Constant - "The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, v1"

Emile Zola - "The Three Cities Trilogy: Paris, Vol. 5"

Andrew Lang - "The Orange Fairy Book"

John Lothrop Motley - "History of the United Netherlands, 1586"

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 and the Little Russian now began to carry on such
conversations with each other frequently. He was again taken into
the factory. He turned over all his earnings to the mother, and
she took the money from him with as little fuss as from Pavel.
Sometimes Andrey would suggest with a twinkle in his eyes:

"Shall we read a little, mother, eh?"

She would invariably refuse, playfully but resolutely. The twinkle
in his eyes discomfited her, and she thought to herself, with a
slight feeling of offense: "If you laugh at me, then why do you
ask me to read with you?"

He noticed that the mother began to ask him with increasing
frequency for the meaning of this or that book word. She always
looked aside when asking for such information, and spoke in a
monotonous tone of indifference. He divined that she was studying
by herself in secret, understood her bashfulness, and ceased to
invite her to read with him. Shortly afterwards she said to him:

"My eyes are getting weak, Andriusha. I guess I need glasses."

"All right! Next Sunday I'll take you to a physician in the city,
a friend of mine, and you shall have glasses!"

She, had already been three times in the prison to ask for a meeting
with Pavel, and each time the general of the gendarmes, a gray old
man with purple cheeks and a huge nose, turned her gently away.

"In about a week, little mother, not before! A week from now we
shall see, but at present it's impossible!"

He was a round, well-fed creature, and somehow reminded her of a
ripe plum, somewhat spoiled by too long keeping, and already covered
with a downy mold. He kept constantly picking his small, white teeth
with a sharp yellow toothpick. There was a little smile in his
small greenish eyes, and his voice had a friendly, caressing sound.

"Polite!" said the mother to the Little Russian with a thoughtful air.
"Always with a smile on him. I don't think it's right. When a man
is tending to affairs like these, I don't think he ought to grin."

"Yes, yes. They are so gentle, always smiling. If they should be
told: 'Look here, this man is honest and wise, he is dangerous to us;
hang him!' they would still smile and hang him, and keep on smiling."

"The one who made the search in our place is the better of the two;
he is simpler. You can see at once that he is a dog."

"None of them are human beings; they are used to stun the people
and render them insensible. They are tools, the means wherewith
our kind is rendered more convenient to the state. They themselves
have already been so fixed that they have become convenient
instruments in the hand that governs us. They can do whatever they
are told to do without thought, without asking why it is necessary
to do it."

At last Vlasova got permission to see her son, and one Sunday she
was sitting modestly in a corner of the prison office, a low,
narrow, dingy apartment, where a few more people were sitting and
waiting for permission to see their relatives and friends. Evidently
it was not the first time they were here, for they knew one another
and in a low voice kept up a lazy, languid conversation.

"Have you heard?" said a stout woman with a wizened face and a
traveling bag on her lap. "At early mass to-day the church regent
again ripped up the ear of one of the choir boys."

An elderly man in the uniform of a retired soldier coughed aloud
and remarked:

"These choir boys are such loafers!"

A short, bald, little man with short legs, long arms, and protruding
jaw, ran officiously up and down the room. Without stopping he said
in a cracked, agitated voice:

"The cost of living is getting higher and higher. An inferior
quality of beef, fourteen cents; bread has again risen to two
and a half."

Now and then prisoners came into the room--gray, monotonous, with
coarse, heavy, leather shoes. They blinked as they entered; iron
chains rattled at the feet of one of them. The quiet and calm and
simplicity all around produced a strange, uncouth impression. It
seemed as if all had grown accustomed to their situation. Some sat
there quietly, others looked on idly, while still others seemed to
pay their regular visits with a sense of weariness. The mother's
heart quivered with impatience, and she looked with a puzzled air at
everything around her, amazed at the oppressive simplicity of life
in this corner of the world.

