At home Nikolay met her joyously.

"Alive? How did it go?"

"It seems everything's been successful!"

And slowly trying to reinstate all the details in her memory, she began

to tell of the escape. Nikolay, too, was amazed at the success.

"You see, we're lucky!" said Nikolay, rubbing his hands. "But how

frightened I was on your account only God knows. You know what, Nilovna,

take my friendly advice: don't be afraid of the trial. The sooner it's

over and done with the sooner Pavel will be free. Believe me. I've

already written to my sister to try to think what can be done for Pavel.

Maybe he'll even escape on the road. And the trial is approximately like

this." He began to describe to her the session of the court. She

listened, and understood that he was afraid of something--that he wanted

to inspirit her.

"Maybe you think I'll say something to the judges?" she suddenly

inquired. "That I'll beg them for something?"

He jumped up, waved his hands at her, and said in an offended tone:

"What are you talking about? You're insulting me!"

"Excuse me, please; excuse me! I really _am_ afraid--of what I don't

know."

She was silent, letting her eyes wander about the room.

"Sometimes it seems to me that they'll insult Pasha--scoff at him. 'Ah,

you peasant!' they'll say. 'You son of a peasant! What's this mess

you've cooked up?' And Pasha, proud as he is, he'll answer them so----!

Or Andrey will laugh at them--and all the comrades there are hot-headed

and honest. So I can't help thinking that something will suddenly

happen. One of them will lose his patience, the others will support him,

and the sentence will be so severe--you'll never see them again."

Nikolay was silent, pulling his beard glumly as the mother continued:

"It's impossible to drive this thought from my head. The trial is

terrible to me. When they'll begin to take everything apart and weigh

it--it's awful! It's not the sentence that's terrible, but the trial--I

can't express it." She felt that Nikolay didn't understand her fear; and

his inability to comprehend kept her from further analysis of her

timidities, which, however, only increased and broadened during the

three following days. Finally, on the day of the trial, she carried into

the hall of the session a heavy dark load that bent her back and neck.

In the street, acquaintances from the suburbs had greeted her. She had

bowed in silence, rapidly making her way through the dense crowd in the

corridor of the courthouse. In the hall she was met by relatives of the

defendants, who also spoke to her in undertones. All the words seemed

needless; she didn't understand them. Yet all the people were sullen,

filled with the same mournful feeling which infected the mother and

weighed her down.

"Let's sit next to each other," suggested Sizov, going to a bench.

She sat down obediently, settled her dress, and looked around. Green and

crimson specks, with thin yellow threads between, slowly swam before her

eyes.

"Your son has ruined our Vasya," a woman sitting beside her said

quietly.

"You keep still, Natalya!" Sizov chided her angrily.

Nilovna looked at the woman; it was the mother of Samoylov. Farther

along sat her husband--bald-headed, bony-faced, dapper, with a large,

bushy, reddish beard which trembled as he sat looking in front of

himself, his eyes screwed up.

A dull, immobile light entered through the high windows of the hall,

outside of which snow glided and fell lingeringly on the ground. Between

the windows hung a large portrait of the Czar in a massive frame of

glaring gilt. Straight, austere folds of the heavy crimson window

drapery dropped over either side of it. Before the portrait, across

almost the entire breadth of the hall, stretched the table covered with

green cloth. To the right of the wall, behind the grill, stood two

wooden benches; to the left two rows of crimson armchairs. Attendants

with green collars and yellow buttons on their abdomens ran noiselessly

about the hall. A soft whisper hummed in the turbid atmosphere, and the

odor was a composite of many odors as in a drug shop. All this--the

colors, the glitter, the sounds and odors--pressed on the eyes and

invaded the breast with each inhalation. It forced out live sensations,

and filled the desolate heart with motionless, dismal awe.

Suddenly one of the people said something aloud. The mother trembled.

All arose; she, too, rose, seizing Sizov's hand.

In the left corner of the hall a high door opened and an old man

emerged, swinging to and fro. On his gray little face shook white,

sparse whiskers; he wore eyeglasses; the upper lip, which was shaven,

sank into his mouth as by suction; his sharp jawbones and his chin were

supported by the high collar of his uniform; apparently there was no

neck under the collar. He was supported under the arm from behind by a

tall young man with a porcelain face, red and round. Following him three

more men in uniforms embroidered in gold, and three garbed in civilian

wear, moved in slowly. They stirred about the table for a long time and

finally took seats in the armchairs. When they had sat down, one of them

in unbuttoned uniform, with a sleepy, clean-shaven face, began to say

something to the little old man, moving his puffy lips heavily and

soundlessly. The old man listened, sitting strangely erect and immobile.

Behind the glasses of his _pince-nez_ the mother saw two little

colorless specks.

At the end of the table, at the desk, stood a tall, bald man, who

coughed and shoved papers about.

The little old man swung forward and began to speak. He pronounced

clearly the first words, but what followed seemed to creep without sound

from his thin, gray lips.

"I open----"

"See!" whispered Sizov, nudging the mother softly and arising.

In the wall behind the grill the door opened, a soldier came out with a

bared saber on his shoulder; behind him appeared Pavel, Andrey, Fedya

Mazin, the two Gusevs, Samoylov, Bukin, Somov, and five more young men

whose names were unknown to the mother. Pavel smiled kindly; Andrey

also, showing his teeth as he nodded to her. The hall, as it were,

became lighter and simpler from their smile; the strained, unnatural

silence was enlivened by their faces and movements. The greasy glitter

of gold on the uniforms dimmed and softened. A waft of bold assurance,

the breath of living power, reached the mother's heart and roused it. On

the benches behind her, where up to that time the people had been

waiting in crushed silence, a responsive, subdued hum was audible.

"They're not trembling!" she heard Sizov whisper; and at her right side

Samoylov's mother burst into soft sobs.

"Silence!" came a stern shout.

"I warn you beforehand," said the old man, "I shall have to----"

CHAPTER XV

Pavel and Andrey sat side by side; along with them on the first bench

were Mazin, Samoylov, and the Gusevs. Andrey had shaved his beard, but

his mustache had grown and hung down, and gave his round head the

appearance of a seacow or walrus. Something new lay on his face;

something sharp and biting in the folds about his mouth; something black

in his eyes. On Mazin's upper lip two black streaks were limned, his

face was fuller. Samoylov was just as curly-haired as before; and Ivan

Gusev smiled just as broadly.

"Ah, Fedka, Fedka!" whispered Sizov, drooping his head.

The mother felt she could breathe more freely. She heard the indistinct

questions of the old man, which he put without looking at the prisoners;

and his head rested motionless on the collar of his uniform. She heard

the calm, brief answers of her son. It seemed to her that the oldest

judge and his associates could be neither evil nor cruel people. Looking

carefully at their faces she tried to guess something, softly listening

to the growth of a new hope in her breast.

The porcelain-faced man read a paper indifferently; his even voice

filled the hall with weariness, and the people, enfolded by it, sat

motionless as if benumbed. Four lawyers softly but animatedly conversed

with the prisoners. They all moved powerfully, briskly, and called to

mind large blackbirds.

On one side of the old man a judge with small, bleared eyes filled the

armchair with his fat, bloated body. On the other side sat a stooping

man with reddish mustache on his pale face. His head was wearily thrown

on the back of the chair, his eyes, half-closed, he seemed to be

reflecting over something. The face of the prosecuting attorney was also

worn, bored, and unexpectant. Behind the judge sat the mayor of the

city, a portly man, who meditatively stroked his cheek; the marshal of

the nobility, a gray-haired, large-bearded, ruddy-faced man, with large,

kind eyes; and the district elder, who wore a sleeveless peasant

overcoat, and possessed a huge belly which apparently embarrassed him;

he endeavored to cover it with the folds of his overcoat, but it always

slid down and showed again.

"There are no criminals here and no judges," Pavel's vigorous voice was

heard. "There are only captives here, and conquerors!"

Silence fell. For a few seconds the mother's ears heard only the thin,

hasty scratch of the pen on the paper and the beating of her own heart.

The oldest judge also seemed to be listening to something from afar. His

associates stirred. Then he said:

"Hm! yes--Andrey Nakhodka, do you admit----"

Somebody whispered, "Rise!"

Andrey slowly rose, straightened himself, and pulling his mustache

looked at the old man from the corners of his eyes.

"Yes! To what can I confess myself guilty?" said the Little Russian in

his slow, surging voice, shrugging his shoulders. "I did not murder nor

steal; I simply am not in agreement with an order of life in which

people are compelled to rob and kill one another."

"Answer briefly--yes or no?" the old man said with an effort, but

distinctly.

On the benches back of her the mother felt there was animation; the

people began to whisper to one another about something and stirred,

sighing as if freeing themselves from the cobweb spun about them by the

gray words of the porcelain-faced man.

"Do you hear how they speak?" whispered Sizov.

"Yes."

"Fedor Mazin, answer!"

"I don't want to!" said Fedya clearly, jumping to his feet. His face

reddened with excitation, his eyes sparkled. For some reason he hid his

hands behind his back.

Sizov groaned softly, and the mother opened her eyes wide in

astonishment.

"I declined a defense--I'm not going to say anything--I don't regard

your court as legal! Who are you? Did the people give you the right to

judge us? No, they did not! I don't know you." He sat down and concealed

his heated face behind Andrey's shoulders.

The fat judge inclined his head to the old judge and whispered

something. The old judge, pale-faced, raised his eyelids and slanted his

eyes at the prisoners, then extended his hand on the table, and wrote

something in pencil on a piece of paper lying before him. The district

elder swung his head, carefully shifting his feet, rested his abdomen on

his knees, and his hands on his abdomen. Without moving his head the old

judge turned his body to the red-mustached judge, and began to speak to

him quickly. The red-mustached judge inclined his head to listen. The

marshal of the nobility conversed with the prosecuting attorney; the

mayor of the city listened and smiled, rubbing his cheek. Again the dull

speech of the old judge was heard. All four lawyers listened

attentively. The prisoners exchanged whispers with one another, and

Fedya, smiling in confusion, hid his face.

"How he cut them off! Straight, downright, better than all!" Sizov

whispered in amazement in the ear of the mother. "Ah, you little boy!"

The mother smiled in perplexity. The proceedings seemed to be nothing

but the necessary preliminary to something terrible, which would appear

and at once stifle everybody with its cold horror. But the calm words of

Pavel and Andrey had sounded so fearless and firm, as if uttered in the

little house of the suburb, and not in the presence of the court.

Fedya's hot, youthful sally amused her; something bold and fresh grew up

in the hall, and she guessed from the movement of the people back of her

that she was not the only one who felt this.

"Your opinion," said the old judge.

The bald-headed prosecuting attorney arose, and, steadying himself on

the desk with one hand, began to speak rapidly, quoting figures. In his

voice nothing terrible was heard.

At the same time, however, a sudden dry, shooting attack disturbed the

heart of the mother. It was an uneasy suspicion of something hostile to

her, which did not threaten, did not shout, but unfolded itself unseen,

soundless, intangible. It swung lazily and dully about the judges, as if

enveloping them with an impervious cloud, through which nothing from the

outside could reach them. She looked at them. They were incomprehensible

to her. They were not angry at Pavel or at Fedya; they did not shout at

the young men, as she had expected; they did not abuse them in words,

but put all their questions reluctantly, with the air of "What's the

use?". It cost them an effort to hear the answers to the end. Apparently

they lacked interest because they knew everything beforehand.

