Another man said in pity of her:
"Look how she's hurting herself!"
"She's not hurting herself, but hitting us, fools, understand that!" was the reproachful reply.
A high-pitched, quavering voice rose up over the crowd:
"Oh, people of the true faith! My Mitya, pure soul, what has he done? He went after his dear comrades. She speaks truth—why did we forsake our children? What harm have they done us?"
The mother trembled at these words and replied with soft tears.
"Go home, Nilovna! Go, mother! You're all worn out," said Sizov loudly.
He was pale, his disheveled beard shook. Suddenly knitting his brows he threw a stern glance about him on all, drew himself up to his full height, and said distinctly:
"My son Matvey was crushed in the factory. You know it! But were he alive, I myself would have sent him into the lines of those—along with them. I myself would have told him: 'Go you, too, Matvey! That's the right cause, that's the honest cause!'"
He stopped abruptly, and a sullen silence fell on all, in the powerful grip of something huge and new, but something that no longer frightened them. Sizov lifted his hand, shook it, and continued: