er son. He and Fedya spoke words, smiled, and joked. All were
excited, but light and cheerful. The women wept; but, like Vlasova,
more from habit than grief. They did not experience the stunning pain
produced by an unexpected blow on the head, but only the sad
consciousness that they must part with the children. But even this
consciousness was dimmed by the impressions of the day. The fathers and
the mothers looked at their children with mingled sensations, in which
the skepticism of parents toward their children and the habitual sense
of the superiority of elders over youth blended strangely with the
feeling of sheer respect for them, with the persistent melancholy
thought that life had now become dull, and with the curiosity aroused
by the young men who so bravely and fearlessly spoke of the possibility
of a new life, which the elders did not comprehend but which seemed to
promise something good. The very novelty and unusualness of the
feeling rendered expression impossible. Words were spoken in plenty,
but they referred only to common matters. The relatives spoke of linen
and clothes, and begged the comrades to take care of their health, and
not to provoke the authorities uselessly.

"Everybody, brother, will grow weary, both we and they," said Samoylov
to his son.

And Bukin's brother, waving his hand, assured the younger brother:

"Merely justice, and nothing else! That they cannot admit."

The younger Bukin answered:

"You look out for the starling. I love him."

"Come back home, and you'll find him in perfect trim."

"I've nothing to do there."

And Sizov held his nephew's hand, and slowly said:

"So, Fedor; so you've started on your trip. So."

Fedya bent over, and whispered something in his ear, smiling roguishly.
The convoy soldier also smiled; but he immediately assumed a stern
expression, and shouted, "Go!"

The mother spoke to Pavel, like the others, about the same things,
about clothes, about his health, yet her breast was choked by a hundred
questions concerning Sasha, concerning himself, and herself. Underneath
all these emotions an almost burdensome feeling was slowly growing of
the fullness of her love for her son--a strained desire to please him,
to be near to his heart. The expectation of the terrible had died
away, leaving behind it only a tremor at the recollection of the
judges, and somewhere in a corner a dark impersonal thought regarding
them.

"Young people ought to b