you because he is stupid. The police, the gendarmes, the soldiers, the
spies--they are all our enemies, and yet they are all such people as we
are. Their blood is sucked out of them just as ours is, and they are
no more regarded as human beings than we are. That's the way it is.
But they have set one part of the people against the other, blinded
them with fear, bound them all hand and foot, squeezed them, and
drained their blood, and used some as clubs against the others.
They've turned men into weapons, into sticks and stones, and called it
civilization, government."

He walked up to his mother and said to her firmly:

"That's crime, mother! The heinous crime of killing millions of
people, the murder of millions of souls! You understand--they kill the
soul! You see the difference between them and us. He killed a man
unwittingly. He feels disgusted, ashamed, sick--the main thing is he
feels disgusted! But they kill off thousands calmly, without a qualm,
without pity, without a shudder of the heart. They kill with pleasure
and with delight. And why? They stifle everybody and everything to
death merely to keep the timber of their houses secure, their
furniture, their silver, their gold, their worthless papers--all that
cheap trash which gives them control over the people. Think, it's not
for their own selves, for their persons, that they protect themselves
thus, using murder and the mutilation of souls as a means--it's not for
themselves they do it, but for the sake of their possessions. They do
not guard themselves from within, but from without."

He bent over to her, took her hands, and shaking them said:

"If you felt the abomination of it all, the disgrace and rottenness,
you would understand our truth; you would then perceive how great it
is, how glorious!"

The mother arose agitated, full of a desire to sink her heart into the
heart of her son, and to join them in one burning, flaming torch.

"Wait, Pasha, wait!" she muttered, panting for breath. "I am a human
being. I feel. Wait."

There was a loud noise of some one entering the porch. Both of them
started and looked at each other.

"If it's the police coming for Andrey--" Pavel whispered.

"I know nothing--nothing!" the mother whispered back. "Oh, God!"

CHAPTER XVII

The door opened slowly, and bending to pass through, Rybin strode in
heavily.

"Here I am!" he said, raising his head and smiling.

He wore a short fur ove