them it holds aloof everything evil, everything mean!"

The door opened, admitting a cold, damp, autumn draught. Sofya
entered, bold, a smile on her face, reddened by the cold.

"Upon my word, the spies are as attentive to me as a bridegroom to a
rich bride! I must leave this place. Well, how are you, Vanya? All
right? How's Pavel, Nilovna? What! is Sasha here?"

Lighting a cigarette, she showered questions without waiting for
answers, caressing the mother and the youth with merry glances of her
gray eyes. The mother looked at her and smiled inwardly. "What good
people I'm among!" she thought. She bent over Ivan again and gave him
back his kindness twofold:

"Get well! Now I must give you wine." She rose and walked into the
dining room, where Sofya was saying to Sasha:

"She has three hundred copies prepared already. She'll kill herself
working so hard. There's heroism for you! Unseen, unnoticed, it finds
its reward and its praise in itself. Do you know, Sasha, it's the
greatest happiness to live among such people, to be their comrade, to
work with them?"

"Yes," answered the girl softly.

In the evening at tea Sofya said to the mother:

"Nilovna, you have to go to the village again."

"Well, what of it? When?"

"It would be good if you could go to-morrow. Can you?"

"Yes."

"Ride there," advised Nikolay. "Hire post horses, and please take a
different route from before--across the district of Nikolsk." Nikolay's
somber expression was alarming.

"The way by Nikolsk is long, and it's expensive if you hire horses."

"You see, I'm against this expedition in general. It's already begun
to be unquiet there--some arrests have been made, a teacher was taken.
Rybin escaped, that's certain. But we must be more careful. We ought
to have waited a little while still."

"That can't be avoided," said Nilovna.

Sofya, tapping her fingers on the table, remarked:

"It's important for us to keep spreading literature all the time.
You're not afraid to go, are you, Nilovna?"

The mother felt offended. "When have I ever been afraid? I was
without fear even the first time. And now all of a sudden--" She
drooped her head. Each time she was asked whether she was afraid,
whether the thing was convenient for her, whether she could do this or
that--she detected an appeal to her which placed her apart from the
comrades, who seemed to behave differently toward her than toward one
another. Moreover,