready to burst with a loud cry. It choked her, but for some reason
she restrained it. Her hands clutched at her bosom. She staggered from
repeated thrusts. She walked onward without thought, almost without
consciousness. She felt that behind her the crowd was getting thinner; a
cold wind had blown on them and scattered them like autumn leaves.
The men around the red banner moved closer and closer together. The
faces of the soldiers were clearly seen across the entire width of the
street, monstrously flattened, stretched out in a dirty yellowish band.
In it were unevenly set variously colored eyes, and in front the sharp
bayonets glittered crudely. Directed against the breasts of the people,
although not yet touching them, they drove them apart, pushing one man
after the other away from the crowd and breaking it up.
Behind her the mother heard the trampling noise of those who were
running away. Suppressed, excited voices cried:
"Disperse, boys!"
"Vlasov, run!"
"Back, Pavel!"
"Drop the banner, Pavel!" Vyesovshchikov said glumly. "Give it to me!
I'll hide it!"
He grabbed the pole with his hand; the flag rocked backward.
"Let go!" thundered Pavel.
Nikolay drew his hand back as if it had been burned. The song died away.
Some persons crowded solidly around Pavel; but he cut through to the
front. A sudden silence fell.
Around the banner some twenty men were grouped, not more, but they stood
firmly. The mother felt drawn to them by awe and by a confused desire to
say something to them.
"Take this thing away from him, lieutenant." The even voice of the tall
old man was heard. He pointed to the banner. A little officer jumped up
to Pavel, snatched at the flag pole, and shouted shrilly:
"Drop it!"
The red flag trembled in the air, moving to the right and to the left,
then rose again. The little officer jumped back and sat down. Nikolay
darted by the mother, shaking his outstretched fist.
"Seize them!" the old man roared, stamping his feet. A few soldiers
jumped to the front, one of them flourishing the butt end of his gun.
The banner trembled, dropped, and disappeared in a gray mass of
soldiers.
"Oh!" somebody groaned aloud. And the mother yelled like a wild animal.
But the clear voice of Pavel answered her from out of the crowd of
soldiers:
"Good-by, mother! Good-by, dear!"
"He's alive! He remembered!" were the two strokes at the mother's heart.
"Good-by, mother dear!" came from Andrey.
Waving her hands, she raised herself on tiptoe, and tried to see them.
There was the round face of Andrey above the soldiers' heads. He was
smiling and bowing to her.
"Oh, my dear ones! Andriusha! Pasha!" she shouted.
"Good-by, comrades!" they called from among the soldiers.
A broken, manifold echo responded to them. It resounded from the windows
and the roofs.
The mother felt some one pushing her breast. Through the mist in her
eyes she saw the little officer. His face was red and strained, and he
was shouting to her:
"Clear out of here, old woman!"
She looked down on him, and at his feet saw the flag pole broken in two
parts, a piece of red cloth on one of them. She bent down and picked it
up. The officer snatched it out of her hands, threw it aside, and
shouted again, stamping his feet:
"Clear out of here, I tell you!"
A song sprang up and floated from among the soldiers:
"Arise, awake, you workingmen!"
Everything was whirling, rocking, trembling. A thick, alarming noise,
resembling the dull hum of telegraph wires, filled the air. The officer
jumped back, screaming angrily:
"Stop the singing, Sergeant Kraynov!"
The mother staggered to the fragment of the pole, which he had thrown
down, and picked it up again.
"Gag them!"
The song became confused, trembled, expired. Somebody took the mother by
the shoulders, turned her around, and shoved her from the back.
"Go, go! Clear the street!" shouted the officer.
About ten paces from her, the mother again saw a thick crowd of people.
They were howling, grumbling, whistling, as they backed down the street.
The yards were drawing in a number of them.
"Go, you devil!" a young soldier with a big mustache shouted right into
the mother's ear. He brushed against her and shoved her onto the
sidewalk. She moved away, leaning on the flag pole. She went quickly and
lightly, but her legs bent under her. In order not to fall she clung to
walls and fences. People in front were falling back alongside of her,
and behind her were soldiers, shouting: "Go, go!"
The soldiers got ahead of her; she stopped and looked around. Down the
end of the street she saw them again scattered in a thin chain, blocking
the entrance to the square, which was empty. Farther down were more gray
figures slowly moving against the people. She wanted to go back; but
uncalculatingly went forward again, and came to a narrow, empty
by-street into which she turned. She stopped again. She sighed
painfully, and listened. Somewhere ahead she heard the hum of voices.
Leaning on the pole she resumed her walk. Her eyebrows moved up and
down, and she suddenly broke into a sweat; her lips quivered; she waved
her hands, and certain words flashed up in her heart like sparks,
kindling in her a strong, stubborn desire to speak them, to shout them.
The by-street turned abruptly to the left; and around the corner the
mother saw a large, dense crowd of people. Somebody's voice was speaking
loudly and firmly:
"They don't go to meet the bayonets from sheer audacity. Remember that!"
"Just look at them. Soldiers advance against them, and they stand before
them without fear. Y-yes!"
"Think of Pasha Vlasov!"
"And how about the Little Russian?"
"Hands behind his back and smiling, the devil!"
"My dear ones! My people!" the mother shouted, pushing into the crowd.
They cleared the way for her respectfully. Somebody laughed:
"Look at her with the flag in her hand!"
"Shut up!" said another man sternly.
The mother with a broad sweep of her arms cried out:
"Listen for the sake of Christ! You are all dear people, you are all
good people. Open up your hearts. Look around without fear, without
terror. Our children are going into the world. Our children are going,
our blood is going for the truth; with honesty in their hearts they open
the gates of the new road--a straight, wide road for all. For all of
you, for the sake of your young ones, they have devoted themselves to
the sacred cause. They seek the sun of new days that shall always be
bright. They want another life, the life of truth and justice, of
goodness for all."
[Illustration: "'Listen for the sake of Christ.'"]
Her heart was rent asunder, her breast contracted, her throat was hot
and dry. Deep inside of her, words were being born, words of a great,
all-embracing love. They burned her tongue, moving it more powerfully
and more freely. She saw that the people were listening to her words.
All were silent. She felt that they were thinking as they surrounded her
closely; and the desire grew in her, now a clear desire, to drive these
people to follow her son, to follow Andrey, to follow all those who had
fallen into the soldiers' hands, all those who were left entirely alone,
all those who were abandoned. Looking at the sullen, attentive faces
around her, she resumed with soft force:
"Our children are going in the world toward happiness. They went for the
sake of all, and for Christ's truth--against all with which our
malicious, false, avaricious ones have captured, tied, and crushed us.
My dear ones--why it is for you that our young blood rose--for all the
people, for all the world, for all the workingmen, they went! Then don't
go away from them, don't renounce, don't forsake them, don't leave your
children on a lonely path--they went just for the purpose of showing you
all the path to truth, to take all on that path! Pity yourselves! Love
them! Understand the children's hearts. Believe your sons' hearts; they
have brought forth the truth; it burns in them; they perish for it.
Believe them!"
Her voice broke down, she staggered, her strength gone. Somebody seized
her under the arms.
"She is speaking God's words!" a man shouted hoarsely and excitedly.
"God's words, good people! Listen to her!"
Another man said in pity of her:
"Look how she's hurting herself!"
"She's not hurting herself, but hitting us, fools, understand that!" was
the reproachful reply.
A high-pitched, quavering voice rose up over the crowd:
"Oh, people of the true faith! My Mitya, pure soul, what has he done? He
went after his dear comrades. She speaks truth--why did we forsake our
children? What harm have they done us?"
The mother trembled at these words and replied with soft tears.