Next to Vlasova sat a little old woman with a wrinkled face, but
youthful eyes. She kept her thin neck turned to listen to the
conversation, and looked about on all sides with a strange
expression of eagerness in her face.

"Whom have you here?" Vlasova asked softly.

"A son, a student," answered the old woman in a loud, brusque voice.
"And you?"

"A son, also. A workingman."

"What's the name?"

"Vlasov."

"Never heard of him. How long has he been in prison?"

"Seven weeks."

"And mine has been in for ten months," said the old woman, with a
strange note of pride in her voice which did not escape the notice
of the mother.

A tall lady dressed in black, with a thin, pale face, said lingeringly:

"They'll soon put all the decent people in prison. They can't
endure them, they loathe them!"

"Yes, yes!" said the little old bald man, speaking rapidly. "All
patience is disappearing. Everybody is excited; everybody is
clamoring, and prices are mounting higher and higher. As a consequence
the value of men is depreciating. And there is not a single,
conciliatory voice heard, not one!"

"Perfectly true!" said the retired military man. "It's monstrous!
What's wanted is a voice, a firm voice to cry, 'Silence!' Yes,
that's what we want--a firm voice!"

The conversation became more general and animated. Everybody was
in a hurry to give his opinion about life; but all spoke in a
half-subdued voice, and the mother noticed a tone of hostility in
all, which was new to her. At home they spoke differently, more
intelligibly, more simply, and more loudly.

The fat warden with a square red beard called out her name, looked
her over from head to foot, and telling her to follow him, walked
off limping. She followed him, and felt like pushing him to make
him go faster. Pavel stood in a small room, and on seeing his
mother smiled and put out his hand to her. She grasped it, laughed,
blinked swiftly, and at a loss for words merely asked softly:

"How are you? How are you?"

"Compose yourself, mother." Pavel pressed her hand.

"It's all right! It's all right!"

"Mother," said the warden, fetching a sigh, "suppose you move away
from each other a bit. Let there be some distance between you."
He yawned aloud.

Pavel asked the mother about her health and about home. She waited
for some other questions, sought them in her son's eyes, but could
not find them. He was calm as usual, although his face had grown
paler, and his eyes seemed larger.

"Sasha sends you her regards," she said. Pavel's eyelids quivered
and fell. His face became softer and brightened with a clear, open
smile. A poignant bitterness smote the mother's heart.

"Will they let you out soon?" she inquired in a tone of sudden
injury and agitation. "Why have they put you in prison? Those
papers and pamphlets have appeared in the factory again, anyway."

Pavel's eyes flashed with delight.

"Have they? When? Many of them?"

"It is forbidden to talk about this subject!" the warden lazily
announced. "You may talk only of family matters."

"And isn't this a family matter?" retorted the mother.

"I don't know. I only know it's forbidden. You may talk about his
wash and underwear and food, but nothing else!" insisted the warden,
his voice, however, expressing utter indifference.

"All right," said Pavel. "Keep to domestic affairs, mother. What
are you doing?"

She answered boldly, seized with youthful ardor:

"I carry all this to the factory." She paused with a smile and
continued: "Sour soup, gruel, all Marya's cookery, and other stuff."

Pavel understood. The muscles of his face quivered with restrained
laughter. He ran his fingers through his hair and said in a tender
tone, such as she had never heard him use:

"My own dear mother! That's good! It's good you've found something
to do, so it isn't tedious for you. You don't feel lonesome, do
you, mother?"

"When the leaflets appeared, they searched me, too," she said,
not without a certain pride.

"Again on this subject!" said the warden in an offended tone. "I
tell you it's forbidden, it's not allowed. They have deprived him
of liberty so that he shouldn't know anything about it; and here
you are with your news. You ought to know it's forbidden!"

