Frances Hodgson Burnett - "The Head of the House of Coombe"

Henryk Sienkiewicz - "Quo Vadis A Narrative of the Time of Nero"

Clara Ingram Judson - "Mary Jane: Her Book"

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




"You can hand me over to the gendarmes if you want to; but I don't
think you will," she said confidently.

The people were greatly frightened, and did not sleep the whole
night. Every minute they expected the sound of the gendarmes
knocking at the door. Nevertheless, they could not make up their
minds to deliver her over to them, and the next morning they had a
hearty laugh with her over the gendarmes.

And once, dressed as a nun, she traveled in the same railroad coach,
in fact, sat on the very same seat, with a spy, then in search of her.
He boasted of his skill, and told her how he was conducting his
search. He was certain she was riding on the same train as himself,
in a second-class coach; but at every stop, after walking out, he
came back saying: "Not to be seen. She must have gone to bed.
They, too, get tired. Their life is a hard one, just like ours."

The mother listening to her stories laughed, and regarded her
affectionately. Tall and dry, Sofya strode along the road lightly
and firmly, at an even gait. In her walk, her words, and the very
sound of her voice--although a bit dull, it was yet bold--in all her
straight and stolid figure, there was much of robust strength,
jovial daring, and thirst for space and freedom. Her eyes looked at
everything with a youthful glance. She constantly spied something
that gladdened her heart with childlike joy.

"See what a splendid pine!" she exclaimed, pointing out a tree
to the mother.

The mother looked and stopped. It was a pine neither higher nor
thicker than others.

"Ye-es, ye-es, a good tree," she said, smiling.

"Do you hear? A lark!" Sofya raised her head, and looked into
the blue expanse of the sky for the merry songster. Her gray eyes
flashed with a fond glance, and her body seemed to rise from the
ground to meet the music ringing from an unseen source in the
far-distant height. At times bending over, she plucked a field
flower, and with light touches of her slender, agile fingers, she
fondly stroked the quivering petals and hummed quietly and prettily.

Over them burned the kindly spring sun. The blue depths flashed
softly. At the sides of the road stretched a dark pine forest. The
fields were verdant, birds sang, and the thick, resinous atmosphere
stroked the face warmly and tenderly.

All this moved the mother's heart nearer to the woman with the
bright eyes and the bright soul; and, trying to keep even pace with
her, she involuntarily pressed close to Sofya, as if desiring to
draw into herself her hearty boldness and freshness.

"How young you are!" the mother sighed.

"I'm thirty-two years old already!"

Vlasova smiled. "I'm not talking about that. To judge by your
face, one would say you're older; but one wonders that your eyes,
your voice are so fresh, so springlike, as if you were a young girl.
Your life is so bard and troubled, yet your heart is smiling."

"The heart is smiling," repeated Sofya thoughtfully. "How well you
speak--simple and good. A hard life, you say? But I don't feel
that it is hard, and I cannot imagine a better, a more interesting
life than this."

"What pleases me more than anything else is to see how you all know
the roads to a human being's heart. Everything in a person opens
itself out to you without fear or caution--just so, all of itself,
the heart throws itself open to meet you. I'm thinking of all of
you. You overcome the evil in the world--overcome it absolutely."

"We shall be victorious, because we are with the working people,"
said Sofya with assurance. "Our power to work, our faith in the
victory of truth we obtain from you, from the people; and the people
is the inexhaustible source of spiritual and physical strength. In
the people are vested all possibilities, and with them everything is
attainable. It's necessary only to arouse their consciousness,
their soul, the great soul of a child, who is not given the liberty
to grow." She spoke softly and simply, and looked pensively before
her down the winding depths of the road, where a bright haze was
quivering.

Sofya's words awakened a complex feeling in the mother's heart. For
some reason she felt sorry for her. Her pity, however, was not
offensive; not bred of familiarity. She marveled that here was a
lady walking on foot and carrying a dangerous burden on her back.

"Who's going to reward you for your labors?"

Sofya answered the mother's thought with pride:

"We are already rewarded for everything. We have found a life that
satisfies us; we live broadly and fully, with all the power of our
souls. What else can we desire?"

Filling their lungs with the aromatic air, they paced along, not
swiftly, but at a good, round gait. The mother felt she was on a
pilgrimage. She recollected her childhood, the fine joy with which
she used to leave the village on holidays to go to a distant
monastery, where there was a wonder-working icon.

