The staid people who earned good pay waxed wroth as they read the literature, and said abusively: "Breeders of rebellion! For such business they ought to get their eyes blacked." And they carried the pamphlets to the office.
The young people read the proclamations eagerly, and said excitedly: "It's all true!"
The majority, broken down with their work, and indifferent to everything, said lazily: "Nothing will come of it. It is impossible!"
But the leaflets made a stir among the people, and when a week passed without their getting any, they said to one another:
"None again to-day! It seems the printing must have stopped."
Then on Monday the leaflets appeared again; and again there was a dull buzz of talk among the workingmen.
In the taverns and the factory strangers were noticed, men whom no one knew. They asked questions, scrutinized everything and everybody; looked around, ferreted about, and at once attracted universal attention, some by their suspicious watchfulness, others by their excessive obtrusiveness.
The mother knew that all this commotion was due to the work of her son Pavel. She saw how all the people were drawn together about him. He was not alone, and therefore it was not so dangerous. But pride in her son mingled with her apprehension for his fate; it was his secret labors that discharged themselves in fresh currents into the narrow, turbid stream of life.
One evening Marya Korsunova rapped at the window from the street, and when the mother opened it, she said in a loud whisper:
"Now, take care, Pelagueya; the boys have gotten themselves into a nice mess! It's been decided to make a search to-night in your house, and Mazin's and Vyesovshchikov's——"