g, walked down the steps, but immediately
returned, since on the ground she couldn't see Mikhail, hidden by the
close-packed crowd. Something indistinctly joyous trembled in her
bosom and warmed it.

"Peasants! Keep your eyes open for those writings; read them. Don't
believe the authorities and the priests when they tell you those people
who carry truth to us are godless rioters. The truth travels over the
earth secretly; it seeks a nest among the people. To the authorities
it's like a knife in the fire. They cannot accept it. It will cut
them and burn them. Truth is your good friend and a sworn enemy of the
authorities--that's why it hides itself."

"That's so; he's speaking the gospel!" shouted the blue-eyed peasant.

"Ah, brother! You will perish--and soon, too!"

"Who betrayed you?"

"The priest!" said one of the police.

Two peasants gave vent to hard oaths.

"Look out, boys!" a somewhat subdued cry was heard in warning.

The commissioner of police walked into the crowd--a tall, compact man,
with a round, red face. His cap was cocked to one side; his mustache
with one end turned up the other drooping made his face seem crooked,
and it was disfigured by a dull, dead grin. His left hand held a
saber, his right waved broadly in the air. His heavy, firm tramp was
audible. The crowd gave way before him. Something sullen and crushed
appeared in their faces, and the noise died away as if it had sunk into
the ground.

"What's the trouble?" asked the police commissioner, stopping in front
of Rybin and measuring him with his eyes. "Why are his hands not
bound? Officers, why? Bind them!" His voice was high and resonant,
but colorless.

"They were tied, but the people unbound them," answered one of the
policemen.

"The people! What people?" The police commissioner looked at the
crowd standing in a half-circle before him. In the same monotonous,
blank voice, neither elevating nor lowering it, he continued: "Who are
the people?"

With a back stroke he thrust the handle of his saber against the breast
of the blue-eyed peasant.

"Are you the people, Chumakov? Well, who else? You, Mishin?" and he
pulled somebody's beard with his right hand.

"Disperse, you curs!"

Neither his voice nor face displayed the least agitation or threat. He
spoke mechanically, with a dead calm, and with even movements of his
strong, long hands, pushed the people back. The semicircle before him
widened. Heads dro