Mark Rutherford - "Pages from a Journal with Other Papers"

Various editors - "The New Hacker's Dictionary version 4.2.2"

Henry Handel Richardson - "Maurice Guest"

Thomas Belt - "The Naturalist in Nicaragua"

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 incredulously regarded Sofya, who was searching about for
a place into which to drop her cigarette stump, and finally threw it
in a flowerpot.

"That'll spoil the flowers," the mother remarked mechanically.

"Excuse me," said Sofya simply. "Nikolay always tells me the same
thing." She picked up the stump and threw it out of the window.
The mother looked at her in embarrassment, and said guiltily:

"You must excuse me. I said it without thinking. Is it in my place
to teach you?"

"Why not? Why not teach me, if I'm a sloven?" Sofya calmly queried
with a shrug. "I know it; but I always forget--the worse for me.
It's an ugly habit--to throw cigarette stumps any and everywhere,
and to litter up places with ashes--particularly in a woman.
Cleanliness in a room is the result of work, and all work ought to
be respected. Is the coffee ready? Thank you! Why one cup? Won't
you have any?" Suddenly seizing the mother by the shoulder, she
drew her to herself, and looking into her eyes asked in surprise:
"Why, are you embarrassed?"

The mother answered with a smile:

"I just blamed you for throwing the cigarette stump away--does that
look as if I were embarrassed?" Her surprise was unconcealed. "I
came to your house only yesterday, but I behave as if I were at
home, and as if I had known you a long time. I'm afraid of nothing;
I say anything. I even find fault."

"That's the way it ought to be."

"My head's in a whirl. I seem to be a stranger to myself. Formerly
I didn't dare speak out from my heart until I'd been with a person a
long, long time. And now my heart is always open, and I at once say
things I wouldn't have dreamed of before, and a lot of things, too."
Sofya lit another cigarette, turning the kind glance of her gray
eyes on the mother. "Yes, you speak of arranging an escape. But
how will he be able to live as a fugitive?" The mother finally gave
expression to the thought that was agitating her.

"That's a trifle," Sofya remarked, pouring out a cup of coffee for
herself. "He'll live as scores of other fugitives live. I just met
one, and saw him off. Another very valuable man, who worked for the
movement in the south. He was exiled for five years, but remained
only three and a half months. That's why I look such a grande dame.
Do you think I always dress this way? I can't bear this fine toggery,
this sumptuous rustle. A human being is simple by nature, and should
dress simply--beautifully but simply."

The mother looked at her fixedly, smiled, and shaking her head
meditatively said:

"No, it seems that day, the first of May, has changed me. I feel
awkward somehow or other, as if I were walking on two roads at the
same time. At one moment I understand everything; the next moment I
am plunged into a mist. Here are you! I see you a lady; you occupy
yourself with this movement, you know Pasha, and you esteem him.
Thank you!"

"Why, you ought to be thanked!" Sofya laughed.

"I? I didn't teach him about the movement," the mother said with a
sigh. "As I speak now," she continued stubbornly, "everything seems
simple and near. Then, all of a sudden, I cannot understand this
simplicity. Again, I'm calm. In a second I grow fearful, because I
AM calm. I always used to be afraid, my whole life long; but now
that there's a great deal to be afraid of, I have very little fear.
Why is it? I cannot understand." She stopped, at a loss for words.
Sofya looked at her seriously, and waited; but seeing that the
mother was agitated, unable to find the expression she wanted, she
herself took up the conversation.

"A time will come when you'll understand everything. The chief
thing that gives a person power and faith in himself is when he
begins to love a certain cause with all his heart, and knows it is
a good cause of use to everybody. There IS such a love. There's
everything. There's no human being too mean to love. But it's time
for me to be getting out of all this magnificence."

Putting the stump of her cigarette in the saucer, she shook her
head. Her golden hair fell back in thick waves. She walked away
smiling. The mother followed her with her eyes, sighed, and looked
around. Her thoughts came to a halt, and in a half-drowsy,
oppressive condition of quiet, she began to get the dishes together.

At four o'clock Nikolay appeared. Then they dined. Sofya, laughing
at times, told how she met and concealed the fugitive, how she
feared the spies, and saw one in every person she met, and how
comically the fugitive conducted himself. Something in her tone
reminded the mother of the boasting of a workingman who had
completed a difficult piece of work to his own satisfaction. She
was now dressed in a flowing, dove-colored robe, which fell from her
shoulders to her feet in warm waves. The effect was soft and
noiseless. She appeared to be taller in this dress; her eyes seemed
darker, and her movements less nervous.