"Go home, Nilovna! Go, mother! You're all worn out," said Sizov loudly.
He was pale, his disheveled beard shook. Suddenly knitting his brows he
threw a stern glance about him on all, drew himself up to his full
height, and said distinctly:
"My son Matvey was crushed in the factory. You know it! But were he
alive, I myself would have sent him into the lines of those--along with
them. I myself would have told him: 'Go you, too, Matvey! That's the
right cause, that's the honest cause!'"
He stopped abruptly, and a sullen silence fell on all, in the powerful
grip of something huge and new, but something that no longer frightened
them. Sizov lifted his hand, shook it, and continued:
"It's an old man who is speaking to you. You know me! I've been working
here thirty-nine years, and I've been alive fifty-three years. To-day
they've arrested my nephew, a pure and intelligent boy. He, too, was in
the front, side by side with Vlasov; right at the banner." Sizov made a
motion with his hand, shrank together, and said as he took the mother's
hand: "This woman spoke the truth. Our children want to live honorably,
according to reason, and we have abandoned them; we walked away, yes!
Go, Nilovna!"
"My dear ones!" she said, looking at them all with tearful eyes. "The
life is for our children and the earth is for them."
"Go, Nilovna, take this staff and lean upon it!" said Sizov, giving her
the fragment of the flag pole.
All looked at the mother with sadness and respect. A hum of sympathy
accompanied her. Sizov silently put the people out of her way, and they
silently moved aside, obeying a blind impulse to follow her. They walked
after her slowly, exchanging brief, subdued remarks on the way. Arrived
at the gate of her house, she turned to them, leaning on the fragment of
the flag pole, and bowed in gratitude.
"Thank you!" she said softly. And recalling the thought which she
fancied had been born in her heart, she said: "Our Lord Jesus Christ
would not have been, either, if people had not perished for his sake."
The crowd looked at her in silence.
She bowed to the people again, and went into her house, and Sizov,
drooping his head, went in with her.
The people stood at the gates and talked. Then they began to depart
slowly and quietly.
PART II
CHAPTER I
The day passed in a motley blur of recollections, in a depressing state
of exhaustion, which tightly clutched at the mother's body and soul. The
faces of the young men flashed before her mental vision, the banner
blazed, the songs clamored at her ear, the little officer skipped about,
a gray stain before her eyes, and through the whirlwind of the
procession she saw the gleam of Pavel's bronzed face and the smiling
sky-blue eyes of Andrey.
She walked up and down the room, sat at the window, looked out into the
street, and walked away again with lowered eyebrows. Every now and then
she started, and looked about in an aimless search for something. She
drank water, but could not slake her thirst, nor quench the smoldering
fire of anguish and injury in her bosom. The day was chopped in two. It
began full of meaning and content, but now it dribbled away into a
dismal waste, which stretched before her endlessly. The question swung
to and fro in her barren, perplexed mind:
"What now?"
Korsunova came in. Waving her hands, she shouted, wept, and went into
raptures; stamped her feet, suggested this and that, made promises, and
threw out threats against somebody. All this failed to impress the
mother.
"Aha!" she heard the squeaking voice of Marya. "So the people have been
stirred up! At last the whole factory has arisen! All have arisen!"
"Yes, yes!" said the mother in a low voice, shaking her head. Her eyes
were fixed on something that had already fallen into the past, had
departed from her along with Andrey and Pavel. She was unable to weep.
Her heart was dried up, her lips, too, were dry, and her mouth was
parched. Her hands shook, and a cold, fine shiver ran down her back,
setting her skin aquiver.
In the evening the gendarmes came. She met them without surprise and
without fear. They entered noisily, with a peculiarly jaunty air, and
with a look of gayety and satisfaction in their faces. The yellow-faced
officer said, displaying his teeth:
"Well, how are you? The third time I have the honor, eh?"
She was silent, passing her dry tongue along her lips. The officer
talked a great deal, delivering a homily to her. The mother realized
what pleasure he derived from his words. But they did not reach her;
they did not disturb her; they were like the insistent chirp of a
cricket. It was only when he said: "It's your own fault, little mother,
that you weren't able to inspire your son with reverence for God and the
Czar," that she answered dully, standing at the door and looking at him:
"Yes, our children are our judges. They visit just punishment upon us
for abandoning them on such a road."
"Wha-at?" shouted the officer. "Louder!"
"I say, the children are our judges," the mother repeated with a sigh.
He said something quickly and angrily, but his words buzzed around her
without touching her. Marya Korsunova was a witness. She stood beside
the mother, but did not look at her; and when the officer turned to her
with a question, she invariably answered with a hasty, low bow: "I don't
know, your Honor. I am just a simple, ignorant woman. I make my living
by peddling, stupid as I am, and I know nothing."
"Shut up, then!" commanded the officer.
She was ordered to search Vlasova. She blinked her eyes, then opened
them wide on the officer, and said in fright:
"I can't, your Honor!"
The officer stamped his feet and began to shout. Marya lowered her eyes,
and pleaded with the mother softly:
"Well, what can be done? You have to submit, Pelagueya Nilovna."
As she searched and felt the mother's dress, the blood mounting to her
face, she murmured:
"Oh, the dogs!"
"What are you jabbering about there?" the officer cried rudely, looking
into the corner where she was making the search.
"It's about women's affairs, your Honor," mumbled Marya, terrorized.
On his order to sign the search warrant the mother, with unskilled hand,
traced on the paper in printed shining letters:
"Pelagueya Nilovna, widow of a workingman."
They went away, and the mother remained standing at the window. With her
hands folded over her breast, she gazed into vacancy without winking,
her eyebrows raised. Her lips were compressed, her jaws so tightly set
that her teeth began to pain her. The oil burned down in the lamp, the
light flared up for a moment, and then went out. She blew on it, and
remained in the dark. She felt no malice, she harbored no sense of
injury in her heart. A dark, cold cloud of melancholy settled on her
breast, and impeded the beating of her heart. Her mind was a void. She
stood at the window a long time; her feet and eyes grew weary. She heard
Marya stop at the window, and shout: "Are you asleep, Pelagueya? You
unfortunate, suffering woman, sleep! They abuse everybody, the
heretics!" At last she dropped into bed without undressing, and quickly
fell into a heavy sleep, as if she had plunged into a deep abyss.
She dreamed she saw a yellow sandy mound beyond the marsh on the road to
the city. At the edge, which descended perpendicularly to the ditch,
from which sand was being taken, stood Pavel singing softly and
sonorously with the voice of Andrey:
"Rise up, awake, you workingmen!"
She walked past the mound along the road to the city, and putting her
hand to her forehead looked at her son. His figure was clearly and
sharply outlined against the sky. She could not make up her mind to go
up to him. She was ashamed because she was pregnant. And she held an
infant in her arms, besides. She walked farther on. Children were
playing ball in the field. There were many of them, and the ball was a
red one. The infant threw himself forward out of her arms toward them,
and began to cry aloud. She gave him the breast, and turned back. Now
soldiers were already at the mound, and they turned the bayonets against
her. She ran quickly to the church standing in the middle of the field,
the white, light church that seemed to be constructed out of clouds, and
was immeasurably high. A funeral was going on there. The coffin was
wide, black, and tightly covered with a lid. The priest and deacon
walked around in white canonicals and sang:
"Christ has arisen from the dead."
The deacon carried the incense, bowed to her, and smiled. His hair was
glaringly red, and his face jovial, like Samoylov's. From the top of the
dome broad sunbeams descended to the ground. In both choirs the boys
sang softly:
"Christ has arisen from the dead."
