At noon, calmly and in a businesslike way she put the books around her bosom, and so skillfully and snugly that Yegor announced, smacking his lips with satisfaction:

“Sehr gut! as the German says when he has drunk a keg of beer. Literature has not changed you, granny. You still remain the good, tall, portly, elderly woman. May all the numberless gods grant you their blessings on your enterprise!”

Within half an hour she stood at the factory gate, bent with the weight of her burden, calm and assured. Two guards, irritated by the oaths and raillery of the workingmen, examined all who entered the gate, handling them roughly and swearing at them. A policeman and a thin-legged man with a red face and alert eyes stood at one side. The mother, shifting the rod resting on her shoulders, with a pail suspended from either end of it, watched the man from the corner of her eye. She divined that he was a spy.

A tall, curly-headed fellow with his hat thrown back over his neck, cried to the guardsmen who searched him:

“Search the head and not the pockets, you devils!”

“There is nothing but lice on your head,” retorted one of the guardsmen.

“Catching lice is an occupation more suited to you than hunting human game!” rejoined the workman. The spy scanned him with a rapid glance.

“Will you let me in?” asked the mother. “See, I’m bent double with my heavy load. My back is almost breaking.”

“Go in! Go in!” cried the guard sullenly. “She comes with arguments, too.”

The mother walked to her place, set her pails on the ground, and wiping the perspiration from her face looked around her.

The Gusev brothers, the locksmiths, instantly came up to her, and the older of them, Vasily, asked aloud, knitting his eyebrows:

“Got any pirogs?”

“I’ll bring them to-morrow,” she answered.

This was the password agreed upon. The faces of the brothers brightened. Ivan, unable to restrain himself, exclaimed:

“Oh, you jewel of a mother!”

Vasily squatted down on his heels, looked into the pot, and a bundle of books disappeared into his bosom.

“Ivan!” he said aloud. “Let’s not go home, let’s get our dinner here from her!” And he quickly shoved the books into the legs of his boots. “We must give our new peddler a lift, don’t you think so?”

“Yes, indeed!” Ivan assented, and laughed aloud.

The mother looked carefully about her, and called out:

“Sour cabbage soup! Hot vermicelli soup! Roast meat!”

Then deftly and secretly taking out one package of books after the other, she shoved them into the hands of the brothers. Each time a bundle disappeared from her hands, the sickly, sneering face of the officer of gendarmes flashed up before her like a yellow stain, like the flame of a match in a dark room, and she said to him in her mind, with a feeling of malicious pleasure:

“Take this, sir!” And when she handed over the last package she added with an air of satisfaction: “And here is some more, take it!”

Workmen came up to her with cups in their hands, and when they were near Ivan and Vasily, they began to laugh aloud. The mother calmly suspended the transfer of the books, and poured sour soup and vermicelli soup, while the Gusevs joked her.

“How cleverly Nilovna does her work!”

“Necessity drives one even to catching mice,” remarked a stoker somberly. “They have snatched away your breadgiver, the scoundrels! Well, give us three cents’ worth of vermicelli. Never mind, mother! You’ll pull through!”

“Thanks for the good word!” she returned, smiling.

He walked off to one side and mumbled, “It doesn’t cost me much to say a good word!”

“But there’s no one to say it to!” observed a blacksmith, with a smile, and shrugging his shoulders in surprise added: “There’s a life for you, fellows! There’s no one to say a good word to; no one is worth it. Yes, sir!”

Vasily Gusev rose, wrapped his coat tightly around him, and exclaimed:

“What I ate was hot, and yet I feel cold.”

Then he walked away. Ivan also rose, and ran off whistling merrily.

Cheerful and smiling, Nilovna kept on calling her wares:

“Hot! Hot! Sour soup! Vermicelli soup! Porridge!”

She thought of how she would tell her son about her first experience; and the yellow face of the officer was still standing before her, perplexed and spiteful. His black mustache twitched uneasily, and his upper lip turned up nervously, showing the gleaming white enamel of his clenched teeth. A keen joy beat and sang in her heart like a bird, her eyebrows quivered, and continuing deftly to serve her customers she muttered to herself:

“There’s more! There’s more!”

Through the whole day she felt a sensation of delightful newness which embraced her heart as with a fondling caress. And in the evening, when she had concluded her work at Marya’s house, and was drinking tea, the splash of horses’ hoofs in the mud was heard, and the call of a familiar voice. She jumped up, hurried into the kitchen, and made straight for the door. Somebody walked quickly through the porch; her eyes grew dim, and leaning against the doorpost, she pushed the door open with her foot.

“Good evening, mother!” a familiar, melodious voice rang out, and a pair of dry, long hands were laid on her shoulders.

The joy of seeing Andrey was mingled in her bosom with the sadness of disappointment; and the two contrary feelings blended into one burning sensation which embraced her like a hot wave. She buried her face in Andrey’s bosom. He pressed her tightly to himself, his hands trembled. The mother wept quietly without speaking, while he stroked her hair, and spoke in his musical voice:

“Don’t cry, mother. Don’t wring my heart. Upon my honest word, they will let him out soon! They haven’t a thing against him; all the boys will keep quiet as cooked fish.”

Putting his long arm around the mother’s shoulders he led her into the room, and nestling up against him with the quick gesture of a squirrel, she wiped the tears from her face, while her heart greedily drank in his tender words.

“Pavel sends you his love. He is as well and cheerful as can be. It’s very crowded in the prison. They have thrown in more than a hundred of our people, both from here and from the city. Three and four persons have been put into one cell. The prison officials are rather a good set. They are exhausted with the quantity of work the gendarmes have been giving them. The prison authorities are not extremely rigorous, they don’t order you about roughly. They simply say: ‘Be quiet as you can, gentlemen. Don’t put us in an awkward position!’ So everything goes well. We talk with one another, we give books to one another, and we share our food. It’s a good prison! Old and dirty, but so soft and so light. The criminals are also nice people; they help us a good deal. Bukin, four others, and myself were released. It got too crowded. They’ll let Pavel go soon, too. I’m telling you the truth, believe me. Vyesovshchikov will be detained the longest. They are very angry at him. He scolds and swears at everybody all the time. The gendarmes can’t bear to look at him. I guess he’ll get himself into court, or receive a sound thrashing some day. Pavel tries to dissuade him. ‘Stop, Nikolay!’ he says to him. ‘Your swearing won’t reform them.’ But he bawls: ‘Wipe them off the face of the earth like a pest!’ Pavel conducts himself finely out there; he treats all alike, and is as firm as a rock! They’ll soon let him go.”

“Soon?” said the mother, relieved now and smiling. “I know he’ll be let out soon!”

“Well, if you know, it’s all right! Give me tea, mother. Tell me how you’ve been, how you’ve passed your time.”

He looked at her, smiling all over, and seemed so near to her, such a splendid fellow. A loving, somewhat melancholy gleam flashed from the depths of his round, blue eyes.

“I love you dearly, Andriusha!” the mother said, heaving a deep sigh............