Kathleen Norris - "The Rich Mrs. Burgoyne"

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John Lothrop Motley - "The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1570 72"

Jules Claretie - "Prince Zilah, v1"

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




"How he cut them off! Straight, downright, better than all!" Sizov
whispered in amazement in the ear of the mother. "Ah, you little boy!"

The mother smiled in perplexity. The proceedings seemed to be
nothing but the necessary preliminary to something terrible, which
would appear and at once stifle everybody with its cold horror. But
the calm words of Pavel and Andrey had sounded so fearless and firm,
as if uttered in the little house of the suburb, and not in the
presence of the court. Fedya's hot, youthful sally amused her;
something bold and fresh grew up in the hall, and she guessed from
the movement of the people back of her that she was not the only
one who felt this.

"Your opinion," said the old judge.

The bald-headed prosecuting attorney arose, and, steadying himself
on the desk with one hand, began to speak rapidly, quoting figures.
In his voice nothing terrible was heard.

At the same time, however, a sudden dry, shooting attack disturbed
the heart of the mother. It was an uneasy suspicion of something
hostile to her, which did not threaten, did not shout, but unfolded
itself unseen, soundless, intangible. It swung lazily and dully
about the judges, as if enveloping them with an impervious cloud,
through which nothing from the outside could reach them. She looked
at them. They were incomprehensible to her. They were not angry at
Pavel or at Fedya; they did not shout at the young men, as she had
expected; they did not abuse them in words, but put all their
questions reluctantly, with the air of "What's the use?". It cost
them an effort to hear the answers to the end. Apparently they
lacked interest because they knew everything beforehand.

There before her stood the gendarme, and spoke in a bass voice:

"Pavel Vlasov was named as the ringleader."

"And Nakhodka?" asked the fat judge in his lazy undertone.

"He, too."

"May I----"

The old judge asked a question of somebody:

"You have nothing?"

All the judges seemed to the mother to be worn out and ill. A
sickened weariness marked their poses and voices, a sickened
weariness and a bored, gray ennui. It was an evident nuisance to
them, all this--the uniforms, the hall, the gendarmes, the lawyers,
the obligation to sit in armchairs, and to put questions concerning
things perforce already known to them. The mother in general was
but little acquainted with the masters; she had scarcely ever seen
them; and now she regarded the faces of the judges as something
altogether new and incomprehensible, deserving pity, however, rather
than inspiring horror.

The familiar, yellow-faced officer stood before them, and told about
Pavel and Andrey, stretching the words with an air of importance.
The mother involuntarily laughed, and thought: "You don't know
much, my little father."

And now, as she looked at the people behind the grill, she ceased
to feel dread for them; they did not evoke alarm, pity was not for
them; they one and all called forth in her only admiration and love,
which warmly embraced her heart; the admiration was calm, the love
joyously distinct. There they sat to one side, by the wall, young,
sturdy, scarcely taking any part in the monotonous talk of the
witnesses and judges, or in the disputes of the lawyers with the
prosecuting attorney. They behaved as if the talk did not concern
them in the least. Sometimes somebody would laugh contemptuously,
and say something to the comrades, across whose faces, then, a
sarcastic smile would also quickly pass. Andrey and Pavel conversed
almost the entire time with one of their lawyers, whom the mother had
seen the day before at Nikolay's, and had heard Nikolay address as
comrade. Mazin, brisker and more animated than the others, listened
to the conversation. Now and then Samoylov said something to Ivan
Gusev; and the mother noticed that each time Ivan gave a slight
elbow nudge to a comrade, he could scarcely restrain a laugh; his
face would grow red, his cheeks would puff up, and he would have to
incline his head. He had already sniffed a couple of times, and for
several minutes afterward sat with blown cheeks trying to be serious.
Thus, in each comrade his youth played and sparkled after his fashion,
lightly bursting the restraint he endeavored to put upon its lively
effervescence. She looked, compared, and reflected. She was unable
to understand or express in words her uneasy feeling of hostility.

Sizov touched her lightly with his elbow; she turned to him, and
found a look of contentment and slight preoccupation on his face.

"Just see how they've intrenched themselves in their defiance! Fine
stuff in 'em! Eh? Barons, eh? Well, and yet they're going to
be sentenced!"

The mother listened, unconsciously repeating to herself:

"Who will pass the sentence? Whom will they sentence?"

