Louisa May Alcott - "An Old fashioned Girl"

Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne - "Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, V14"

by Robert Louis Stevenson - "The Pocket R.L.S."

E. Phillips Oppenheim - "Jeanne Of The Marshes"

New Philadelphia Book Publisher Highlights Local Talent
Book and Publishing News from Publishers Newswire(tm)

Looking for Child to be on Cover of a New Book, 'The Model Child'
PHILADELPHIA, Pa. -- The Philadelphia literary world will celebrate the launch of two new players today, April 10th: Kay Square Press, a new publishing company focused on Philadelphia-area artists, their stories, and their art; and Kay Square's first release, 'With the Rich and Mighty: Emlen Etting of Philadelphia' (ISBN: 978-0-9815129-0-7), a critical biography by Kenneth C. Kaleta.

FlatSigned Press Alleges Don Imus Remarks Damage Legacy of President Gerald R. Ford
NEW YORK, N.Y. -- Nathan Yungerberg, an accomplished model scout and professional child photographer is launching a nation-wide casting call to find the cover model for his highly anticipated book release, 'The Model Child: A Parents Guide to the Child Modeling Industry' (ISBN: 978-0-9817018-0-6).

Books: Mother

M >> Maxim Gorky >> Mother




The mother counted them, and mentally gathered them together into a
group around Pavel. In that throng he became invisible to the eyes
of the enemy.

One day a vivacious, curly-haired girl appeared from the city,
bringing some parcel for Andrey; and on leaving she said to Vlasova,
with a gleam in her merry eyes:

"Good-by, comrade!"

"Good-by!" the mother answered, restraining a smile. After seeing
the girl to the door, she walked to the window and, smiling, looked
out on the street to watch her comrade as she trotted away, nimbly
raising and dropping her little feet, fresh as a spring flower and
light as a butterfly.

"Comrade!" said the mother when her guest had disappeared from her
view. "Oh, you dear! God grant you a comrade for all your life!"

She often noticed in all the people from the city a certain
childishness, for which she had the indulgent smile of an elderly
person; but at the same time she was touched and joyously surprised
by their faith, the profundity of which she began to realize more
and more clearly. Their visions of the triumph of justice captivated
her and warmed her heart. As she listened to their recital of
future victories, she involuntarily sighed with an unknown sorrow.
But what touched her above all was their simplicity, their beautiful,
grand, generous unconcern for themselves.

She had already come to understand a great deal of what was said
about life. She felt they had in reality discovered the true source
of the people's misfortune, and it became a habit with her to agree
with their thoughts. But at the bottom of her heart she did not
believe that they could remake the whole of life according to their
idea, or that they would have strength enough to gather all the
working people about their fire. Everyone, she knew, wants to fill
his stomach to-day, and no one wants to put his dinner off even for
a week, if he can eat it up at once. Not many would consent to
travel the long and difficult road; and not all eyes could see at
the end the promised kingdom where all men are brothers. That's why
all these good people, despite their beards and worn faces, seemed
to her mere children.

"My dear ones!" she thought, shaking her head.

But they all now lived a good, earnest, and sensible life; they all
spoke of the common weal; and in their desire to teach other people
what they knew, they did not spare themselves. She understood that
it was possible to love such a life, despite its dangers; and with
a sigh she looked back to bygone days in which her past dragged along
flatly and monotonously, a thin, black thread. Imperceptibly she
grew conscious of her usefulness in this new life--a consciousness
that gave her poise and assurance. She had never before felt herself
necessary to anybody. When she had lived with her husband, she knew
that if she died he would marry another woman. It was all the same
to him whether a dark-haired or a red-haired woman lived with him
and prepared his meals. When Pavel grew up and began to run about
in the street, she saw that she was not needed by him. But now she
felt that she was helping a good work. It was new to her and
pleasant. It set her head erect on her shoulders.

She considered it her duty to carry the books regularly to the
factory. Indeed, she elaborated a number of devices for escaping
detection. The spies, grown accustomed to her presence on the
factory premises, ceased to pay attention to her. She was searched
several times, but always the day after the appearance of the
leaflets in the factory. When she had no literature about her, she
knew how to arouse the suspicion of the guards and spies. They
would halt her, and she would pretend to feel insulted, and would
remonstrate with them, and then walk off blushing, proud of her
clever ruse. She began to enjoy the fun of the game.

