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The Little Russian, Andrey, is all feeling and thought, and the peasant Rybine is inflamed by action. Sashenka is a young girl who sacrifices herself entirely to the Idea, and the coal-man Ignatius is driven by an obscure force to help in a cause which he does not understand. Finest of them all is Pelaguaya Vlassov, the principal character of the book, and Pavel's mother.
The dangerous thoughts about murder left her. If Vyesovshchikov had not killed Isay, none of Pavel's comrades could have done the deed. Pavel listened to the Little Russian with drooping head, and Andrey stubbornly continued in a forceful tone: "In your forward march it sometimes chances that you must go against your very own self. You must be able to give up everything your heart and all.
Stains appeared on their gray faces. Cold, green sparks burned in their eyes. Pavel's speech had excited but subdued them; it restrained their agitation by its force, which involuntarily inspired respect. The Little Russian broke away this restraint and easily bared what lay underneath. They looked at Samoylov, and whispered to one another with strange, wry faces.
The searchers appeared at the very time they were not expected, nearly a month after this anxious night. Nikolay Vyesovshchikov was at Pavel's house talking with him and Andrey about their newspaper. It was late, about midnight. The mother was already in bed. Half awake, half asleep, she listened to the low, busy voices.
I cannot understand calmness; I don't like it." The reflection of the fire glided across her face, and she again became austere, somewhat haughty. "Your life is not very pleasant," the mother thought kindly. Liudmila began to read Pavel's speech, at first reluctantly; then she bent lower and lower over the paper, quickly throwing aside the pages as she read them.
"Suppose we try?" said the Little Russian. After a short silence Pavel said: "Couples will be formed; couples will walk together; then some will get married, and that's all." The mother became thoughtful. Pavel's austerity worried her.
Andrey pulled his hand convulsively from Pavel's, and said more hoarsely with disgust in his face: "I dealt him a back-hand blow like that, downward and aslant, and walked away. I didn't even stop to look at him; I heard him fall. He dropped and was silent. I didn't dream of anything serious. I walked on peacefully, just as if I had done no more than kick a frog with my foot.
Andrey stood at the window with his hands clasped behind his back, listening to Pavel's narrative. Pavel also paced up and down the room. His beard had grown, and small ringlets of thin, dark hair curled in a dense growth around his cheeks, softening the swarthy color of his face. His dark eyes had their stern expression. "Sit down!" said the mother, serving a hot dish.
Secondly, last night several young people made about five hundred hektograph copies of Pavel's speech not badly done, plain and clear. They want to scatter them throughout the city at night. I'm against it. Printed sheets are better for the city, and the hektograph copies ought to be sent off somewhere." "Here, I'll carry them to Natasha!" the mother exclaimed animatedly. "Give them to me."
"You've been in prison half a year already!" They spoke to each other about matters of no significance to either. The mother saw Pavel's eyes look into her face softly and lovingly. Even and calm as before, he had not changed, save that his wrists were whiter, and his beard, grown long, made him look older.
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