The witnesses spoke quickly, in their colorless voices, the judges
reluctantly and listlessly. Their bloodless, worn-out faces stared
into space unconcernedly. They did not expect to see or hear
anything new. At times the fat judge yawned, covering his smile
with his puffy hand, while the red-mustached judge grew still paler,
and sometimes raised his hand to press his finger tightly on the
bone of his temple, as he looked up to the ceiling with sorrowful,
widened eyes. The prosecuting attorney infrequently scribbled on
his paper, and then resumed his soundless conversation with the
marshal of the nobility, who stroked his gray beard, rolled his
large, beautiful eyes, and smiled, nodding his head with importance.
The city mayor sat with crossed legs, and beat a noiseless tattoo
on his knee, giving the play of his fingers concentrated attention.
The only one who listened to the monotonous murmur of the voices
seemed to be the district elder, who sat with inclined head,
supporting his abdomen on his knees and solicitously holding it up
with his hands. The old judge, deep in his armchair, stuck there
immovably. The proceedings continued to drag on in this way for a
long, long time; and ennui again numbed the people with its heavy,
sticky embrace.

The mother saw that this large hall was not yet pervaded by that
cold, threatening justice which sternly uncovers the soul, examines
it, and seeing everything estimates its value with incorruptible
eyes, weighing it rigorously with honest hands. Here was nothing to
frighten her by its power or majesty.

"I declare--" said the old judge clearly, and arose as he crushed
the following words with his thin lips.

The noise of sighs and low exclamations, of coughing and scraping
of feet, filled the hall as the court retired for a recess. The
prisoners were led away. As they walked out, they nodded their
heads to their relatives and familiars with a smile, and Ivan Gusev
shouted to somebody in a modulated voice:

"Don't lose courage, Yegor."

The mother and Sizov walked out into the corridor.

"Will you go to the tavern with me to take some tea?" the old man
asked her solicitously. "We have an hour and a half's time."

"I don't want to."

"Well, then I won't go, either. No, say! What fellows those are!
They act as if they were the only real people, and the rest nothing
at all. They'll all go scot-free, I'm sure. Look at Fedka, eh?"

Samoylov's father came up to them holding his hat in his hand.
He smiled sullenly and said:

"My Vasily! He declined a defense, and doesn't want to palaver.
He was the first to have the idea. Yours, Pelagueya, stood for
lawyers; and mine said: 'I don't want one.' And four declined
after him. Hm, ye-es."

At his side stood his wife. She blinked frequently, and wiped her
nose with the end of her handkerchief. Samoylov took his beard in
his hand, and continued looking at the floor.

"Now, this is the queer thing about it: you look at them, those
devils, and you think they got up all this at random--they're ruining
themselves for nothing. And suddenly you begin to think: 'And maybe
they're right!' You remember that in the factory more like them
keep on coming, keep on coming. They always get caught; but they're
not destroyed, no more than common fish in the river get destroyed.
No. And again you think, 'And maybe power is with them, too.'"

"It's hard for us, Stepan Petrov, to understand this affair," said Sizov.

"It's hard, yes," agreed Samoylov.

His wife noisily drawing in air through her nose remarked:

"They're all strong, those imps!" With an unrestrained smile on
her broad, wizened face, she continued: "You, Nilovna, don't be
angry with me because I just now slapped you, when I said that your
son is to blame. A dog can tell who's the more to blame, to tell
you the truth. Look at the gendarmes and the spies, what they said
about our Vasily! He has shown what he can do too!"

She apparently was proud of her son, perhaps even without understanding
her feeling; but the mother did understand her feeling, and answered
with a kind smile and quiet words:

"A young heart is always nearer to the truth."

People rambled about the corridor, gathered into groups, speaking
excitedly and thoughtfully in hollow voices. Scarcely anybody stood
alone; all faces bore evidence of a desire to speak, to ask, to
listen. In the narrow white passageway the people coiled about in
sinuous curves, like dust carried in circles before a powerful wind.
Everybody seemed to be seeking something hard and firm to stand upon.

The older brother of Bukin, a tall, red-faced fellow, waved his
hands and turned about rapidly in all directions.

"The district elder Klepanov has no place in this case," he declared aloud.

"Keep still, Konstantin!" his father, a little old man, tried to
dissuade him, and looked around cautiously.

"No; I'm going to speak out! There's a rumor afloat about him that
last year he killed a clerk of his on account of the clerk's wife.
What kind of a judge is he? permit me to ask. He lives with the
wife of his clerk--what have you got to say to that? Besides, he's
a well-known thief!"

"Oh, my little father--Konstantin!"

"True!" said Samoylov. "True, the court is not a very just one."

Bukin heard his voice and quickly walked up to him, drawing the whole
crowd after him. Red with excitement, he waved his hands and said:

"For thievery, for murder, jurymen do the trying. They're common
people, peasants, merchants, if you please; but for going against
the authorities you're tried by the authorities. How's that?"