"Well, leave it, mother," said Pavel. "Matvey Ivanovich is a good
man. You mustn't do anything to provoke him. We get along together
very well. It's by chance he's here to-day with us. Usually, it's
the assistant superintendent who is present on such occasions.
That's why Matvey Ivanovich is afraid you will say something you
oughtn't to."

"Time's up!" announced the warden looking at his watch. "Take your leave!"

"Well, thank you," said Pavel. "Thank you, my darling mother!
Don't worry now. They'll let me out soon."

He embraced her, pressed her warmly to his bosom, and kissed her.
Touched by his endearments, and happy, she burst into tears.

"Now separate!" said the warden, and as he walked off with the
mother he mumbled:

"Don't cry! They'll let him out; they'll let everybody out. It's
too crowded here."

At home the mother told the Little Russian of her conversation with
Pavel, and her face wore a broad smile.

"I told him! Yes, indeed! And cleverly, too. He understood!"
and, heaving a melancholy sigh: "Oh, yes, he understood; otherwise
he wouldn't have been so tender and affectionate. He has never
been that way before."

"Oh, mother!" the Little Russian laughed. "No matter what other
people may want, a mother always wants affection. You certainly
have a heart plenty big enough for one man!"

"But those people! Just think, Andriusha!" she suddenly exclaimed,
amazement in her tone. "How used they get to all this! Their
children are taken away from them, are thrown into dungeons, and,
mind you, it's as nothing to them! They come, sit about, wait,
and talk. What do you think of that? If intelligent people are
that way, if they can so easily get accustomed to a thing like that,
then what's to be said about the common people?"

"That's natural," said the Little Russian with his usual smile.
"The law after all is not so harsh toward them as toward us. And
they need the law more than we do. So that when the law hits them
on the head, although they cry out they do not cry very loud.
Your own stick does not fall upon you so heavily. For them the
laws are to some extent a protection, but for us they are only
chains to keep us bound so we can't kick."

Three days afterwards in the evening, when the mother sat at the
table knitting stockings and the Little Russian was reading to her
from a book about the revolt of the Roman slaves, a loud knock was
heard at the door. The Little Russian went to open it and admitted
Vyesovshchikov with a bundle under his arm, his hat pushed back on
his head, and mud up to his knees.

"I was passing by, and seeing a light in your house, I dropped in to
ask you how you are. I've come straight from the prison."

He spoke in a strange voice. He seized Vlasov's hand and wrung it
violently as he added: "Pavel sends you his regards." Irresolutely
seating himself in a chair he scanned the room with his gloomy,
suspicious look.

The mother was not fond of him. There was something in his angular,
close-cropped head and in his small eyes that always scared her;
but now she was glad to see him, and with a broad smile lighting
her face she said in a tender, animated voice:

"How thin you've become! Say, Andriusha, let's dose him with tea."

"I'm putting up the samovar already!" the Little Russian called
from the kitchen.

"How is Pavel? Have they let anybody else out besides yourself?"

Nikolay bent his head and answered:

"I'm the only one they've let go." He raised his eyes to the
mother's face and said slowly, speaking through his teeth with
ponderous emphasis: "I told them: 'Enough! Let me go! Else
I'll kill some one here, and myself, too!' So they let me go!"

"Hm, hm--ye-es," said the mother, recoiling from him and involuntarily
blinking when her gaze met his sharp, narrow eyes.

"And how is Fedya Mazin?" shouted the Little Russian from the
kitchen. "Writing poetry, is he?"

"Yes! I don't understand it," said Nikolay, shaking his head.
"They've put him in a cage and he sings. There's only one thing
I'm sure about, and that is I have no desire to go home."

"Why should you want to go home? What's there to attract you?"
said the mother pensively. "It's empty, there's no fire burning,
and it's chilly all over."

Vyesovshchikov sat silent, his eyes screwed up. Taking a box of
cigarettes from his pocket he leisurely lit one of them, and looking
at the gray curl of smoke dissolve before him he grinned like a
big, surly dog.

