t around
her dress.

"Shut up!" said a guard sullenly.

Another one, tapping her lightly on the shoulder, said with assurance:

"Those books are thrown across the fence, I say!"

Old man Sizov came up to her and looking around said in an undertone:

"Did you hear, mother?"

"What?"

"About the pamphlets. They've appeared again. They've just scattered
them all over like salt over bread. Much good those arrests and
searches have done! My nephew Mazin has been hauled away to prison,
your son's been taken. Now it's plain it isn't he!" And stroking his
beard Sizov concluded, "It's not people, but thoughts, and thoughts are
not fleas; you can't catch them!"

He gathered his beard in his hand, looked at her, and said as he walked
away:

"Why don't you come to see me some time? I guess you are lonely all by
yourself."

She thanked him, and calling her wares, she sharply observed the
unusual animation in the factory. The workmen were all elated, they
formed little circles, then parted, and ran from one group to another.
Animated voices and happy, satisfied faces all around! The soot-filled
atmosphere was astir and palpitating with something bold and daring.
Now here, now there, approving ejaculations were heard, mockery, and
sometimes threats.

"Aha! It seems truth doesn't agree with them," she heard one say.

The younger men were in especially good spirits, while the elder
workmen had cautious smiles on their faces. The authorities walked
about with a troubled expression, and the police ran from place to
place. When the workingmen saw them, they dispersed, and walked away
slowly, or if they remained standing, they stopped their conversation,
looking silently at the agitated, angry faces.

The workingmen seemed for some reason to be all washed and clean. The
figure of Gusev loomed high, and his brother stalked about like a
drake, and roared with laughter. The joiner's foreman, Vavilov, and
the record clerk, Isay, walked slowly past the mother. The little,
wizened clerk, throwing up his head and turning his neck to the left,
looked at the frowning face of the foreman, and said quickly, shaking
his reddish beard:

"They laugh, Ivan Ivanovich. It's fun to them. They are pleased,
although it's no less a matter than the destruction of the government,
as the manager said. What must be done here, Ivan Ivanovich, is not
merely to weed but to plow!"

Vavilov walked with his hands folded behind his back