"Let Sizov speak!"
"Vlasov!"
"Rybin! He has a terrible tongue!"
Finally Sizov, Rybin, and Pavel were chosen for the interview with the manager. When just about to send for the manager, suddenly low exclamations were heard in the crowd:
"Here he comes himself!"
"The manager?"
"Ah!"
The crowd opened to make way for a tall, spare man with a pointed beard, an elongated face and blinking eyes.
"Permit me," he said, as he pushed the people aside with a short motion of his hand, without touching them. With the experienced look of a ruler of people, he scanned the workingmen's faces with a searching gaze. They took their hats off and bowed to him. He walked past them without acknowledging their greetings. His presence silenced and confused the crowd, and evoked embarrassed smiles and low exclamations, as of repentant children who had already come to regret their prank.
Now he passed by the mother, casting a stern glance at her face, and stopped before the pile of iron. Somebody from above extended a hand to him; he did not take it, but with an easy, powerful movement of his body he clambered up and stationed himself in front of Pavel and Sizov. Looking around the silent crowd, he asked:
"What's the meaning of this crowd? Why have you dropped your work?"
For a few seconds silence reigned. Sizov waved his cap in the air, shrugged his shoulders, and dropped his head.
"I am asking you a question!" continued the manager.
Pavel moved alongside of him and said in a low voice, pointing to Sizov and Rybin:
"We three are authorized by all the comrades to ask you to revoke your order about the kopeck discount."
"Why?" asked the manager, without looking at Pavel.
"We do not consider such a tax just!" Pavel replied loudly.
"So, in my plan to drain the marsh you see only a desire to exploit the workingmen and not a desire to better their conditions; is that it?"
"Yes!" Pavel replied.
"And you, also?" the manager asked Rybin.
"The very same!"
"How about you, my worthy friend?" The manager turned to Sizov.
"I, too, want to ask you to let us keep our kopecks." And drooping his head again, Sizov smiled guiltily. The manager slowly bent his look upon the crowd again, shrugged his shoulders, and then, regarding Pavel searchingly, observed:
"You appear to be a fairly intelligent man. Do you not understand the usefulness of this measure?"
Pavel replied loudly:
"If the factory should drain the marsh at its own expense, we would all understand it!"
"This factory is not in the philanthropy business!" remarked the manager dryly. "I order you all to start work at once!"
And he began to descend, cautiously feeling the iron with his feet, and without looking at anyone.
A dissatisfied hum was heard in the crowd.
"What!" asked the manager, halting.
All were silent; then from the distance came a solitary voice:
"You go to work yourself!"
"If in fifteen minutes you do not start work, I'll order every single one of you to be discharged!" the manager announced dryly and distinctly.
He again proceeded through the crowd, but now an indistinct murmur followed him, and the shouting grew louder as his figure receded.
"Speak to him!"
"That's what you call justice! Worse luck!"
Some turned to Pavel and shouted:
"Say, you great lawyer, you, what's to be done now? You talked and talked, but the moment he came it all went up in the air!"
"Well, Vlasov, what now?"
When the shouts became more insistent, Pavel raised his hand and said:
"Comrades, I propose that we quit work until he gives up that kopeck!"
Excited voices burst out:
"He thinks we're fools!"
"We ought to do it!"
"A strike?"
"For one kopeck?"
"Why not? Why not strike?"
"We'll all be discharged!"
"And who is going to do the work?"
"There are others!"
"Who? Judases?"
"Every year I would have to give three rubles and sixty kopecks to the mosquitoes!"
"All of us would have to give it!"
Pavel walked down and stood at the side of his mother. No one paid any attention to him now. They were all yelling and debating hotly with one another.
"You cannot get them to strike!" said Rybin, coming up to Pavel. "Greedy as these people are for a penny, they are too cowardly. You may, perhaps, induce about three hundred of them to follow you, no more. It's a heap of dung you won't lift with one toss of the pitchfork, I tell you!"
Pavel was silent. In front of him the huge black face of the crowd was rocking wildly, and fixed on him an importunate stare. His heart beat in alarm. It seemed to him as if all the words he had spoken vanished in the crowd without leaving any trace, like scattered drops of rain falling on parched soil. One after the other, workmen approached him praising his speech, but doubting the success of a strike, and complaining how little the people understood their own interests and realized their own strength.
Pavel had a sense of injury and disappointment as to his own power. His head ached; he felt desolate. Hitherto, whenever he pictured the triumph of his truth, he wanted to cry with the delight that seized his heart. But here he had spoken his truth to the people, and behold! when clothed in words it appeared so pale, so powerless, so incapable of affecting anyone. He blamed himself; it seemed to him that he had concealed his dream in a poor, disfiguring garment and no one could, therefore, detect its beauty.
He went home, tired and moody. He was followed by his mother and Sizov, while Rybin walked alongside, buzzing into his ear:
"You speak well, but you don't speak to the heart! That's the trouble! The spark must be thrown into the heart, into its very depths!"
"It's time we lived and were guided by reason," Pavel said in a low voice.
"The boot does not fit the foot; it's too thin and narrow! The foot won't get in! And if it does, it will wear the boot out mighty quick. That is the trouble."
Sizov, meanwhile, talked to the mother.
"It's time for us old folks to get into our graves. Nilovna! A new people is coming. What sort of a life have we lived? We crawled on our knees, and always crouched on the ground! But here are the new people. They have either come to their senses, or else are blundering worse than we; but they are not like us, anyway. Just look at those youngsters talking to the manager as to their equal! Yes, ma'am! Oh, if only my son Matvey were alive! Good-by, Pavel Vlasov! You stand up for the people all right, brother. God grant you his favor! Perhaps you'll find a way out. God grant it!" And he walked away.
"Yes, you may as well die straight off!" murmured Rybin. "You are no men, now. You are only putty—good to fill cracks with, that's all! Did you see, Pavel, who it was that shouted to make you a delegate? It was those who call you socialist—agitator—yes!—thinking you'd be discharged, and it would serve you right!"
"They are right, according