"Konstantin! Why are they against the authorities? Ah, you! They----"

"No, wait! Fedor Mazin said the truth. If you insult me, and I land
you one on your jaw, and you try me for it, of course I'm going to turn
out guilty. But the first offender--who was it? You? Of course, you!"

The watchman, a gray man with a hooked nose and medals on his chest,
pushed the crowd apart, and said to Bukin, shaking his finger at him:

"Hey! don't shout! Don't you know where you are? Do you think this
is a saloon?"

"Permit me, my cavalier, I know where I am. Listen! If I strike
you and you me, and I go and try you, what would you think?"

"And I'll order you out," said the watchman sternly.

"Where to? What for?"

"Into the street, so that you shan't bawl."

"The chief thing for them is that people should keep their mouths shut."

"And what do you think?" the old man bawled. Bukin threw out his
hands, and again measuring the public with his eyes, began to speak
in a lower voice:

"And again--why are the people not permitted to be at the trial, but
only the relatives? If you judge righteously, then judge in front
of everybody. What is there to be afraid of?"

Samoylov repeated, but this time in a louder tone:

"The trial is not altogether just, that's true."

The mother wanted to say to him that she had heard from Nikolay of
the dishonesty of the court; but she had not wholly comprehended
Nikolay, and had forgotten some of his words. While trying to
recall them she moved aside from the people, and noticed that
somebody was looking at her--a young man with a light mustache.
He held his right hand in the pocket of his trousers, which made
his left shoulder seem lower than the right, and this peculiarity
of his figure seemed familiar to the mother. But he turned from her,
and she again lost herself in the endeavor to recollect, and forgot
about him immediately. In a minute, however, her ear was caught by
the low question:

"This woman on the left?"

And somebody in a louder voice cheerfully answered:

"Yes."

She looked around. The man with the uneven shoulders stood sidewise
toward her, and said something to his neighbor, a black-bearded
fellow with a short overcoat and boots up to his knees.

Again her memory stirred uneasily, but did not yield any distinct results.

The watchman opened the door of the hall, and shouted:

"Relatives, enter; show your tickets!"

A sullen voice said lazily:

"Tickets! Like a circus!"

All the people now showed signs of a dull excitement, an uneasy
passion. They began to behave more freely, and hummed and disputed
with the watchman.

Sitting down on the bench, Sizov mumbled something to the mother.

"What is it?" asked the mother.

"Oh, nothing--the people are fools! They know nothing; they live
groping about and groping about."

The bellman rang; somebody announced indifferently:

"The session has begun!"

Again all arose, and again, in the same order, the judges filed in
and sat down; then the prisoners were led in.

"Pay attention!" whispered Sizov; "the prosecuting attorney is going
to speak."

The mother craned her neck and extended her whole body. She yielded
anew to expectation of the horrible.

Standing sidewise toward the judges, his head turned to them,
leaning his elbow on the desk, the prosecuting attorney sighed,
and abruptly waving his right hand in the air, began to speak:

The mother could not make out the first words. The prosecuting
attorney's voice was fluent, thick; it sped on unevenly, now a bit
slower, now a bit faster. His words stretched out in a thin line,
like a gray seam; suddenly they burst out quickly and whirled like
a flock of black flies around a piece of sugar. But she did not
find anything horrible in them, nothing threatening. Cold as snow,
gray as ashes, they fell and fell, filling the hall with something
which recalled a slushy day in early autumn. Scant in feeling,
rich in words, the speech seemed not to reach Pavel and his comrade.
Apparently it touched none of them; they all sat there quite composed,
smiling at times as before, and conversed without sound. At times
they frowned to cover up their smiles.

"He lies!" whispered Sizov.

She could not have said it. She understood that the prosecuting
attorney charged all the comrades with guilt, not singling out any
one of them. After having spoken about Pavel, he spoke about Fedya,
and having put him side by side with Pavel, he persistently thrust
Bukin up against them. It seemed as if he packed and sewed them
into a sack, piling them up on top of one another. But the external
sense of his words did not satisfy, did not touch, did not frighten
her. She still waited for the horrible, and rigorously sought
something beyond his words--something in his face, his eyes, his
voice, in his white hand, which slowly glided in the air. Something
terrible must be there; she felt it, but it was impalpable; it did
not yield to her consciousness, which again covered her heart with
a dry, pricking dust.

