hard for you, Pasha,
when you get to that yourself."

"It is hard for me already."

"Yes?"

"Yes."

The wind brushed along the walls of the house, and the pendulum marked
the passing time.

"Um," said the Little Russian leisurely, at last. "That's too bad."

The mother buried her head in the pillow and wept inaudibly.

In the morning Andrey seemed to her to be lower in stature and all the
more winning. But her son towered thin, straight, and taciturn as
ever. She had always called the Little Russian Andrey Stepanovich, in
formal address, but now, all at once, involuntarily and unconsciously
she said to him:

"Say, Andriusha, you had better get your boots mended. You are apt to
catch cold."

"On pay day, mother, I'll buy myself a new pair," he answered, smiling.
Then suddenly placing his long hand on her shoulder, he added: "You
know, you are my real mother. Only you don't want to acknowledge it to
people because I am so ugly."

She patted him on the hand without speaking. She would have liked to
say many endearing things, but her heart was wrung with pity, and the
words would not leave her tongue.

They spoke in the village about the socialists who distributed
broadcast leaflets in blue ink. In these leaflets the conditions
prevailing in the factory were trenchantly and pointedly depicted, as
well as the strikes in St. Petersburg and southern Russia; and the
workingmen were called upon to unite and fight for their interests.

The staid people who earned good pay waxed wroth as they read the
literature, and said abusively: "Breeders of rebellion! For such
business they ought to get their eyes blacked." And they carried the
pamphlets to the office.

The young people read the proclamations eagerly, and said excitedly:
"It's all true!"

The majority, broken down with their work, and indifferent to
everything, said lazily: "Nothing will come of it. It is impossible!"

But the leaflets made a stir among the people, and when a week passed
without their getting any, they said to one another:

"None again to-day! It seems the printing must have stopped."

Then on Monday the leaflets appeared again; and again there was a dull
buzz of talk among the workingmen.

In the taverns and the factory strangers were noticed, men whom no one
knew. They asked questions, scrutinized everything and everybody;
looked around, ferreted about, and at once attracted universal
attention, some by their suspic