Vyesovshchikov was not taken back to the factory, and went to work
for a lumberman. The whole day long he drove about the village
with a pair of black horses pulling planks and beams after them.
The mother saw him almost daily with the horses as they plodded
along the road, their feet trembling under the strain and dropping
heavily upon the ground. They were both old and bare-boned, their
heads shook wearily and sadly, and their dull, jaded eyes blinked
heavily. Behind them jerkingly trailed a long beam, or a pile of
boards clattering loudly. And by their side Nikolay trudged along,
holding the slackened reins in his hand, ragged, dirty, with heavy
boots, his hat thrust back, uncouth as a stump just turned up from
the ground. He, too, shook his head and looked down at his feet,
refusing to see anything. His horses blindly ran into the people
and wagons going the opposite direction. Angry oaths buzzed about
him like hornets, and sinister shouts rent the air. He did not
raise his head, did not answer them, but went on, whistling a sharp,
shrill whistle, mumbling dully to the horses.

Every time that Andrey's comrades gathered at the mother's house to
read pamphlets or the new issue of the foreign papers, Nikolay came
also, sat down in a corner, and listened in silence for an hour or
two. When the reading was over the young people entered into long
discussions; but Vyesovshchikov took no part in the arguments. He
remained longer than the rest, and when alone, face to face with
Andrey, he glumly put to him the question:

"And who is the most to blame? The Czar?"

"The one to blame is he who first said: 'This is mine.' That man
has now been dead some several thousand years, and it's not worth
the while to bear him a grudge," said the Little Russian, jesting.
His eyes, however, had a perturbed expression.

"And how about the rich, and those who stand up for them? Are they right?"

The Little Russian clapped his hands to his head; then pulled his
mustache, and spoke for a long time in simple language about life
and about the people. But from his talk it always appeared as if
all the people were to blame, and this did not satisfy Nikolay.
Compressing his thick lips tightly, he shook his head in demur, and
declared that he could not believe it was so, and that he did not
understand it. He left dissatisfied and gloomy. Once he said:

"No, there must be people to blame! I'm sure there are! I tell
you, we must plow over the whole of life like a weedy field, showing
no mercy!"

"That's what Isay, the record clerk, once said about us!" the mother
said. For a while the two were silent.

"Isay?"

"Yes, he's a bad man. He spies after everybody, fishes about
everywhere for information. He has begun to frequent this street,
and peers into our windows."

"Peers into your windows?"

The mother was already in bed and did not see his face. But she
understood that she had said too much, because the Little Russian
hastened to interpose in order to conciliate Nikolay.

"Let him peer! He has leisure. That's his way of killing time."

"No hold on!" said Nikolay. "THERE! He is to blame!"

"To blame for what?" the Little Russian asked brusquely. "Because
he's a fool?"

But Vyesovshchikov did not stop to answer and walked away.

The Little Russian began to pace up and down the room, slowly and
languidly. He had taken off his boots as he always did when the
mother was in bed in order not to disturb her. But she was not
asleep, and when Nikolay had left she said anxiously:

"I'm so afraid of that man. He's just like an overheated oven.
He does not warm things, but scorches them."

"Yes, yes!" the Little Russian drawled. "He's an irascible boy.
I wouldn't talk to him about Isay, mother. That fellow Isay is
really spying and getting paid for it, too."

"What's so strange in that? His godfather is a gendarme," observed
the mother.

"Well, Nikolay will give him a dressing. What of it?" the Little
Russian continued uneasily. "See what hard feelings the rulers of
our life have produced in the rank and file? When such people as
Nikolay come to recognize their wrong and lose their patience, what
will happen then? The sky will be sprinkled with blood, and the
earth will froth and foam with it like the suds of soap water."

"It's terrible, Andriusha!" the mother exclaimed in a low voice.

"They have swallowed flies, and have to vomit them now!" said Andrey
after a pause. "And after all, mother, every drop of their blood
that may be shed will have been washed in seas of the people's tears."

Suddenly he broke into a low laugh and added:

"That's true; but it's no comfort!"

Once on a holiday the mother, on returning home from a store, opened
the door of the porch, and remained fixed to the spot, suddenly
bathed in the sunshine of joy. From the room she heard the sound
of Pavel's voice.

"There she is!" cried the Little Russian.

The mother saw Pavel turn about quickly, and saw how his face
lighted up with a feeling that held out the promise of something
great to her.

"There you are--come home!" she mumbled, staggered by the unexpectedness
of the event. She sat down.

He bent down to her with a pale face, little tears glistened
brightly in the corners of his eyes, and his lips trembled. For a
moment he was silent. The mother looked at him, and was silent also.

The Little Russian, whistling softly, passed by them with bent head
and walked out into the yard.

"Thank you, mother," said Pavel in a deep, low voice, pressing her
hand with his trembling fingers. "Thank you, my dear, my own
mother!"