There before her stood the gendarme, and spoke in a bass voice:

"Pavel Vlasov was named as the ringleader."

"And Nakhodka?" asked the fat judge in his lazy undertone.

"He, too."

"May I----"

The old judge asked a question of somebody:

"You have nothing?"

All the judges seemed to the mother to be worn out and ill. A sickened

weariness marked their poses and voices, a sickened weariness and a

bored, gray _ennui_. It was an evident nuisance to them, all this--the

uniforms, the hall, the gendarmes, the lawyers, the obligation to sit in

armchairs, and to put questions concerning things perforce already known

to them. The mother in general was but little acquainted with the

masters; she had scarcely ever seen them; and now she regarded the faces

of the judges as something altogether new and incomprehensible,

deserving pity, however, rather than inspiring horror.

The familiar, yellow-faced officer stood before them, and told about

Pavel and Andrey, stretching the words with an air of importance. The

mother involuntarily laughed, and thought: "You don't know much, my

little father."

And now, as she looked at the people behind the grill, she ceased to

feel dread for them; they did not evoke alarm, pity was not for them;

they one and all called forth in her only admiration and love, which

warmly embraced her heart; the admiration was calm, the love joyously

distinct. There they sat to one side, by the wall, young, sturdy,

scarcely taking any part in the monotonous talk of the witnesses and

judges, or in the disputes of the lawyers with the prosecuting attorney.

They behaved as if the talk did not concern them in the least. Sometimes

somebody would laugh contemptuously, and say something to the comrades,

across whose faces, then, a sarcastic smile would also quickly pass.

Andrey and Pavel conversed almost the entire time with one of their

lawyers, whom the mother had seen the day before at Nikolay's, and had

heard Nikolay address as comrade. Mazin, brisker and more animated than

the others, listened to the conversation. Now and then Samoylov said

something to Ivan Gusev; and the mother noticed that each time Ivan gave

a slight elbow nudge to a comrade, he could scarcely restrain a laugh;

his face would grow red, his cheeks would puff up, and he would have to

incline his head. He had already sniffed a couple of times, and for

several minutes afterward sat with blown cheeks trying to be serious.

Thus, in each comrade his youth played and sparkled after his fashion,

lightly bursting the restraint he endeavored to put upon its lively

effervescence. She looked, compared, and reflected. She was unable to

understand or express in words her uneasy feeling of hostility.

Sizov touched her lightly with his elbow; she turned to him, and found a

look of contentment and slight preoccupation on his face.

"Just see how they've intrenched themselves in their defiance! Fine

stuff in 'em! Eh? Barons, eh? Well, and yet they're going to be

sentenced!"

The mother listened, unconsciously repeating to herself:

"Who will pass the sentence? Whom will they sentence?"

The witnesses spoke quickly, in their colorless voices, the judges

reluctantly and listlessly. Their bloodless, worn-out faces stared into

space unconcernedly. They did not expect to see or hear anything new. At

times the fat judge yawned, covering his smile with his puffy hand,

while the red-mustached judge grew still paler, and sometimes raised his

hand to press his finger tightly on the bone of his temple, as he looked

up to the ceiling with sorrowful, widened eyes. The prosecuting attorney

infrequently scribbled on his paper, and then resumed his soundless

conversation with the marshal of the nobility, who stroked his gray

beard, rolled his large, beautiful eyes, and smiled, nodding his head

with importance. The city mayor sat with crossed legs, and beat a

noiseless tattoo on his knee, giving the play of his fingers

concentrated attention. The only one who listened to the monotonous

murmur of the voices seemed to be the district elder, who sat with

inclined head, supporting his abdomen on his knees and solicitously

holding it up with his hands. The old judge, deep in his armchair, stuck

there immovably. The proceedings continued to drag on in this way for a

long, long time; and _ennui_ again numbed the people with its heavy,

sticky embrace.

The mother saw that this large hall was not yet pervaded by that cold,

threatening justice which sternly uncovers the soul, examines it, and

seeing everything estimates its value with incorruptible eyes, weighing

it rigorously with honest hands. Here was nothing to frighten her by its

power or majesty.

"I declare--" said the old judge clearly, and arose as he crushed the

following words with his thin lips.

The noise of sighs and low exclamations, of coughing and scraping of

feet, filled the hall as the court retired for a recess. The prisoners

were led away. As they walked out, they nodded their heads to their

relatives and familiars with a smile, and Ivan Gusev shouted to somebody

in a modulated voice:

"Don't lose courage, Yegor."

The mother and Sizov walked out into the corridor.

"Will you go to the tavern with me to take some tea?" the old man asked

her solicitously. "We have an hour and a half's time."

"I don't want to."

"Well, then I won't go, either. No, say! What fellows those are! They

act as if they were the only real people, and the rest nothing at all.

They'll all go scot-free, I'm sure. Look at Fedka, eh?"

Samoylov's father came up to them holding his hat in his hand. He smiled

sullenly and said:

"My Vasily! He declined a defense, and doesn't want to palaver. He was

the first to have the idea. Yours, Pelagueya, stood for lawyers; and

mine said: 'I don't want one.' And four declined after him. Hm, ye-es."

At his side stood his wife. She blinked frequently, and wiped her nose

with the end of her handkerchief. Samoylov took his beard in his hand,

and continued looking at the floor.

"Now, this is the queer thing about it: you look at them, those devils,

and you think they got up all this at random--they're ruining themselves

for nothing. And suddenly you begin to think: 'And maybe they're right!'

You remember that in the factory more like them keep on coming, keep on

coming. They always get caught; but they're not destroyed, no more than

common fish in the river get destroyed. No. And again you think, 'And

maybe power is with them, too.'"

"It's hard for us, Stepan Petrov, to understand this affair," said

Sizov.

"It's hard, yes," agreed Samoylov.

His wife noisily drawing in air through her nose remarked:

"They're all strong, those imps!" With an unrestrained smile on her

broad, wizened face, she continued: "You, Nilovna, don't be angry with

me because I just now slapped you, when I said that your son is to

blame. A dog can tell who's the more to blame, to tell you the truth.

Look at the gendarmes and the spies, what they said about our Vasily! He

has shown what he can do too!"

She apparently was proud of her son, perhaps even without understanding

her feeling; but the mother did understand her feeling, and answered

with a kind smile and quiet words:

"A young heart is always nearer to the truth."

People rambled about the corridor, gathered into groups, speaking

excitedly and thoughtfully in hollow voices. Scarcely anybody stood

alone; all faces bore evidence of a desire to speak, to ask, to listen.

In the narrow white passageway the people coiled about in sinuous

curves, like dust carried in circles before a powerful wind. Everybody

seemed to be seeking something hard and firm to stand upon.

The older brother of Bukin, a tall, red-faced fellow, waved his hands

and turned about rapidly in all directions.

"The district elder Klepanov has no place in this case," he declared

aloud.

"Keep still, Konstantin!" his father, a little old man, tried to

dissuade him, and looked around cautiously.

"No; I'm going to speak out! There's a rumor afloat about him that last

year he killed a clerk of his on account of the clerk's wife. What kind

of a judge is he? permit me to ask. He lives with the wife of his

clerk--what have you got to say to that? Besides, he's a well-known

thief!"

"Oh, my little father--Konstantin!"

"True!" said Samoylov. "True, the court is not a very just one."

Bukin heard his voice and quickly walked up to him, drawing the whole

crowd after him. Red with excitement, he waved his hands and said:

"For thievery, for murder, jurymen do the trying. They're common people,

peasants, merchants, if you please; but for going against the

authorities you're tried by the authorities. How's that?"

"Konstantin! Why are they against the authorities? Ah, you! They----"

"No, wait! Fedor Mazin said the truth. If you insult me, and I land you

one on your jaw, and you try me for it, of course I'm going to turn out

guilty. But the first offender--who was it? You? Of course, you!"

The watchman, a gray man with a hooked nose and medals on his chest,

pushed the crowd apart, and said to Bukin, shaking his finger at him:

"Hey! don't shout! Don't you know where you are? Do you think this is a

saloon?"

"Permit me, my cavalier, I know where I am. Listen! If I strike you and

you me, and I go and try you, what would you think?"

"And I'll order you out," said the watchman sternly.

"Where to? What for?"

"Into the street, so that you shan't bawl."

"The chief thing for them is that people should keep their mouths shut."

"And what do you think?" the old man bawled. Bukin threw out his hands,

and again measuring the public with his eyes, began to speak in a lower

voice:

"And again--why are the people not permitted to be at the trial, but

only the relatives? If you judge righteously, then judge in front of

everybody. What is there to be afraid of?"

Samoylov repeated, but this time in a louder tone:

"The trial is not altogether just, that's true."

The mother wanted to say to him that she had heard from Nikolay of the

dishonesty of the court; but she had not wholly comprehended Nikolay,

and had forgotten some of his words. While trying to recall them she

moved aside from the people, and noticed that somebody was looking at

her--a young man with a light mustache. He held his right hand in the

pocket of his trousers, which made his left shoulder seem lower than the

right, and this peculiarity of his figure seemed familiar to the mother.

But he turned from her, and she again lost herself in the endeavor to

recollect, and forgot about him immediately. In a minute, however, her

ear was caught by the low question:

"This woman on the left?"

And somebody in a louder voice cheerfully answered:

"Yes."

She looked around. The man with the uneven shoulders stood sidewise

toward her, and said something to his neighbor, a black-bearded fellow

with a short overcoat and boots up to his knees.

Again her memory stirred uneasily, but did not yield any distinct

results.

The watchman opened the door of the hall, and shouted:

"Relatives, enter; show your tickets!"

A sullen voice said lazily:

"Tickets! Like a circus!"

All the people now showed signs of a dull excitement, an uneasy passion.

They began to behave more freely, and hummed and disputed with the

watchman.

Sitting down on the bench, Sizov mumbled something to the mother.

"What is it?" asked the mother.

"Oh, nothing--the people are fools! They know nothing; they live groping

about and groping about."

The bellman rang; somebody announced indifferently:

"The session has begun!"

Again all arose, and again, in the same order, the judges filed in and

sat down; then the prisoners were led in.

"Pay attention!" whispered Sizov; "the prosecuting attorney is going to

speak."

The mother craned her neck and extended her whole body. She yielded anew

to expectation of the horrible.

Standing sidewise toward the judges, his head turned to them, leaning

his elbow on the desk, the prosecuting attorney sighed, and abruptly

waving his right hand in the air, began to speak:

The mother could not make out the first words. The prosecuting

attorney's voice was fluent, thick; it sped on unevenly, now a bit

slower, now a bit faster. His words stretched out in a thin line, like a

gray seam; suddenly they burst out quickly and whirled like a flock of

black flies around a piece of sugar. But she did not find anything

horrible in them, nothing threatening. Cold as snow, gray as ashes, they

fell and fell, filling the hall with something which recalled a slushy

day in early autumn. Scant in feeling, rich in words, the speech seemed

not to reach Pavel and his comrades. Apparently it touched none of them;

they all sat there quite composed, smiling at times as before, and

conversed without sound. At times they frowned to cover up their smiles.

"He lies!" whispered Sizov.

She could not have said it. She understood that the prosecuting attorney

charged all the comrades with guilt, not singling out any one of them.

