, and his fingers
tightly clasped.

"You print there what you please, you blackguards!" he cried aloud.
"But don't you dare say a word about me!"

Vasily Gusev came up to Nilovna and declared:

"I am going to eat with you again. Is it good today?" And lowering
his head and screwing up his eyes, he added in an undertone: "You see?
It hit exactly! Good! Oh, mother, very good!"

She nodded her head affably to him, flattered that Gusev, the sauciest
fellow in the village, addressed her with a respectful plural "you," as
he talked to her in secret. The general stir and animation in the
factory also pleased her, and she thought to herself: "What would they
do without me?"

Three common laborers stopped at a short distance from her, and one of
them said with disappointment in his voice: "I couldn't find any
anywhere!"

Another remarked: "I'd like to hear it, though. I can't read myself,
but I understand it hits them just in the right place."

The third man looked around him, and said: "Let's go into the boiler
room. I'll read it for you there!"

"It works!" Gusev whispered, a wink lurking in his eye.

Nilovna came home in gay spirits. She had now seen for herself how
people are moved by books.

"The people down there are sorry they can't read," she said to Andrey,
"and here am I who could when I was young, but have forgotten."

"Learn over again, then," suggested the Little Russian.

"At my age? What do you want to make fun of me for?"

Andrey, however, took a book from the shelf and pointing with the tip
of a knife at a letter on the cover, asked: "What's this?"

"R," she answered, laughing.

"And this?"

"A."

She felt awkward, hurt, and offended. It seemed to her that Andrey's
eyes were laughing at her, and she avoided their look. But his voice
sounded soft and calm in her ears. She looked askance at his face,
once, and a second time. It was earnest and serious.

"Do you really wish to teach me to read?" she asked with an involuntary
smile.

"Why not?" he responded. "Try! If you once knew how to read, it will
come back to you easily. 'If no miracle it's no ill, and if a miracle
better still!'"

"But they say that one does not become a saint by looking at a sacred
image!"

"Eh," said the Little Russian, nodding his head. "There are proverbs
galore! For example: 'The less you know, the better you sleep'--isn't
that it? Proverbs are the material the stomach thinks with; it