.

"So so. A good peasant; he doesn't drink; we live peacefully. So so.
Only he has a weak character." She straightened herself, and after a
pause asked:

"Why, what is it that's wanted nowadays? What's wanted is that the
people should be stirred up to revolt. Of course! Everybody thinks
about it, but privately, for himself. And what's necessary is that he
should speak out aloud. Some one person must be the first to decide to
do it." She sat down on the bench and suddenly asked: "Tell me, do
young ladies also occupy themselves with this? Do they go about with
the workingmen and read? Aren't they squeamish and afraid?" She
listened attentively to the mother's reply and fetched a deep sigh;
then drooping her eyelids and inclining her head, she said: "In one
book I read the words 'senseless life.' I understood them very well at
once. I know such a life. Thoughts there are, but they're not
connected, and they stray like stupid sheep without a shepherd. They
stray and stray, with no one to bring them together. There's no
understanding in people of what must be done. That's what a senseless
life is. I'd like to run away from it without even looking
around--such a severe pang one suffers when one understands something!"

The mother perceived the pang in the dry gleam of the woman's green
eyes, in her wizened face, in her voice. She wanted to pet and soothe
her.

"You understand, my dear, what to do----"

Tatyana interrupted her softly:

"A person must be able-- The bed's ready for you. Lie down and sleep."

She went over to the oven and remained standing there erect, in
silence, sternly centered in herself. The mother lay down without
undressing. She began to feel the weariness in her bones and groaned
softly. Tatyana walked up to the table, extinguished the lamp, and
when darkness descended on the hut she resumed speech in her low, even
voice, which seemed to erase something from the flat face of the
oppressive darkness.

"You do not pray? I, too, think there is no God, there are no
miracles. All these things were contrived to frighten us, to make us
stupid."

The mother turned about on the bench uneasily; the dense darkness
looked straight at her from the window, and the scarcely audible
crawling of the roaches persistently disturbed the quiet. She began to
speak almost in a whisper and fearfully:

"In regard to God, I don't know; but I do believe in Christ, in the
Little Father. I