Sometimes Sofya would hum some new unfamiliar songs about the sky
and about love, or suddenly she would begin to recite poems about
the fields and forests and the Volga. The mother listened, a smile
on her swinging her head to the measure of the tune or involuntarily
yielding to the music. Her breast was pervaded by a soft, melancholy
warmth, like the atmosphere in a little old garden on a summer night.

On the third day they arrived at the village, and the mother inquired
of a peasant at work in the field where the tar works were. Soon
they were descending a steep woody path, on which the exposed roots
of the trees formed steps through a small, round glade, which was
choked up with coal and chips of wood caked with tar.

Outside a shack built of poles and branches, at a table formed
simply of three unplaned boards laid on a trestle stuck firmly into
the ground, sat Rybin, all blackened, his shirt open at his breast,
Yefim, and two other young men. They were just dining. Rybin was
the first to notice the women. Shading his eyes with his hand, he
waited in silence.

"How do you do, brother Mikhail?" shouted the mother from afar.

He arose and leisurely walked to meet them. When he recognized
the mother, he stopped and smiled and stroked his beard with his
black hand.

"We are on a pilgrimage," said the mother, approaching him. "And so
I thought I would stop in and see my brother. This is my friend Anna."

Proud of her resourcefulness she looked askance at Sofya's serious,
stern face.

"How are you?" said Rybin, smiling grimly. He shook her hand,
bowed to Sofya, and continued: "Don't lie. This isn't the city.
No need of lies. These are all our own people, good people."

Yefim, sitting at the table, looked sharply at the pilgrims, and
whispered something to his comrades. When the women walked up to
the table, he arose and silently bowed to them. His comrades didn't
stir, seeming to take no notice of the guests.

"We live here like monks," said Rybin, tapping the mother lightly
on the shoulder. "No one comes to us; our master is not in the
village; the mistress was taken to the hospital. And now I'm a sort
of superintendent. Sit down at the table. Maybe you're hungry.
Yefim, bring some milk."

Without hurrying, Yefim walked into the shack. The travelers
removed the sacks from their shoulders, and one of the men, a
tall, lank fellow, rose from the table to help them. Another
one, resting his elbows thoughtfully on the table, looked at them,
scratching his head and quietly humming a song.

The pungent odor of the fresh tar blended with the stifling smell
of decaying leaves dizzied the newcomers.

"This fellow is Yakob," said Rybin, pointing to the tall man, "and
that one Ignaty. Well, how's your son?"

"He's in prison," the mother sighed.

"In prison again? He likes it, I suppose."

Ignaty stopped humming; Yakob took the staff from the mother's hand,
and said:

"Sit down, little mother."

"Yes, why don't you sit down?" Rybin extended the invitation to Sofya.

She sat down on the stump of a tree, scrutinizing Rybin seriously
and attentively.

"When did they take him?" asked Rybin, sitting down opposite the
mother, and shaking his head. "You've bad luck, Nilovna."

"Oh, well!"

"You're getting used to it?"

"I'm not used to it, but I see it's not to be helped."

"That's right. Well, tell us the story."

Yefim brought a pitcher of milk, took a cup from the table, rinsed it
with water, and after filling it shoved it across the table to Sofya.
He moved about noiselessly, listening to the mother's narrative.
When the mother had concluded her short account, all were silent
for a moment, looking at one another. Ignaty, sitting at the table,
drew a pattern with his nails on the boards. Yefim stood behind
Rybin, resting his elbows on his shoulders. Yakob leaned against
the trunk of a tree, his hands folded over his chest, his head
inclined. Sofya observed the peasants from the corner of her eye.

"Yes," Rybin drawled sullenly. "That's the course of action they've
decided on--to go out openly."

"If we were to arrange such a parade here," said Yefim, with a surly
smile, "they'd hack the peasants to death."

"They certainly would," Ignaty assented, nodding his head. "No,
I'll go to the factory. It's better there."

"You say Pavel's going to be tried?" asked Rybin.

"Yes. They've decided on a trial."

"Well, what'll he get? Have you heard?"

"Hard labor, or exile to Siberia for life," answered the mother
softly. The three young men simultaneously turned their look on
her, and Rybin, lowering his head, asked slowly:

"And when he got this affair up, did he know what was in store for him?"

"I don't know. I suppose he did."

"He did," said Sofya aloud.

All were silent, motionless, as if congealed by one cold thought.

"So," continued Rybin slowly and gravely. "I, too, think he knew.
A serious man looks before he leaps. There, boys, you see, the man
knew that he might be struck with a bayonet, or exiled to hard labor;
but he went. He felt it was necessary for him to go, and he went.
If his mother had lain across his path, he would have stepped over
her body and gone his way. Wouldn't he have stepped over you, Nilovna?"