"Yes, I guess it's cold. And the floor is filled with frozen
cockroaches, and even the mice are frozen, too, I suppose.
Pelagueya Nilovna, will you let me sleep here to-night, please?"
he asked hoarsely without looking at her.

"Why, of course, Nikolay! You needn't even ask it!" the mother
quickly replied. She felt embarrassed and ill at ease in Nikolay's
presence, and did not know what to speak to him about. But he
himself went on to talk in a strangely broken voice.

"We live in a time when children are ashamed of their own parents."

"What!" exclaimed the mother, starting.

He glanced up at her and closed his eyes. His pockmarked face
looked like that of a blind man.

"I say that children have to be ashamed of their parents," he
repeated, sighing aloud. "Now, don't you be afraid. It's not
meant for you. Pavel will never be ashamed of you. But I am
ashamed of my father, and shall never enter his house again. I
have no father, no home! They have put me under the surveillance
of the police, else I'd go to Siberia. I think a man who won't
spare himself could do a great deal in Siberia. I would free
convicts there and arrange for their escape."

The mother understood, with her ready feelings, what agony this man
must be undergoing, but his pain awoke no sympathetic response in her.

"Well, of course, if that's the case, then it's better for you to
go," she said, in order not to offend him by silence.

Andrey came in from the kitchen, and said, smiling:

"Well, are you sermonizing, eh?"

The mother rose and walked away, saying:

"I'm going to get something to eat."

Vyesovshchikov looked at the Little Russian fixedly and suddenly declared:

"I think that some people ought to be killed off!"

"Oho! And pray what for?" asked the Little Russian calmly.

"So they cease to be."

"Ahem! And have you the right to make corpses out of living people?"

"Yes, I have."

"Where did you get it from?"

"The people themselves gave it to me."

The Little Russian stood in the middle of the room, tall and spare,
swaying on his legs, with his hands thrust in his pockets, and
looked down on Nikolay. Nikolay sat firmly in his chair, enveloped
in clouds of smoke, with red spots on his face showing through.

"The people gave it to me!" he repeated clenching his fist. "If
they kick me I have the right to strike them and punch their eyes
out! Don't touch me, and I won't touch you! Let me live as I
please, and I'll live in peace and not touch anybody. Maybe I'd
prefer to live in the woods. I'd build myself a cabin in the
ravine by the brook and live there. At any rate, I'd live alone."

"Well, go and live that way, if it pleases you," said the Little
Russian, shrugging his shoulders.

"Now?" asked Nikolay. He shook his head in negation and replied,
striking his fist on his knee:

"Now it's impossible!"

"Who's in your way?"

"The people!" Vyesovshchikov retorted brusquely. "I'm hitched to
them even unto death. They've hedged my heart around with hatred
and tied me to themselves with evil. That's a strong tie! I hate
them, and I will not go away; no, never! I'll be in their way.
I'll harass their lives. They are in my way, I'll be in theirs.
I'll answer only for myself, only for myself, and for no one else.
And if my father is a thief----"

"Oh!" said the Little Russian in a low voice, moving up to Nikolay.

"And as for Isay Gorbov, I'll wring his head off! You shall see!"

"What for?" asked the Little Russian in a quiet, earnest voice.

"He shouldn't be a spy; he shouldn't go about denouncing people.
It's through him my father's gone to the dogs, and it's owing to
him that he now is aiming to become a spy," said Vyesovshchikov,
looking at Andrey with a dark, hostile scowl.

"Oh, that's it!" exclaimed the Little Russian. "And pray, who'd
blame you for that? Fools!"

"Both the fools and the wise are smeared with the same oil!" said
Nikolay heavily. "Here are you a wise fellow, and Pavel, too.
And do you mean to say that I am the same to you as Fedya Mazin or
Samoylov, or as you two are to each other? Don't lie! I won't
believe you, anyway. You all push me aside to a place apart, all
by myself."

