ress, clogged her footsteps, and drove pricking
snowflakes into her face. Walking was difficult; the little feet sank
into the snow. Cold and fearful the girl bent forward, like a blade of
grass, the sport of the wanton wind. To the right of her on the marsh
stood the dark wall of the forest; the bare birches and aspens quivered
and rustled with a mournful cry. Yonder in the distance, before her,
the lights of the city glimmered dimly.

"Lord in heaven, have mercy!" the mother muttered again, shuddering
with the cold and horror of an unformed fear.

CHAPTER IV

The days glided by one after the other, like the beads of a rosary, and
grew into weeks and months. Every Saturday Pavel's friends gathered in
his house; and each meeting formed a step up a long stairway, which led
somewhere into the distance, gradually lifting the people higher and
higher. But its top remained invisible.

New people kept coming. The small room of the Vlasovs became crowded
and close. Natasha arrived every Saturday night, cold and tired, but
always fresh and lively, in inexhaustible good spirits. The mother made
stockings, and herself put them on the little feet. Natasha laughed at
first; but suddenly grew silent and thoughtful, and said in a low voice
to the mother:

"I had a nurse who was also ever so kind. How strange, Pelagueya
Nilovna! The workingmen live such a hard, outraged life, and yet there
is more heart, more goodness in them than in--those!" And she waved
her hand, pointing somewhere far, very far from herself.

"See what sort of a person you are," the older woman answered. "You
have left your own family and everything--" She was unable to finish
her thought, and heaving a sigh looked silently into Natasha's face
with a feeling of gratitude to the girl for she knew not what. She sat
on the floor before Natasha, who smiled and fell to musing.

"I have abandoned my family?" she repeated, bending her head down.
"That's nothing. My father is a stupid, coarse man--my brother
also--and a drunkard, besides. My oldest sister--unhappy, wretched
thing--married a man much older than herself, very rich, a bore and
greedy. But my mother I am sorry for! She's a simple woman like you,
a beaten-down, frightened creature, so tiny, like a little mouse--she
runs so quickly and is afraid of everybody. And sometimes I want to
see her so--my mother!"

"My poor thing!" said the mother sadly, shaking her head.

The girl