After having spoken about Pavel, he spoke about Fedya, and having put

him side by side with Pavel, he persistently thrust Bukin up against

them. It seemed as if he packed and sewed them into a sack, piling them

up on top of one another. But the external sense of his words did not

satisfy, did not touch, did not frighten her. She still waited for the

horrible, and rigorously sought something beyond his words--something in

his face, his eyes, his voice, in his white hand, which slowly glided in

the air. Something terrible must be there; she felt it, but it was

impalpable; it did not yield to her consciousness, which again covered

her heart with a dry, pricking dust.

She looked at the judges. There was no gainsaying that they were bored

at having to listen to this speech. The lifeless, yellow faces expressed

nothing. The sickly, the fat, or the extremely lean, motionless dead

spots all grew dimmer and dimmer in the dull _ennui_ that filled the

hall. The words of the prosecuting attorney spurted into the air like a

haze imperceptible to the eye, growing and thickening around the judges,

enveloping them more closely in a cloud of dry indifference, of weary

waiting. At times one of them changed his pose; but the lazy movement of

the tired body did not rouse their drowsy souls. The oldest judge did

not stir at all; he was congealed in his erect position, and the gray

blots behind the eyeglasses at times disappeared, seeming to spread over

his whole face. The mother realized this dead indifference, this

unconcern without malice in it, and asked herself in perplexity, "Are

they judging?"

The question pressed her heart, and gradually squeezed out of it her

expectation of the horrible. It pinched her throat with a sharp feeling

of wrong.

The speech of the prosecuting attorney snapped off unexpectedly. He made

a few quick, short steps, bowed to the judges, and sat down, rubbing his

hands. The marshal of the nobility nodded his head to him, rolling his

eyes; the city mayor extended his hand, and the district elder stroked

his belly and smiled.

But the judges apparently were not delighted by the speech, and did not

stir.

"The scabby devil!" Sizov whispered the oath.

"Next," said the old judge, bringing the paper to his face, "lawyers for

the defendants, Fedoseyev, Markov, Zagarov."

The lawyer whom the mother had seen at Nikolay's arose. His face was

broad and good-natured; his little eyes smiled radiantly and seemed to

thrust out from under his eyebrows two sharp blades, which cut the air

like scissors. He spoke without haste, resonantly, and clearly; but the

mother was unable to listen to his speech. Sizov whispered in her ear:

"Did you understand what he said? Did you understand? 'People,' he says,

'are poor, they are all upset, insensate.' Is that Fedor? He says they

don't understand anything; they're savages."

The feeling of wrong grew, and passed into revolt. Along with the quick,

loud voice of the lawyer, time also passed more quickly.

"A live, strong man having in his breast a sensitive, honest

heart cannot help rebelling with all his force against this life

so full of open cynicism, corruption, falsehood, and so blunted by

vapidity. The eyes of honest people cannot help seeing such glaring

contradictions----"

The judge with the green face bent toward the president and whispered

something to him; then the old man said dryly:

"Please be more careful!"

"Ha!" Sizov exclaimed softly.

"Are they judging?" thought the mother, and the word seemed hollow and

empty as an earthen vessel. It seemed to make sport of her fear of the

terrible.

"They're a sort of dead body," she answered the old man.

"Don't fear; they're livening up."

She looked at them, and she actually saw something like a shadow of

uneasiness on the faces of the judges. Another man was already speaking,

a little lawyer with a sharp, pale, satiric face. He spoke very

respectfully:

"With all due respect, I permit myself to call the attention of the

court to the solid manner of the honorable prosecuting attorney, to the

conduct of the safety department, or, as such people are called in

common parlance, spies----"

The judge with the green face again began to whisper something to the

president. The prosecuting attorney jumped up. The lawyer continued

without changing his voice:

"The spy Gyman tells us about the witness: 'I frightened him.' The

prosecuting attorney also, as the court has heard, frightened witnesses;

as a result of which act, at the insistence of the defense, he called

forth a rebuke from the presiding judge."

The prosecuting attorney began to speak quickly and angrily; the old

judge followed suit; the lawyer listened to them respectfully, inclining

his head. Then he said:

"I can even change the position of my words if the prosecuting attorney

deems it is not in the right place; but that will not change the plan of

my defense. However, I cannot understand the excitement of the

prosecuting attorney."

"Go for him!" said Sizov. "Go for him, tooth and nail! Pick him open

down to his soul, wherever that may be!"

The hall became animated; a fighting passion flared up; the defense

attacked from all sides, provoking and disturbing the judges, driving

away the cold haze that enveloped them, pricking the old skin of the

judges with sharp words. The judges had the air of moving more closely

to one another, or suddenly they would puff and swell, repulsing the

sharp, caustic raps with the mass of their soft, mellow bodies. They

acted as if they feared that the blow of the opponent might call forth

an echo in their empty bosoms, might shake their resolution, which

sprang not from their own will but from a will strange to them. Feeling

this conflict, the people on the benches back of the mother sighed and

whispered.

But suddenly Pavel arose; tense quiet prevailed. The mother stretched

her entire body forward.

"A party man, I recognize only the court of my party and will not speak

in my defense. According to the desire of my comrades, I, too, declined

a defense. I will merely try to explain to you what you don't

understand. The prosecuting attorney designated our coming out under the

banner of the Social Democracy as an uprising against the superior

power, and regarded us as nothing but rebels against the Czar. I must

declare to you that to us the Czar is not the only chain that fetters

the body of the country. We are obliged to tear off only the first and

nearest chain from the people."

The stillness deepened under the sound of the firm voice; it seemed to

widen the space between the walls of the hall. Pavel, by his words,

removed the people to a distance from himself, and thereby grew in the

eyes of the mother. His stony, calm, proud face with the beard, his high

forehead, and blue eyes, somewhat stern, all became more dazzling and

more prominent.

The judges began to stir heavily and uneasily; the marshal of the

nobility was the first to whisper something to the judge with the

indolent face. The judge nodded his head and turned to the old man; on

the other side of him the sick judge was talking. Rocking back and forth

in the armchair, the old judge spoke to Pavel, but his voice was drowned

in the even, broad current of the young man's speech.

"We are Socialists! That means we are enemies to private property, which

separates people, arms them against one another, and brings forth an

irreconcilable hostility of interests; brings forth lies that endeavor

to cover up, or to justify, this conflict of interests, and corrupt all

with falsehood, hypocrisy and malice. We maintain that a society that

regards man only as a tool for its enrichment is anti-human; it is

hostile to us; we cannot be reconciled to its morality; its double-faced

and lying cynicism. Its cruel relation to individuals is repugnant to

us. We want to fight, and will fight, every form of the physical and

moral enslavement of man by such a society; we will fight every measure

calculated to disintegrate society for the gratification of the

interests of gain. We are workers--men by whose labor everything is

created, from gigantic machines to childish toys. We are people devoid

of the right to fight for our human dignity. Everyone strives to utilize

us, and may utilize us, as tools for the attainment of his ends. Now we

want to have as much freedom as will give us the possibility in time to

come to conquer all the power. Our slogan is simple: 'All the power for

the people; all the means of production for the people; work obligatory

on all. Down with private property!' You see, we are not rebels."

Pavel smiled, and the kindly fire of his blue eyes blazed forth more

brilliantly.

"Please, more to the point!" said the presiding judge distinctly and

aloud. He turned his chest to Pavel, and regarded him. It seemed to the

mother that his dim left eye began to burn with a sinister, greedy fire.

The look all the judges cast on her son made her uneasy for him. She

fancied that their eyes clung to his face, stuck to his body, thirsted

for his blood, by which they might reanimate their own worn-out bodies.

And he, erect and tall, standing firmly and vigorously, stretched out

his hand to them while he spoke distinctly:

"We are revolutionists, and will be such as long as private property

exists, as long as some merely command, and as long as others merely

work. We take stand against the society whose interests you are bidden

to protect as your irreconcilable enemies, and reconciliation between us

is impossible until we shall have been victorious. We will conquer--we

workingmen! Your society is not at all so powerful as it thinks itself.

That very property, for the production and preservation of which it

sacrifices millions of people enslaved by it--that very force which

gives it the power over us--stirs up discord within its own ranks,

destroys them physically and morally. Property requires extremely great

efforts for its protection; and in reality all of you, our rulers, are

greater slaves than we--you are enslaved spiritually, we only

physically. _You_ cannot withdraw from under the weight of your

prejudices and habits, the weight which deadens you spiritually; nothing

hinders _us_ from being inwardly free. The poisons with which you poison

us are weaker than the antidote you unwittingly administer to our

consciences. This antidote penetrates deeper and deeper into the body of

workingmen; the flames mount higher and higher, sucking in the best

forces, the spiritual powers, the healthy elements even from among you.

Look! Not one of you can any longer fight for your power as an ideal!

You have already expended all the arguments capable of guarding you

against the pressure of historic justice. You can create nothing new in

the domain of ideas; you are spiritually barren. Our ideas grow; they

flare up ever more dazzling; they seize hold of the mass of the people,

organizing them for the war of freedom. The consciousness of their great

rôle unites all the workingmen of the world into one soul. You have no

means whereby to hinder this renovating process in life except cruelty

and cynicism. But your cynicism is very evident, your cruelty

exasperates, and the hands with which you stifle us to-day will press

our hands in comradeship to-morrow. Your energy, the mechanical energy

of the increase of gold, separates you, too, into groups destined to

devour one another. Our energy is a living power, founded on the

ever-growing consciousness of the solidarity of all workingmen.

Everything you do is criminal, for it is directed toward the enslavement

of the people. Our work frees the world from the delusions and monsters

which are produced by your malice and greed, and which intimidate the

people. You have torn man away from life and disintegrated him.

Socialism will unite the world, rent asunder by you, into one huge

whole. And this will be!"

Pavel stopped for a second, and repeated in a lower tone, with greater

emphasis, "This will be!"

The judges whispered to one another, making strange grimaces. And still

their greedy looks were fastened on the body of Nilovna's son. The

mother felt that their gaze tarnished this supple, vigorous body; that

they envied its strength, power, freshness. The prisoners listened

attentively to the speech of their comrade; their faces whitened, their

eyes flashed joy. The mother drank in her son's words, which cut

themselves into her memory in regular rows. The old judge stopped Pavel

several times and explained something to him. Once he even smiled sadly.

Pavel listened to him silently, and again began to speak in an austere

but calm voice, compelling everybody to listen to him, subordinating the

will of the judges to his will. This lasted for a long time. Finally,

however, the old man shouted, extending his hand to Pavel, whose voice

in response flowed on calmly, somewhat sarcastically.

"I am reaching my conclusion. To insult you personally was not my

desire; on the contrary, as an involuntary witness to this comedy which

you call a court trial, I feel almost compassion for you, I may say. You

are human beings after all; and it is saddening to see human beings,

even our enemies, so shamefully debased in the service of violence,

debased to such a degree that they lose consciousness of their human

dignity."

He sat down without looking at the judges.

Andrey, all radiant with joy, pressed his hand firmly; Samoylov, Mazin,

and the rest animatedly stretched toward him. He smiled, a bit

embarrassed by the transport of his comrades. He looked toward his

mother, and nodded his head as if asking, "Is it so?"

She answered him all a-tremble, all suffused with warm joy.

"There, now the trial has begun!" whispered Sizov. "How he gave it to

them! Eh, mother?"

CHAPTER XVI

She silently nodded her head and smiled, satisfied that her son had

spoken so bravely, perhaps still more satisfied that he had finished.

The thought darted through her mind that the speech was likely to

increase the dangers threatening Pavel; but her heart palpitated with

pride, and his words seemed to settle in her bosom.

