now. You are only putty--good to fill cracks with, that's all!
Did you see, Pavel, who it was that shouted to make you a delegate? It
was those who call you socialist--agitator--yes!--thinking you'd be
discharged, and it would serve you right!"

"They are right, according to their lights!" said Pavel.

"So are wolves when they tear one another to pieces!" Rybin's face was
sullen, his voice unusually tremulous.

The whole day Pavel felt ill at ease, as if he had lost something, he
did not know what, and anticipated a further loss.

At night when the mother was asleep and he was reading in bed,
gendarmes appeared and began to search everywhere--in the yard, in the
attic. They were sullen; the yellow-faced officer conducted himself as
on the first occasion, insultingly, derisively, delighting in abuse,
endeavoring to cut down to the very heart. The mother, in a corner,
maintained silence, never removing her eyes from her son's face. He
made every effort not to betray his emotion; but whenever the officer
laughed, his fingers twitched strangely, and the old woman felt how
hard it was for him not to reply, and to bear the jesting. This time
the affair was not so terrorizing to her as at the first search. She
felt a greater hatred to these gray, spurred night callers, and her
hatred swallowed up her alarm.

Pavel managed to whisper:

"They'll arrest me."

Inclining her head, she quietly replied:

"I understand."

She did understand--they would put him in jail for what he had said to
the workingmen that day. But since all agreed with what he had said,
and all ought to stand up for him, he would not be detained long.

She longed to embrace him and cry over him; but there stood the
officer, watching her with a malevolent squint of his eyes. His lips
trembled, his mustache twitched. It seemed to Vlasova that the officer
was but waiting for her tears, complaints, and supplications. With a
supreme effort endeavoring to say as little as possible, she pressed
her son's hand, and holding her breath said slowly, in a low tone:

"Good-by, Pasha. Did you take everything you need?"

"Everything. Don't worry!"

"Christ be with you!"

CHAPTER IX

When the police had led Pavel away, the mother sat down on the bench,
and closing her eyes began to weep quietly. She leaned her back
against the wall, as her husband used to do, her head thrown backward.
Bound up in her grief and the injured sense of her