"Now, Sofya," said Nikolay after dinner, "here's another job for
you. You know we undertook to publish a newspaper for the village.
But our connection with the people there was broken, thanks to the
latest arrests. No one but Pelagueya Nilovna can show us the man
who will undertake the distribution of the newspapers. You go with
her. Do it as soon as possible."

"Very well," said Sofya. "We'll go, Pelagueya Nilovna."

"Yes, we'll go."

"Is it far?"

"About fifty miles."

"Splendid! And now I'm going to play a little. Do you mind
listening to music, Pelagueya Nilovna?"

"Don't bother about me. Act as if I weren't here," said the mother,
seating herself in the corner of the sofa. She saw that the brother
and the sister went on with their affairs without giving heed to her;
yet, at the same time, she seemed involuntarily to mix in their
conversation, imperceptibly drawn into it by them.

"Listen to this, Nikolay. It's by Grieg. I brought it to-day.
Shut the window."

She opened the piano, and struck the keys lightly with her left
hand. The strings sang out a thick, juicy melody. Another note,
breathing a deep, full breath, joined itself to the first, and
together they formed a vast fullness of sound that trembled beneath
its own weight. Strange, limpid notes rang out from under the
fingers of her right hand, and darted off in an alarming flight,
swaying and rocking and beating against one another like a swarm of
frightened birds. And in the dark background the low notes sang in
measured, harmonious cadence like the waves of the sea exhausted by
the storm. Some one cried out, a loud, agitated, woeful cry of
rebellion, questioned and appealed in impotent anguish, and, losing
hope, grew silent; and then again sang his rueful plaints, now
resonant and clear, now subdued and dejected. In response to this
song came the thick waves of dark sound, broad and resonant,
indifferent and hopeless. They drowned by their depth and force the
swarm of ringing wails; questions, appeals, groans blended in the
alarming song. At times the music seemed to take a desperate upward
flight, sobbing and lamenting, and again precipitated itself, crept
low, swung hither and thither on the dense, vibratory current of
bass notes, foundered, and disappeared in them; and once more
breaking through to an even cadence, in a hopeless, calm rumble, it
grew in volume, pealed forth, and melted and dissolved in the broad
flourish of humid notes--which continued to sigh with equal force
and calmness, never wearying.

At first the sounds failed to touch the mother. They were
incomprehensible to her, nothing but a ringing chaos. Her ear
could not gather a melody from the intricate mass of notes. Half
asleep she looked at Nikolay sitting with his feet crossed under
him at the other end of the long sofa, and at the severe profile
of Sofya with her head enveloped in a mass of golden hair. The
sun shone into the room. A single ray, trembling pensively, at
first lighted up her hair and shoulder, then settled upon the keys
of the piano, and quivered under the pressure of her fingers. The
branches of the acacia rocked to and fro outside the window. The
room became music-filled, and unawares to her, the mother's heart
was stirred. Three notes of nearly the same pitch, resonant as the
voice of Fedya Mazin, sparkled in the stream of sounds, like three
silvery fish in a brook. At times another note united with these
in a simple song, which enfolded the heart in a kind yet sad caress.
She began to watch for them, to await their warble, and she heard
only their music, distinguished from the tumultuous chaos of sound,
to which her ears gradually became deaf.

And for some reason there rose before her out of the obscure depths
of her past, wrongs long forgotten.

Once her husband came home late, extremely intoxicated. He grasped
her hand, threw her from the bed to the floor, kicked her in the
side with his foot, and said:

"Get out! I'm sick of you! Get out!"

In order to protect herself from his blows, she quickly gathered
her two-year-old son into her arms, and kneeling covered herself
with his body as with a shield. He cried, struggled in her arms,
frightened, naked, and warm.

"Get out!" bellowed her husband.

She jumped to her feet, rushed into the kitchen, threw a jacket
over her shoulders, wrapped the baby in a shawl, and silently,
without outcries or complaints, barefoot, in nothing but a shirt
under her jacket, walked out into the street. It was in the month
of May, and the night was fresh. The cold, damp dust of the street
stuck to her feet, and got between her toes. The child wept and
struggled. She opened her breast, pressed her son to her body, and
pursued by fear walked down the street, quietly lulling the baby.