"Arrest them!" the priest suddenly cried, standing up in the middle of
the church. His vestments vanished from his body, and a gray, stern
mustache appeared on his face. All the people started to run, and the
deacon, flinging the censer aside, rushed forward, seizing his head in
his hands like the Little Russian. The mother dropped the infant on the
ground at the feet of the people. They ran to the side of her, timidly
regarding the naked little body. She fell on her knees and shouted to
them: "Don't abandon the child! Take it with you!"
"Christ has arisen from the dead," the Little Russian sang, holding his
hands behind his back, and smiling. He bent down, took the child, and
put it on the wagon loaded with timber, at the side of which Nikolay was
walking slowly, shaking with laughter. He said:
"They have given me hard work."
The street was muddy, the people thrust their faces from the windows of
the houses, and whistled, shouted, waved their hands. The day was clear,
the sun shone brightly, and there was not a single shadow anywhere.
"Sing, mother!" said the Little Russian. "Oh, what a life!"
And he sang, drowning all the other sounds with his kind, laughing
voice. The mother walked behind him, and complained:
"Why does he make fun of me?"
But suddenly she stumbled and fell in a bottomless abyss. Fearful
shrieks met her in her descent.
She awoke, shivering and yet perspiring. She put her ear, as it were, to
her own breast, and marveled at the emptiness that prevailed there. The
whistle blew insistently. From its sound she realized that it was
already the second summons. The room was all in disorder; the books and
clothes lay about in confusion; everything was turned upside down, and
dirt was trampled over the entire floor.
She arose, and without washing or praying began to set the room in
order. In the kitchen she caught sight of the stick with the piece of
red cloth. She seized it angrily, and was about to throw it away under
the oven, but instead, with a sigh, removed the remnant of the flag from
the pole, folded it carefully, and put it in her pocket. Then she began
to wash the windows with cold water, next the floor, and finally
herself; then dressed herself and prepared the samovar. She sat down at
the window in the kitchen, and once more the question came to her:
"What now? What am I to do now?"
Recollecting that she had not yet said her prayers, she walked up to the
images, and after standing before them for a few seconds, she sat down
again. Her heart was empty.
The pendulum, which always beat with an energy seeming to say: "I must
get to the goal! I must get to the goal!" slackened its hasty ticking.
The flies buzzed irresolutely, as if pondering a certain plan of action.
Suddenly she recalled a picture she had once seen in the days of her
youth. In the old park of the Zansaylovs, there was a large pond densely
overgrown with water lilies. One gray day in the fall, while walking
along the pond, she had seen a boat in the middle of it. The pond was
dark and calm, and the boat seemed glued to the black water, thickly
strewn with yellow leaves. Profound sadness and a vague sense of
misfortune were wafted from that boat without a rower and without oars,
standing alone and motionless out there on the dull water amid the dead
leaves. The mother had stood a long time at the edge of the pond
meditating as to who had pushed the boat from the shore and why. Now it
seemed to her that she herself was like that boat, which at the time had
reminded her of a coffin waiting for its dead. In the evening of the
same day she had learned that the wife of one of Zansaylov's clerks had
been drowned in the pond--a little woman with black disheveled hair, who
always walked at a brisk gait.
The mother passed her hands over her eyes as if to rub her reminiscences
away, and her thoughts fluttered like a varicolored ribbon. Overcome by
her impressions of the day before, she sat for a long time, her eyes
fixed upon the cup of tea grown cold. Gradually the desire came to see
some wise, simple person, speak to him, and ask him many things.
As if in answer to her wish, Nikolay Ivanovich came in after dinner.
When she saw him, however, she was suddenly seized with alarm, and
failed to respond to his greeting.
"Oh, my friend," she said softly, "there was no use for you to come
here. If they arrest you here, too, then that will be the end of Pasha
altogether. It's very careless of you! They'll take you without fail if
they see you here."
He clasped her hand tightly, adjusted his glasses on his nose, and
bending his face close to her, explained to her in haste:
"I made an agreement with Pavel and Andrey, that if they were arrested,
I must see that you move over to the city the very next day." He spoke
kindly, but with a troubled air. "Did they make a search in your house?"
"They did. They rummaged, searched, and nosed around. Those people have
no shame, no conscience!" exclaimed the mother indignantly.
"What do they need shame for?" said Nikolay with a shrug of his
shoulders, and explained to her the necessity of her going to the city.
His friendly, solicitous talk moved and agitated her. She looked at him
with a pale smile, and wondered at the kindly feeling of confidence he
inspired in her.
"If Pasha wants it, and I'll be no inconvenience to you----"
"Don't be uneasy on that score. I live all alone; my sister comes over
only rarely."
"I'm not going to eat my head off for nothing," she said, thinking
aloud.
"If you want to work, you'll find something to do."
Her conception of work was now indissolubly connected with the work that
her son, Andrey, and their comrades were doing. She moved a little
toward Nikolay, and looking in his eyes, asked:
"Yes? You say work will be found for me?"
"My household is a small one, I am a bachelor----"
"I'm not talking about that, not about housework," she said quietly. "I
mean world work."
And she heaved a melancholy sigh, stung and repelled by his failure to
understand her. He rose, and bending toward her, with a smile in his
nearsighted eyes, he said thoughtfully, "You'll find a place for
yourself in the work world, too, if you want it."
Her mind quickly formulated the simple and clear thought: "Once I was
able to help Pavel; perhaps I will succeed again. The greater the number
of those who work for his cause, the clearer will his truth come out
before the people."
But these thoughts did not fully express the whole force and complexity
of her desire.
"What could I do?" she asked quietly.
He thought a while, and then began to explain the technical details of
the revolutionary work. Among other things, he said:
"If, when you go to see Pavel in prison, you tried to find out from him
the address of the peasant who asked for a newspaper----"
"I know it!" exclaimed the mother in delight. "I know where they are,
and who they are. Give me the papers, I'll deliver them. I'll find the
peasants, and do everything just as you say. Who will think that I carry
illegal books? I carried books to the factory. I smuggled in more than a
hundred pounds, Heaven be praised!"
The desire came upon her to travel along the road, through forests and
villages, with a birch-bark sack over her shoulders, and a staff in her
hand.
"Now, you dear, dear man, you just arrange it for me, arrange it so that
I can work in this movement. I'll go everywhere for you! I'll keep going
summer and winter, down to my very grave, a pilgrim for the sake of
truth. Why, isn't that a splendid lot for a woman like me? The
wanderer's life is a good life. He goes about through the world, he has
nothing, he needs nothing except bread, no one abuses him, and so,
quietly, unnoticed, he roves over the earth. And so I'll go, too; I'll
go to Andrey, to Pasha, wherever they live."
She was seized with sadness when she saw herself homeless, begging for
alms, in the name of Christ, at the windows of the village cottages.
Nikolay took her hand gently, and stroked it with his warm hand. Then,
looking at the watch, he said:
"We'll speak about that later. You are taking a dangerous burden upon
your shoulders. You must consider very carefully what you intend doing."
"My dear man, what have I to consider? What have I to live for if not
for this cause? Of what use am I to anybody? A tree grows, it gives
shade; it's split into wood, and it warms people. Even a mere dumb tree
is helpful to life, and I am a human being. The children, the best blood
of man, the best there is of our hearts, give up their liberty and their
lives, perish without pity for themselves! And I, a mother--am I to
stand by and do nothing?"
The picture of her son marching at the head of the crowd with the banner
in his hands flashed before her mind.
"Why should I lie idle when my son gives up his life for the sake of
truth? I know now--I know that he is working for the truth. It's the
fifth year now that I live beside the woodpile. My heart has melted and
begun to burn. I understand what you are striving for. I see what a
burden you all carry on your shoulders. Take me to you, too, for the
sake of Christ, that I may be able to help my son! Take me to you!"
