Read Online Mother by Maxim Gorky - Free Book Online Page A

But her son towered thin, straight, and taciturn as ever. She had always called the Little Russian Andrey Stepanovich, in formal address, but now, all at once, involuntarily and unconsciously she said to him:
    "Say, Andriusha, you had better get your boots mended. You are apt
to catch cold."
    "On pay day, mother, I'll buy myself a new pair," he answered, smiling. Then suddenly placing his long hand on her shoulder, he added: "You know, you are my real mother. Only you don't want to acknowledge it to people because I am so ugly."
    She patted him on the hand without speaking. She would have liked to say many endearing things, but her heart was wrung with pity, and the words would not leave her tongue.
    They spoke in the village about the socialists who distributed broadcast leaflets in blue ink. In these leaflets the conditions prevailing in the factory were trenchantly and pointedly depicted, as well as the strikes in St. Petersburg and southern Russia; and the workingmen were called upon to unite and fight for their interests.
    The staid people who earned good pay waxed wroth as they read the literature, and said abusively: "Breeders of rebellion! For such business they ought to get their eyes blacked." And they carried the pamphlets to the office.
    The young people read the proclamations eagerly, and said excitedly:
"It's all true!"
    The majority, broken down with their work, and indifferent to everything, said lazily: "Nothing will come of it. It is impossible!"
    But the leaflets made a stir among the people, and when a week passed without their getting any, they said to one another:
    "None again to-day! It seems the printing must have stopped."
    Then on Monday the leaflets appeared again; and again there was a dull buzz of talk among the workingmen.
    In the taverns and the factory strangers were noticed, men whom no one knew. They asked questions, scrutinized everything and everybody; looked around, ferreted about, and at once attracted universal attention, some by their suspicious watchfulness, others by their excessive obtrusiveness.
    The mother knew that all this commotion was due to the work of her son Pavel. She saw how all the people were drawn together about him. He was not alone, and therefore it was not so dangerous. But pride in her son mingled with her apprehension for his fate; it was his secret labors that discharged themselves in fresh currents into the narrow, turbid stream of life.
    One evening Marya Korsunova rapped at the window from the street, and when the mother opened it, she said in a loud whisper:
    "Now, take care, Pelagueya; the boys have gotten themselves into a nice mess! It's been decided to make a search to-night in your house, and Mazin's and Vyesovshchikov's----"
    The mother heard only the beginning of the woman's talk; all the rest of the words flowed together in one stream of ill-boding, hoarse sounds.
    Marya's thick lips flapped hastily one against the other. Snorts issued from her fleshy nose, her eyes blinked and turned from side to side as if on the lookout for somebody in the street.
    "And, mark you, I do not know anything, and I did not say anything to you, mother dear, and did not even see you to-day, you understand?"
    Then she disappeared.
    The mother closed the window and slowly dropped on a chair, her strength gone from her, her brain a desolate void. But the consciousness of the danger threatening her son quickly brought her to her feet again. She dressed hastily, for some reason wrapped her shawl tightly around her head, and ran to Fedya Mazin, who, she knew, was sick and not working. She found him sitting at the window reading a book, and moving his right hand to and fro with his left, his thumb spread out. On learning the news he jumped up nervously, his lips trembled, and his face paled.
    "There you are! And I have an abscess on my finger!" he mumbled.
    "What are we to do?" asked Vlasova, wiping the perspiration from her face with a hand that trembled nervously.
    "Wait a