Andrey arose, swung his body forward, looked at the judges sidewise, and

said:

"Gentlemen of the defense----"

"The court is before you, and not the defense!" observed the judge of

the sickly face angrily and loudly. By Andrey's expression the mother

perceived that he wanted to tease them. His mustache quivered. A

cunning, feline smirk familiar to her lighted up his eyes. He stroked

his head with his long hands, and fetched a breath.

"Is that so?" he said, swinging his head. "I think not. That you are not

the judges, but only the defendants----"

"I request you to adhere to what directly pertains to the case,"

remarked the old man dryly.

"To what directly pertains to the case? Very well! I've already

compelled myself to think that you are in reality judges, independent

people, honest----"

"The court has no need of your characterization."

"It has no need of _such_ a characterization? Hey? Well, but after all

I'm going to continue. You are men who make no distinction between your

own and strangers. You are free people. Now, here two parties stand

before you; one complains, 'He robbed me and did me up completely'; and

the other answers, 'I have a right to rob and to do up because I have

arms'----"

"Please don't tell anecdotes."

"Why, I've heard that old people like anecdotes--naughty ones in

particular."

"I'll prohibit you from speaking. You may say something about what

directly pertains to the case. Speak, but without buffoonery, without

unbecoming sallies."

The Little Russian looked at the judges, silently rubbing his head.

"About what directly pertains to the case?" he asked seriously. "Yes;

but why should I speak to you about what directly pertains to the case?

What you need to know my comrade has told you. The rest will be told

you; the time will come, by others----"

The old judge rose and declared:

"I forbid you to speak. Vasily Samoylov!"

Pressing his lips together firmly the Little Russian dropped down lazily

on the bench, and Samoylov arose alongside of him, shaking his curly

hair.

"The prosecuting attorney called my comrades and me 'savages,' 'enemies

of civilization'----"

"You must speak only about that which pertains to your case."

"This pertains to the case. There's nothing which does not pertain to

honest men, and I ask you not to interrupt me. I ask you what sort of a

thing is your civilization?"

"We are not here for discussions with you. To the point!" said the old

judge, showing his teeth.

Andrey's demeanor had evidently changed the conduct of the judges; his

words seemed to have wiped something away from them. Stains appeared on

their gray faces. Cold, green sparks burned in their eyes. Pavel's

speech had excited but subdued them; it restrained their agitation by

its force, which involuntarily inspired respect. The Little Russian

broke away this restraint and easily bared what lay underneath. They

looked at Samoylov, and whispered to one another with strange, wry

faces. They also began to move extremely quickly for them. They gave the

impression of desiring to seize him and howl while torturing his body

with voluptuous ecstasy.

"You rear spies, you deprave women and girls, you put men in the

position which forces them to thievery and murder; you corrupt them with

whisky--international butchery, universal falsehood, depravity, and

savagery--that's your civilization! Yes, we are enemies of this

civilization!"

"Please!" shouted the old judge, shaking his chin; but Samoylov, all

red, his eyes flashing, also shouted:

"But we respect and esteem another civilization, the creators of which

you have persecuted, you have allowed to rot in dungeons, you have

driven mad----"

"I forbid you to speak! Hm-- Fedor Mazin!"

Little Mazin popped up like a cork from a champagne bottle, and said in

a staccato voice:

"I--I swear!--I know you have convicted me----"

He lost breath and paled; his eyes seemed to devour his entire face. He

stretched out his hand and shouted:

"I--upon my honest word! Wherever you send me--I'll escape--I'll

return--I'll work always--all my life! Upon my honest word!"

Sizov quacked aloud. The entire public, overcome by the mounting wave of

excitement, hummed strangely and dully. One woman cried, some one choked

and coughed. The gendarmes regarded the prisoners with dull surprise,

the public with a sinister look. The judges shook, the old man shouted

in a thin voice:

"Ivan Gusev!"

"I don't want to speak."

"Vasily Gusev!"

"Don't want to."

"Fedor Bukin!"

The whitish, faded fellow lifted himself heavily, and shaking his head

slowly said in a thick voice:

"You ought to be ashamed. I am a heavy man, and yet I

understand--justice!" He raised his hand higher than his head and was

silent, half-closing his eyes as if looking at something at a distance.

"What is it?" shouted the old judge in excited astonishment, dropping

back in his armchair.

"Oh, well, what's the use?"

Bukin sullenly let himself down on the bench. There was something big

and serious in his dark eyes, something somberly reproachful and naïve.

Everybody felt it; even the judges listened, as if waiting for an echo

clearer than his words. On the public benches all commotion died down

immediately; only a low weeping swung in the air. Then the prosecuting

attorney, shrugging his shoulders, grinned and said something to the

marshal of the nobility, and whispers gradually buzzed again excitedly

through the hall.

Weariness enveloped the mother's body with a stifling faintness. Small

drops of perspiration stood on her forehead. Samoylov's mother stirred

on the bench, nudging her with her shoulder and elbow, and said to her

husband in a subdued whisper:

"How is this, now? Is it possible?"

"You see, it's possible."

"But what is going to happen to him, to Vasily?"

"Keep still. Stop."

The public was jarred by something it did not understand. All blinked in

perplexity with blinded eyes, as if dazzled by the sudden blazing up of

an object, indistinct in outline, of unknown meaning, but with horrible

drawing power. And since the people did not comprehend this great thing

dawning on them, they contracted its significance into something small,

the meaning of which was evident and clear to them. The elder Bukin,

therefore, whispered aloud without constraint:

"Say, please, why don't they permit them to talk? The prosecuting

attorney can say everything, and as much as he wants to----"

A functionary stood at the benches, and waving his hands at the people,

said in a half voice:

"Quiet, quiet!"

The father of Samoylov threw himself back, and ejaculated broken words

behind his wife's ear:

"Of course--let us say they are guilty--but you'll let them explain.

What is it they have gone against? Against everything--I wish to

understand--I, too, have my interest." And suddenly: "Pavel says the

truth, hey? I want to understand. Let them speak."

"Keep still!" exclaimed the functionary, shaking his finger at him.

Sizov nodded his head sullenly.

But the mother kept her gaze fastened unwaveringly on the judges, and

saw that they got more and more excited, conversing with one another in

indistinct voices. The sound of their words, cold and tickling, touched

her face, puckering the skin on it, and filling her mouth with a sickly,

disgusting taste. The mother somehow conceived that they were all

speaking of the bodies of her son and his comrades, their vigorous bare

bodies, their muscles, their youthful limbs full of hot blood, of living

force. These bodies kindled in the judges the sinister, impotent envy of

the rich by the poor, the unwholesome greed felt by wasted and sick

people for the strength of the healthy. Their mouths watered regretfully

for these bodies, capable of working and enriching, of rejoicing and

creating. The youths produced in the old judges the revengeful, painful

excitement of an enfeebled beast which sees the fresh prey, but no

longer has the power to seize it, and howls dismally at its

powerlessness.

This thought, rude and strange, grew more vivid the more attentively the

mother scrutinized the judges. They seemed not to conceal their excited

greed--the impotent vexation of the hungry who at one time had been able

to consume in abundance. To her, a woman and a mother, to whom after all

the body of her son is always dearer than that in him which is called a

soul, to her it was horrible to see how these sticky, lightless eyes

crept over his face, felt his chest, shoulders, hands, tore at the hot

skin, as if seeking the possibility of taking fire, of warming the blood

in their hardened brains and fatigued muscles--the brains and muscles of

people already half dead, but now to some degree reanimated by the

pricks of greed and envy of a young life that they presumed to sentence

and remove to a distance from themselves. It seemed to her that her son,

too, felt this damp, unpleasant tickling contact, and, shuddering,

looked at her.

He looked into the mother's face with somewhat fatigued eyes, but

calmly, kindly, and warmly. At times he nodded his head to her, and

smiled--she understood the smile.

"Now quick!" she said.

Resting his hand on the table the oldest judge arose. His head sunk in

the collar of his uniform, standing motionless, he began to read a paper

in a droning voice.

"He's reading the sentence," said Sizov, listening.

It became quiet again, and everybody looked at the old man, small, dry,

straight, resembling the stick held in his unseen hand. The other judges

also stood up. The district elder inclined his head on one shoulder, and

looked up to the ceiling; the mayor of the city crossed his hands over

his chest; the marshal of the nobility stroked his beard. The judge with

the sickly face, his puffy neighbor, and the prosecuting attorney

regarded the prisoners sidewise. And behind the judges the Czar in a red

military coat, with an indifferent white face looked down from his

portrait over their heads. On his face some insect was creeping, or a

cobweb was trembling.

"Exile!" Sizov said with a sigh of relief, dropping back on the bench.

"Well, of course! Thank God! I heard that they were going to get hard

labor. Never mind, mother, that's nothing."

Fatigued by her thoughts and her immobility, she understood the joy of

the old man, which boldly raised the soul dragged down by hopelessness.

But it didn't enliven her much.

"Why, I knew it," she answered.

"But, after all, it's certain now. Who could have told beforehand what

the authorities would do? But Fedya is a fine fellow, dear soul."

They walked to the grill; the mother shed tears as she pressed the hand

of her son. He and Fedya spoke kind words, smiled, and joked. All were

excited, but light and cheerful. The women wept; but, like Vlasova, more

from habit than grief. They did not experience the stunning pain

produced by an unexpected blow on the head, but only the sad

consciousness that they must part with the children. But even this

consciousness was dimmed by the impressions of the day. The fathers and

the mothers looked at their children with mingled sensations, in which

the skepticism of parents toward their children and the habitual sense

of the superiority of elders over youth blended strangely with the

feeling of sheer respect for them, with the persistent melancholy

thought that life had now become dull, and with the curiosity aroused by

the young men who so bravely and fearlessly spoke of the possibility of

a new life, which the elders did not comprehend but which seemed to

promise something good. The very novelty and unusualness of the feeling

rendered expression impossible. Words were spoken in plenty, but they

referred only to common matters. The relatives spoke of linen and

clothes, and begged the comrades to take care of their health, and not

to provoke the authorities uselessly.

"Everybody, brother, will grow weary, both we and they," said Samoylov

to his son.

And Bukin's brother, waving his hand, assured the younger brother:

"Merely justice, and nothing else! That they cannot admit."

The younger Bukin answered:

"You look out for the starling. I love him."

"Come back home, and you'll find him in perfect trim."

"I've nothing to do there."

And Sizov held his nephew's hand, and slowly said:

"So, Fedor; so you've started on your trip. So."

Fedya bent over, and whispered something in his ear, smiling roguishly.

The convoy soldier also smiled; but he immediately assumed a stern

expression, and shouted, "Go!"

The mother spoke to Pavel, like the others, about the same things, about

clothes, about his health, yet her breast was choked by a hundred

questions concerning Sasha, concerning himself, and herself. Underneath

all these emotions an almost burdensome feeling was slowly growing of

the fullness of her love for her son--a strained desire to please him,

to be near to his heart. The expectation of the terrible had died away,

leaving behind it only a tremor at the recollection of the judges, and

somewhere in a corner a dark impersonal thought regarding them.

"Young people ought to be tried by young judges, and not by old ones,"

she said to her son.

"It would be better to arrange life so that it should not force people

to crime," answered Pavel.