Rejoiced at the agitated expression of her son's face and the
touching sound of his voice, she stroked his hair and tried to
restrain the palpitation of her heart. She murmured softly:

"Christ be with you! What have I done for you? It isn't I who
have made you what you are. It's you yourself----"

"Thank you for helping our great cause!" he said. "When a man can
call his mother his own in spirit also--that's rare fortune!"

She said nothing, and greedily swallowed his words. She admired
her son as he stood before her so radiant and so near.

"I was silent, mother dear. I saw that many things in my life hurt
you. I was sorry for you, and yet I could not help it. I was
powerless! I thought you could never get reconciled to us, that you
could never adopt our ideas as yours, but that you would suffer in
silence as you had suffered all your life long. It was hard."

"Andriusha made me understand many things!" she declared, in her
desire to turn her son's attention to his comrade.

"Yes, he told me about you," said Pavel, laughing.

"And Yegor, too! He is a countryman of mine, you know. Andriusha
wanted to teach me to read, also."

"And you got offended, and began to study by yourself in secret."

"Oh, so he found me out!" she exclaimed in embarrassment. Then
troubled by this abundance of joy which filled her heart she again
suggested to Pavel:

"Shan't we call him in? He went out on purpose, so as not to
disturb us. He has no mother."

"Andrey!" shouted Pavel, opening the door to the porch. "Where are you?"

"Here. I want to chop some wood."

"Never mind! There's time enough! Come here!"

"All right! I'm coming!"

But he did not come at once; and on entering the kitchen he said
in a housekeeper-like fashion:

"We must tell Nikolay to bring us wood. We have very little wood
left. You see, mother, how well Pavel looks? Instead of punishing
the rebels, the government only fattens them."

The mother laughed. Her heart was still leaping with joy. She was
fairly intoxicated with happiness. But a certain, cautious, chary
feeling already called forth in her the wish to see her son calm as
he always was. She wanted this first joy in her life to remain
fixed in her heart forever as live and strong as at first. In order
to guard against the diminution of her happiness; she hastened to
hide it, as a fowler secrets some rare bird that has happened to
fall into his hands.

"Let's have dinner! Pasha, haven't you had anything to eat yet?"
she asked with anxious haste.

"No. I learned yesterday from the warden that I was to be released,
and I couldn't eat or drink anything to-day."

"The first person I met here was Sizov," Pavel communicated to
Andrey. "He caught sight of me and crossed the street to greet me.
I told him that he ought to be more careful now, as I was a
dangerous man under the surveillance of the police. But he said:
'Never mind!' and you ought to have heard him inquire about his
nephew! 'Did Fedor conduct himself properly in prison?' I wanted
to know what is meant by proper behavior in prison, and he declared:
'Well, did he blab anything he shouldn't have against his comrades?'
And when I told him that Fedya was an honest and wise young man, he
stroked his beard and declared proudly: 'We, the Sizovs, have no
trash in our family.'"

"He's a brainy old man!" said the Little Russian, nodding his head.
"We often have talks with him. He's a fine peasant. Will they
let Fedya out soon?"

"Yes, one of these days, I suppose. They'll let out all, I think.
They have no evidence except Isay's, and what can he say?"

The mother walked up and down the room, and looked at her son.
Andrey stood at the window with his hands clasped behind his back,
listening to Pavel's narrative. Pavel also paced up and down the
room. His beard had grown, and small ringlets of thin, dark hair
curled in a dense growth around his cheeks, softening the swarthy
color of his face. His dark eyes had their stern expression.

"Sit down!" said the mother, serving a hot dish.

At dinner Andrey told Pavel about Rybin. When he had concluded
Pavel exclaimed regretfully:

"If I had been home, I would not have let him go that way. What
did he take along with him? A feeling of discontent and a muddle
in his head!"

"Well," said Andrey, laughing, "when a man's grown to the age of
forty and has fought so long with the bears in his heart, it's hard
to make him over."

Pavel looked at him sternly and asked:

"Do you think it's impossible for enlightenment to destroy all the
rubbish that's been crammed into a man's brains?"

"Don't fly up into the air at once, Pavel! Your flight will knock
you up against the belfry tower and break your wings," said the
Little Russian in admonition.

And they started one of those discussions in which words were used
that were unintelligible to the mother. The dinner was already at
an end, but they still continued a vehement debate, flinging at each
other veritable rattling hailstones of big words. Sometimes their
language was simpler:

"We must keep straight on our path, turning neither to the right
nor to the left!" Pavel asserted firmly.

"And run headlong into millions of people who will regard us as
their enemies!"

"You can't avoid that!"

"And what, my dear sir, becomes of your enlightenment?"