It began to grow light. She was afraid and ashamed lest some one
come out on the street and see her half naked. She turned toward
the marsh, and sat down on the ground under a thick group of aspens.
She sat there for a long time, embraced by the night, motionless,
looking into the darkness with wide-open eyes, and timidly wailing
a lullaby--a lullaby for her baby, which had fallen asleep, and a
lullaby for her outraged heart.

A gray bird darted over her head, and flew far away. It awakened
her, and brought her to her feet. Then, shivering with cold, she
walked home to confront the horror of blows and new insults.

For the last time a heavy and resonant chord heaved a deep breath,
indifferent and cold; it sighed and died away.

Sofya turned around, and asked her brother softly:

"Did you like it?"

"Very much," he said, nodding his head. "Very much."

Sofya looked at the mother's face, but said nothing.

"They say," said Nikolay thoughtfully, throwing himself deeper
back on the sofa, "that you should listen to music without thinking.
But I can't."

"Nor can I," said Sofya, striking a melodious chord.

"I listened, and it seemed to me that people were putting their
questions to nature, that they grieved and groaned, and protested
angrily, and shouted, 'Why?' Nature does not answer, but goes on
calmly creating, incessantly, forever. In her silence is heard her
answer: 'I do not know.'"

The mother listened to Nikolay's quiet words without understanding
them, and without desiring to understand. Her bosom echoed with her
reminiscences, and she wanted more music. Side by side with her
memories the thought unfolded itself before her: "Here live people,
a brother and sister, in friendship; they live peacefully and calmly
--they have music and books--they don't swear at each other--they
don't drink whisky--they don't quarrel for a relish--they have no
desire to insult each other, the way all the people at the bottom do."

Sofya quickly lighted a cigarette; she smoked almost without intermission.

"This used to be the favorite piece of Kostya," she said, as a veil
of smoke quickly enveloped her. She again struck a low mournful
chord. "How I used to love to play for him! You remember how well
he translated music into language?" She paused and smiled. "How
sensitive he was! What fine feelings he had--so responsive to
everything--so fully a man!"

"She must be recalling memories of her husband," the mother noted,
"and she smiles!"

"How much happiness that man gave me!" said Sofya in a low voice,
accompanying her words with light sounds on the keys. "What a
capacity he had for living! He was always aglow with joy, buoyant,
childlike joy!"

"Childlike," repeated the mother to herself, and shook her head as
if agreeing with something.

"Ye-es," said Nikolay, pulling his beard, "his soul was always singing."

"When I played this piece for him the first time, he put it in these
words." Sofya turned her face to her brother, and slowly stretched
out her arms. Encircled with blue streaks of smoke, she spoke in a
low, rapturous voice. "In a barren sea of the far north, under the
gray canopy of the cold heavens, stands a lonely black island, an
unpeopled rock, covered with ice; the smoothly polished shore
descends abruptly into the gray, foaming billows. The transparently
blue blocks of ice inhospitably float on the shaking cold water and
press against the dark rock of the island. Their knocking resounds
mournfully in the dead stillness of the barren sea. They have been
floating a long time on the bottomless depths, and the waves
splashing about them have quietly borne them toward the lonely rock
in the midst of the sea. The sound is grewsome as they break
against the shore and against one another, sadly inquiring: 'Why?'"

Sofya flung away the cigarette she had begun to smoke, turned to the
piano, and again began to play the ringing plaints, the plaints of
the lonely blocks of ice by the shore of the barren island in the
sea of the far north.

The mother was overcome with unendurable sadness as she listened to
the simple sketch. It blended strangely with her past, into which
her recollections kept boring deeper and deeper.

"In music one can hear everything," said Nikolay quietly.

Sofya turned toward the mother, and asked:

"Do you mind my noise?"

The mother was unable to restrain her slight irritation.

"I told you not to pay any attention to me. I sit here and listen
and think about myself."

"No, you ought to understand," said Sofya. "A woman can't help
understanding music, especially when in grief."

She struck the keys powerfully, and a loud shout went forth, as if
some one had suddenly heard horrible news, which pierced him to the
heart, and wrenched from him this troubled sound. Young voices
trembled in affright, people rushed about in haste, pellmell. Again
a loud, angry voice shouted out, drowning all other sounds. Apparently
a catastrophe had occurred, in which the chief source of pain was
an affront offered to some one. It evoked not complaints, but wrath.
Then some kindly and powerful person appeared, who began to sing,
just like Andrey, a simple beautiful song, a song of exhortation
and summons to himself. The voices of the bass notes grumbled in
a dull, offended tone.

