The workers said to one another: "It is time to go to work." Were the men masters of their work, or did it drive and crush them? I did not know. Work seemed difficult and masterful, but the human mind was sharp and quick. Sometimes there would ring out amid this devilish noise of whirring machines a victorious and care-free song. I would smile in my heart, remembering the story of Ivan the Fool, who rode on a whale up to heaven to catch the wonder-bird, Phoenix.
The people in the factory, though they were not friendly to me, were all bold and proud. They were abusive, foul-mouthed and often drunk; yet they were free and fearless people. They were different from the pilgrims and the tillers of the soil, who offended me with their servile, confused souls, their hopeless complainings and their petty cheatings in their affairs with God and themselves. These people were bold in thought, and although they were hurt by the slavery of their labor, and grew angry with one another and even fought, yet if the bosses ever acted unfairly, thereby rousing their sense of justice, they would stand together against them as one man.
And those workingmen who followed Mikhail were always among the first, spoke louder than the rest and seemed to fear nothing. Formerly, when I did not think about the people, I did not notice men; but now as I looked upon them I wished to detect differences, so that each one might stand out separately before me. I succeeded in this and yet not entirely. Their speech was different and each one had his own face, but their faith-was the same and their plans were one. Without haste, friendly and sincerely, they were building something new. Each one of them, among his fellows, was like a pleasant light; like a meadow in a thick wood for the wanderer who had lost his way. Each one drew to himself the workingmen who were wider awake than the rest, and all these followers of Mikhail were held together by one plan, and they created a spiritual circle in the factory, a fire of brightly burning thoughts.
At first the workingmen were not friendly to me. They shouted and made fun of me.
"Oh, you red-haired fly! You cloister-bug! You foul one! Parasite!"
At times they struck me, but this I could not stand, and in such cases I did not spare my fists. Though people admire strength, still one cannot gain esteem and attention through his fists, and I would have had to bear many beatings were it not that at one of my quarrels a friend of Mikhail's, one Gavriel Kostin, interfered. He was a young metal pourer, very handsome and respected by the whole factory. Six men had come up to me and their looks boded ill for my back. But he stood next to me and said:
"Why do you provoke a man, comrades? Is he not as much a worker as the rest of us? You do wrong, and against yourselves. Our strength lies in close friendship."
He said these few words, but he said them so well and so simply, as if he were talking to children. The friends of Mikhail always made use of every incident to spread their ideas.
Kostin embarrassed my opponents and the words touched my heart also. I began to talk.
"I did not become a monk," I said, "to have much to eat, but because my soul was starved. I have lived and I have seen that everywhere labor is endless and hunger common; that everywhere there is swindle and fraud, bitterness and tears, brutality and every kind of darkness of the soul. By whom was this arranged? Where is our righteous and wise God? Does He see the infinite and eternal martyrdom of the people?"