She looked at the judges. There was no gainsaying that they were
bored at having to listen to this speech. The lifeless, yellow
faces expressed nothing. The sickly, the fat, or the extremely
lean, motionless dead spots all grew dimmer and dimmer in the dull
ennui that filled the hall. The words of the prosecuting attorney
spurted into the air like a haze imperceptible to the eye, growing
and thickening around the judges, enveloping them more closely in
a cloud of dry indifference, of weary waiting. At times one of
them changed his pose; but the lazy movement of the tired body did
not rouse their drowsy souls. The oldest judge did not stir at all;
he was congealed in his erect position, and the gray blots behind
the eyeglasses at times disappeared, seeming to spread over his
whole face. The mother realized this dead indifference, this
unconcern without malice in it, and asked herself in perplexity,
"Are they judging?"

The question pressed her heart, and gradually squeezed out of it her
expectation of the horrible. It pinched her throat with a sharp
feeling of wrong.

The speech of the prosecuting attorney snapped off unexpectedly.
He made a few quick, short steps, bowed to the judges, and sat down,
rubbing his hands. The marshal of the nobility nodded his head to
him, rolling his eyes; the city mayor extended his hand, and the
district elder stroked his belly and smiled.

But the judges apparently were not delighted by the speech, and
did not stir.

"The scabby devil!" Sizov whispered the oath.

"Next," said the old judge, bringing the paper to his face, "lawyers
for the defendants, Fedoseyev, Markov, Zagarov."

The lawyer whom the mother had seen at Nikolay's arose. His face
was broad and good-natured; his little eyes smiled radiantly and
seemed to thrust out from under his eyebrows two sharp blades, which
cut the air like scissors. He spoke without haste, resonantly,
and clearly; but the mother was unable to listen to his speech.
Sizov whispered in her ear:

"Did you understand what he said? Did you understand? 'People,'
he says, 'are poor, they are all upset, insensate.' Is that Fedor?
He says they don't understand anything; they're savages."

The feeling of wrong grew, and passed into revolt. Along with the
quick, loud voice of the lawyer, time also passed more quickly.

"A live, strong man having in his breast a sensitive, honest heart
cannot help rebelling with all his force against this life so full
of open cynicism, corruption, falsehood, and so blunted by vapidity.
The eyes of honest people cannot help seeing such glaring
contradictions----"

The judge with the green face bent toward the president and whispered
something to him; then the old man said dryly:

"Please be more careful!"

"Ha!" Sizov exclaimed softly.

"Are they judging?" thought the mother, and the word seemed hollow
and empty as an earthen vessel. It seemed to make sport of her
fear of the terrible.

"They're a sort of dead body," she answered the old man.

"Don't fear; they're livening up."

She looked at them, and she actually saw something like a shadow
of uneasiness on the faces of the judges. Another man was already
speaking, a little lawyer with a sharp, pale, satiric face. He
spoke very respectfully:

"With all due respect, I permit myself to call the attention of the
court to the solid manner of the honorable prosecuting attorney, to
the conduct of the safety department, or, as such people are called
in common parlance, spies----"

The judge with the green face again began to whisper something to
the president. The prosecuting attorney jumped up. The lawyer
continued without changing his voice:

"The spy Gyman tells us about the witness: 'I frightened him.'
The prosecuting attorney also, as the court has heard, frightened
witnesses; as a result of which act, at the insistence of the
defense, he called forth a rebuke from the presiding judge."

The prosecuting attorney began to speak quickly and angrily; the
old judge followed suit; the lawyer listened to them respectfully,
inclining his head. Then he said:

"I can even change the position of my words if the prosecuting
attorney deems it is not in the right place; but that will not
change the plan of my defense. However, I cannot understand the
excitement of the prosecuting attorney."

"Go for him!" said Sizov. "Go for him, tooth and nail! Pick him
open down to his soul, wherever that may be!"

The hall became animated; a fighting passion flared up; the defense
attacked from all sides, provoking and disturbing the judges,
driving away the cold haze that enveloped them, pricking the old
skin of the judges with sharp words. The judges had the air of
moving more closely to one another, or suddenly they would puff and
swell, repulsing the sharp, caustic raps with the mass of their
soft, mellow bodies. They acted as if they feared that the blow of
the opponent might call forth an echo in their empty bosoms, might
shake their resolution, which sprang not from their own will but
from a will strange to them. Feeling this conflict, the people on
the benches back of the mother sighed and whispered.

But suddenly Pavel arose; tense quiet prevailed. The mother
stretched her entire body forward.

"A party man, I recognize only the court of my party and will not
speak in my defense. According to the desire of my comrades, I,
too, declined a defense. I will merely try to explain to you what
you don't understand. The prosecuting attorney designated our
coming out under the banner of the Social Democracy as an uprising
against the superior power, and regarded us as nothing but rebels
against the Czar. I must declare to you that to us the Czar is not
the only chain that fetters the body of the country. We are obliged
to tear off only the first and nearest chain from the people."