Nikolay's face grew pale; he heaved a deep sigh, and smiling, said,
looking at her with sympathetic attention:
"This is the first time I've heard such words."
"What can I say?" she replied, shaking her head sadly, and spreading her
hands in a gesture of impotence. "If I had the words to express my
mother's heart--" She arose, lifted by the power that waxed in her
breast, intoxicated her, and gave her the words to express her
indignation. "Then many and many a one would weep, and even the wicked,
the men without conscience would tremble! I would make them taste gall,
even as they made Christ drink of the cup of bitterness, and as they now
do our children. They have bruised a mother's heart!"
Nikolay rose, and pulling his little beard with trembling fingers, he
said slowly in an unfamiliar tone of voice:
"Some day you will speak to them, I think!"
He started, looked at his watch again, and asked in a hurry:
"So it's settled? You'll come over to me in the city?"
She silently nodded her head.
"When? Try to do it as soon as possible." And he added in a tender
voice: "I'll be anxious for you; yes, indeed!"
She looked at him in surprise. What was she to him? With bent head,
smiling in embarrassment, he stood before her, dressed in a simple black
jacket, stooping, nearsighted.
"Have you money?" he asked, dropping his eyes.
"No."
He quickly whipped his purse out of his pocket, opened it, and handed it
to her.
"Here, please take some."
She smiled involuntarily, and shaking her head, observed:
"Everything about all of you is different from other people. Even money
has no value for you. People do anything to get money; they kill their
souls for it. But for you money is so many little pieces of paper,
little bits of copper. You seem to keep it by you just out of kindness
to people."
Nikolay Ivanovich laughed softly.
"It's an awfully bothersome article, money is. Both to take it and to
give it is embarrassing."
He caught her hand, pressed it warmly, and asked again:
"So you will try to come soon, won't you?"
And he walked away quietly, as was his wont.
She got herself ready to go to him on the fourth day after his visit.
When the cart with her two trunks rolled out of the village into the
open country, she turned her head back, and suddenly had the feeling
that she was leaving the place forever--the place where she had passed
the darkest and most burdensome period of her life, the place where that
other varied life had begun, in which the next day swallowed up the day
before, and each was filled by an abundance of new sorrows and new joys,
new thoughts and new feelings.
The factory spread itself like a huge, clumsy, dark-red spider, raising
its lofty smokestacks high up into the sky. The small one-storied houses
pressed against it, gray, flattened out on the soot-covered ground, and
crowded up in close clusters on the edge of the marsh. They looked
sorrowfully at one another with their little dull windows. Above them
rose the church, also dark red like the factory. The belfry, it seemed
to her, was lower than the factory chimneys.
The mother sighed, and adjusted the collar of her dress, which choked
her. She felt sad, but it was a dry sadness like the dust of the hot
day.
"Gee!" mumbled the driver, shaking the reins over the horse. He was a
bow-legged man of uncertain height, with sparse, faded hair on his face
and head, and faded eyes. Swinging from side to side he walked alongside
the wagon. It was evidently a matter of indifference to him whether he
went to the right or the left.
"Gee!" he called in a colorless voice, with a comical forward stride of
his crooked legs clothed in heavy boots, to which clods of mud were
clinging. The mother looked around. The country was as bleak and dreary
as her soul.
"You'll never escape want, no matter where you go, auntie," the driver
said dully. "There's no road leading away from poverty; all roads lead
to it, and none out of it."
Shaking its head dejectedly the horse sank its feet heavily into the
deep sun-dried sand, which crackled softly under its tread. The rickety
wagon creaked for lack of greasing.
CHAPTER II
Nikolay Ivanovich lived on a quiet, deserted street, in a little green
wing annexed to a black two-storied structure swollen with age. In front
of the wing was a thickly grown little garden, and branches of lilac
bushes, acacias, and silvery young poplars looked benignly and freshly
into the windows of the three rooms occupied by Nikolay. It was quiet
and tidy in his place. The shadows trembled mutely on the floor, shelves
closely set with books stretched across the walls, and portraits of
stern, serious persons hung over them.
"Do you think you'll find it convenient here?" asked Nikolay, leading
the mother into a little room with one window giving on the garden and
another on the grass-grown yard. In this room, too, the walls were lined
with bookcases and bookshelves.
"I'd rather be in the kitchen," she said. "The little kitchen is bright
and clean."
It seemed to her that he grew rather frightened. And when she yielded to
his awkward and embarrassed persuasions to take the room, he immediately
cheered up.
There was a peculiar atmosphere pervading all the three rooms. It was
easy and pleasant to breathe in them; but one's voice involuntarily
dropped a note in the wish not to speak aloud and intrude upon the
peaceful thoughtfulness of the people who sent down a concentrated look
from the walls.
"The flowers need watering," said the mother, feeling the earth in the
flowerpots in the windows.
"Yes, yes," said the master guiltily. "I love them very much, but I have
no time to take care of them."
The mother noticed that Nikolay walked about in his own comfortable
quarters just as carefully and as noiselessly as if he were a stranger,
and as if all that surrounded him were remote from him. He would pick up
and examine some small article, such as a bust, bring it close to his
face, and scrutinize it minutely, adjusting his glasses with the thin
finger of his right hand, and screwing up his eyes. He had the
appearance of just having entered the rooms for the first time, and
everything seemed as unfamiliar and strange to him as to the mother.
Consequently, the mother at once felt herself at home. She followed
Nikolay, observing where each thing stood, and inquiring about his ways
and habits of life. He answered with the guilty air of a man who knows
he is all the time doing things as they ought not to be done, but cannot
help himself.
After she had watered the flowers and arranged the sheets of music
scattered in disorder over the piano, she looked at the samovar, and
remarked, "It needs polishing."
Nikolay ran his finger over the dull metal, then stuck the finger close
to his nose. He looked at the mother so seriously that she could not
restrain a good-natured smile.
When she lay down to sleep and thought of the day just past, she raised
her head from the pillow in astonishment and looked around. For the
first time in her life she was in the house of a stranger, and she did
not experience the least constraint. Her mind dwelt solicitously on
Nikolay. She had a distinct desire to do the best she could for him, and
to introduce more warmth into his lonely life. She was stirred and
affected by his embarrassed awkwardness and droll ignorance, and smiled
to herself with a sigh. Then her thoughts leaped to her son and to
Andrey. She recalled the high-pitched, sparkling voice of Fedya, and
gradually the whole day of the first of May unrolled itself before her,
clothed in new sounds, reflecting new thoughts. The trials of the day
were peculiar as the day itself. They did not bring her head to the
ground as with the dull, stunning blow of the fist. They stabbed the
heart with a thousand pricks, and called forth in her a quiet wrath,
opening her eyes and straightening her backbone.
"Children go in the world," she thought as she listened to the
unfamiliar nocturnal sounds of the city. They crept through the open
window like a sigh from afar, stirring the leaves in the garden and
faintly expiring in the room.
Early in the morning she polished up the samovar, made a fire in it, and
filled it with water, and noiselessly placed the dishes on the table.
Then she sat down in the kitchen and waited for Nikolay to rise.
Presently she heard him cough. He appeared at the door, holding his
glasses in one hand, the other hand at his throat. She responded to his
greeting, and brought the samovar into the room. He began to wash
himself, splashing the water on the floor, dropping the soap and his
toothbrush, and grumbling in dissatisfaction at himself.
When they sat down to drink tea, he said to the mother:
"I am employed in the Zemstvo board--a very sad occupation. I see the
way our peasants are going to ruin."
