d, and who, without a murmur, for a
long time felt herself to be that which she was held to be. It seemed
to them as if thousands, nay millions, of lives spoke through her
mouth. Her existence had been commonplace and simple; but such is the
simple, ordinary existence of multitudes, and her story, assuming ever
larger proportions in their eyes, took on the significance of a symbol.
Nikolay, his elbows on the table, and his head leaning on his hands,
looked at her through his glasses without moving, his eyes screwed up
intently. Sofya flung herself back on her chair. Sometimes she
trembled, and at times muttered to herself, shaking her head in
disapproval. Her face grew paler. Her eyes deepened.

"Once I thought myself unhappy. My life seemed a fever," said Sofya,
inclining her head. "That was when I was in exile. It was in a small
district town. There was nothing to do, nothing to think about except
myself. I swept all my misfortunes together into one heap, and weighed
them, from lack of anything better to do. Then I quarreled with my
father, whom I loved. I was expelled from the gymnasium, and
insulted--the prison, the treachery of a comrade near to me, the arrest
of my husband, again prison and exile, the death of my husband. But
all my misfortunes, and ten times their number, are not worth a month
of your life, Pelagueya Nilovna. Your torture continued daily through
years. From where do the people draw their power to suffer?"

"They get used to it," responded the mother with a sigh.

"I thought I knew that life," said Nikolay softly. "But when I hear it
spoken of--not when my books, not when my incomplete impressions speak
about it, but she herself with a living tongue--it is horrible. And
the details are horrible, the inanities, the seconds of which the years
are made."

The conversation sped along, thoughtfully and quietly. It branched out
and embraced the whole of common life on all sides. The mother became
absorbed in her recollections. From her dim past she drew to light
each daily wrong, and gave a massive picture of the huge, dumb horror
in which her youth had been sunk. Finally she said:

"Oh! How I've been chattering to you! It's time for you to rest. I'll
never be able to tell you all."

The brother and sister took leave of her in silence. Nikolay seemed to
the mother to bow lower to her than ever before and to press her hand
more firmly. Sofya accompanied her to her room, and