m dryly and queried:

"You wanted to say something to me?"

"I? Not long ago a new man came here, a cousin of Yakob. He's sick
with consumption; but he's learned a thing or two. Shall we call him?"

"Call him! Why not?" answered Sofya.

Rybin looked at her, screwing up his eyes.

"Yefim," he said in a lowered voice, "you go over to him, and tell him
to come here in the evening."

Yefim went into the shack to get his cap; then silently, without
looking at anybody, he walked off at a leisurely pace and disappeared
in the woods. Rybin nodded his bead in the direction he was going,
saying dully:

"He's suffering torments. He's stubborn. He has to go into the army,
he and Yakob, here. Yakob simply says, 'I can't.' And that fellow
can't either; but he wants to; he has an object in view. He thinks he
can stir the soldiers. My opinion is, you can't break through a wall
with your forehead. Bayonets in their hands, off they go--where? They
don't see--they're going against themselves. Yes, he's suffering. And
Ignaty worries him uselessly."

"No, not at all!" said Ignaty. He knit his eyebrows, and kept his eyes
turned away from Rybin. "They'll change him, and he'll become just
like all the other soldiers."

"No, hardly," Rybin answered meditatively. "But, of course, it's
better to run away from the army. Russia is large. Where will you
find the fellow? He gets himself a passport, and goes from village to
village."

"That's what I'm going to do, too," remarked Yakob, tapping his foot
with a chip of wood. "Once you've made up your mind to go against the
government, go straight."

The conversation dropped off. The bees and wasps circled busily around
humming in the stifling atmosphere. The birds chirped, and somewhere
at a distance a song was heard straying through the fields. After a
pause Rybin said:

"Well, we've got to get to work. Do you want to rest? There are
boards inside the shanty. Pick up some dry leaves for them, Yakob. And
you, mother, give us the books. Where are they?"

The mother and Sofya began to untie their sacks. Rybin bent down over
them, and said with satisfaction:

"That's it! Well, well--not a few, I see. Have you been in this
business a long time? What's your name?" he turned toward Sofya.

"Anna Ivanovna. Twelve years. Why?"

"Nothing."

"Have you been in prison?"

"I have."

He was silent, taking a pile of books in his hand, and said to her,
showin