"He would," said the mother shuddering and looking around. She
heaved a heavy sigh. Sofya silently stroked her hand.

"There's a man for you!" said Rybin in a subdued voice, his dark
eyes roving about the company. They all became silent again. The
thin rays of the sun trembled like golden ribbons in the thick,
odorous atmosphere. Somewhere a crow cawed with bold assurance.
The mother looked around, troubled by her recollections of the first
of May, and grieving for her son and Andrey.

Broken barrels lay about in confusion in the small, crowded glade.
Uprooted stumps stretched out their dead, scraggy roots, and chips
of wood littered the ground. Dense oaks and birches encircled the
clearing, and drooped over it slightly on all sides as if desiring
to sweep away and destroy this offensive rubbish and dirt.

Suddenly Yakob moved forward from the tree, stepped to one side,
stopped, and shaking his head observed dryly:

"So, when we're in the army with Yefim, it's on such men as Pavel
Mikhaylovich that they'll set us."

"Against whom did you think they'd make you go?" retorted Rybin
glumly. "They choke us with our own hands. That's where the
jugglery comes in."

"I'll join the army all the same," announced Yefim obstinately.

"Who's trying to dissuade you?" exclaimed Ignaty. "Go!" He looked
Yefim straight in the face, and said with a smile: "If you're going
to shoot at me, aim at the head. Don't just wound me; kill me at once."

"I hear what you're saying," Yefim replied sharply.

"Listen, boys," said Rybin, letting his glance stray about the little
assembly with a deliberate, grave gesture of his raised hand. "Here's
a woman," pointing to the mother, "whose son is surely done for now."

"Why are you saying this?" the mother asked in a low, sorrowful voice.

"It's necessary," he answered sullenly. "It's necessary that your
hair shouldn't turn gray in vain, that your heart shouldn't ache for
nothing. Behold, boys! She's lost her son, but what of it? Has it
killed her? Nilovna, did you bring books?"

The mother looked at him, and after a pause said:

"I did."

"That's it," said Rybin, striking the table with the palm of his hand.
"I knew it at once when I saw you. Why need you have come here, if
not for that?" He again measured the young men with his eyes, and
continued, solemnly knitting his eyebrows: "Do you see? They thrust
the son out of the ranks, and the mother drops into his place."

He suddenly struck the table with both hands, and straightening
himself said with an air that seemed to augur ill:

"Those----" --here he flung out a terrible oath-- "those people
don't know what their blind hands are sowing. They WILL know when
our power is complete and we begin to mow down their cursed grass.
They'll know it then!"

The mother was frightened. She looked at him, and saw that Mikhail's
face had changed greatly. He had grown thinner; his beard was
roughened, and his cheek bones seemed to have sharpened. The bluish
whites of his eyes were threaded with thin red fibers, as if he had
gone without sleep for a long time. His nose, less fleshy than
formerly, had acquired a rapacious crook. His open, tar-saturated
collar, attached to a shirt that had once been red, exposed his dry
collar bones and the thick black hair on his breast. About his whole
figure there was something more tragic than before. Red sparks
seemed to fly from his inflamed eyes and light the lean, dark face
with the fire of unconquerable, melancholy rage. Sofya paled and
was silent, her gaze riveted on the peasant. Ignaty shook his head
and screwed up his eyes, and Yakob, standing at the wall again,
angrily tore splinters from the boards with his blackened fingers.
Yefim, behind the mother, slowly paced up and down along the length
of the table.

"The other day," continued Rybin, "a government official called me
up, and, says he, 'You blackguard, what did you say to the priest?'
'Why am I a blackguard?' I say. 'I earn my bread in the sweat of my
brow, and I don't do anything bad to people.' That's what I said.
He bawled out at me, and hit me in the face. For three days and
three nights I sat in the lockup." Rybin grew infuriated. "That's
the way you speak to the people, is it?" he cried. "Don't expect
pardon, you devils. My wrong will be avenged, if not by me, then by
another, if not on you, then on your children. Remember! The greed
in your breasts has harrowed the people with iron claws. You have
sowed malice; don't expect mercy!"

The wrath in Rybin seethed and bubbled; his voice shook with sounds
that frightened the mother.