And smiling he repeated guiltily: "It's literally so--I see! People go
hungry, they lie down in their graves prematurely, starved to death,
children are born feeble and sick, and drop like flies in autumn--we
know all this, we know the causes of this wretchedness, and for
observing it we receive a good salary. But that's all we do, really;
truly all we do."
"And what are you, a student?"
"No. I'm a village teacher. My father was superintendent in a mill in
Vyatka, and I became a teacher. But I began to give books to the
peasants in the village, and was put in prison for it. When I came out
of prison I became clerk in a bookstore, but not behaving carefully
enough I got myself into prison again, and was then exiled to Archangel.
There I also got into trouble with the governor, and they sent me to the
White Sea coast, where I lived for five years."
His talk sounded calm and even in the bright room flooded with sunlight.
The mother had already heard many such stories; but she could never
understand why they were related with such composure, why no blame was
laid on anybody for the suffering the people had gone through, why these
sufferings were regarded as so inevitable.
"My sister is coming to-day," he announced.
"Is she married?"
"She's a widow. Her husband was exiled to Siberia; but he escaped,
caught a severe cold on the way, and died abroad two years ago."
"Is she younger than you?"
"Six years older. I owe a great deal to her. Wait, and you'll hear how
she plays. That's her piano. There are a whole lot of her things here,
my books----"
"Where does she live?"
"Everywhere," he answered with a smile. "Wherever a brave soul is
needed, there's where you'll find her."
"Also in this movement?"
"Yes, of course."
He soon left to go to work, and the mother fell to thinking of "that
movement" for which the people worked, day in, day out, calmly and
resolutely. When confronting them she seemed to stand before a mountain
looming in the dark.
About noon a tall, well-built lady came. When the mother opened the door
for her she threw a little yellow valise on the floor, and quickly
seizing Vlasova's hand, asked:
"Are you the mother of Pavel Mikhaylovich?"
"Yes, I am," the mother replied, embarrassed by the lady's rich
appearance.
"That's the way I imagined you," said the lady, removing her hat in
front of the mirror. "We have been friends of Pavel Mikhaylovich a long
time. He spoke about you often."
Her voice was somewhat dull, and she spoke slowly; but her movements
were quick and vigorous. Her large, limpid gray eyes smiled youthfully;
on her temples, however, thin radiate wrinkles were already limned, and
silver hairs glistened over her ears.
"I'm hungry; can I have a cup of coffee?"
"I'll make it for you at once." The mother took down the coffee
apparatus from the shelf and quietly asked:
"_Did_ Pasha speak about me?"
"Yes, indeed, a great deal." The lady took out a little leather
cigarette case, lighted a cigarette, and inquired: "You're extremely
uneasy about him, aren't you?"
The mother smiled, watching the blue, quivering flame of the spirit
lamp. Her embarrassment at the presence of the lady vanished in the
depths of her joy.
"So he talks about me, my dear son!" she thought.
"You asked me whether I'm uneasy? Of course, it's not easy for me. But
it would have been worse some time ago; now I know that he's not alone,
and that even I am not alone." Looking into the lady's face, she asked:
"What is your name?"
"Sofya," the lady answered, and began to speak in a businesslike way.
"The most important thing is that they should not stay in prison long,
but that the trial should come off very soon. The moment they are
exiled, we'll arrange an escape for Pavel Mikhaylovich. There's nothing
for him to do in Siberia, and he's indispensable here."
The mother incredulously regarded Sofya, who was searching about for a
place into which to drop her cigarette stump, and finally threw it in a
flowerpot.
"That'll spoil the flowers," the mother remarked mechanically.
"Excuse me," said Sofya simply. "Nikolay always tells me the same
thing." She picked up the stump and threw it out of the window. The
mother looked at her in embarrassment, and said guiltily:
"You must excuse me. I said it without thinking. Is it in my place to
teach you?"
"Why not? Why not teach me, if I'm a sloven?" Sofya calmly queried with
a shrug. "I know it; but I always forget--the worse for me. It's an ugly
habit--to throw cigarette stumps any and everywhere, and to litter up
places with ashes--particularly in a woman. Cleanliness in a room is the
result of work, and all work ought to be respected. Is the coffee ready?
Thank you! Why one cup? Won't you have any?" Suddenly seizing the mother
by the shoulder, she drew her to herself, and looking into her eyes
asked in surprise: "Why, are you embarrassed?"
The mother answered with a smile:
"I just blamed you for throwing the cigarette stump away--does that look
as if I were embarrassed?" Her surprise was unconcealed. "I came to your
house only yesterday, but I behave as if I were at home, and as if I had
known you a long time. I'm afraid of nothing; I say anything. I even
find fault."
"That's the way it ought to be."
"My head's in a whirl. I seem to be a stranger to myself. Formerly I
didn't dare speak out from my heart until I'd been with a person a long,
long time. And now my heart is always open, and I at once say things I
wouldn't have dreamed of before, and a lot of things, too." Sofya lit
another cigarette, turning the kind glance of her gray eyes on the
mother. "Yes, you speak of arranging an escape. But how will he be able
to live as a fugitive?" The mother finally gave expression to the
thought that was agitating her.
"That's a trifle," Sofya remarked, pouring out a cup of coffee for
herself. "He'll live as scores of other fugitives live. I just met one,
and saw him off. Another very valuable man, who worked for the movement
in the south. He was exiled for five years, but remained only three and
a half months. That's why I look such a _grande dame_. Do you think I
always dress this way? I can't bear this fine toggery, this sumptuous
rustle. A human being is simple by nature, and should dress
simply--beautifully but simply."
The mother looked at her fixedly, smiled, and shaking her head
meditatively said:
"No, it seems that day, the first of May, has changed me. I feel awkward
somehow or other, as if I were walking on two roads at the same time. At
one moment I understand everything; the next moment I am plunged into a
mist. Here are you! I see you a lady; you occupy yourself with this
movement, you know Pasha, and you esteem him. Thank you!"
"Why, you ought to be thanked!" Sofya laughed.
"I? I didn't teach him about the movement," the mother said with a sigh.
"As I speak now," she continued stubbornly, "everything seems simple and
near. Then, all of a sudden, I cannot understand this simplicity. Again,
I'm calm. In a second I grow fearful, because I _am_ calm. I always used
to be afraid, my whole life long; but now that there's a great deal to
be afraid of, I have very little fear. Why is it? I cannot understand."
She stopped, at a loss for words. Sofya looked at her seriously, and
waited; but seeing that the mother was agitated, unable to find the
expression she wanted, she herself took up the conversation.
"A time will come when you'll understand everything. The chief thing
that gives a person power and faith in himself is when he begins to love
a certain cause with all his heart, and knows it is a good cause of use
to everybody. There is such a love. There's everything. There's no human
being too mean to love. But it's time for me to be getting out of all
this magnificence."
Putting the stump of her cigarette in the saucer, she shook her head.
Her golden hair fell back in thick waves. She walked away smiling. The
mother followed her with her eyes, sighed, and looked around. Her
thoughts came to a halt, and in a half-drowsy, oppressive condition of
quiet, she began to get the dishes together.
At four o'clock Nikolay appeared. Then they dined. Sofya, laughing at
times, told how she met and concealed the fugitive, how she feared the
spies, and saw one in every person she met, and how comically the
fugitive conducted himself. Something in her tone reminded the mother of
the boasting of a workingman who had completed a difficult piece of work
to his own satisfaction. She was now dressed in a flowing, dove-colored
robe, which fell from her shoulders to her feet in warm waves. The
effect was soft and noiseless. She appeared to be taller in this dress;
her eyes seemed darker, and her movements less nervous.
"Now, Sofya," said Nikolay after dinner, "here's another job for you.