Sofya played a long time. The music disquieted the mother, and
aroused in her a desire to ask of what it was speaking. Indistinct
sensations and thoughts passed through her mind in quick succession.
Sadness and anxiety gave place to moments of calm joy. A swarm of
unseen birds seemed to be flying about in the room, penetrating
everywhere, touching the heart with caressing wings, soothing and at
the same time alarming it. The feelings in the mother's breast
could not be fixed in words. They emboldened her heart with
perplexed hopes, they fondled it in a fresh and firm embrace.

A kindly impulse came to her to say something good both to these two
persons and to all people in general. She smiled softly,
intoxicated by the music, feeling herself capable of doing work
helpful to the brother and sister. Her eyes roved about in search
of something to do for them. She saw nothing but to walk out into
the kitchen quietly, and prepare the samovar. But this did not
satisfy her desire. It struggled stubbornly in her breast, and as
she poured out the tea she began to speak excitedly with an agitated
smile. She seemed to bestow the words as a warm caress impartially
on Sofya and Nikolay and on herself.

"We people at the bottom feel everything; but it is hard for us to
speak out our hearts. Our thoughts float about in us. We are
ashamed because, although we understand, we are not able to express
them; and often from shame we are angry at our thoughts, and at
those who inspire them. We drive them away from ourselves. For
life, you see, is so troublesome. From all sides we get blows and
beatings; we want rest, and there come the thoughts that rouse our
souls and demand things of us."

Nikolay listened, and nodded his head, rubbing his eyeglasses
briskly, while Sofya looked at her, her large eyes wide open and the
forgotten cigarette burning to ashes. She sat half turned from the
piano, supple and shapely, at times touching the keys lightly with
the slender fingers of her right hand. The pensive chord blended
delicately with the speech of the mother, as she quickly invested
her new feelings and thoughts in simple, hearty words.

"Now I am able to say something about myself, about my people,
because I understand life. I began to understand it when I was
able to make comparisons. Before that time there was nobody to
compare myself with. In our state, you see, all lead the same
life, and now that I see how others live, I look back at my life,
and the recollection is hard and bitter. But it is impossible to
return, and even if you could, you wouldn't find your youth again.
And I think I understand a great deal. Here, I am looking at you,
and I recollect all your people whom I've seen." She lowered her
voice and continued: "Maybe I don't say things right, and I needn't
say them, because you know them yourself; but I'm just speaking for
myself. You at once set me alongside of you. You don't need anything
of me; you can't make use of me; you can't get any enjoyment out of
me, I know it. And day after day my heart grows, thank God! It
grows in goodness, and I wish good for everybody. This is my thanks
that I'm saying to you." Tears of happy gratitude affected her voice,
and looking at them with a smile in her eyes, she went on: "I want to
open my heart before you, so that you may see how I wish your welfare."

"We see it," said Nikolay in a low voice. "You're making a holiday
for us."

"What do you think I imagined?" the mother asked with a smile and
lowering her voice. "I imagined I found a treasure, and became
rich, and I could endow everybody. Maybe it's only my stupidity
that's run away with me."

"Don't speak like that," said Sofya seriously. "You mustn't be ashamed."

The mother began to speak again, telling Sofya and Nikolay of
herself, her poor life, her wrongs, and patient sufferings.
Suddenly she stopped in her narrative. It seemed to her that she
was turning aside, away from herself, and speaking about somebody
else. In simple words, without malice, with a sad smile on her
lips, she drew the monotonous gray sketch of sorrowful days. She
enumerated the beatings she had received from her husband; and
herself marveled at the trifling causes that led to them and her own
inability to avert them.

The brother and sister listened to her in attentive silence, impressed
by the deep significance of the unadorned story of a human being,
who was regarded as cattle are regarded, and who, without a murmur,
for a long time felt herself to be that which she was held to be.
It seemed to them as if thousands, nay millions, of lives spoke
through her mouth. Her existence had been commonplace and simple;
but such is the simple, ordinary existence of multitudes, and her
story, assuming ever larger proportions in their eyes, took on the
significance of a symbol. Nikolay, his elbows on the table, and
his head leaning on his hands, looked at her through his glasses
without moving, his eyes screwed up intently. Sofya flung herself
back on her chair. Sometimes she trembled, and at times muttered
to herself, shaking her head in disapproval. Her face grew paler.
Her eyes deepened.