The stillness deepened under the sound of the firm voice; it seemed
to widen the space between the walls of the hall. Pavel, by his
words, removed the people to a distance from himself, and thereby
grew in the eyes of the mother. His stony, calm, proud face with
the beard, his high forehead, and blue eyes, somewhat stern, all
became more dazzling and more prominent.

The judges began to stir heavily and uneasily; the marshal of the
nobility was the first to whisper something to the judge with the
indolent face. The judge nodded his head and turned to the old man;
on the other side of him the sick judge was talking. Rocking back
and forth in the armchair, the old judge spoke to Pavel, but his
voice was drowned in the even, broad current of the young man's speech.

"We are Socialists! That means we are enemies to private property,
which separates people, arms them against one another, and brings
forth an irreconcilable hostility of interests; brings forth lies
that endeavor to cover up, or to justify, this conflict of interests,
and corrupt all with falsehood, hypocrisy and malice. We maintain
that a society that regards man only as a tool for its enrichment
is anti-human; it is hostile to us; we cannot be reconciled to its
morality; its double-faced and lying cynicism. Its cruel relation to
individuals is repugnant to us. We want to fight, and will fight,
every form of the physical and moral enslavement of man by such a
society; we will fight every measure calculated to disintegrate
society for the gratification of the interests of gain. We are
workers--men by whose labor everything is created, from gigantic
machines to childish toys. We are people devoid of the right to
fight for our human dignity. Everyone strives to utilize us, and
may utilize us, as tools for the attainment of his ends. Now we
want to have as much freedom as will give us the possibility in
time to come to conquer all the power. Our slogan is simple:
'All the power for the people; all the means of production for the
people; work obligatory on all. Down with private property!' You
see, we are not rebels."

Pavel smiled, and the kindly fire of his blue eyes blazed forth
more brilliantly.

"Please, more to the point!" said the presiding judge distinctly
and aloud. He turned his chest to Pavel, and regarded him. It
seemed to the mother that his dim left eye began to burn with a
sinister, greedy fire. The look all the judges cast on her son
made her uneasy for him. She fancied that their eyes clung to his
face, stuck to his body, thirsted for his blood, by which they might
reanimate their own worn-out bodies. And he, erect and tall,
standing firmly and vigorously, stretched out his hand to them while
he spoke distinctly:

"We are revolutionists, and will be such as long as private property
exists, as long as some merely command, and as long as others merely
work. We take stand against the society whose interests you are
bidden to protect as your irreconcilable enemies, and reconciliation
between us is impossible until we shall have been victorious. We
will conquer--we workingmen! Your society is not at all so powerful
as it thinks itself. That very property, for the production and
preservation of which it sacrifices millions of people enslaved by
it--that very force which gives it the power over us--stirs up
discord within its own ranks, destroys them physically and morally.
Property requires extremely great efforts for its protection; and in
reality all of you, our rulers, are greater slaves than we--you are
enslaved spiritually, we only physically. YOU cannot withdraw from
under the weight of your prejudices and habits, the weight which
deadens you spiritually; nothing hinders US from being inwardly free.
The poisons with which you poison us are weaker than the antidote you
unwittingly administer to our consciences. This antidote penetrates
deeper and deeper into the body of workingmen; the flames mount
higher and higher, sucking in the best forces, the spiritual powers,
the healthy elements even from among you. Look! Not one of you
can any longer fight for your power as an ideal! You have already
expended all the arguments capable of guarding you against the
pressure of historic justice. You can create nothing new in the
domain of ideas; you are spiritually barren. Our ideas grow; they
flare up ever more dazzling; they seize hold of the mass of the
people, organizing them for the war of freedom. The consciousness
of their great role unites all the workingmen of the world into
one soul. You have no means whereby to hinder this renovating
process in life except cruelty and cynicism. But your cynicism
is very evident, your cruelty exasperates, and the hands with which
you stifle us to-day will press our hands in comradeship to-morrow.
Your energy, the mechanical energy of the increase of gold, separates
you, too, into groups destined to devour one another. Our energy
is a living power, founded on the ever-growing consciousness of the
solidarity of all workingmen. Everything you do is criminal, for
it is directed toward the enslavement of the people. Our work frees
the world from the delusions and monsters which are produced by your
malice and greed, and which intimidate the people. You have torn
man away from life and disintegrated him. Socialism will unite the
world, rent asunder by you, into one huge whole. And this will be!"