when fuller days came, although at first disquieted
by the commotion, by the rapidity of events, she soon grew accustomed
to the bustle and responded, as it were, to the jolts she received from
her impressions. She became filled with a zealous greed for work.
This was her condition to-day; and, therefore, Sofya's question was all
the more displeasing to her.

"There's no use for you to ask me whether or not I'm afraid and various
other things," she sighed. "I've nothing to be afraid of. Those people
are afraid who have something. What have I? Only a son. I used to be
afraid for him, and I used to fear torture for his sake. And if there
is no torture--well, then?"

"Are you offended?" exclaimed Sofya.

"No. Only you don't ask each other whether you're afraid."

Nikolay removed his glasses, adjusted them to his nose again, and
looked fixedly at his sister's face. The embarrassed silence that
followed disturbed the mother. She rose guiltily from her seat,
wishing to say something to them, but Sofya stroked her hand, and said
quietly:

"Forgive me! I won't do it any more."

The mother had to laugh, and in a few minutes the three were speaking
busily and amicably about the trip to the village.

CHAPTER X

The next day, early in the morning, the mother was seated in the post
chaise, jolting along the road washed by the autumn rain. A damp wind
blew on her face, the mud splashed, and the coachman on the box,
half-turned toward her, complained in a meditative snuffle:

"I say to him--my brother, that is--let's go halves. We began to
divide"--he suddenly whipped the left horse and shouted angrily: "Well,
well, play, your mother is a witch."

The stout autumn crows strode with a businesslike air through the bare
fields. The wind whistled coldly, and the birds caught its buffets on
their backs. It blew their feathers apart, and even lifted them off
their feet, and, yielding to its force, they lazily flapped their wings
and flew to a new spot.

"But he cheated me; I see I have nothing----"

The mother listened to the coachman's words as in a dream. A dumb
thought grew in her heart. Memory brought before her a long series of
events through which she had lived in the last years. On an
examination of each event, she found she had actively participated in
it. Formerly, life used to happen somewhere in the distance, remote
from where she was, uncertain for whom and for what. Now, many things
we