"Once I thought myself unhappy. My life seemed a fever," said
Sofya, inclining her head. "That was when I was in exile. It was
in a small district town. There was nothing to do, nothing to think
about except myself. I swept all my misfortunes together into one
heap, and weighed them, from lack of anything better to do. Then I
quarreled with my father, whom I loved. I was expelled from the
gymnasium, and insulted--the prison, the treachery of a comrade near
to me, the arrest of my husband, again prison and exile, the death
of my husband. But all my misfortunes, and ten times their number,
are not worth a month of your life, Pelagueya Nilovna. Your torture
continued daily through years. From where do the people draw their
power to suffer?"

"They get used to it," responded the mother with a sigh.

"I thought I knew that life," said Nikolay softly. "But when I
hear it spoken of--not when my books, not when my incomplete
impressions speak about it, but she herself with a living tongue--
it is horrible. And the details are horrible, the inanities, the
seconds of which the years are made."

The conversation sped along, thoughtfully and quietly. It branched
out and embraced the whole of common life on all sides. The mother
became absorbed in her recollections. From her dim past she drew to
light each daily wrong, and gave a massive picture of the huge, dumb
horror in which her youth had been sunk. Finally she said:

"Oh! How I've been chattering to you! It's time for you to rest.
I'll never be able to tell you all."

The brother and sister took leave of her in silence. Nikolay seemed
to the mother to bow lower to her than ever before and to press her
hand more firmly. Sofya accompanied her to her room, and stopping
at the door said softly: "Now rest. I hope you have a good night."

Her voice blew a warm breath on the mother, and her gray eyes
embraced the mother's face in a caress. She took Sofya's hand and
pressing it in hers, answered: "Thank you! You are good people."



CHAPTER III


Three days passed in incessant conversations with Sofya and Nikolay.
The mother continued to recount tales of the past, which stubbornly
arose from the depths of her awakened soul, and disturbed even
herself. Her past demanded an explanation. The attention with
which the brother and sister listened to her opened her heart more
and more widely, freeing her from the narrow, dark cage of her
former life.

On the fourth day, early in the morning, she and Sofya appeared
before Nikolay as burgher women, poorly clad in worn chintz skirts
and blouses, with birchbark sacks on their shoulders, and canes in
their hands. This costume reduced Sofya's height and gave a yet
sterner appearance to her pale face.

"You look as if you had walked about monasteries all your life,"
observed Nikolay on taking leave of his sister, and pressed her hand
warmly. The mother again remarked the simplicity and calmness of
their relation to each other. It was hard for her to get used to
it. No kissing, no affectionate words passed between them; but they
behaved so sincerely, so amicably and solicitously toward each
other. In the life she had been accustomed to, people kissed a
great deal and uttered many sentimental words, but always bit at one
another like hungry dogs.

The women walked down the street in silence, reached the open
country, and strode on side by side along the wide beaten road
between a double row of birches.

"Won't you get tired?" the mother asked.

"Do you think I haven't done much walking? All this is an old
story to me."

With a merry smile, as if speaking of some glorious childhood
frolics, Sofya began to tell the mother of her revolutionary work.
She had had to live under a changed name, use counterfeit documents,
disguise herself in various costumes in order to hide from spies,
carry hundreds and hundreds of pounds of illegal books through
various cities, arrange escapes for comrades in exile, and escort
them abroad. She had had a printing press fixed up in her quarters,
and when on learning of it the gendarmes appeared to make a search,
she succeeded in a minute's time before their arrival in dressing
as a servant, and walking out of the house just as her guests were
entering at the gate. She met them there. Without an outer wrap,
a light kerchief on her head, a tin kerosene can in her hand, she
traversed the city from one end to the other in the biting cold of
a winter's day. Another time she had just arrived in a strange city
to pay a visit to friends. When she was already on the stairs
leading to their quarters, she noticed that a search was being
conducted in their apartments. To turn back was too late. Without
a second's hesitation she boldly rang the bell at the door of a
lower floor, and walked in with her traveling bag to unknown people.
She frankly explained the position she was in.