replied the girl. She untied her skirt and shook it, and like leaves from a tree, down fluttered a lot of thin paper parcels on the floor around her. The mother picked them up, laughing, and said:
"I was wondering what made you so stout. Oh, what a heap of them you have brought! Did you come on foot?"
"Yes," said Sashenka. She was again her graceful, slender self. The mother noticed that her cheeks were shrunken, and that dark rings were under her unnaturally large eyes.
"You are just out of prison. You ought to rest, and there you are carrying a load like that for seven versts!" said the mother, sighing and shaking her head.
"It's got to be done!" said the girl. "Tell me, how is Pavel? Did he stand it all right? He wasn't very much worried, was he?" Sashenka asked the question without looking at the mother. She bent her head and her fingers trembled as she arranged her hair.
"All right," replied the mother. "You can rest assured he won't betray himself."
"How strong he is!" murmured the girl quietly.
"He has never been sick," replied the mother. "Why, you are all in a shiver! I'll get you some tea, and some raspberry jam."
"That's fine!" exclaimed the girl with a faint smile. "But don't you trouble! It's too late. Let me do it myself."
"What! Tired as you are?" the mother reproached her, hurrying into the kitchen, where she busied herself with the samovar. The girl followed into the kitchen, sat down on the bench, and folded her hands behind her head before she replied:
"Yes, I'm very tired! After all, the prison makes one weak. The awful thing about it is the enforced inactivity. There is nothing more tormenting. We stay a week, five weeks. We know how much there is to be done. The people are waiting for knowledge. We're in a position to satisfy their wants, and there we are locked up in a cage like animals! That's what is so trying, that's what dries up the heart!"
"Who will reward you for all this?" asked the mother; and with a sigh she answered the question herself. "No one but God! Of course you don't believe in Him either?"
"No!" said the girl briefly, shaking her head.
"And I don't believe you!" the mother ejaculated in a sudden burst of excitement. Quickly wiping her charcoal-blackened hands on her apron she continued, with deep conviction in her voice:
"You don't understand your own faith! How could you live the kind of life you are living, without faith in God?"
A loud stamping of feet and a murmur of voices were heard on the porch. The mother started; the girl quickly rose to her feet, and whispered hurriedly:
"Don't open the door! If it's the gendarmes, you don't know me. I walked into the wrong house, came here by accident, fainted away, you undressed me, and found the books around me. You understand?"
"Why, my dear, what for?" asked the mother tenderly.
"Wait a while!" said Sashenka listening. "I think it's Yegor."
It was Yegor, wet and out of breath.
"Aha! The samovar!" he cried. "That's the best thing in life, granny! You here already, Sashenka?"
His hoarse voice filled the little kitchen. He slowly removed his heavy ulster, talking all the time.
"Here, granny, is a girl who is a thorn in the flesh of the police! Insulted by the overseer of the prison, she declared that she would starve herself to death if he did not ask her pardon. And for eight days she went without eating, and came within a hair's breadth of dying. It's not bad! She must have a mighty strong little stomach."
"Is it possible you took no food for eight days in succession?" asked the mother in amazement.
"I had to get him to beg my pardon," answered the girl with a stoical shrug of her shoulders. Her composure and her stern persistence seemed almost like a reproach to the mother.
"And suppose you had died?" she asked again.
"Well, what can one do?" the girl said quietly. "He did beg my pardon after all. One ought never to forgive an insult, never!"
"Ye-es!" responded the mother slowly. "Here are we women who are insulted all our lives long."
"I have unloaded myself!" announced Yegor from the other room. "Is the samovar ready? Let me take it in!"
He lifted the samovar and talked as he carried it.
"My own father used to drink not less than twenty glasses of tea a day, wherefor his days upon earth were long, peaceful, and strong; for he lived to be seventy-three years old, never having suffered from any ailment whatsoever. In weight he reached the respectable figure of three hundred and twenty pounds, and by profession he was a sexton in the village of Voskresensk."
"Are you Ivan's son?" exclaimed the mother.
"I am that very mortal. How did you know his name?"
"Why, I am a Voskresenskian myself!"
"A fellow countrywoman! Who were your people?"
"Your neighbors. I am a Sereguin."
"Are you a daughter of Nil the Lame? I thought your face was familiar! Why, I had my ears pulled by him many and many a time!"
They stood face to face plying each other with questions and laughing. Sashenka looked at them and smiled, and began to prepare the tea. The clatter of the dishes recalled the mother to the realities of the present.
"Oh, excuse me! I quite forgot myself, talking about old times. It is so sweet to recall your youth."
"It's I who ought to beg your pardon for carrying on like this in your house!" said Sashenka. "But it is eleven o'clock already, and I have so far to go."
"Go where? To the city?" the mother asked in surprise.
"Yes."
"What are you talking about! It's dark and wet, and you are so tired. Stay here overnight. Yegor Ivanovich will sleep in the kitchen, and you and I here."
"No, I must go," said the girl simply.
"Yes, countrywoman, she must go. The young lady must disappear. It would be bad if she were to be seen on the street to-morrow."
"But how can she go? By herself?"
"By herself," said Yegor, laughing.
The girl poured tea for herself, took a piece of rye bread, salted it, and started to eat, looking at the mother contemplatively.
"How can you go that way? Both you and Natasha. I wouldn't. I'm afraid!"
"She's afraid, too," said Yegor. "Aren't you afraid, Sasha?"
"Of course!"
The mother looked at her, then at Yegor, and said in a low voice, "What strange——"
"Give me a glass
