ough a lot of misery," she said, suddenly
turning to the mother.

"I have."

"You speak well. You draw--you draw the heart after your talk. It
makes me think, it makes me think, 'God! If I could only take a peep
at such people and at life through a chink!' How does one live? What
life has one? The life of sheep. Here am I; I can read and write; I
read books, I think a whole lot. Sometimes I don't even sleep the
entire night because I think. And what sense is there in it? If I
don't think, my existence is a purposeless existence; and if I do, it
is also purposeless. And everything seems purposeless. There are the
peasants, who work and tremble over a piece of bread for their homes,
and they have nothing. It hurts them, enrages them; they drink, fight,
and work again--work, work, work. But what comes of it? Nothing."

She spoke with scorn in her eyes and in her voice, which was low and
even, but at times broke off like a taut thread overstrained. The
peasants were silent, the wind glided by the window panes, buzzed
through the straw of the roofs, and at times whined softly down the
chimney. A dog barked, and occasional drops of rain pattered on the
window. Suddenly the light flared in the lamp, dimmed, but in a second
sprang up again even and bright.

"I listened to your talk, and I see what people live for now. It's so
strange--I hear you, and I think, 'Why, I know all this.' And yet,
until you said it, I hadn't heard such things, and I had no such
thoughts. Yes."

"I think we ought to take something to eat, and put out the lamp," said
Stepan, somberly and slowly. "People will notice that at the
Chumakovs' the light burned late. It's nothing for us, but, it might
turn out bad for the guest."

Tatyana arose and walked to the oven.

"Ye-es," Pyotr said softly, with a smile. "Now, friend, keep your ears
pricked. When the papers appear among the people----"

"I'm not speaking of myself. If they arrest me, it's no great matter."

The wife came up to the table and asked Stepan to make room.

He arose and watched her spread the table as he stood to one side.

"The price of fellows of our kind is a nickel a bundle, a hundred in a
bundle," he said with a smile.

The mother suddenly pitied him. He now pleased her more.

"You don't judge right, host," she said. "A man mustn't agree to the
price put upon him by people from the outside, who need nothing of him
except his blood. You, knowing