The mother listened to the dispute, and understood that Pavel did
not care for the peasants, but that the Little Russian stood up for
them, and tried to show that the peasants, too, must be taught to
comprehend the good. She understood Andrey better, and he seemed to
her to be in the right; but every time he spoke she waited with
strained ears and bated breath for her son's answer to find out
whether the Little Russian had offended Pavel. But although they
shouted at the top of their voices, they gave each other no offense.

Occasionally the mother asked:

"Is it so, Pavel?"

And he answered with a smile:

"Yes, it's so."

"Say, my dear sir," the Little Russian said with a good-natured
sneer, "you have eaten well, but you have chewed your food up badly,
and a piece has remained sticking in your throat. You had better
gargle."

"Don't go fooling now!" said Pavel.

"I am as solemn as a funeral."

The mother laughed quietly and shook her head.



CHAPTER XV


Spring was rapidly drawing near; the snow melted and laid bare the
mud and the soot of the factory chimneys. Mud, mud! Wherever the
villagers looked--mud! Every day more mud! The entire village
seemed unwashed and dressed in rags and tatters. During the day the
water dripped monotonously from the roofs, and damp, weary exhalations
emanated from the gray walls of the houses. Toward night whitish
icicles glistened everywhere in dim outline. The sun appeared in
the heavens more frequently, and the brooks began to murmur hesitatingly
on their way to the marsh. At noon the throbbing song of spring
hopes hung tremblingly and caressingly over the village.

They were preparing to celebrate the first of May. Leaflets
appeared in the factory explaining the significance of this holiday,
and even the young men not affected by the propaganda said, as they
read them:

"Yes, we must arrange a holiday!"

Vyesovshchikov exclaimed with a sullen grin:

"It's time! Time we stopped playing hide and seek!"

Fedya Mazin was in high spirits. He had grown very thin. With his
nervous, jerky gestures, and the trepidation in his speech, he was
like a caged lark. He was always with Yakob Somov, taciturn and
serious beyond his years.

Samoylov, who had grown still redder in prison, Vasily Gusev,
curly-haired Dragunov, and a number of others argued that it was
necessary to come out armed, but Pavel and the Little Russian, Somov,
and others said it was not.

Yegor always came tired, perspiring, short of breath, but always joking.

"The work of changing the present order of things, comrades, is a
great work, but in order to advance it more rapidly, I must buy
myself a pair of boots!" he said, pointing to his wet, torn shoes.
"My overshoes, too, are torn beyond the hope of redemption, and I
get my feet wet every day. I have no intention of migrating from
the earth even to the nearest planet before we have publicly and
openly renounced the old order of things; and I am therefore
absolutely opposed to comrade Samoylov's motion for an armed
demonstration. I amend the motion to read that I be armed with a
pair of strong boots, inasmuch as I am profoundly convinced that
this will be of greater service for the ultimate triumph of
socialism than even a grand exhibition of fisticuffs and black eyes!"

In the same playfully pretentious language, he told the workingmen
the story of how in various foreign countries the people strove to
lighten the burden of their lives. The mother loved to listen to
his tales, and carried away a strange impression from them. She
conceived the shrewdest enemies of the people, those who deceived
them most frequently and most cruelly, as little, big-bellied,
red-faced creatures, unprincipled and greedy, cunning and heartless.
When life was hard for them under the domination of the czars, they
would incite the common people against the ruler; and when the
people arose and wrested the power from him, these little creatures
got it into their own hands by deceit, and drove the people off to
their holes; and if the people remonstrated, they killed them by the
hundreds and thousands.

Once she summoned up courage and told him of the picture she had
formed of life from his tales, and asked him:

"Is it so, Yegor Ivanovich?"

He burst into a guffaw, turned up his eyes, gasped for breath, and
rubbed his chest.

"Exactly, granny! You caught the idea to a dot! Yes, yes! You've
placed some ornaments on the canvas of history, you've added some
flourishes, but that does not interfere with the correctness of the
whole. It's these very little, pot-bellied creatures who are the
chief sinners and deceivers and the most poisonous insects that
harass the human race. The Frenchmen call them 'bourgeois.'
Remember that word, dear granny--bourgeois! Brr! How they chew
us and grind us and suck the life out of us!"

"The rich, you mean?"

"Yes, the rich. And that's their misfortune. You see, if you keep
adding copper bit by bit to a child's food, you prevent the growth
of its bones, and he'll be a dwarf; and if from his youth up you
poison a man with gold, you deaden his soul."

Once, speaking about Yegor, Pavel said:

"Do you know, Andrey, the people whose hearts are always aching
are the ones who joke most?"