The mother, seeing the Little Russian converse with everybody and

realizing that he needed affection more than Pavel, spoke to him. Andrey

answered her gratefully, smiling, joking kindly, as always a bit droll,

supple, sinewy. Around her the talk went on, crossing and intertwining.

She heard everything, understood everybody, and secretly marveled at the

vastness of her own heart, which took in everything with an even joy,

and gave back a clear reflection of it, like a bright image on a deep,

placid lake.

Finally the prisoners were led away. The mother walked out of the court,

and was surprised to see that night already hung over the city, with the

lanterns alight in the streets, and the stars shining in the sky. Groups

composed mainly of young men were crowding near the courthouse. The snow

crunched in the frozen atmosphere; voices sounded. A man in a gray

Caucasian cowl looked into Sizov's face and asked quickly:

"What was the sentence?"

"Exile."

"For all?"

"All."

"Thank you."

The man walked away.

"You see," said Sizov. "They inquire."

Suddenly they were surrounded by about ten men, youths, and girls, and

explanations rained down, attracting still more people. The mother and

Sizov stopped. They were questioned in regard to the sentence, as to how

the prisoners behaved, who delivered the speeches, and what the speeches

were about. All the voices rang with the same eager curiosity, sincere

and warm, which aroused the desire to satisfy it.

"People! This is the mother of Pavel Vlasov!" somebody shouted, and

presently all became silent.

"Permit me to shake your hand."

Somebody's firm hand pressed the mother's fingers, somebody's voice said

excitedly:

"Your son will be an example of manhood for all of us."

"Long live the Russian workingman!" a resonant voice rang out.

"Long live the proletariat!"

"Long live the revolution!"

The shouts grew louder and increased in number, rising up on all sides.

The people ran from every direction, pushing into the crowd around the

mother and Sizov. The whistles of the police leaped through the air, but

did not deafen the shouts. The old man smiled; and to the mother all

this seemed like a pleasant dream. She smilingly pressed the hands

extended to her and bowed, with joyous tears choking her throat. Near

her somebody's clear voice said nervously:

"Comrades, friends, the autocracy, the monster which devours the Russian

people to-day again gulped into its bottomless, greedy mouth----"

"However, mother, let's go," said Sizov. And at the same time Sasha

appeared, caught the mother under her arm, and quickly dragged her away

to the other side of the street.

"Come! They're going to make arrests. What? Exile? To Siberia?"

"Yes, yes."

"And how did he speak? I know without your telling me. He was more

powerful than any of the others, and more simple. And of course, sterner

than all the rest. He's sensitive and soft, only he's ashamed to expose

himself. And he's direct, clear, firm, like truth itself. He's very

great, and there's everything in him, everything! But he often

constrains himself for nothing, lest he might hinder the cause. I know

it." Her hot half-whisper, the words of her love, calmed the mother's

agitation, and restored her exhausted strength.

"When will you go to him?" she asked Sasha, pressing her hand to her

body. Looking confidently before her the girl answered:

"As soon as I find somebody to take over my work. I have the money

already, but I might go _per étappe_. You know I am also awaiting a

sentence. Evidently they are going to send me to Siberia, too. I will

then declare that I desire to be exiled to the same locality that he

will be."

Behind them was heard the voice of Sizov:

"Then give him regards from me, from Sizov. He will know. I'm Fedya

Mazin's uncle."

Sasha stopped, turned around, extending her hand.

"I'm acquainted with Fedya. My name is Alexandra."

"And your patronymic?"

She looked at him and answered:

"I have no father."

"He's dead, you mean?"

"No, he's alive." Something stubborn, persistent, sounded in the girl's

voice and appeared in her face. "He's a landowner, a chief of a country

district. He robs the peasants and beats them. I cannot recognize him as

my father."

"S-s-o-o!" Sizov was taken aback. After a pause he said, looking at the

girl sidewise:

"Well, mother, good-by. I'm going off to the left. Stop in sometimes for

a talk and a glass of tea. Good evening, lady. You're pretty hard on

your father--of course, that's your business."

"If your son were an ugly man, obnoxious to people, disgusting to you,

wouldn't you say the same about him?" Sasha shouted terribly.

"Well, I would," the old man answered after some hesitation.

"That is to say that justice is dearer to you than your son; and to me

it's dearer than my father."

Sizov smiled, shaking his head; then he said with a sigh:

"Well, well, you're clever. Good-by. I wish you all good things, and be

better to people. Hey? Well, God be with you. Good-by, Nilovna. When you

see Pavel tell him I heard his speech. I couldn't understand every bit

of it; some things even seemed horrible; but tell him it's true. They've

found the truth, yes."

He raised his hat, and sedately turned around the corner of the street.

"He seems to be a good man," remarked Sasha, accompanying him with a

smile of her large eyes. "Such people can be useful to the cause. It

would be good to hide literature with them, for instance."

It seemed to the mother that to-day the girl's face was softer and

kinder than usual, and hearing her remarks about Sizov, she thought:

"Always about the cause. Even to-day. It's burned into her heart."

CHAPTER XVII

At home they sat on the sofa closely pressed together, and the mother

resting in the quiet again began to speak about Sasha's going to Pavel.

Thoughtfully raising her thick eyebrows, the girl looked into the

distance with her large, dreamy eyes. A contemplative expression rested

on her pale face.

"Then, when children will be born to you, I will come to you and dandle

them. We'll begin to live there no worse than here. Pasha will find

work. He has golden hands."

"Yes," answered Sasha thoughtfully. "That's good--" And suddenly

starting, as if throwing something away, she began to speak simply in a

modulated voice. "He won't commence to live there. He'll go away, of

course."

"And how will that be? Suppose, in case of children?"

"I don't know. We'll see when we are there. In such a case he oughtn't

to reckon with me, and I cannot constrain him. He's free at any moment.

I am his comrade--a wife, of course. But the conditions of his work are

such that for years and years I cannot regard our bond as a usual one,

like that of others. It will be hard, I know it, to part with him; but,

of course, I'll manage to. He knows that I'm not capable of regarding a

man as my possession. I'm not going to constrain him, no."

The mother understood her, felt that she believed what she said, that

she was capable of carrying it out; and she was sorry for her. She

embraced her.

"My dear girl, it will be hard for you."

Sasha smiled softly, nestling her body up to the mother's. Her voice

sounded mild, but powerful. Red mounted to her face.

"It's a long time till then; but don't think that I--that it is hard for

me now. I'm making no sacrifices. I know what I'm doing, I know what I

may expect. I'll be happy if I can make him happy. My aim, my desire is

to increase his energy, to give him as much happiness and love as I

can--a great deal. I love him very much and he me--I know it--what I

bring to him, he will give back to me--we will enrich each other by all

in our power; and, if necessary, we will part as friends."

Sasha remained silent for a long time, during which the mother and the

young woman sat in a corner of the room, tightly pressed against each

other, thinking of the man whom they loved. It was quiet, melancholy,

and warm.

Nikolay entered, exhausted, but brisk. He immediately announced:

"Well, Sashenka, betake yourself away from here, as long as you are

sound. Two spies have been after me since this morning, and the attempt

at concealment is so evident that it savors of an arrest. I feel it in

my bones--somewhere something has happened. By the way, here I have the

speech of Pavel. It's been decided to publish it at once. Take it to

Liudmila. Pavel spoke well, Nilovna; and his speech will play a part.

Look out for spies, Sasha. Wait a little while--hide these papers, too.

You might give them to Ivan, for example."

While he spoke, he vigorously rubbed his frozen hands, and quickly

pulled out the drawers of his table, picking out papers, some of which

he tore up, others he laid aside. His manner was absorbed, and his

appearance all upset.

"Do you suppose it was long ago that this place was cleared out? And

look at this mass of stuff accumulated already! The devil! You see,

Nilovna, it would be better for you, too, not to sleep here to-night.

It's a sorry spectacle to witness, and they may arrest you, too. And

you'll be needed for carrying Pavel's speech about from place to place."

"Hm, what do they want me for? Maybe you're mistaken."

Nikolay waved his forearm in front of his eyes, and said with

conviction:

"I have a keen scent. Besides, you can be of great help to Liudmila.

Flee far from evil."

The possibility of taking a part in the printing of her son's speech was

pleasant to her, and she answered:

"If so, I'll go. But don't think I'm afraid."

"Very well. Now, tell me where my valise and my linen are. You've

grabbed up everything into your rapacious hands, and I'm completely

robbed of the possibility of disposing of my own private property. I'm

making complete preparations--this will be unpleasant to them."

Sasha burned the papers in silence, and carefully mixed their ashes with

the other cinders in the stove.

"Sasha, go," said Nikolay, putting out his hand to her. "Good-by. Don't

forget books--if anything new and interesting appears. Well, good-by,

dear comrade. Be more careful."

"Do you think it's for long?" asked Sasha.

"The devil knows them! Evidently. There's something against me. Nilovna,

are you going with her? It's harder to track two people--all right?"

"I'm going." The mother went to dress herself, and it occurred to her

how little these people who were striving for the freedom of all cared

for their personal freedom. The simplicity and the businesslike manner

of Nikolay in expecting the arrest both astonished and touched her. She

tried to observe his face carefully; she detected nothing but his air of

absorption, overshadowing the usual kindly soft expression of his eyes.

There was no sign of agitation in this man, dearer to her than the

others; he made no fuss. Equally attentive to all, alike kind to all,

always calmly the same, he seemed to her just as much a stranger as

before to everybody and everything except his cause. He seemed remote,

living a secret life within himself and somewhere ahead of people. Yet

she felt that he resembled her more than any of the others, and she

loved him with a love that was carefully observing and, as it were, did

not believe in itself. Now she felt painfully sorry for him; but she

restrained her feelings, knowing that to show them would disconcert

Nikolay, that he would become, as always under such circumstances,

somewhat ridiculous.

When she returned to the room she found him pressing Sasha's hand and

saying:

"Admirable! I'm convinced of it. It's very good for him and for you. A

little personal happiness does not do any harm; but--a little, you know,

so as not to make him lose his value. Are you ready, Nilovna?" He walked

up to her, smiling and adjusting his glasses. "Well, good-by. I want to

think that for three months, four months--well, at most half a

year--half a year is a great deal of a man's life. In half a year one

can do a lot of things. Take care of yourself, please, eh? Come, let's

embrace." Lean and thin he clasped her neck in his powerful arms, looked

into her eyes, and smiled. "It seems to me I've fallen in love with you.

I keep embracing you all the time."

She was silent, kissing his forehead and cheeks, and her hands quivered.

For fear he might notice it, she unclasped them.

"Go. Very well. Be careful to-morrow. This is what you should do--send

the boy in the morning--Liudmila has a boy for the purpose--let him go

to the house porter and ask him whether I'm home or not. I'll forewarn

the porter; he's a good fellow, and I'm a friend of his. Well, good-by,

comrades. I wish you all good."

On the street Sasha said quietly to the mother:

"He'll go as simply as this to his death, if necessary. And apparently

he'll hurry up a little in just the same way; when death stares him in

the face he'll adjust his eyeglasses, and will say 'admirable,' and will

die."

"I love him," whispered the mother.

"I'm filled with astonishment; but love him--no. I respect him highly.

He's sort of dry, although good and even, if you please, sometimes soft;

but not sufficiently human--it seems to me we're being followed. Come,

let's part. Don't enter Liudmila's place if you think a spy is after

you."

"I know," said the mother. Sasha, however, persistently added: "Don't

enter. In that case, come to me. Good-by for the present."

