there--in general--what'll
I do? Bind them? That doesn't suit me."

The mother laughed, and Nikolay, too. This again confused and vexed
Ignaty.

"Don't be uneasy!" Nikolay soothed him. "You won't have to bind
peasants. You trust us."

"Well, well," said Ignaty, set at ease, smiling at Nikolay with
confidence and merriness in his eyes. "If you could get me to the
factory. There, they say, the fellows are mighty smart."

A fire seemed to be ever burning in his broad chest, unsteady as yet,
not confident in its own power. It flashed brightly in his eyes,
forced out from within; but suddenly it would nearly expire in fright
and flicker behind the smoke of perplexed alarm and embarrassment.

The mother rose from behind the table, and looking through the window
reflected:

"Ah, life! Five times in the day you laugh and five times you weep.
All right. Well, are you through, Ignaty? Go to bed and sleep."

"But I don't want to."

"Go on, go on!"

"You're stern in this place. Thank you for the tea, for the sugar, for
the kindness."

Lying down in the mother's bed he mumbled, scratching his head:

"Now everything'll smell of tar in your place. Ah, it's all for
nothing all this--plain coddling! I don't want to sleep. You're good
people, yes. It's more than I can understand--as if I'd gotten a
hundred thousand miles away from the village--how he hit it off about
the middle--and in the middle are the people who lick the hands--of
those who beat the faces--um, yes."

And suddenly he gave a loud short snore and dropped off to sleep, with
eyebrows raised high and half-open mouth.

Late at night he sat in a little room of a basement at a table opposite
Vyesovshchikov. He said in a subdued tone, knitting his brows:

"On the middle window, four times."

"Four."

"At first three times like this"--he counted aloud as he tapped thrice
on the table with his forefinger. "Then waiting a little, once again."

"I understand."

"A red-haired peasant will open the door for you, and will ask you for
the midwife. You'll tell him, 'Yes, from the boss.' Nothing else.
He'll understand your business."

They sat with heads bent toward each other, both robust fellows,
conversing in half tones. The mother, with her arms folded on her
bosom, stood at the table looking at them. All the secret tricks and
passwords compelled her to smile inwardly as she thought, "Mere
children still."

A lamp burned on the wal