"Your heart is aching, Nikolay!" said the Little Russian softly and
tenderly sitting down beside him.

"Yes, it's aching, and so is your heart. But your aches seem nobler
to you than mine. We are all scoundrels toward one another, that's
what I say. And what have you to say to that?"

He fixed his sharp gaze on Andrey, and waited with set teeth. His
mottled face remained immobile, and a quiver passed over his thick
lips, as if scorched by a flame.

"I have nothing to say!" said the Little Russian, meeting Vyesovshchikov's
hostile glance with a bright, warm, yet melancholy look of his blue
eyes. "I know that to argue with a man at a time when all the wounds
of his heart are bleeding, is only to insult him. I know it, brother."

"It's impossible to argue with me; I can't," mumbled Nikolay,
lowering his eyes.

"I think," continued the Little Russian, "that each of us has gone
through that, each of us has walked with bare feet over broken glass,
each of us in his dark hour has gasped for breath as you are now."

"You have nothing to tell me!" said Vyesovshchikov slowly. "Nothing!
My heart is so--it seems to me as if wolves were howling there!"

"And I don't want to say anything to you. Only I know that you'll
get over this, perhaps not entirely, but you'll get over it!" He
smiled, and added, tapping Nikolay on the back: "Why, man, this is
a children's disease, something like measles! We all suffer from
it, the strong less, the weak more. It comes upon a man at the
period when he has found himself, but does not yet understand life,
and his own place in life. And when you do not see your place, and
are unable to appraise your own value, it seems that you are the
only, the inimitable cucumber on the face of the earth, and that no
one can measure, no one can fathom your worth, and that all are
eager only to eat you up. After a while you'll find out that the
hearts in other people's breasts are no worse than a good part of
your own heart, and you'll begin to feel better. And somewhat
ashamed, too! Why should you climb up to the belfry tower, when
your bell is so small that it can't be heard in the great peal of
the holiday bells? Moreover, you'll see that in chorus the sound of
your bell will be heard, too, but by itself the old church bells
will drown it in their rumble as a fly is drowned in oil. Do you
understand what I am saying?"

"Maybe I understand," Nikolay said, nodding his head. "Only I
don't believe it."

The Little Russian broke into a laugh, jumped to his feet, and
began to run noisily up and down the room.

"I didn't believe it either. Ah, you--wagonload!"

"Why a wagonload?" Nikolay asked with a sad smile, looking at the
Little Russian.

"Because there's a resemblance!"

Suddenly Nikolay broke into a loud guffaw, his mouth opening wide.

"What is it?" the Little Russian asked in surprise, stopping in
front of him.

"It struck me that he'd be a fool who'd want to insult you!" Nikolay
declared, shaking his head.

"Why, how can you insult me?" asked the Little Russian, shrugging
his shoulders.

"I don't know," said Vyesovshchikov, grinning good-naturedly or
perhaps condescendingly. "I only wanted to say that a man must
feel mighty ashamed of himself after he'd insulted you."

"There now! See where you got to!" laughed the Little Russian.

"Andriusha!" the mother called from the kitchen. "Come get the
samovar. It's ready!"

Andrey walked out of the room, and Vyesovshchikov, left alone,
looked about, stretched out his foot sheathed in a coarse, heavy
boot, looked at it, bent down, and felt the stout calf of his legs.
Then he raised one hand to his face, carefully examined the palm,
and turned it around. His short-fingered hand was thick, and
covered with yellowish hair. He waved it in the air, and arose.

When Andrey brought in the samovar, Vyesovshchikov was standing
before the mirror, and greeted him with these words:

"It's a long time since I've seen my face." Then he laughed and
added: "It's an ugly face I have!"

"What's that to you?" asked Andrey, turning a curious look upon him.

"Sashenka says the face is the mirror of the heart!" Nikolay
replied, bringing out the words slowly.