She quickly turned around and walked back. The mother called "Good-by"

after her.

Within a few minutes she sat all frozen through at the stove in

Liudmila's little room. Her hostess, Liudmila, in a black dress girded

up with a strap, slowly paced up and down the room, filling it with a

rustle and the sound of her commanding voice. A fire was crackling in

the stove and drawing in the air from the room. The woman's voice

sounded evenly.

"People are a great deal more stupid than bad. They can see only what's

near to them, what it's possible to grasp immediately; but everything

that's near is cheap; what's distant is dear. Why, in reality, it would

be more convenient and pleasanter for all if life were different, were

lighter, and the people were more sensible. But to attain the distant

you must disturb yourself for the immediate present----"

Nilovna tried to guess where this woman did her printing. The room had

three windows facing the street; there was a sofa and a bookcase, a

table, chairs, a bed at the wall, in the corner near it a wash basin, in

the other corner a stove; on the walls photographs and pictures. All was

new, solid, clean; and over all the austere monastic figure of the

mistress threw a cold shadow. Something concealed, something hidden,

made itself felt; but where it lurked was incomprehensible. The mother

looked at the doors; through one of them she had entered from the little

antechamber. Near the stove was another door, narrow and high.

"I have come to you on business," she said in embarrassment, noticing

that the hostess was regarding her.

"I know. Nobody comes to me for any other reason."

Something strange seemed to be in Liudmila's voice. The mother looked in

her face. Liudmila smiled with the corners of her thin lips, her dull

eyes gleamed behind her glasses. Turning her glance aside, the mother

handed her the speech of Pavel.

"Here. They ask you to print it at once."

And she began to tell of Nikolay's preparations for the arrest.

Liudmila silently thrust the manuscript into her belt and sat down on a

chair. A red gleam of the fire was reflected on her spectacles; its hot

smile played on her motionless face.

"When they come to me I'm going to shoot at them," she said with

determination in her moderated voice. "I have the right to protect

myself against violence; and I must fight with them if I call upon

others to fight. I cannot understand calmness; I don't like it."

The reflection of the fire glided across her face, and she again became

austere, somewhat haughty.

"Your life is not very pleasant," the mother thought kindly.

Liudmila began to read Pavel's speech, at first reluctantly; then she

bent lower and lower over the paper, quickly throwing aside the pages as

she read them. When she had finished she rose, straightened herself, and

walked up to the mother.

"That's good. That's what I like; although here, too, there's calmness.

But the speech is the sepulchral beat of a drum, and the drummer is a

powerful man."

She reflected a little while, lowering her head for a minute:

"I didn't want to speak with you about your son; I have never met him,

and I don't like sad subjects of conversation. I know what it means to

have a near one go into exile. But I want to say to you, nevertheless,

that your son must be a splendid man. He's young--that's evident; but he

is a great soul. It must be good and terrible to have such a son."

"Yes, it's good. And now it's no longer terrible."

Liudmila settled her smoothly combed hair with her tawny hand and sighed

softly. A light, warm shadow trembled on her cheeks, the shadow of a

suppressed smile.

"We are going to print it. Will you help me?"

"Of course."

"I'll set it up quickly. You lie down; you had a hard day; you're tired.

Lie down here on the bed; I'm not going to sleep; and at night maybe

I'll wake you up to help me. When you have lain down, put out the lamp."

She threw two logs of wood into the stove, straightened herself, and

passed through the narrow door near the stove, firmly closing it after

her. The mother followed her with her eyes, and began to undress

herself, thinking reluctantly of her hostess: "A stern person; and yet

her heart burns. She can't conceal it. Everyone loves. If you don't love

you can't live."

Fatigue dizzied her brain; but her soul was strangely calm, and

everything was illumined from within by a soft, kind light which quietly

and evenly filled her breast. She was already acquainted with this calm;

it had come to her after great agitation. At first it had slightly

disturbed her; but now it only broadened her soul, strengthening it with

a certain powerful but impalpable thought. Before her all the time

appeared and disappeared the faces of her son, Andrey, Nikolay, Sasha.

She took delight in them; they passed by without arousing thought, and

only lightly and sadly touching her heart. Then she extinguished the

lamp, lay down in the cold bed, shriveled up under the bed coverings,

and suddenly sank into a heavy sleep.

CHAPTER XVIII

When she opened her eyes the room was filled by the cold, white glimmer

of a clear wintry day. The hostess, with a book in her hand, lay on the

sofa, and smiling unlike herself looked into her face.

"Oh, father!" the mother exclaimed, for some reason embarrassed. "Just

look! Have I been asleep a long time?"

"Good morning!" answered Liudmila. "It'll soon be ten o'clock. Get up

and we'll have tea."

"Why didn't you wake me up?"

"I wanted to. I walked up to you; but you were so fast asleep and smiled

so in your sleep!"

With a supple, powerful movement of her whole body she rose from the

sofa, walked up to the bed, bent toward the face of the mother, and in

her dull eyes the mother saw something dear, near, and comprehensible.

"I was sorry to disturb you. Maybe you were seeing a happy vision."

"I didn't see anything."

"All the same--but your smile pleased me. It was so calm, so good--so

great." Liudmila laughed, and her laugh sounded velvety. "I thought of

you, of your life--your life is a hard one, isn't it?"

The mother, moving her eyebrows, was silent and thoughtful.

"Of course it's hard!" exclaimed Liudmila.

"I don't know," said the mother carefully. "Sometimes it seems sort of

hard; there's so much of all, it's all so serious, marvelous, and it

moves along so quickly, one thing after the other--so quickly----"

The wave of bold excitement familiar to her overflowed her breast,

filling her heart with images and thoughts. She sat up in bed, quickly

clothing her thoughts in words.

"It goes, it goes, it goes all to one thing, to one side, and like a

fire, when a house begins to burn, upward! Here it shoots forth, there

it blazes out, ever brighter, ever more powerful. There's a great deal

of hardship, you know. People suffer; they are beaten, cruelly beaten;

and everyone is oppressed and watched. They hide, live like monks, and

many joys are closed to them; it's very hard. And when you look at them

well you see that the hard things, the evil and difficult, are around

them, on the outside, and not within."

Liudmila quickly threw up her head, looked at her with a deep, embracing

look. The mother felt that her words did not exhaust her thoughts, which

vexed and offended her.

"You're not speaking about yourself," said her hostess softly.

The mother looked at her, arose from the bed, and dressing asked:

"Not about myself? Yes; you see in this, in all that I live now, it's

hard to think of oneself; how can you withdraw into yourself when you

love this thing, and that thing is dear to you, and you are afraid for

everybody and are sorry for everybody? Everything crowds into your heart

and draws you to all people. How can you step to one side? It's hard."

Liudmila laughed, saying softly:

"And maybe it's not necessary."

"I don't know whether it's necessary or not; but this I do know--that

people are becoming stronger than life, wiser than life; that's

evident."

Standing in the middle of the room, half-dressed, she fell to reflecting

for a moment. Her real self suddenly appeared not to exist--the one who

lived in anxiety and fear for her son, in thoughts for the safekeeping

of his body. Such a person in herself was no longer; she had gone off to

a great distance, and perhaps was altogether burned up by the fire of

agitation. This had lightened and cleansed her soul, and had renovated

her heart with a new power. She communed with herself, desiring to take

a look into her own heart, and fearing lest she awaken some anxiety

there.

"What are you thinking about?" Liudmila asked kindly, walking up to her.

"I don't know."

The two women were silent, looking at each other. Both smiled; then

Liudmila walked out of the room, saying:

"What is my samovar doing?"

The mother looked through the window. A cold, bracing day shone in the

street; her breast, too, shone bright, but hot. She wanted to speak much

about everything, joyfully, with a confused feeling of gratitude to

somebody--she did not know whom--for all that came into her soul, and

lighted it with a ruddy evening light. A desire to pray, which she had

not felt for a long time, arose in her breast. Somebody's young face

came to her memory, somebody's resonant voice shouted, "That's the

mother of Pavel Vlasov!" Sasha's eyes flashed joyously and tenderly.

Rybin's dark, tall figure loomed up, the bronzed, firm face of her son

smiled. Nikolay blinked in embarrassment; and suddenly everything was

stirred with a deep but light breath.

"Nikolay was right," said Liudmila, entering again. "He must surely have

been arrested. I sent the boy there, as you told me to. He said

policemen are hiding in the yard; he did not see the house porter; but

he saw the policeman who was hiding behind the gates. And spies are

sauntering about; the boy knows them."

"So?" The mother nodded her head. "Ah, poor fellow!"

And she sighed, but without sadness, and was quietly surprised at

herself.

"Lately he's been reading a great deal to the city workingmen; and in

general it was time for him to disappear," Liudmila said with a frown.

"The comrades told him to go, but he didn't obey them. I think that in

such cases you must compel and not try to persuade."

A dark-haired, red-faced boy with beautiful eyes and a hooked nose

appeared in the doorway.

"Shall I bring in the samovar?" he asked in a ringing voice.

"Yes, please, Seryozha. This is my pupil; have you never met him

before?"

"No."

"He used to go to Nikolay sometimes; I sent him."

Liudmila seemed to the mother to be different to-day--simpler and nearer

to her. In the supple swaying of her stately figure there was much

beauty and power; her sternness had mildened; the circles under her eyes

had grown larger during the night, her face paler and leaner; her large

eyes had deepened. One perceived a strained exertion in her, a tightly

drawn chord in her soul.

The boy brought in the samovar.

"Let me introduce you: Seryozha--Pelagueya Nilovna, the mother of the

workingman whom they sentenced yesterday."

Seryozha bowed silently and pressed the mother's hand. Then he brought

in bread, and sat down to the table. Liudmila persuaded the mother not

to go home until they found out whom the police were waiting for there.

"Maybe they are waiting for you. I'm sure they'll examine you."

"Let them. And if they arrest me, no great harm. Only I'd like to have

Pasha's speech sent off."

"It's already in type. To-morrow it'll be possible to have it for the

city and the suburb. We'll have some for the districts, too. Do you know

Natasha?"

"Of course!"

"Then take it to her."

The boy read the newspaper, and seemed not to be listening to the

conversation; but at times his eyes looked from the pages of the

newspaper into the face of the mother; and when she met their animated

glance she felt pleased and smiled. She reproached herself for these

smiles. Liudmila again mentioned Nikolay without any expression of

regret for his arrest and, to the mother, it seemed in perfectly natural

tones. The time passed more quickly than on the other days. When they

had done drinking tea it was already near midday.

"However!" exclaimed Liudmila, and at the same time a knock at the door

was heard. The boy rose, looked inquiringly at Liudmila, prettily

screwing up his eyes.

"Open the door, Seryozha. Who do you suppose it is?" And with a composed

gesture she let her hand into the pocket of the skirt, saying to the

mother: "If it is the gendarmes, you, Pelagueya Nilovna, stand here in

this corner, and you, Ser----"

"I know. The dark passage," the little boy answered softly,

disappearing.

The mother smiled. These preparations did not disturb her; she had no

premonition of a misfortune.

The little physician walked in. He quickly said:

"First of all, Nikolay is arrested. Aha! You here, Nilovna? They're

interested in you, too. Weren't you there when he was arrested?"

"He packed me off, and told me to come here."

"Hm! I don't think it will be of any use to you. Secondly, last night

several young people made about five hundred hektograph copies of

Pavel's speech--not badly done, plain and clear. They want to scatter

them throughout the city at night. I'm against it. Printed sheets are

better for the city, and the hektograph copies ought to be sent off

somewhere."

