"I did."
"That's it," said Rybin, striking the table with the palm of his hand. "I knew it at once when I saw you. Why need you have come here, if not for that?" He again measured the young men with his eyes, and continued, solemnly knitting his eyebrows: "Do you see? They thrust the son out of the ranks, and the mother drops into his place."
He suddenly struck the table with both hands, and straightening himself said with an air that seemed to augur ill:
"Those——"—here he flung out a terrible oath—"those people don't know what their blind hands are sowing. They will know when our power is complete and we begin to mow down their cursed grass. They'll know it then!"
The mother was frightened. She looked at him, and saw that Mikhaïl's face had changed greatly. He had grown thinner; his beard was roughened, and his cheek bones seemed to have sharpened. The bluish whites of his eyes were threaded with thin red fibers, as if he had gone without sleep for a long time. His nose, less fleshy than formerly, had acquired a rapacious crook. His open, tar-saturated collar, attached to a shirt that had once been red, exposed his dry collar bones and the thick black hair on his breast. About his whole figure there was something more tragic than before. Red sparks seemed to fly from his inflamed eyes and light the lean, dark face with the fire of unconquerable, melancholy rage. Sofya paled and was silent, her gaze riveted on the peasant. Ignaty shook his head and screwed up his eyes, and Yakob, standing at the wall again, angrily tore splinters from the boards with his blackened fingers. Yefim, behind the mother, slowly paced up and down along the length of the table.
"The other day," continued Rybin, "a government official called me up, and, says he, 'You blackguard, what did you say to the priest?' 'Why am I a blackguard?' I say. 'I earn my bread in the sweat of my brow, and I don't do anything bad to people.' That's what I said. He bawled out at me, and hit me in the face. For three days and three nights I sat in the lockup." Rybin grew infuriated. "That's the way you speak to the people, is it?" he cried. "Don't expect pardon, you devils. My wrong will be avenged, if not by me, then by another, if not on you, then on your children. Remember! The greed in your breasts has harrowed the people with iron claws. You have sowed malice; don't expect mercy!"
The wrath in Rybin seethed and bubbled; his voice shook with sounds that frightened the mother.
"And what had I said to the priest?" he continued in a lighter tone. "After the village assembly he sits with the peasants in the street, and tells them something. 'The people are a flock,' says he, 'and they always need a shepherd.' And I joke. 'If,' I say, 'they make the fox the chief in the forest, there'll be lots of feathers but no birds.' He looks at me sidewise and speaks about how the people ought to be patient and pray more to God to give them the power to be patient. And I say that the people pray, but evidently God has no time, because he doesn't listen to them. The priest begins to cavil with me as to what prayers I pray. I tell him I use one prayer, like all the people, 'O Lord, teach the masters to carry bricks, eat stones, and spit wood.' He wouldn't even let me finish my sentence.—Are you a lady?" Rybin asked Sofya, suddenly breaking off his story.
"Why do you think I'm a lady?" she asked quickly, startled by the unexpectedness of his question.
"Why?" laughed Rybin. "That's the star under which you were born. That's why. You think a chintz kerchief can conceal the blot of the nobleman from the eyes of the people? We'll recognize a priest even if he's wrapped in sackcloth. Here, for instance, you put your elbows on a wet table, and you started and frowned. Besides, your back is too straight for a working woman."