You know we undertook to publish a newspaper for the village. But our
connection with the people there was broken, thanks to the latest
arrests. No one but Pelagueya Nilovna can show us the man who will
undertake the distribution of the newspapers. You go with her. Do it as
soon as possible."
"Very well," said Sofya. "We'll go, Pelagueya Nilovna."
"Yes, we'll go."
"Is it far?"
"About fifty miles."
"Splendid! And now I'm going to play a little. Do you mind listening to
music, Pelagueya Nilovna?"
"Don't bother about me. Act as if I weren't here," said the mother,
seating herself in the corner of the sofa. She saw that the brother and
the sister went on with their affairs without giving heed to her; yet,
at the same time, she seemed involuntarily to mix in their conversation,
imperceptibly drawn into it by them.
"Listen to this, Nikolay. It's by Grieg. I brought it to-day. Shut the
window."
She opened the piano, and struck the keys lightly with her left hand.
The strings sang out a thick, juicy melody. Another note, breathing a
deep, full breath, joined itself to the first, and together they formed
a vast fullness of sound that trembled beneath its own weight. Strange,
limpid notes rang out from under the fingers of her right hand, and
darted off in an alarming flight, swaying and rocking and beating
against one another like a swarm of frightened birds. And in the dark
background the low notes sang in measured, harmonious cadence like the
waves of the sea exhausted by the storm. Some one cried out, a loud,
agitated, woeful cry of rebellion, questioned and appealed in impotent
anguish, and, losing hope, grew silent; and then again sang his rueful
plaints, now resonant and clear, now subdued and dejected. In response
to this song came the thick waves of dark sound, broad and resonant,
indifferent and hopeless. They drowned by their depth and force the
swarm of ringing wails; questions, appeals, groans blended in the
alarming song. At times the music seemed to take a desperate upward
flight, sobbing and lamenting, and again precipitated itself, crept low,
swung hither and thither on the dense, vibratory current of bass notes,
foundered, and disappeared in them; and once more breaking through to an
even cadence, in a hopeless, calm rumble, it grew in volume, pealed
forth, and melted and dissolved in the broad flourish of humid
notes--which continued to sigh with equal force and calmness, never
wearying.
At first the sounds failed to touch the mother. They were
incomprehensible to her, nothing but a ringing chaos. Her ear could not
gather a melody from the intricate mass of notes. Half asleep she looked
at Nikolay sitting with his feet crossed under him at the other end of
the long sofa, and at the severe profile of Sofya with her head
enveloped in a mass of golden hair. The sun shone into the room. A
single ray, trembling pensively, at first lighted up her hair and
shoulder, then settled upon the keys of the piano, and quivered under
the pressure of her fingers. The branches of the acacia rocked to and
fro outside the window. The room became music-filled, and unawares to
her, the mother's heart was stirred. Three notes of nearly the same
pitch, resonant as the voice of Fedya Mazin, sparkled in the stream of
sounds, like three silvery fish in a brook. At times another note united
with these in a simple song, which enfolded the heart in a kind yet sad
caress. She began to watch for them, to await their warble, and she
heard only their music, distinguished from the tumultuous chaos of
sound, to which her ears gradually became deaf.
And for some reason there rose before her out of the obscure depths of
her past, wrongs long forgotten.
Once her husband came home late, extremely intoxicated. He grasped her
hand, threw her from the bed to the floor, kicked her in the side with
his foot, and said:
"Get out! I'm sick of you! Get out!"
In order to protect herself from his blows, she quickly gathered her
two-year-old son into her arms, and kneeling covered herself with his
body as with a shield. He cried, struggled in her arms, frightened,
naked, and warm.
"Get out!" bellowed her husband.
She jumped to her feet, rushed into the kitchen, threw a jacket over her
shoulders, wrapped the baby in a shawl, and silently, without outcries
or complaints, barefoot, in nothing but a shirt under her jacket, walked
out into the street. It was in the month of May, and the night was
fresh. The cold, damp dust of the street stuck to her feet, and got
between her toes. The child wept and struggled. She opened her breast,
pressed her son to her body, and pursued by fear walked down the street,
quietly lulling the baby.
It began to grow light. She was afraid and ashamed lest some one come
out on the street and see her half naked. She turned toward the marsh,
and sat down on the ground under a thick group of aspens. She sat there
for a long time, embraced by the night, motionless, looking into the
darkness with wide-open eyes, and timidly wailing a lullaby--a lullaby
for her baby, which had fallen asleep, and a lullaby for her outraged
heart.
A gray bird darted over her head, and flew far away. It awakened her,
and brought her to her feet. Then, shivering with cold, she walked home
to confront the horror of blows and new insults.
For the last time a heavy and resonant chord heaved a deep breath,
indifferent and cold; it sighed and died away.
Sofya turned around, and asked her brother softly:
"Did you like it?"
"Very much," he said, nodding his head. "Very much."
Sofya looked at the mother's face, but said nothing.
"They say," said Nikolay thoughtfully, throwing himself deeper back on
the sofa, "that you should listen to music without thinking. But I
can't."
"Nor can I," said Sofya, striking a melodious chord.
"I listened, and it seemed to me that people were putting their
questions to nature, that they grieved and groaned, and protested
angrily, and shouted, 'Why?' Nature does not answer, but goes on calmly
creating, incessantly, forever. In her silence is heard her answer: 'I
do not know.'"
The mother listened to Nikolay's quiet words without understanding them,
and without desiring to understand. Her bosom echoed with her
reminiscences, and she wanted more music. Side by side with her memories
the thought unfolded itself before her: "Here live people, a brother and
sister, in friendship; they live peacefully and calmly--they have music
and books--they don't swear at each other--they don't drink whisky--they
don't quarrel for a relish--they have no desire to insult each other,
the way all the people at the bottom do."
Sofya quickly lighted a cigarette; she smoked almost without
intermission.
"This used to be the favorite piece of Kostya," she said, as a veil of
smoke quickly enveloped her. She again struck a low mournful chord. "How
I used to love to play for him! You remember how well he translated
music into language?" She paused and smiled. "How sensitive he was! What
fine feelings he had--so responsive to everything--so fully a man!"
"She must be recalling memories of her husband," the mother noted, "and
she smiles!"
"How much happiness that man gave me!" said Sofya in a low voice,
accompanying her words with light sounds on the keys. "What a capacity
he had for living! He was always aglow with joy, buoyant, childlike
joy!"
"Childlike," repeated the mother to herself, and shook her head as if
agreeing with something.
"Ye-es," said Nikolay, pulling his beard, "his soul was always singing."
"When I played this piece for him the first time, he put it in these
words." Sofya turned her face to her brother, and slowly stretched out
her arms. Encircled with blue streaks of smoke, she spoke in a low,
rapturous voice. "In a barren sea of the far north, under the gray
canopy of the cold heavens, stands a lonely black island, an unpeopled
rock, covered with ice; the smoothly polished shore descends abruptly
into the gray, foaming billows. The transparently blue blocks of ice
inhospitably float on the shaking cold water and press against the dark
rock of the island. Their knocking resounds mournfully in the dead
stillness of the barren sea. They have been floating a long time on the
bottomless depths, and the waves splashing about them have quietly borne
them toward the lonely rock in the midst of the sea. The sound is
grewsome as they break against the shore and against one another, sadly
inquiring: 'Why?'"
Sofya flung away the cigarette she had begun to smoke, turned to the
piano, and again began to play the ringing plaints, the plaints of the
lonely blocks of ice by the shore of the barren island in the sea of the
far north.
The mother was overcome with unendurable sadness as she listened to the
simple sketch. It blended strangely with her past, into which her
recollections kept boring deeper and deeper.
"In music one can hear everything," said Nikolay quietly.
Sofya turned toward the mother, and asked:
"Do you mind my noise?"
The mother was unable to restrain her slight irritation.
"I told you not to pay any attention to me. I sit here and listen and
think about myself."
"No, you ought to understand," said Sofya. "A woman can't help
understanding music, especially when in grief."
She struck the keys powerfully, and a loud shout went forth, as if some
one had suddenly heard horrible news, which pierced him to the heart,
and wrenched from him this troubled sound. Young voices trembled in
affright, people rushed about in haste, pellmell. Again a loud, angry
voice shouted out, drowning all other sounds. Apparently a catastrophe
had occurred, in which the chief source of pain was an affront offered
to some one. It evoked not complaints, but wrath. Then some kindly and
powerful person appeared, who began to sing, just like Andrey, a simple
beautiful song, a song of exhortation and summons to himself. The voices
of the bass notes grumbled in a dull, offended tone.
Sofya played a long time. The music disquieted the mother, and aroused
in her a desire to ask of what it was speaking. Indistinct sensations
and thoughts passed through her mind in quick succession. Sadness and
anxiety gave place to moments of calm joy. A swarm of unseen birds
seemed to be flying about in the room, penetrating everywhere, touching
the heart with caressing wings, soothing and at the same time alarming
it. The feelings in the mother's breast could not be fixed in words.
They emboldened her heart with perplexed hopes, they fondled it in a
fresh and firm embrace.
A kindly impulse came to her to say something good both to these two
persons and to all people in general. She smiled softly, intoxicated by
the music, feeling herself capable of doing work helpful to the brother
and sister. Her eyes roved about in search of something to do for them.
She saw nothing but to walk out into the kitchen quietly, and prepare
the samovar. But this did not satisfy her desire. It struggled
stubbornly in her breast, and as she poured out the tea she began to
speak excitedly with an agitated smile. She seemed to bestow the words
as a warm caress impartially on Sofya and Nikolay and on herself.
"We people at the bottom feel everything; but it is hard for us to speak
out our hearts. Our thoughts float about in us. We are ashamed because,
although we understand, we are not able to express them; and often from
shame we are angry at our thoughts, and at those who inspire them. We
drive them away from ourselves. For life, you see, is so troublesome.
From all sides we get blows and beatings; we want rest, and there come
the thoughts that rouse our souls and demand things of us."
Nikolay listened, and nodded his head, rubbing his eyeglasses briskly,
while Sofya looked at her, her large eyes wide open and the forgotten
cigarette burning to ashes. She sat half turned from the piano, supple
and shapely, at times touching the keys lightly with the slender fingers
of her right hand. The pensive chord blended delicately with the speech
of the mother, as she quickly invested her new feelings and thoughts in
simple, hearty words.
"Now I am able to say something about myself, about my people, because I
understand life. I began to understand it when I was able to make
comparisons. Before that time there was nobody to compare myself with.
In our state, you see, all lead the same life, and now that I see how
others live, I look back at my life, and the recollection is hard and
bitter. But it is impossible to return, and even if you could, you
wouldn't find your youth again. And I think I understand a great deal.
Here, I am looking at you, and I recollect all your people whom I've
seen." She lowered her voice and continued: "Maybe I don't say things
right, and I needn't say them, because you know them yourself; but I'm
just speaking for myself. You at once set me alongside of you. You don't
need anything of me; you can't make use of me; you can't get any
enjoyment out of me, I know it. And day after day my heart grows, thank
God! It grows in goodness, and I wish good for everybody. This is my
thanks that I'm saying to you." Tears of happy gratitude affected her
voice, and looking at them with a smile in her eyes, she went on: "I
want to open my heart before you, so that you may see how I wish your
welfare."
"We see it," said Nikolay in a low voice. "You're making a holiday for
us."
"What do you think I imagined?" the mother asked with a smile and
lowering her voice. "I imagined I found a treasure, and became rich, and
I could endow everybody. Maybe it's only my stupidity that's run away
with me."
"Don't speak like that," said Sofya seriously. "You mustn't be ashamed."
The mother began to speak again, telling Sofya and Nikolay of herself,
her poor life, her wrongs, and patient sufferings. Suddenly she stopped
in her narrative. It seemed to her that she was turning aside, away from
herself, and speaking about somebody else. In simple words, without
malice, with a sad smile on her lips, she drew the monotonous, gray
sketch of sorrowful days. She enumerated the beatings she had received
from her husband; and herself marveled at the trifling causes that led
to them and her own inability to avert them.
The brother and sister listened to her in attentive silence, impressed
by the deep significance of the unadorned story of a human being, who
was regarded as cattle are regarded, and who, without a murmur, for a
long time felt herself to be that which she was held to be. It seemed to
them as if thousands, nay millions, of lives spoke through her mouth.
Her existence had been commonplace and simple; but such is the simple,
ordinary existence of multitudes, and her story, assuming ever larger
proportions in their eyes, took on the significance of a symbol.
Nikolay, his elbows on the table, and his head leaning on his hands,
looked at her through his glasses without moving, his eyes screwed up
intently. Sofya flung herself back on her chair. Sometimes she trembled,
and at times muttered to herself, shaking her head in disapproval. Her
face grew paler. Her eyes deepened.
"Once I thought myself unhappy. My life seemed a fever," said Sofya,
inclining her head. "That was when I was in exile. It was in a small
district town. There was nothing to do, nothing to think about except
myself. I swept all my misfortunes together into one heap, and weighed
them, from lack of anything better to do. Then I quarreled with my
father, whom I loved. I was expelled from the gymnasium, and
insulted--the prison, the treachery of a comrade near to me, the arrest
of my husband, again prison and exile, the death of my husband. But all
my misfortunes, and ten times their number, are not worth a month of
your life, Pelagueya Nilovna. Your torture continued daily through
years. From where do the people draw their power to suffer?"
"They get used to it," responded the mother with a sigh.
"I thought I knew that life," said Nikolay softly. "But when I hear it
spoken of--not when my books, not when my incomplete impressions speak
about it, but she herself with a living tongue--it is horrible. And the
details are horrible, the inanities, the seconds of which the years are
made."
The conversation sped along, thoughtfully and quietly. It branched out
and embraced the whole of common life on all sides. The mother became
absorbed in her recollections. From her dim past she drew to light each
daily wrong, and gave a massive picture of the huge, dumb horror in
which her youth had been sunk. Finally she said:
"Oh! How I've been chattering to you! It's time for you to rest. I'll
never be able to tell you all."
The brother and sister took leave of her in silence. Nikolay seemed to
the mother to bow lower to her than ever before and to press her hand
more firmly. Sofya accompanied her to her room, and stopping at the door
said softly: "Now rest. I hope you have a good night."
Her voice blew a warm breath on the mother, and her gray eyes embraced
the mother's face in a caress. She took Sofya's hand and pressing it in
hers, answered: "Thank you! You are good people."
CHAPTER III
Three days passed in incessant conversations with Sofya and Nikolay. The
mother continued to recount tales of the past, which stubbornly arose
from the depths of her awakened soul, and disturbed even herself. Her
past demanded an explanation. The attention with which the brother and
sister listened to her opened her heart more and more widely, freeing
her from the narrow, dark cage of her former life.
On the fourth day, early in the morning, she and Sofya appeared before
Nikolay as burgher women, poorly clad in worn chintz skirts and blouses,
with birch-bark sacks on their shoulders, and canes in their hands. This
costume reduced Sofya's height and gave a yet sterner appearance to her
pale face.