The Little Russian was silent a while, and then answered, blinking
his eyes:

"No, that's not true. If it were, then the whole of Russia would
split its sides with laughter."

Natasha made her appearance again. She, too, had been in prison,
in another city, but she had not changed. The mother noticed that
in her presence the Little Russian grew more cheerful, was full of
jokes, poked fun at everybody, and kept her laughing merrily. But
after she had left he would whistle his endless songs sadly, and
pace up and down the room for a long time, wearily dragging his feet
along the floor.

Sashenka came running in frequently, always gloomy, always in haste,
and for some reason more and more angular and stiff. Once when
Pavel accompanied her out onto the porch, the mother overheard their
abrupt conversation.

"Will you carry the banner?" the girl asked in a low voice.

"Yes."

"Is it settled?"

"Yes, it's my right."

"To prison again?" Pavel was silent. "Is it not possible for you--"
She stopped.

"What?"

"To give it up to somebody else?"

"No!" he said aloud.

"Think of it! You're a man of such influence; you are so much liked
--you and Nakhodka are the two foremost revolutionary workers here.
Think how much you could accomplish for the cause of freedom! You
know that for this they'll send you off far, far, and for a long time!"

Nilovna thought she heard in the girl's voice the familiar sound of
fear and anguish, and her words fell upon the mother's heart like
heavy, icy drops of water.

"No, I have made up my mind. Nothing can make me give it up!"

"Not even if I beg you--if I----"

Pavel suddenly began to speak rapidly with a peculiar sternness.

"You ought not to speak that way. Why you? You ought not!"

"I am a human being!" she said in an undertone.

"A good human being, too!" he said also in an undertone, and in a
peculiar voice, as if unable to catch his breath. "You are a dear
human being to me, yes! And that's why--why you mustn't talk that way!"

"Good-by!" said the girl.

The mother heard the sound of her departing footsteps, and knew that
she was walking away very fast, nay, almost running. Pavel followed
her into the yard.

A heavy oppressive fear fell like a load on the mother's breast.
She did not understand what they had been talking about, but she
felt that a new misfortune was in store for her, a great and sad
misfortune. And her thoughts halted at the question, "What does
he want to do?" Her thoughts halted, and were driven into her
brain like a nail. She stood in the kitchen by the oven, and
looked through the window into the profound, starry heaven.

Pavel walked in from the yard with Andrey, and the Little Russian
said, shaking his head:

"Oh, Isay, Isay! What's to be done with him?"

"We must advise him to give up his project," said Pavel glumly.

"Then he'll hand over those who speak to him to the authorities,"
said the Little Russian, flinging his hat away in a corner.

"Pasha, what do you want to do?" asked the mother, drooping her head.

"When? Now?"

"The first of May--the first of May."

"Aha!" exclaimed Pavel, lowering his voice. "You heard! I am
going to carry our banner. I will march with it at the head of
the procession. I suppose they'll put me in prison for it again."

The mother's eyes began to burn. An unpleasant, dry feeling came
into her mouth. Pavel took her hand and stroked it.

"I must do it! Please understand me! It is my happiness!"

"I'm not saying anything," she answered, slowly raising her head;
but when her eyes met the resolute gleam in his, she again lowered
it. He released her hand, and with a sigh said reproachfully:

"You oughtn't to be grieved. You ought to feel rejoiced. When are
we going to have mothers who will rejoice in sending their children
even to death?"

"Hopp! Hopp!" mumbled the Little Russian. "How you gallop away!"

"Why; do I say anything to you?" the mother repeated. "I don't
interfere with you. And if I'm sorry for you--well, that's a
mother's way."

Pavel drew away from her, and she heard his sharp, harsh words:

"There is a love that interferes with a man's very life."

She began to tremble, and fearing that he might deal another blow
at her heart by saying something stern, she rejoined quickly:

"Don't, Pasha! Why should you? I understand. You can't act
otherwise, you must do it for your comrades."

"No!" he replied. "I am doing it for myself. For their sake I can
go without carrying the banner, but I'm going to do it!"

Andrey stationed himself in the doorway. It was too low for him,
and he had to bend his knees oddly. He stood there as in a frame,
one shoulder leaning against the jamb, his head and other shoulder
thrust forward.

"I wish you would stop palavering, my dear sir," he said with a
frown, fixing his protuberant eyes on Pavel's face. He looked
like a lizard in the crevice of a stone wall.

The mother was overcome with a desire to weep, but she did not
want her son to see her tears, and suddenly mumbled: "Oh, dear!--
I forgot--" and walked out to the porch. There, her head in a
corner, she wept noiselessly; and her copious tears weakened her,
as though blood oozed from her heart along with them.