and the earth is for them."

"Go, Nilovna, take this staff and lean upon it!" said Sizov, giving her
the fragment of the flag pole.

All looked at the mother with sadness and respect. A hum of sympathy
accompanied her. Sizov silently put the people out of her way, and
they silently moved aside, obeying a blind impulse to follow her. They
walked after her slowly, exchanging brief, subdued remarks on the way.
Arrived at the gate of her house, she turned to them, leaning on the
fragment of the flag pole, and bowed in gratitude.

"Thank you!" she said softly. And recalling the thought which she
fancied had been born in her heart, she said: "Our Lord Jesus Christ
would not have been, either, if people had not perished for his sake."

The crowd looked at her in silence.

She bowed to the people again, and went into her house, and Sizov,
drooping his head, went in with her.

The people stood at the gates and talked. Then they began to depart
slowly and quietly.

PART II

CHAPTER I

The day passed in a motley blur of recollections, in a depressing state
of exhaustion, which tightly clutched at the mother's body and soul.
The faces of the young men flashed before her mental vision, the banner
blazed, the songs clamored at her ear, the little officer skipped
about, a gray stain before her eyes, and through the whirlwind of the
procession she saw the gleam of Pavel's bronzed face and the smiling
sky-blue eyes of Andrey.

She walked up and down the room, sat at the window, looked out into the
street, and walked away again with lowered eyebrows. Every now and
then she started, and looked about in an aimless search for something.
She drank water, but could not slake her thirst, nor quench the
smoldering fire of anguish and injury in her bosom. The day was chopped
in two. It began full of meaning and content, but now it dribbled away
into a dismal waste, which stretched before her endlessly. The
question swung to and fro in her barren, perplexed mind:

"What now?"

Korsunova came in. Waving her hands, she shouted, wept, and went into
raptures; stamped her feet, suggested this and that, made promises, and
threw out threats against somebody. All this failed to impress the
mother.

"Aha!" she heard the squeaking voice of Marya. "So the people have
been stirred up! At last the whole factory has arisen! All have
arisen!"

"Yes, yes!" said the mother in a low voice, shaking her head. Her ey