"Here, I'll carry them to Natasha!" the mother exclaimed animatedly.

"Give them to me."

She was seized with a great desire to sow them broadcast, to spread

Pavel's speech as soon as possible. She would have bestrewn the whole

earth with the words of her son, and she looked into the doctor's face

with eyes ready to beg.

"The devil knows whether at this time you ought to take up this matter,"

the physician said irresolutely, and took out his watch. "It's now

twelve minutes of twelve. The train leaves at 2.05, arrives there 5.15.

You'll get there in the evening, but not sufficiently late--and that's

not the point!"

"That's not the point," repeated Liudmila, frowning.

"What then?" asked the mother, drawing up to them. "The point is to do

it well; and I'll do it all right."

Liudmila looked fixedly at her, and chafing her forehead, remarked:

"It's dangerous for you."

"Why?" the mother challenged hotly.

"That's why!" said the physician quickly and brokenly. "You disappeared

from home an hour before Nikolay's arrest. You went away to the mill,

where you are known as the teacher's aunt; after your arrival at the

mill the naughty leaflets appear. All this will tie itself into a noose

around your neck."

"They won't notice me there," the mother assured them, warming to her

desire. "When I return they'll arrest me, and ask me where I was." After

a moment's pause she exclaimed: "I know what I'll say. From there I'll

go straight to the suburb; I have a friend there--Sizov. So I'll say

that I went there straight from the trial; grief took me there; and he,

too, had the same misfortune, his nephew was sentenced; and I spent the

whole time with him. He'll uphold me, too. Do you see?"

The mother was aware that they were succumbing to the strength of her

desire, and strove to induce them to give in as quickly as possible. She

spoke more and more persistently, joy arising within her. And they

yielded.

"Well, go," the physician reluctantly assented.

Liudmila was silent, pacing thoughtfully up and down the room. Her face

clouded over and her cheeks fell in. The muscles of her neck stretched

noticeably as if her head had suddenly grown heavy; it involuntarily

dropped on her breast. The mother observed this. The physician's

reluctant assent forced a sigh from her.

"You all take care of me," the mother said, smiling. "You don't take

care of yourselves." And the wave of joy mounted higher and higher.

"It isn't true. We look out for ourselves. We ought to; and we very much

upbraid those who uselessly waste their power. Ye-es. Now, this is the

way you are to do. You will receive the speeches at the station." He

explained to her how the matter would be arranged; then looking into her

face, he said: "Well, I wish you success. You're happy, aren't you?" And

he walked away still gloomy and dissatisfied. When the door closed

behind him Liudmila walked up to the mother, smiling quietly.

"You're a fine woman! I understand you." Taking her by the arm, she

again walked up and down the room. "I have a son, too. He's already

thirteen years old; but he lives with his father. My husband is an

assistant prosecuting attorney. Maybe he's already prosecuting attorney.

And the boy's with him. What is he going to be? I often think." Her

humid, powerful voice trembled. Then her speech flowed on again

thoughtfully and quietly. "He's being brought up by a professed enemy of

those people who are near me, whom I regard as the best people on earth;

and maybe the boy will grow up to be my enemy. He cannot live with me; I

live under a strange name. I have not seen him for eight years. That's a

long time--eight years!"

Stopping at the window, she looked up at the pale, bleak sky, and

continued: "If he were with me I would be stronger; I would not have

this wound in my heart, the wound that always pains. And even if he were

dead it would be easier for me--" She paused again, and added more

firmly and loudly: "Then I would know he's merely dead, but not an enemy

of that which is higher than the feeling of a mother, dearer and more

necessary than life."

"My darling," said the mother quietly, feeling as if something powerful

were burning her heart.

"Yes, you are happy," Liudmila said with a smile. "It's magnificent--the

mother and the son side by side. It's rare!"

The mother unexpectedly to herself exclaimed:

"Yes, it is good!" and as if disclosing a secret, she continued in a

lowered voice: "It is another life. All of you--Nikolay Ivanovich, all

the people of the cause of truth--are also side by side. Suddenly people

have become kin--I understand all--the words I don't understand; but

everything else I understand, everything!"

"That's how it is," Liudmila said. "That's how."

The mother put her hand on Liudmila's breast, pressing her; she spoke

almost in a whisper, as if herself meditating upon the words she spoke.

"Children go through the world; that's what I understand; children go

into the world, over all the earth, from everywhere toward one thing.

The best hearts go; people of honest minds; they relentlessly attack all

evil, all darkness. They go, they trample falsehood with heavy feet,

understanding everything, justifying everybody--justifying everybody,

they go. Young, strong, they carry their power, their invincible power,

all toward one thing--toward justice. They go to conquer all human

misery, they arm themselves to wipe away misfortune from the face of the

earth; they go to subdue what is monstrous, and they will subdue it. We

will kindle a new sun, somebody told me; and they will kindle it. We

will create one heart in life, we will unite all the severed hearts into

one--and they will unite them. We will cleanse the whole of life--and

they will cleanse it."

She waved her hand toward the sky.

"There's the sun."

And she struck her bosom.

"Here the most glorious heavenly sun of human happiness will be kindled,

and it will light up the earth forever--the whole of it, and all that

live upon it--with the light of love, the love of every man toward all,

and toward everything."

The words of forgotten prayers recurred to her mind, inspiring a new

faith. She threw them from her heart like sparks.

"The children walking along the road of truth and reason carry love to

all; and they clothe everything in new skies; they illumine everything

with an incorruptible fire issuing from the depths of the soul. Thus, a

new life comes into being, born of the children's love for the entire

world; and who will extinguish this love--who? What power is higher than

this? Who will subdue it? The earth has brought it forth; and all life

desires its victory--all life. Shed rivers of blood, nay, seas of blood,

you'll never extinguish it."

She shook herself away from Liudmila, fatigued by her exaltation, and

sat down, breathing heavily. Liudmila also withdrew from her,

noiselessly, carefully, as if afraid of destroying something. With

supple movement she walked about the room and looked in front of her

with the deep gaze of her dim eyes. She seemed still taller, straighter,

and thinner; her lean, stern face wore a concentrated expression, and

her lips were nervously compressed. The stillness in the room soon

calmed the mother, and noticing Liudmila's mood she asked guiltily and

softly:

"Maybe I said something that wasn't quite right?"

Liudmila quickly turned around and looked at her as if in fright.

"It's all right," she said rapidly, stretching out her hand to the

mother as if desiring to arrest something. "But we'll not speak about it

any more. Let it remain as it was said; let it remain. Yes." And in a

calmer tone she continued: "It's time for you to start soon; it's far."

"Yes, presently. I'm glad! Oh, how glad I am! If you only knew! I'm

going to carry the word of my son, the word of my blood. Why, it's like

one's own soul!"

She smiled; but her smile did not find a clear reflection in the face of

Liudmila. The mother felt that Liudmila chilled her joy by her

restraint; and the stubborn desire suddenly arose in her to pour into

that obstinate soul enveloped in misery her own fire, to burn her, too,

let her, too, sound in unison with her own heart full of joy. She took

Liudmila's hands and pressed them powerfully.

"My dear, how good it is when you know that light for all the people

already exists in life, and that there will be a time when they will

begin to see it, when they will bathe their souls in it, and all, all,

will take fire in its unquenchable flames."

Her good, large face quivered; her eyes smiled radiantly; and her

eyebrows trembled over them as if pinioning their flash. The great

thoughts intoxicated her; she put into them everything that burned her

heart, everything she had lived through; and she compressed the thoughts

into firm, capacious crystals of luminous words. They grew up ever more

powerful in the autumn heart, illuminated by the creative force of the

spring sun; they blossomed and reddened in it ever more brightly.

"Why, this is like a new god that's born to us, the people. Everything

for all; all for everything; the whole of life in one, and the whole of

life for everyone, and everyone for the whole of life! Thus I understand

all of you; it is for this that you are on this earth, I see. You are in

truth comrades all, kinsmen all, for you are all children of one mother,

of truth. Truth has brought you forth; and by her power you live!"

Again overcome by the wave of agitation, she stopped, fetched breath,

and spread out her arms as if for an embrace.

"And if I pronounce to myself that word 'comrades' then I hear with my

heart--they are going! They are going from everywhere, the great

multitude, all to one thing. I hear such a roaring, resonant and joyous,

like the festive peal of the bells of all the churches of the world."

She had arrived at what she desired. Liudmila's face flashed in

amazement. Her lips quivered; and one after the other large transparent

tears dropped from her dull eyes and rolled down her cheeks.

The mother embraced her vigorously and laughed softly, lightly taking

pride in the victory of her heart. When they took leave of each other

Liudmila looked into the mother's face, and asked her softly:

"Do you know that it is well with you?" And herself supplied the answer:

"Very well. Like a morning on a high mountain."

CHAPTER XIX

In the street the frozen atmosphere enveloped her body invigoratingly,

penetrated into her throat, tickled her nose, and for a second

suppressed the breathing in her bosom. The mother stopped and looked

around. Near to her, at the corner of the empty street, stood a cabman

in a shaggy hat; at a slight distance a man was walking, bent, his head

sunk in his shoulders; and in front of him a soldier was running in a

jump, rubbing his ears.

"The soldier must have been sent to the store," she thought, and walked

off listening with satisfaction to the youthful crunching of the snow

under her feet. She arrived at the station early; her train was not yet

ready; but in the dirty waiting room of the third class, blackened with

smoke, there were numerous people already. The cold drove in the

railroad workmen; cabmen and some poorly dressed, homeless people came

in to warm themselves; there were passengers, also a few peasants, a

stout merchant in a raccoon overcoat, a priest and his daughter, a

pockmarked girl, some five soldiers, and bustling tradesmen. The men

smoked, talked, drank tea and whisky at the buffet; some one laughed

boisterously; a wave of smoke was wafted overhead; the door squeaked as

it opened, the windows rattled when the door was jammed to; the odor of

tobacco, machine oil, and salt fish thickly beat into the nostrils.

The mother sat near the entrance and waited. When the door opened a

whiff of fresh air struck her, which was pleasant to her, and she took

in deep breaths. Heavily dressed people came in with bundles in their

hands; they clumsily pushed through the door, swore, mumbled, threw

their things on the bench or on the floor, shook off the dry rime from

the collars of their overcoats and their sleeves and wiped it off their

beards and mustaches, all the time puffing and blowing.

A young man entered with a yellow valise in his hand, quickly looked

around, and walked straight to the mother.

"To Moscow, to your niece?" he asked in a low voice.

"Yes, to Tanya."

"Very well."

He put the valise on the bench near her, quickly whipped out a

cigarette, lighted it, and raising his hat, silently walked toward the

other door. The mother stroked the cold skin of the valise, leaned her

elbows on it, and, satisfied, began again to look around at the people.

In a few moments she arose and walked over to the other bench, nearer to

the exit to the platform. She held the valise lightly in her hand; it

was not large, and she walked with raised head, scanning the faces that

flashed before her.

One man in a short overcoat and its collar raised jostled against her

and jumped back, silently waving his hand toward his head. Something

familiar about him struck her; she glanced around and saw that he was

looking at her with one eye gleaming out of his collar. This attentive

eye pricked her; the hand in which she held the valise trembled; she

felt a dull pain in her shoulder, and the load suddenly grew heavy.

