She looked at them, and she actually saw something like a shadow of uneasiness on the faces of the judges. Another man was already speaking, a little lawyer with a sharp, pale, satiric face. He spoke very respectfully:
"With all due respect, I permit myself to call the attention of the court to the solid manner of the honorable prosecuting attorney, to the conduct of the safety department, or, as such people are called in common parlance, spies——"
The judge with the green face again began to whisper something to the president. The prosecuting attorney jumped up. The lawyer continued without changing his voice:
"The spy Gyman tells us about the witness: 'I frightened him.' The prosecuting attorney also, as the court has heard, frightened witnesses; as a result of which act, at the insistence of the defense, he called forth a rebuke from the presiding judge."
The prosecuting attorney began to speak quickly and angrily; the old judge followed suit; the lawyer listened to them respectfully, inclining his head. Then he said:
"I can even change the position of my words if the prosecuting attorney deems it is not in the right place; but that will not change the plan of my defense. However, I cannot understand the excitement of the prosecuting attorney."
"Go for him!" said Sizov. "Go for him, tooth and nail! Pick him open down to his soul, wherever that may be!"
The hall became animated; a fighting passion flared up; the defense attacked from all sides, provoking and disturbing the judges, driving away the cold haze that enveloped them, pricking the old skin of the judges with sharp words. The judges had the air of moving more closely to one another, or suddenly they would puff and swell, repulsing the sharp, caustic raps with the mass of their soft, mellow bodies. They acted as if they feared that the blow of the opponent might call forth an echo in their empty bosoms, might shake their resolution, which sprang not from their own will but from a will strange to them. Feeling this conflict, the people on the benches back of the mother sighed and whispered.
But suddenly Pavel arose; tense quiet prevailed. The mother stretched her entire body forward.
"A party man, I recognize only the court of my party and will not speak in my defense. According to the desire of my comrades, I, too, declined a defense. I will merely try to explain to you what you don't understand. The prosecuting attorney designated our coming out under the banner of the Social Democracy as an uprising against the superior power, and regarded us as nothing but rebels against the Czar. I must declare to you that to us the Czar is not the only chain that fetters the body of the country. We are obliged to tear off only the first and nearest chain from the people."