The mother lay motionless, with ears strained in the drowsy stillness, and before her in the darkness wavered Rybin’s face covered with blood. In the loft a dry whisper could be heard.
“You see what sort of people go into this work? Even elderly people who have drunk the cup of misery to the bottom, who have worked, and for whom it is time to rest. And there they are! But you are young, sensible! Ah, Stepan!”
The thick, moist voice of the peasant responded:
“Such an affair — you mustn’t take it up without thinking over it. Just wait a little while!”
“I’ve heard you say so before.” The sounds dropped, and rose again. The voice of Stepan rang out:
“You must do it this way — at first you must take each peasant aside and speak to him by himself — for instance, to Makov Alesha, a lively man — can read and write — was wronged by the police; Shorin Sergey, also a sensible peasant; Knyazev, an honest, bold man, and that’ll do to begin with. Then we’ll get a group together, we look about us — yes. We must learn how to find her; and we ourselves must take a look at the people about whom she spoke. I’ll shoulder my ax and go off to the city myself, making out I’m going there to earn money by splitting wood. You must proceed carefully in this matter. She’s right when she says that the price a man has is according to his own estimate of himself — and this is an affair in which you must set a high value on yourself when once you take it up. There’s that peasant! See! You can put him even before God, not to speak of before a police commissioner. He won’t yield. He stands for his own firmly — up to his knees in it. And Nikita, why his honor was suddenly pricked — a marvel? No. If the people will set out in a friendly way to do something together, they’ll draw everybody after them.”
“Friendly! They beat a man in front of your eyes, and you stand with your mouths wide open.”
“You just wait a little while. He ought to thank God we didn’t beat him ourselves, that man. Yes, indeed. Sometimes the authorities compel you to beat, and you do beat. Maybe you weep inside yourself with pity, but still you beat. People don’t dare to decline from beastliness — they’ll be killed themselves for it. They command you, ‘Be what I want you to be — a wolf, a pig’— but to be a man is prohibited. And a bold man they’ll get rid of — send to the next world. No. You must contrive for many to get bold at once, and for all to arise suddenly.”
He whispered for a long time, now lowering his voice so that the mother scarcely could hear, and now bursting forth powerfully. Then the woman would stop him. “S-sh, you’ll wake her.”
The mother fell into a heavy dreamless sleep.
Tatyana awakened her in the early twilight, when the dusk still peered through the window with blank eyes, and when brazen sounds of the church bell floated and melted over the village in the gray, cold stillness.
“I have prepared the samovar. Take some tea or you’ll be cold if you go out immediately after getting up.”
Stepan, combing his tangled beard, asked the mother solicitously how to find her in the city. To-day the peasant’s face seemed more finished to her. While they drank tea he remarked, smiling:
“How wonderfully things happen!”
“What?” asked Tatyana.
“Why, this acquaintance — so simply.”
The mother said thoughtfully, but confidently:
“In this affair there’s a marvelous simplicity in everything.”
The host and hostess restrained themselves from demonstrativeness in parting with her; they were sparing of words, but lavish in little attentions for her comfort.
Sitting in the post, the mother reflected that this peasant would begin to work carefully, noiselessly, like a mole, without cease, and that at his side the discontented voice of his wife would always sound, and the dry burning gleam in her green eyes would never die out of her so long as she cherished the revengeful wolfish anguish of a mother for lost children.
The mother recalled Rybin — his blood, his face, his burning eyes, his words. Her heart was compressed again with a bitter feeling of impotence; and along the entire road to the city the powerful figure of black-bearded Mikhail with his torn shirt, his hands bound behind his back, his disheveled head, clothed in wrath and faith in his truth, stood out before her on the drab background of the gray day. And as she regarded the figure, she thought of the numberless villages timidly pressed to the ground; of the people, faint-heartedly and secretly awaiting the coming of truth; and of the thousands of people who senselessly and silently work their whole lifetime without awaiting the coming of anything.
Life represented itself to her as an unplowed, hilly field which mutely awaits the workers and promises a harvest to free and honest hands: “Fertilize me with seeds of reason and truth; I will return them to you a hundredfold.”