"And what had I said to the priest?" he continued in a lighter tone.
"After the village assembly he sits with the peasants in the street,
and tells them something. 'The people are a flock,' says he, 'and
they always need a shepherd.' And I joke. 'If,' I say, 'they make
the fox the chief in the forest, there'll be lots of feathers but no
birds.' He looks at me sidewise and speaks about how the people
ought to be patient and pray more to God to give them the power to
be patient. And I say that the people pray, but evidently God has
no time, because he doesn't listen to them. The priest begins to
cavil with me as to what prayers I pray. I tell him I use one
prayer, like all the people, 'O Lord, teach the masters to carry
bricks, eat stones, and spit wood.' He wouldn't even let me finish
my sentence. --Are you a lady?" Rybin asked Sofya, suddenly
breaking off his story.

"Why do you think I'm a lady?" she asked quickly, startled by the
unexpectedness of his question.

"Why?" laughed Rybin. "That's the star under which you were born.
That's why. You think a chintz kerchief can conceal the blot of the
nobleman from the eyes of the people? We'll recognize a priest even
if he's wrapped in sackcloth. Here, for instance, you put your
elbows on a wet table, and you started and frowned. Besides, your
back is too straight for a working woman."

Fearing he would insult Sofya with his heavy voice and his raillery,
the mother said quickly and sternly:

"She's my friend, Mikhail Ivanovich. She's a good woman. Working
in this movement has turned her hair gray. You're not very----"

Rybin fetched a deep breath.

"Why, was what I said insulting?"

Sofya looked at him dryly and queried:

"You wanted to say something to me?"

"I? Not long ago a new man came here, a cousin of Yakob. He's
sick with consumption; but he's learned a thing or two. Shall
we call him?"

"Call him! Why not?" answered Sofya.

Rybin looked at her, screwing up his eyes.

"Yefim," he said in a lowered voice, "you go over to him, and tell
him to come here in the evening."

Yefim went into the shack to get his cap; then silently, without
looking at anybody, he walked off at a leisurely pace and
disappeared in the woods. Rybin nodded his bead in the direction he
was going, saying dully:

"He's suffering torments. He's stubborn. He has to go into the
army, he and Yakob, here. Yakob simply says, 'I can't.' And that
fellow can't either; but he wants to; he has an object in view. He
thinks he can stir the soldiers. My opinion is, you can't break
through a wall with your forehead. Bayonets in their hands, off
they go--where? They don't see--they're going against themselves.
Yes, he's suffering. And Ignaty worries him uselessly."

"No, not at all!" said Ignaty. He knit his eyebrows, and kept his
eyes turned away from Rybin. "They'll change him, and he'll become
just like all the other soldiers."

"No, hardly," Rybin answered meditatively. "But, of course, it's
better to run away from the army. Russia is large. Where will you
find the fellow? He gets himself a passport, and goes from village
to village."

"That's what I'm going to do, too," remarked Yakob, tapping his foot
with a chip of wood. "Once you've made up your mind to go against
the government, go straight."

The conversation dropped off. The bees and wasps circled busily
around humming in the stifling atmosphere. The birds chirped, and
somewhere at a distance a song was heard straying through the
fields. After a pause Rybin said:

"Well, we've got to get to work. Do you want to rest? There are
boards inside the shanty. Pick up some dry leaves for them, Yakob.
And you, mother, give us the books. Where are they?"

The mother and Sofya began to untie their sacks. Rybin bent down
over them, and said with satisfaction:

"That's it! Well, well--not a few, I see. Have you been in this
business a long time? What's your name?" he turned toward Sofya.

"Anna Ivanovna. Twelve years. Why?"

"Nothing."

"Have you been in prison?"

"I have."

He was silent, taking a pile of books in his hand, and said to her,
showing his teeth:

"Don't take offense at the way I speak. A peasant and a nobleman
are like tar and water. It's hard for them to mix. They jump away
from each other."

"I'm not a lady. I'm a human being," Sofya retorted with a quiet laugh.

"That may be. It's hard for me to believe it; but they say it happens.
They say that a dog was once a wolf. Now I'll hide these books."

Ignaty and Yakob walked up to him, and both stretched out their hands.

"Give us some."

"Are they all the same?" Rybin asked of Sofya.

"No, they're different. There's a newspaper here, too."

"Oh!"

The three men quickly walked into the shack.

"The peasant is on fire," said the mother in a low voice, looking
after Rybin thoughtfully.

"Yes," answered Sofya. "I've never seen such a face as his--such a
martyrlike face. Let's go inside, too. I want to look at them."

When the women reached the door they found the men already engrossed
in the newspapers. Ignaty was sitting on the board, the newspaper
spread on his knees, and his fingers run through his hair. He
raised his head, gave the women a rapid glance, and bent over his
paper again. Rybin was standing to let the ray of sun that penetrated
a chink in the roof fall on his paper. He moved his lips as he read.
Ignaty read kneeling, with his breast against the edge of the board.