"You look as if you had walked about monasteries all your life,"
observed Nikolay on taking leave of his sister, and pressed her hand
warmly. The mother again remarked the simplicity and calmness of their
relation to each other. It was hard for her to get used to it. No
kissing, no affectionate words passed between them; but they behaved so
sincerely, so amicably and solicitously toward each other. In the life
she had been accustomed to, people kissed a great deal and uttered many
sentimental words, but always bit at one another like hungry dogs.
The women walked down the street in silence, reached the open country,
and strode on side by side along the wide beaten road between a double
row of birches.
"Won't you get tired?" the mother asked.
"Do you think I haven't done much walking? All this is an old story to
me."
With a merry smile, as if speaking of some glorious childhood frolics,
Sofya began to tell the mother of her revolutionary work. She had had to
live under a changed name, use counterfeit documents, disguise herself
in various costumes in order to hide from spies, carry hundreds and
hundreds of pounds of illegal books through various cities, arrange
escapes for comrades in exile, and escort them abroad. She had had a
printing press fixed up in her quarters, and when on learning of it the
gendarmes appeared to make a search, she succeeded in a minute's time
before their arrival in dressing as a servant, and walking out of the
house just as her guests were entering at the gate. She met them there.
Without an outer wrap, a light kerchief on her head, a tin kerosene can
in her hand, she traversed the city from one end to the other in the
biting cold of a winter's day. Another time she had just arrived in a
strange city to pay a visit to friends. When she was already on the
stairs leading to their quarters, she noticed that a search was being
conducted in their apartments. To turn back was too late. Without a
second's hesitation she boldly rang the bell at the door of a lower
floor, and walked in with her traveling bag to unknown people. She
frankly explained the position she was in.
"You can hand me over to the gendarmes if you want to; but I don't think
you will," she said confidently.
The people were greatly frightened, and did not sleep the whole night.
Every minute they expected the sound of the gendarmes knocking at the
door. Nevertheless, they could not make up their minds to deliver her
over to them, and the next morning they had a hearty laugh with her over
the gendarmes.
And once, dressed as a nun, she traveled in the same railroad coach, in
fact, sat on the very same seat, with a spy, then in search of her. He
boasted of his skill, and told her how he was conducting his search. He
was certain she was riding on the same train as himself, in a
second-class coach; but at every stop, after walking out, he came back
saying: "Not to be seen. She must have gone to bed. They, too, get
tired. Their life is a hard one, just like ours."
The mother listening to her stories laughed, and regarded her
affectionately. Tall and dry, Sofya strode along the road lightly and
firmly, at an even gait. In her walk, her words, and the very sound of
her voice--although a bit dull, it was yet bold--in all her straight and
stolid figure, there was much of robust strength, jovial daring, and
thirst for space and freedom. Her eyes looked at everything with a
youthful glance. She constantly spied something that gladdened her heart
with childlike joy.
"See what a splendid pine!" she exclaimed, pointing out a tree to the
mother.
The mother looked and stopped. It was a pine neither higher nor thicker
than others.
"Ye-es, ye-es, a good tree," she said, smiling.
"Do you hear? A lark!" Sofya raised her head, and looked into the blue
expanse of the sky for the merry songster. Her gray eyes flashed with a
fond glance, and her body seemed to rise from the ground to meet the
music ringing from an unseen source in the far-distant height. At times
bending over, she plucked a field flower, and with light touches of her
slender, agile fingers, she fondly stroked the quivering petals and
hummed quietly and prettily.
Over them burned the kindly spring sun. The blue depths flashed softly.
At the sides of the road stretched a dark pine forest. The fields were
verdant, birds sang, and the thick, resinous atmosphere stroked the face
warmly and tenderly.
All this moved the mother's heart nearer to the woman with the bright
eyes and the bright soul; and, trying to keep even pace with her, she
involuntarily pressed close to Sofya, as if desiring to draw into
herself her hearty boldness and freshness.
"How young you are!" the mother sighed.
"I'm thirty-two years old already!"
Vlasova smiled. "I'm not talking about that. To judge by your face, one
would say you're older; but one wonders that your eyes, your voice are
so fresh, so springlike, as if you were a young girl. Your life is so
hard and troubled, yet your heart is smiling."
"The heart is smiling," repeated Sofya thoughtfully. "How well you
speak--simple and good. A hard life, you say? But I don't feel that it
is hard, and I cannot imagine a better, a more interesting life than
this."
"What pleases me more than anything else is to see how you all know the
roads to a human being's heart. Everything in a person opens itself out
to you without fear or caution--just so, all of itself, the heart throws
itself open to meet you. I'm thinking of all of you. You overcome the
evil in the world--overcome it absolutely."
"We shall be victorious, because we are with the working people," said
Sofya with assurance. "Our power to work, our faith in the victory of
truth we obtain from you, from the people; and the people is the
inexhaustible source of spiritual and physical strength. In the people
are vested all possibilities, and with them everything is attainable.
It's necessary only to arouse their consciousness, their soul, the great
soul of a child, who is not given the liberty to grow." She spoke softly
and simply, and looked pensively before her down the winding depths of
the road, where a bright haze was quivering.
Sofya's words awakened a complex feeling in the mother's heart. For some
reason she felt sorry for her. Her pity, however, was not offensive; not
bred of familiarity. She marveled that here was a lady walking on foot
and carrying a dangerous burden on her back.
"Who's going to reward you for your labors?"
Sofya answered the mother's thought with pride:
"We are already rewarded for everything. We have found a life that
satisfies us; we live broadly and fully, with all the power of our
souls. What else can we desire?"
Filling their lungs with the aromatic air, they paced along, not
swiftly, but at a good, round gait. The mother felt she was on a
pilgrimage. She recollected her childhood, the fine joy with which she
used to leave the village on holidays to go to a distant monastery,
where there was a wonder-working icon.
Sometimes Sofya would hum some new unfamiliar songs about the sky and
about love, or suddenly she would begin to recite poems about the fields
and forests and the Volga. The mother listened, a smile on her face,
swinging her head to the measure of the tune or rhythm, involuntarily
yielding to the music. Her breast was pervaded by a soft, melancholy
warmth, like the atmosphere in a little old garden on a summer night.
On the third day they arrived at the village, and the mother inquired of
a peasant at work in the field where the tar works were. Soon they were
descending a steep woody path, on which the exposed roots of the trees
formed steps through a small, round glade, which was choked up with coal
and chips of wood caked with tar.
Outside a shack built of poles and branches, at a table formed simply of
three unplaned boards laid on a trestle stuck firmly into the ground,
sat Rybin, all blackened, his shirt open at his breast, Yefim, and two
other young men. They were just dining. Rybin was the first to notice
the women. Shading his eyes with his hand, he waited in silence.
"How do you do, brother 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.
[Illustration: "The men listened in silence."]
Once Yakob rose and said:
"Wait a moment, please." He ran into the shack and brought out wraps.
With Ignaty's help he folded them about the shoulders and feet of the
women.
And again Sofya spoke, picturing the day of victory, inspiring people
with faith in their power, arousing in them a consciousness of their
oneness with all who give away their lives to barren toil for the
amusement of the satiated.
At break of dawn, exhausted, she grew silent, and smiling she looked
around at the thoughtful, illumined faces.
"It's time for us to go," said the mother.
"Yes, it's time," said Sofya wearily.
Some one breathed a noisy sigh.
"I am sorry you're going," said Rybin in an unusually mild tone. "You
speak well. This great cause will unite people. When you know that
millions want the same as you do, your heart becomes better, and in
goodness there is great power."
"You offer goodness, and get the stake in return," said Yefim with a low
laugh, and quickly jumped to his feet. "But they ought to go, Uncle
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.