"I've seen him somewhere," she thought, and with the thought suppressed

the unpleasant, confused feeling in her breast. She would not permit

herself to define the cold sensation that already pressed her heart

quietly but powerfully. It grew and rose in her throat, filling her

mouth with a dry, bitter taste, and compelling her to turn around and

look once more. As she turned he carefully shifted from one foot to the

other, standing on the same spot; it seemed he wanted something, but

could not decide what. His right hand was thrust between the buttons of

his coat, the other he kept in his pocket. On account of this the right

shoulder seemed higher than the left.

Without hastening, she walked to the bench and sat down carefully,

slowly, as if afraid of tearing something in herself or on herself. Her

memory, aroused by a sharp premonition of misfortune, quickly presented

this man twice to her imagination--once in the field outside the city,

after the escape of Rybin; a second time in the evening in the court.

There at his side stood the constable to whom she had pointed out the

false way taken by Rybin. They knew her; they were tracking her--this

was evident.

"Am I caught?" she asked, and in the following second answered herself,

starting: "Maybe there is still--" and immediately forcing herself with

a great effort, she said sternly: "I'm caught. No use."

She looked around, and her thoughts flashed up in sparks and expired in

her brain one after the other.

"Leave the valise? Go away?"

But at the same time another spark darted up more glaringly: "How much

will be lost? Drop the son's word in such hands?"

She pressed the valise to herself trembling. "And to go away with it?

Where? To run?"

These thoughts seemed to her those of a stranger, somebody from the

outside, who was pushing them on her by main force. They burned her, and

their burns chopped her brain painfully, lashed her heart like fiery

whipcords. They were an insult to the mother; they seemed to be driving

her away from her own self, from Pavel, and everything which had grown

to her heart. She felt that a stubborn, hostile force oppressed her,

squeezed her shoulder and breast, lowered her stature, plunging her into

a fatal fear. The veins on her temples began to pulsate vigorously, and

the roots of her hair grew warm.

Then with one great and sharp effort of her heart, which seemed to shake

her entire being, she quenched all these cunning, petty, feeble little

fires, saying sternly to herself: "Enough!"

She at once began to feel better, and she grew strengthened altogether,

adding: "Don't disgrace your son. Nobody's afraid."

Several seconds of wavering seemed to have the effect of joining

everything in her; her heart began to beat calmly.

"What's going to happen now? How will they go about it with me?" she

thought, her senses strung to a keener observation.

The spy called a station guard, and whispered something to him,

directing his look toward her. The guard glanced at him and moved back.

Another guard came, listened, grinned, and lowered his brows. He was an

old man, coarse-built, gray, unshaven. He nodded his head to the spy,

and walked up to the bench where the mother sat. The spy quickly

disappeared.

The old man strode leisurely toward the mother, intently thrusting his

angry eyes into the mother's face. She sat farther back on the bench,

trembling. "If they only don't beat me, if they only don't beat me!"

He stopped at her side; she raised her eyes to his face.

"What are you looking at?" he asked in a moderated voice.

"Nothing."

"Hm! Thief! So old and yet----"

It seemed to her that his words struck her face once, twice, rough and

hoarse; they wounded her, as if they tore her cheeks, ripped out her

eyes.

"I'm not a thief! You lie!" she shouted with all the power of her chest;

and everything before her jumped and began to whirl in a whirlwind of

revolt, intoxicating her heart with the bitterness of insult. She jerked

the valise, and it opened.

"Look! look! All you people!" she shouted, standing up and waving the

bundle of the proclamations she had quickly seized over her head.

Through the noise in her ears she heard the exclamations of the people

who came running up, and she saw them pouring in quickly from all

directions.

"What is it?"

"There's a spy!"

"What's the matter?"

"She's a thief, they say!"

"She?"

"Would a thief shout?"

"Such a respectable one! My, my, my!"

"Whom did they catch?"

"I'm not a thief," said the mother in a full voice, somewhat calmed at

the sight of the people who pressed closely upon her from all sides.

"Yesterday they tried the political prisoners; my son was one of them,

Vlasov. He made a speech. Here it is. I'm carrying it to the people in

order that they should read, think about the truth."

One paper was carefully pulled from her hands. She waved the papers in

the air and flung them into the crowd.

"She won't get any praise for that, either!" somebody exclaimed in a

frightened voice.

"Whee-ee-w!" was the response.

The mother saw that the papers were being snatched up, were being hidden

in breasts and pockets. This again put her firmly on her feet; more

composed than forceful, straining herself to her utmost, and feeling how

agitated pride grew in her raising her high above the people, how

subdued joy flamed up in her, she spoke, snatching bundles of papers

from the valise and throwing them right and left into some person's

quick, greedy hands.

"For this they sentenced my son and all with him. Do you know? I will

tell you, and you believe the heart of a mother; believe her gray hair.

Yesterday they sentenced them because they carried to you, to all the

people, the honest, sacred truth. How do you live?"

The crowd grew silent in amazement, and noiselessly increased in size,

pressing closer and closer together, surrounding the woman with a ring

of living bodies.

"Poverty, hunger, and sickness--that's what work gives to the poor

people. This order of things pushes us to theft and to corruption; and

over us, satiated and calm, live the rich. In order that we should obey

the police, the authorities, the soldiers, all are in their hands, all

are against us, everything is against us. We perish all our lives day

after day in toil, always in filth, in deceit. And others enjoy

themselves and gormandize themselves with our labor; and they hold us

like dogs on chains, in ignorance. We know nothing, and in terror we

fear everything. Our life is night, a dark night; it is a terrible

dream. They have poisoned us with strong intoxicating poison, and they

drink our blood. They glut themselves to corpulence, to vomiting--the

servants of the devil of greed. Is it not so?"

"It's so!" came a dull answer.

Back of the crowd the mother noticed the spy and two gendarmes. She

hastened to give away the last bundles; but when her hand let itself

down into the valise it met another strange hand.

"Take it, take it all!" she said, bending down.

A dirty face raised itself to hers, and a low whisper reached her:

"Whom shall I tell? Whom inform?"

She did not answer.

"In order to change this life, in order to free all the people, to raise

them from the dead, as I have been raised, some persons have already

come who secretly saw the truth in life; secretly, because, you know, no

one can say the truth aloud. They hunt you down, they stifle you; they

make you rot in prison, they mutilate you. Wealth is a force, not a

friend to truth. Thus far truth is the sworn enemy to the power of the

rich, an irreconcilable enemy forever! Our children are carrying the

truth into the world. Bright people, clean people are carrying it to

you. Thus far there are few of them; they are not powerful; but they

grow in number every day. They put their young hearts into free truth,

they are making it an invincible power. Along the route of their hearts

it will enter into our hard life; it will warm us, enliven us,

emancipate us from the oppression of the rich and from all who have sold

their souls. Believe this."

"Out of the way here!" shouted the gendarmes, pushing the people. They

gave way to the jostling unwillingly, pressed the gendarmes with their

mass, hindered them perhaps without desiring to do so. The gray-haired

woman with the large, honest eyes in her kind face attracted them

powerfully; and those whom life held asunder, whom it tore from one

another, now blended into a whole, warmed by the fire of the fearless

words which, perhaps, they had long been seeking and thirsting for in

their hearts--their hearts insulted and revolted by the injustice of

their severe life. Those who were near stood in silence. The mother saw

their gloomy faces, their frowning brows, their eyes, and felt their

warm breath on her face.

"Get up on the bench," they said.

"I'll be arrested immediately. It's not necessary."

"Speak quicker! They're coming!"

"Go to meet the honest people. Seek those who advise all the poor

disinherited. Don't be reconciled, comrades, don't! Don't yield to the

power of the powerful. Arise, you working people! you are the masters of

life! All live by your labor; and only for your labor do they untie your

hands. Behold! you are bound, and they have killed, robbed your soul.

Unite with your heart and your mind into one power. It will overcome

everything. You have no friends except yourselves. That's what their

only friends say to the working people, their friends who go to them and

perish on the road to prison. Not so would dishonest people speak, not

so deceivers."

"Out of the way! Disperse!" the shouts of the gendarmes came nearer and

nearer. There were more of them already; they pushed more forcibly; and

the people in front of the mother swayed, catching hold of one another.

"Is that all you have in the valise?" whispered somebody.

"Take it! Take all!" said the mother aloud, feeling that the words

disposed themselves into a song in her breast, and noticing with pain

that her voice did not hold out, that it was hoarse, trembled, and

broke.

"The word of my son is the honest word of a workingman, of an unsold

soul. You will recognize its incorruptibility by its boldness. It is

fearless, and if necessary it goes even against itself to meet the

truth. It goes to you, working people, incorruptible, wise, fearless.

Receive it with an open heart, feed on it; it will give you the power to

understand everything, to fight against everything for the truth, for

the freedom of mankind. Receive it, believe it, go with it toward the

happiness of all the people, to a new life with great joy!"

She received a blow on the chest; she staggered and fell on the bench.

The gendarmes' hands darted over the heads of the people, and seizing

collars and shoulders, threw them aside, tore off hats, flung them far

away. Everything grew dark and began to whirl before the eyes of the

mother. But overcoming her fatigue, she again shouted with the remnants

of her power:

"People, gather up your forces into one single force!"

A large gendarme caught her collar with his red hand and shook her.

"Keep quiet!"

The nape of her neck struck the wall; her heart was enveloped for a

second in the stifling smoke of terror; but it blazed forth again

clearly, dispelling the smoke.

"Go!" said the gendarme.

"Fear nothing! There are no tortures worse than those which you endure

all your lives!"

"Silence, I say!" The gendarme took her by the arm and pulled her;

another seized her by the other arm, and taking long steps, they led her

away.

"There are no tortures more bitter than those which quietly gnaw at your

heart every day, waste your breast, and drain your power."

The spy came running up, and shaking his fist in her face, shouted:

"Silence, you old hag!"

Her eyes widened, sparkled; her jaws quivered. Planting her feet firmly

on the slippery stones of the floor, she shouted, gathering the last

remnants of her strength:

"The resuscitated soul they will not kill."

"Dog!"

The spy struck her face with a short swing of his hand.

Something black and red blinded her eyes for a second. The salty taste

of blood filled her mouth.

A clear outburst of shouts animated her:

"Don't dare to beat her!"

"Boys!"

"What is it?"

"Oh, you scoundrel!"

"Give it to him!"

"They will not drown reason in blood; they will not extinguish its

truth!"

She was pushed in the neck and the back, beaten about the shoulders, on

the head. Everything began to turn around, grow giddy in a dark

whirlwind of shouts, howls, whistles. Something thick and deafening

crept into her ear, beat in her throat, choked her. The floor under her

feet began to shake, giving way. Her legs bent, her body trembled,

burned with pain, grew heavy, and staggered powerless. But her eyes were

not extinguished, and they saw many other eyes which flashed and gleamed

with the bold sharp fire known to her, with the fire dear to her heart.

She was pushed somewhere into a door.

She snatched her hand away from the gendarmes and caught hold of the

doorpost.

"You will not drown the truth in seas of blood----"

They struck her hand.

"You heap up only malice on yourself, you unwise ones! It will fall on

you----"

Somebody seized her neck and began to choke her. There was a rattle in

her throat.

"You poor, sorry creatures----"

* * * * *

Transcriber's note:

Page numbers referred to in the LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS correspond

with the illustrations' original locations. Tags for illustrations have

been moved to be closer to their mention in the text.