hey 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,