the horrible, and rigorously sought something beyond his
words--something in his face, his eyes, his voice, in his white hand,
which slowly glided in the air. Something terrible must be there; she
felt it, but it was impalpable; it did not yield to her consciousness,
which again covered her heart with a dry, pricking dust.

She looked at the judges. There was no gainsaying that they were bored
at having to listen to this speech. The lifeless, yellow faces
expressed nothing. The sickly, the fat, or the extremely lean,
motionless dead spots all grew dimmer and dimmer in the dull ennui that
filled the hall. The words of the prosecuting attorney spurted into
the air like a haze imperceptible to the eye, growing and thickening
around the judges, enveloping them more closely in a cloud of dry
indifference, of weary waiting. At times one of them changed his pose;
but the lazy movement of the tired body did not rouse their drowsy
souls. The oldest judge did not stir at all; he was congealed in his
erect position, and the gray blots behind the eyeglasses at times
disappeared, seeming to spread over his whole face. The mother
realized this dead indifference, this unconcern without malice in it,
and asked herself in perplexity, "Are they judging?"

The question pressed her heart, and gradually squeezed out of it her
expectation of the horrible. It pinched her throat with a sharp
feeling of wrong.

The speech of the prosecuting attorney snapped off unexpectedly. He
made a few quick, short steps, bowed to the judges, and sat down,
rubbing his hands. The marshal of the nobility nodded his head to him,
rolling his eyes; the city mayor extended his hand, and the district
elder stroked his belly and smiled.

But the judges apparently were not delighted by the speech, and did not
stir.

"The scabby devil!" Sizov whispered the oath.

"Next," said the old judge, bringing the paper to his face, "lawyers
for the defendants, Fedoseyev, Markov, Zagarov."

The lawyer whom the mother had seen at Nikolay's arose. His face was
broad and good-natured; his little eyes smiled radiantly and seemed to
thrust out from under his eyebrows two sharp blades, which cut the air
like scissors. He spoke without haste, resonantly, and clearly; but
the mother was unable to listen to his speech. Sizov whispered in her
ear:

"Did you understand what he said? Did you understand? 'People,' he
says, 'are poor, they are all upset, insensate.' I