She patted him on the hand without speaking. She would have liked to say many endearing things, but her heart was wrung with pity, and the words would not leave her tongue.
They spoke in the village about the socialists who distributed broadcast leaflets in blue ink. In these leaflets the conditions prevailing in the factory were trenchantly and pointedly depicted, as well as the strikes in St. Petersburg and southern Russia; and the workingmen were called upon to unite and fight for their interests.
The staid people who earned good pay waxed wroth as they read the literature, and said abusively: "Breeders of rebellion! For such business they ought to get their eyes blacked." And they carried the pamphlets to the office.
The young people read the proclamations eagerly, and said excitedly: "It's all true!"
The majority, broken down with their work, and indifferent to everything, said lazily: "Nothing will come of it. It is impossible!"
But the leaflets made a stir among the people, and when a week passed without their getting any, they said to one another:
"None again to-day! It seems the printing must have stopped."
Then on Monday the leaflets appeared again; and again there was a dull buzz of talk among the workingmen.
In the taverns and the factory strangers were noticed, men whom no one knew. They asked questions, scrutinized everything and everybody; looked around, ferreted about, and at once attracted universal attention, some by their suspicious watchfulness, others by their excessive obtrusiveness.
The mother knew that all this commotion was due to the work of her son Pavel. She saw how all the people were drawn together about him. He was not alone, and therefore it was not so dangerous. But pride in her son mingled with her apprehension for his fate; it was his secret labors that discharged themselves in fresh currents into the narrow, turbid stream of life.
One evening Marya Korsunova rapped at the window from the street, and when the mother opened it, she said in a loud whisper:
"Now, take care, Pelagueya; the boys have gotten themselves into a nice mess! It's been decided to make a search to-night in your house, and Mazin's and Vyesovshchikov's——"
The mother heard only the beginning of the woman's talk; all the rest of the words flowed together in one stream of ill-boding, hoarse sounds.
Marya's thick lips flapped hastily one against the other. Snorts issued from her fleshy nose, her eyes blinked and turned from side to side as if on the lookout for somebody in the street.
"And, mark you, I do not know anything, and I did not say anything to you, mother dear, and did not even see you to-day, you understand?"
Then she disappeared.
The mother closed the window and slowly dropped on a chair, her strength gone from her, her brain a desolate void. But the consciousness of the danger threatening her son quickly brought her to her feet again. She dressed hastily, for some reason wrapped her shawl tightly around her head, and ran to Fedya Mazin, who, she knew, was sick and not working. She found him sitting at the window reading a book, and moving his right hand to and fro with his left, his thumb spread out. On learning the news he jumped up nervously, his lips trembled, and his face paled.
"There you are! And I have an abscess on my finger!" he mumbled.
"What are we to do?" asked Vlasova, wiping the perspiration from her face with a hand that trembled nervously.
"Wait a while! Don't be afraid," answered Fedya, running his sound hand through his curly hair.
"But you are afraid yourself!"
"I?" He reddened and smiled in embarrassment. "Yes—h-m—I had a fit of cowardice, the devil take it! We must let Pavel know. I'll send my little sister to him. You go home. Never mind! They're not going to beat us."
On returning home she gathered together all the books, and pressing them to her bosom walked about the house for a long time, looking into the oven, under the oven, into the pipe of the samovar, and even into the water vat. She thought Pavel would at once drop work and come home; but he did not come. Finally she sat down exhausted on the bench in the kitchen, putting the books under her; and she remained in that position, afraid to rise, until Pavel and the Little Russian returned from the factory.
"Do you know?" she exclaimed without rising.
"We know!" said Pavel with a composed smile. "Are you afraid?"
"Oh, I'm so afraid, so afraid!"
"You needn't be afraid," said the Little Russian. "That won't help anybody."
"Didn't even prepare the samovar," remarked Pavel.
The mother rose, and pointed to the books with a guilty air.
"You see, it was on account of them—all the time—I was——"
The son and the Little Russian burst into laughter; and this relieved her. Then Pavel picked out some books and carried them out into the yard to hide them, while the Little Russian remained to prepare the samovar.
"There's nothing terrible at all in this, mother. It's only a shame for people to occupy themselves with such nonsense. Grown-up men in gray come in with sabers at their sides, with spurs on their feet, and rummage around, and dig up and search everything. They look under the bed, and climb up to the garret; if there is a cellar they crawl down into it. The cobwebs get on their faces, and they puff and snort. They are bored and ashamed. That's why they put on the appearance of being very wicked and very mad with us. It's dirty work, and they understand it, of course they do! Once they turned everything topsy-turvy in my place, and went away abashed, that's all. Another time they took me along with them. Well, they put me in prison, and I stayed there with them for about four months. You sit and sit, then you're called out, taken to the street under an escort of soldiers, and you're asked certain questions. They're stupid people, they talk such incoherent stuff. When they're done with you, they tell the soldiers to take you back to prison. So they lead you here, and they lead you there—they've got to justify their salaries somehow. And then they let you go free. That's all."
"How you always do speak, Andriusha!" exclaimed the mother involuntarily.
Kneeling before the samovar he diligently blew into the pipe; but presently he turned his face, red with exertion, toward her, and smoothing his mustache with both hands inquired:
"And how do I speak, pray?"
"As if nobody had ever done you any wrong."
He rose, approached her, and shaking his head, said:
"Is there an unwronged soul anywhere in the wide world? But I have been wronged so much that I have ceased to feel wronged. What's to be done if people cannot help acting as they do? The wrongs I undergo hinder me greatly in my work. It is impossible to avoid them. But to stop and pay attention to them is useless waste of time. Such a life! Formerly I would occasionally get angry—but I thought to myself: all around me I see people broken in heart. It seemed as if each one were afraid that his neighbor would strike him, and so he tried to get ahead and strike the other first. Such a life it is, mother dear."
His speech flowed on serenely. He resolutely distracted her mind from alarm at the expected police search. His luminous, protuberant eyes smiled sadly. Though ungainly, he seemed made of stuff that bends but never breaks.
The mother sighed and uttered the warm wish:
"May God grant you happiness, Andriusha!"
The Little Russian stalked to the samovar with long strides, sat in front of it again on his heels, and mumbled:
"If he gives me happiness, I will not decline it; ask for it I won't, to seek it I have no time."
And he began to whistle.
Pavel came in from the yard and said confidently:
"They