seemed to her that his words struck her face once, twice, rough and
hoarse; they wounded her, as if they tore her cheeks, ripped out her
eyes.

"I'm not a thief! You lie!" she shouted with all the power of her
chest; and everything before her jumped and began to whirl in a
whirlwind of revolt, intoxicating her heart with the bitterness of
insult. She jerked the valise, and it opened.

"Look! look! All you people!" she shouted, standing up and waving the
bundle of the proclamations she had quickly seized over her head.
Through the noise in her ears she heard the exclamations of the people
who came running up, and she saw them pouring in quickly from all
directions.

"What is it?"

"There's a spy!"

"What's the matter?"

"She's a thief, they say!"

"She?"

"Would a thief shout?"

"Such a respectable one! My, my, my!"

"Whom did they catch?"

"I'm not a thief," said the mother in a full voice, somewhat calmed at
the sight of the people who pressed closely upon her from all sides.

"Yesterday they tried the political prisoners; my son was one of them,
Vlasov. He made a speech. Here it is. I'm carrying it to the people
in order that they should read, think about the truth."

One paper was carefully pulled from her hands. She waved the papers in
the air and flung them into the crowd.

"She won't get any praise for that, either!" somebody exclaimed in a
frightened voice.

"Whee-ee-w!" was the response.

The mother saw that the papers were being snatched up, were being
hidden in breasts and pockets. This again put her firmly on her feet;
more composed than forceful, straining herself to her utmost, and
feeling how agitated pride grew in her raising her high above the
people, how subdued joy flamed up in her, she spoke, snatching bundles
of papers from the valise and throwing them right and left into some
person's quick, greedy hands.

"For this they sentenced my son and all with him. Do you know? I will
tell you, and you believe the heart of a mother; believe her gray hair.
Yesterday they sentenced them because they carried to you, to all the
people, the honest, sacred truth. How do you live?"

The crowd grew silent in amazement, and noiselessly increased in size,
pressing closer and closer together, surrounding the woman with a ring
of living bodies.

"Poverty, hunger, and sickness--that's what work gives to the poor
people. This order of things pushes us to theft and to corruption; and