m sure there are! I tell you,
we must plow over the whole of life like a weedy field, showing no
mercy!"

"That's what Isay, the record clerk, once said about us!" the mother
said. For a while the two were silent.

"Isay?"

"Yes, he's a bad man. He spies after everybody, fishes about
everywhere for information. He has begun to frequent this street, and
peers into our windows."

"Peers into your windows?"

The mother was already in bed and did not see his face. But she
understood that she had said too much, because the Little Russian
hastened to interpose in order to conciliate Nikolay.

"Let him peer! He has leisure. That's his way of killing time."

"No hold on!" said Nikolay. "THERE! He is to blame!"

"To blame for what?" the Little Russian asked brusquely. "Because he's
a fool?"

But Vyesovshchikov did not stop to answer and walked away.

The Little Russian began to pace up and down the room, slowly and
languidly. He had taken off his boots as he always did when the mother
was in bed in order not to disturb her. But she was not asleep, and
when Nikolay had left she said anxiously:

"I'm so afraid of that man. He's just like an overheated oven. He does
not warm things, but scorches them."

"Yes, yes!" the Little Russian drawled. "He's an irascible boy. I
wouldn't talk to him about Isay, mother. That fellow Isay is really
spying and getting paid for it, too."

"What's so strange in that? His godfather is a gendarme," observed the
mother.

"Well, Nikolay will give him a dressing. What of it?" the Little
Russian continued uneasily. "See what hard feelings the rulers of our
life have produced in the rank and file? When such people as Nikolay
come to recognize their wrong and lose their patience, what will happen
then? The sky will be sprinkled with blood, and the earth will froth
and foam with it like the suds of soap water."

"It's terrible, Andriusha!" the mother exclaimed in a low voice.

"They have swallowed flies, and have to vomit them now!" said Andrey
after a pause. "And after all, mother, every drop of their blood that
may be shed will have been washed in seas of the people's tears."

Suddenly he broke into a low laugh and added:

"That's true; but it's no comfort!"

Once on a holiday the mother, on returning home from a store, opened
the door of the porch, and remained fixed to the spot, suddenly bathed
in the sunshine of joy. From the room she heard the sound of Pa