ly. They simply say: 'Be quiet as you
can, gentlemen. Don't put us in an awkward position!' So everything
goes well. We talk with one another, we give books to one another, and
we share our food. It's a good prison! Old and dirty, but so soft and
so light. The criminals are also nice people; they help us a good
deal. Bukin, four others, and myself were released. It got too
crowded. They'll let Pavel go soon, too. I'm telling you the truth,
believe me. Vyesovshchikov will be detained the longest. They are
very angry at him. He scolds and swears at everybody all the time.
The gendarmes can't bear to look at him. I guess he'll get himself
into court, or receive a sound thrashing some day. Pavel tries to
dissuade him. 'Stop, Nikolay!' he says to him. 'Your swearing won't
reform them.' But he bawls: 'Wipe them off the face of the earth like
a pest!' Pavel conducts himself finely out there; he treats all alike,
and is as firm as a rock! They'll soon let him go."

"Soon?" said the mother, relieved now and smiling. "I know he'll be
let out soon!"

"Well, if you know, it's all right! Give me tea, mother. Tell me how
you've been, how you've passed your time."

He looked at her, smiling all over, and seemed so near to her, such a
splendid fellow. A loving, somewhat melancholy gleam flashed from the
depths of his round, blue eyes.

"I love you dearly, Andriusha!" the mother said, heaving a deep sigh,
as she looked at his thin face grotesquely covered with tufts of hair.

"People are satisfied with little from me! I know you love me; you are
capable of loving everybody; you have a great heart," said the Little
Russian, rocking in his chair, his eyes straying about the room.

"No, I love you very differently!" insisted the mother. "If you had a
mother, people would envy her because she had such a son."

The Little Russian swayed his head, and rubbed it vigorously with both
hands.

"I have a mother, somewhere!" he said in a low voice.

"Do you know what I did to-day?" she exclaimed, and reddening a little,
her voice choking with satisfaction, she quickly recounted how she had
smuggled literature into the factory.

For a moment he looked at her in amazement with his eyes wide open;
then he burst out into a loud guffaw, stamped his feet, thumped his
head with his fingers, and cried joyously:

"Oho! That's no joke any more! That's business! Won't Pavel be glad,
though! Oh, you're a trump. That'