eyes.

"I'm not the one to decide, Nikolay."

"But, mother, you talk with them. Tell them everything is ready. Ah,
if I could only see them! I'd force them!" He threw out his hands
with a broad gesture and pressed them together as if embracing
something firmly, and his voice rang with hot feeling that astounded
the mother by its power.

"Hm! what a fellow you are!" she thought; but said aloud: "It's for
Pasha and the comrades to decide."

Nikolay thoughtfully inclined his head.

"Who's this Pasha?" asked the host, seating himself.

"My son."

"What's the family?"

"Vlasov."

He nodded his head, got his tobacco pouch, whipped out his pipe and
filled it with tobacco. He spoke brokenly:

"I've heard of him. My nephew knows him. He, too, is in prison--my
nephew Yevchenko. Have you heard of him? And my family is Godun.
They'll soon shut all the young people in prison, and then there'll be
plenty and comfort for us old folks. The gendarme assures me that my
nephew will even be sent to Siberia. They'll exile him--the dogs!"

Lighting his pipe, he turned to Nikolay, spitting frequently on the
floor:

"So she doesn't want to? Well, that's her affair! A person is free to
feel as he wants to. Are you tired of sitting in prison? Go. Are you
tired of going? Sit. They robbed you? Keep still. They beat you?
Bear it. They have killed you? Stay dead. That's certain. And I'll
carry off Savka; I'll carry him off!" His curt, barking phrases, full
of good-natured irony, perplexed the mother. But his last words aroused
envy in her.

While walking along the street in the face of a cold wind and rain; she
thought of Nikolay, "What a man he's become! Think of it!" And
remembering Godun, she almost prayerfully reflected, "It seems I'm not
the only one who lives for the new. It's a big fire if it so cleanses
and burns all who see it." Then she thought of her son, "If he only
agreed!"

On Sunday, taking leave of Pavel in the waiting room of the prison, she
felt a little lump of paper in her hand. She started as if it burned
her skin, and cast a look of question and entreaty into her son's face.
But she found no answer there. Pavel's blue eyes smiled with the usual
composed smile familiar to her.

"Good-by!" she sighed.

The son again put out his hand to her, and a certain kindness and
tenderness for her quivered on his face. "Good-by, mamma!"

She waited without letting go of his hand. "Don'