e of
this the enemies of life hunted them down like beasts, thrust them into
prisons, and exiled them, and set them to hard labor.

"I have seen such people!" he exclaimed passionately. "They are the
best people on earth!"

These people filled the mother with terror, and she wanted to ask her
son: "Is it so, Pasha?"

But she hesitated, and leaning back she listened to the stories of
people incomprehensible to her, who taught her son to speak and think
words and thoughts so dangerous to him. Finally she said:

"It will soon be daylight. You ought to go to bed. You've got to go
to work."

"Yes, I'll go to bed at once," he assented. "Did you understand me?"

"I did," she said, drawing a deep breath. Tears rolled down from her
eyes again, and breaking into sobs she added: "You will perish, my
son!"

Pavel walked up and down the room.

"Well, now you know what I am doing and where I am going. I told you
all. I beg of you, mother, if you love me, do not hinder me!"

"My darling, my beloved!" she cried, "maybe it would be better for me
not to have known anything!"

He took her hand and pressed it firmly in his. The word "mother,"
pronounced by him with feverish emphasis, and that clasp of the hand so
new and strange, moved her.

"I will do nothing!" she said in a broken voice. "Only be on your
guard! Be on your guard!" Not knowing what he should be on his guard
against, nor how to warn him, she added mournfully: "You are getting
so thin."

And with a look of affectionate warmth, which seemed to embrace his
firm, well-shaped body, she said hastily, and in a low voice:

"God be with you! Live as you want to. I will not hinder you. One
thing only I beg of you--do not speak to people unguardedly! You must
be on the watch with people; they all hate one another. They live in
greed and envy; all are glad to do injury; people persecute out of
sheer amusement. When you begin to accuse them and to judge them, they
will hate you, and will hound you to destruction!"

Pavel stood in the doorway listening to the melancholy speech, and when
the mother had finished he said with a smile:

"Yes, people are sorry creatures; but when I came to recognize that
there is truth in the world, people became better." He smiled again
and added: "I do not know how it happened myself! From childhood I
feared everybody; as I grew up I began to hate everybody, some for
their meanness, others--well, I do not know why--j