"What are you making a wry face about? A fool has been found who wants
to marry you. Marry him! All girls must get husbands; all women must
bear children, and all children become a burden to their parents!"

After these words she saw before her an unavoidable path running for
some inexplicable reason through a dark, dreary waste. Thus it was at
the present moment. In anticipation of a new approaching misfortune,
she uttered speechless words, addressing some imaginary person.

This lightened her mute pain, which reverberated in her heart like a
tight chord.

The next day, early in the morning, very soon after Pavel and Andrey
had left, Korsunova knocked at the door alarmingly, and called out
hastily:

"Isay is killed! Come, quick!"

The mother trembled; the name of the assassin flashed through her mind.

"Who did it?" she asked curtly, throwing a shawl over her shoulders.

"The man's not sitting out there mourning over Isay. He knocked him
down and fled!"

On the street Marya said:

"Now they'll begin to rummage about again and look for the murderer.
It's a good thing your folks were at home last night. I can bear
witness to that. I walked past here after midnight and glanced into
the window, and saw all of you sitting around the table."

"What are you talking about, Marya? Why, who could dream of such a
thing about them?" the other ejaculated in fright.

"Well, who killed him? Some one from among your people, of course!"
said Korsunova, regarding the idea as a matter to be taken for granted.
"Everybody knows he spied on them."

The mother stopped to fetch breath, and put her hand to her bosom.

"What are you going on that way for? Don't be afraid! Whoever it is
will reap the harvest of his own rashness. Let's go quick, or else
they'll take him away!"

The mother walked on without asking herself why she went, and shaken by
the thought of Vyesovshchikov.

"There--he's done it!" Her mind was held fast by the one idea.

Not far from the factory walls, on the grounds of a building recently
burned down, a crowd was gathered, tramping down the coal and stirring
up ash dust. It hummed and buzzed like a swarm of bees. There were
many women in the crowd, even more children, and storekeepers, tavern
waiters, policemen, and the gendarme Petlin, a tall old man with a
woolly, silvery beard, and decorations on his breast.

Isay half reclined on the ground, his back resting against a burned
joi