Sofya felt the eagerness of the men for the word of truth. Her face
brightened with a joyful smile. Walking carefully over to a corner,
she sat down next to the mother, her arm on the mother's shoulder,
and gazed about silently.

"Uncle Mikhail, they're rough on us peasants," muttered Yakob
without turning.

Rybin looked around at him, and answered with a smile:

"For love of us. He who loves does not insult, no matter what he says."

Ignaty drew a deep breath, raised his head, smiled satirically, and
closing his eyes said with a scowl:

"Here it says: 'The peasant has ceased to be a human being.' Of
course he has." Over his simple, open face glided a shadow of offense.
"Well, try to wear my skin for a day or so, and turn around in it,
and then we'll see what you'll be like, you wiseacre, you!"

"I'm going to lie down," said the mother quietly. "I got tired,
after all. My head is going around. And you?" she asked Sofya.

"I don't want to."

The mother stretched herself on the board and soon fell asleep.
Sofya sat over her looking at the people reading. When the bees
buzzed about the mother's face, she solicitously drove them away.

Rybin came up and asked:

"Is she asleep?"

"Yes."

He was silent for a moment, looked fixedly at the calm sleeping face,
and said softly:

"She is probably the first mother who has followed in the footsteps
of her son--the first."

"Let's not disturb her; let's go away," suggested Sofya.

"Well, we have to work. I'd like to have a chat with you; but we'll
put it off until evening. Come, boys."



CHAPTER IV


The three men walked away, leaving Sofya in the cabin. Then from
a distance came the sound of the ax blows, the echo straying through
the foliage. In a half-dreamy condition of repose, intoxicated with
the spicy odor of the forest, Sofya sat just outside the door,
humming a song, and watching the approach of evening, which gradually
enfolded the forest. Her gray eyes smiled softly at some one. The
reddening rays of the sun fell more and more aslant. The busy
chirping of the birds died away. The forest darkened, and seemed
to grow denser. The trees moved in more closely about the choked-up
glade, and gave it a more friendly embrace, covering it with shadows.
Cows were lowing in the distance. The tar men came, all four together,
content that the work was ended.

Awakened by their voices the mother walked out from the cabin,
yawning and smiling. Rybin was calmer and less gloomy. The surplus
of his excitement was drowned in exhaustion.

"Ignaty," he said, "let's have our tea. We do housekeeping here by
turns. To-day Ignaty provides us with food and drink."

"To-day I'd be glad to yield my turn," remarked Ignaty, gathering up
pieces of wood and branches for an open-air fire.

"We're all interested in our guests," said Yefim, sitting down by
Sofya's side.

"I'll help you," said Yakob softly.

He brought out a big loaf of bread baked in hot ashes, and began
to cut it and place the pieces on the table.

"Listen!" exclaimed Yefim. "Do you hear that cough?"

Rybin listened, and nodded.

"Yes, he's coming," he said to Sofya. "The witness is coming. I
would lead him through cities, put him in public squares, for the
people to hear him. He always says the same thing. But everybody
ought to hear it."

The shadows grew closer, the twilight thickened, and the voices
sounded softer. Sofya and the mother watched the actions of the
peasants. They all moved slowly and heavily with a strange sort
of cautiousness. They, too, constantly followed the women with
their eyes, listening attentively to their conversation.

A tall, stooping man came out of the woods into the glade, and
walked slowly, firmly supporting himself on a cane. His heavy,
raucous breathing was audible.

"There is Savely!" exclaimed Yakob.

"Here I am," said the man hoarsely. He stopped, and began to cough.

A shabby coat hung over him down to his very heels. From under his
round, crumpled hat straggled thin, limp tufts of dry, straight,
yellowish hair. His light, sparse beard grew unevenly upon his
yellow, bony face; his mouth stood half-open; his eyes were sunk
deep beneath his forehead, and glittered feverishly in their dark
hollows.

When Rybin introduced him to Sofya he said to her:

"I heard you brought books for the people."

"I did."

"Thank you in the name of the people. They themselves cannot yet
understand the book of truth. They cannot yet thank; so I, who
have learned to understand it, render you thanks in their behalf."
He breathed quickly, with short, eager breaths, strangely drawing in
the air through his dry lips. His voice broke. The bony fingers of
his feeble hands crept along his breast trying to button his coat.

"It's bad for you to be in the woods so late; it's damp and close
here," remarked Sofya.