When from afar she saw the roofs and spires of the city, a warm joy animated and eased her perturbed, worn heart. The preoccupied faces of those people flashed up in her memory who, from day to day, without cease, in perfect confidence kindle the fire of thought and scatter the sparks over the whole earth. Her soul was flooded by the serene desire to give these people her entire force, and — doubly the love of a mother, awakened and animated by their thoughts.
At home Nikolay opened the door for the mother. He was disheveled and held a book in his hand.
“Already?” he exclaimed joyfully. “You’ve returned very quickly. Well, I’m glad, very glad.”
His eyes blinked kindly and briskly behind his glasses. He quickly helped her off with her wraps, and said with an affectionate smile:
“And here in my place, as you see, there was a search last night. And I wondered what the reason for it could possibly be — whether something hadn’t happened to you. But you were not arrested. If they had arrested you they wouldn’t have let me go either.”
He led her into the dining room, and continued with animation: “However, they suggested that I should be discharged from my position. That doesn’t distress me. I was sick, anyway, of counting the number of horseless peasants, and ashamed to receive money for it, too; for the money actually comes from them. It would have been awkward for me to leave the position of my own accord. I am under obligations to the comrades in regard to work. And now the matter has found its own solution. I’m satisfied!”
The mother sat down and looked around. One would have supposed that some powerful man in a stupid fit of insolence had knocked the walls of the house from the outside until everything inside had been jolted down. The portraits were scattered on the floor; the wall paper was torn away and stuck out in tufts; a board was pulled out of the flooring; a window sill was ripped away; the floor by the oven was strewn with ashes. The mother shook her head at the sight of this familiar picture.
“They wanted to show that they don’t get money for nothing,” remarked Nikolay.
On the table stood a cold samovar, unwashed dishes, sausages, and cheese on paper, along with plates, crumbs of bread, books, and coals from the samovar. The mother smiled. Nikolay also laughed in embarrassment, following the look of her eyes.
“It was I who didn’t waste time in completing the picture of the upset. But never mind, Nilovna, never mind! I think they’re going to come again. That’s the reason I didn’t pick it all up. Well, how was your trip?”
The mother started at the question. Rybin arose before her; she felt guilty at not having told of him immediately. Bending over a chair, she moved up to Nikolay and began her narrative. She tried to preserve her calm in order not to omit something as a result of excitement.
“They caught him!”
A quiver shot across Nikolay’s face.
“They did? How?”
The mother stopped his questions with a gesture of her hand, and continued as if she were sitting before the very face of justice and bringing in a complaint regarding the torture of a man. Nikolay threw himself back in his chair, grew pale, and listened, biting his lips. He slowly removed his glasses, put them on the table, and ran his hand over his face as if wiping away invisible cobwebs. The mother had never seen him wear so austere an expression.
When she concluded he arose, and for a minute paced the floor in silence, his fists thrust deep into his pockets. Conquering his agitation he looked almost calmly with a hard gleam in his eyes into the face of the mother, which was covered with silent tears.
“Nilovna, we mustn’t waste time! Let us try, dear comrade, to take ourselves in hand.” Then he remarked through his teeth:
“He must be a remarkable fellow — such nobility! It’ll be hard for him in prison. Men like him feel unhappy there.” Stepping in front of the mother he exclaimed in a ringing voice: “Of course, all the commissioners and sergeants are nothings. They are sticks in the hands of a clever villain, a trainer of animals. But I would kill an animal for allowing itself to be turned into a brute!” He restrained his excitement, which, however, made itself felt to the mother’s perceptions. Again he strode through the room, and spoke in wrath: “See what horror! A gang of stupid people, protesting their pernicious power over the people, beat, stifle, oppress everybody. Savagery grows apace; cruelty becomes the law of life. A whole nation is depraved. Think of it! One part beats and turns brute; from immunity to punishment, sickens itself with a voluptuous greed of torture — that disgusting disease of slaves licensed to display all the power of slavish feelings and cattle habits. Others are poisoned with the desire for vengeance. Still others, beaten down to stupidity, become dumb and blind. They deprave the nation, the whole nation!” He stopped, leaning his elbows against the doorpost. He clasped his head in both hands, and was silent, his teeth set.
“You involuntarily turn a beast ............