the
village more and more; and although there was much suspicious chariness
and unconscious hostility in this notice, yet at the same time a
confiding curiosity grew up also. Now and then some one would come
over, and looking carefully about him would say to Pavel: "Well,
brother, you are reading books here, and you know the laws. Explain to
me, then----"

And he would tell Pavel about some injustice of the police or the
factory administration. In complicated cases Pavel would give the man
a note to a lawyer friend in the city, and when he could, he would
explain the case himself.

Gradually people began to look with respect upon this young, serious
man, who spoke about everything simply and boldly, and almost never
laughed, who looked at everybody and listened to everybody with an
attention which searched stubbornly into every circumstance, and always
found a certain general and endless thread binding people together by a
thousand tightly drawn knots.

Vlasova saw how her son had grown up; she strove to understand his
work, and when she succeeded, she rejoiced with a childlike joy.

Pavel rose particularly in the esteem of the people after the
appearance of his story about the "Muddy Penny."

Back of the factory, almost encircling it with a ring of putrescence,
stretched a vast marsh grown over with fir trees and birches. In the
summer it was covered with thick yellow and green scum, and swarms of
mosquitoes flew from it over the village, spreading fever in their
course. The marsh belonged to the factory, and the new manager,
wishing to extract profit from it, conceived the plan of draining it
and incidentally gathering in a fine harvest of peat. Representing to
the workingmen how much this measure would contribute to the sanitation
of the locality and the improvement of the general condition of all,
the manager gave orders to deduct a kopeck from every ruble of their
earnings, in order to cover the expense of draining the marsh. The
workingmen rebelled; they especially resented the fact that the office
clerks were exempted from paying the new tax.

Pavel was ill on the Saturday when posters were hung up announcing the
manager's order in regard to the toll. He had not gone to work and he
knew nothing about it. The next day, after mass, a dapper old man, the
smelter Sizov, and the tall, vicious-looking locksmith Makhotin, came
to him and told him of the manager's decision.

"A few of us older ones got to