"It's not true, though!" the little Russian ejaculated. "She has
a nose like a mushroom, cheek bones like a pair of scissors; yet
her heart is like a bright little star."

They sat down to drink tea.

Vyesovshchikov took a big potato, heavily salted a slice of bread,
and began to chew slowly and deliberately, like an ox.

"And how are matters here?" he asked, with his mouth full.

When Andrey cheerfully recounted to him the growth the socialist
propaganda in the factory, he again grew morose and remarked dully:

"It takes too long! Too long, entirely! It ought go faster!"

The mother regarded him, and was seized with a feeling of hostility
toward this man.

"Life is not a horse; you can't set it galloping with a whip," said Andrey.

But Vyesovshchikov stubbornly shook his head, and proceeded:

"It's slow! I haven't the patience. What am I to do?" He opened
his arms in a gesture of helplessness, and waited for a response.

"We all must learn and teach others. That's our business!" said
Andrey, bending his head.

Vyesovshchikov asked:

"And when are we going to fight?"

"There'll be more than one butchery of us up to that time, that I
know!" answered the Little Russian with a smile. "But when we shall
be called on to fight, that I don't know! First, you see, we must
equip the head, and then the hand. That's what I think."

"The heart!" said Nikolay laconically.

"And the heart, too."

Nikolay became silent, and began to eat again. From the corner of
her eye the mother stealthily regarded his broad, pockmarked face,
endeavoring to find something in it to reconcile her to the
unwieldy, square figure of Vyesovshchikov. Her eyebrows fluttered
whenever she encountered the shooting glance of his little eyes.
Andrey held his head in his hands; he became restless--he suddenly
laughed, and then abruptly stopped, and began to whistle.

It seemed to the mother that she understood his disquietude.
Nikolay sat at the table without saying anything; and when the
Little Russian addressed a question to him, he answered briefly,
with evident reluctance.

The little room became too narrow and stifling for its two occupants,
and they glanced, now the one, now the other, at their guest.

At length Nikolay rose and said: "I'd like to go to bed. I sat
and sat in prison--suddenly they let me go; I'm off!--I'm tired!"

He went into the kitchen and stirred about for a while. Then a
sudden stillness settled down. The mother listened for a sound,
and whispered to Andrey: "He has something terrible in his mind!"

"Yes, he's hard to understand!" the Little Russian assented, shaking
his head. "But you go to bed, mother, I am going to stay and read
a while."

She went to the corner where the bed was hidden from view by chintz
curtains. Andrey, sitting at the table, for a long while listened
to the warm murmur of her prayers and sighs. Quickly turning the
pages of the book Andrey nervously rubbed his lips, twitched his
mustache with his long fingers, and scraped his feet on the floor.
Ticktock, ticktock went the pendulum of the clock; and the wind
moaned as it swept past the window.

Then the mother's low voice was heard:

"Oh, God! How many people there are in the world, and each one
wails in his own way. Where, then, are those who feel rejoiced?"

"Soon there will be such, too, soon!" announced the Little Russian.



CHAPTER XIV


Life flowed on swiftly. The days were diversified and full of
color. Each one brought with it something new, and the new ceased
to alarm the mother. Strangers came to the house in the evening
more and more frequently, and they talked with Andrey in subdued
voices with an engrossed air. Late at night they went out into the
darkness, their collars up, their hats thrust low over their faces,
noiselessly, cautiously. All seemed to feel a feverish excitement,
which they kept under restraint, and had the air of wanting to sing
and laugh if they only had the time. They were all in a perpetual
hurry. All of them--the mocking and the serious, the frank, jovial
youth with effervescing strength, the thoughtful and quiet--all of
them in the eyes of the mother were identical in the persistent
faith that characterized them; and although each had his own peculiar
cast of countenance, for her all their faces blended into one thin,
composed, resolute face with a profound expression in its dark eyes,
kind yet stern, like the look in Christ's eyes on his way to Emmaus.