Vavilov walked with his hands folded behind his back, and his fingers tightly clasped.
"You print there what you please, you blackguards!" he cried aloud. "But don't you dare say a word about me!"
Vasily Gusev came up to Nilovna and declared:
"I am going to eat with you again. Is it good to-day?" And lowering his head and screwing up his eyes, he added in an undertone: "You see? It hit exactly! Good! Oh, mother, very good!"
She nodded her head affably to him, flattered that Gusev, the sauciest fellow in the village, addressed her with a respectful plural "you," as he talked to her in secret. The general stir and animation in the factory also pleased her, and she thought to herself: "What would they do without me?"
Three common laborers stopped at a short distance from her, and one of them said with disappointment in his voice: "I couldn't find any anywhere!"
Another remarked: "I'd like to hear it, though. I can't read myself, but I understand it hits them just in the right place."
The third man looked around him, and said: "Let's go into the boiler room. I'll read it for you there!"
"It works!" Gusev whispered, a wink lurking in his eye.
Nilovna came home in gay spirits. She had now seen for herself how people are moved by books.