o this, Pasha?"

He raised his head, looked at her, and said in a low, calm voice:

"I want to know the truth."

His voice sounded placid, but firm; and his eyes flashed resolution.
She understood with her heart that her son had consecrated himself
forever to something mysterious and awful. Everything in life had
always appeared to her inevitable; she was accustomed to submit without
thought, and now, too, she only wept softly, finding no words, but in
her heart she was oppressed with sorrow and distress.

"Don't cry," said Pavel, kindly and softly; and it seemed to her that
he was bidding her farewell.

"Think what kind of a life you are leading. You are forty years old,
and have you lived? Father beat you. I understand now that he avenged
his wretchedness on your body, the wretchedness of his life. It pressed
upon him, and he did not know whence it came. He worked for thirty
years; he began to work when the whole factory occupied but two
buildings; now there are seven of them. The mills grow, and people
die, working for them."

She listened to him eagerly and awestruck. His eyes burned with a
beautiful radiance. Leaning forward on the table he moved nearer to
his mother, and looking straight into her face, wet with tears, he
delivered his first speech to her about the truth which he had now come
to understand. With the naivete of youth, and the ardor of a young
student proud of his knowledge, religiously confiding in its truth, he
spoke about everything that was clear to him, and spoke not so much for
his mother as to verify and strengthen his own opinions. At times he
halted, finding no words, and then he saw before him a disturbed face,
in which dimly shone a pair of kind eyes clouded with tears. They
looked on with awe and perplexity. He was sorry for his mother, and
began to speak again, about herself and her life.

"What joys did you know?" he asked. "What sort of a past can you
recall?"

She listened and shook her head dolefully, feeling something new,
unknown to her, both sorrowful and gladsome, like a caress to her
troubled and aching heart. It was the first time she had heard such
language about herself, her own life. It awakened in her misty, dim
thoughts, long dormant; gently roused an almost extinct feeling of
rebellion, perplexed dissatisfaction--thoughts and feelings of a remote
youth. She often discussed life with her neighbors, spoke a great deal
about everything; but all, hers