The next day, after the Liturgy, a fine-looking old man, the smelter Sizov, and a tall, angry metalworker, Makhotin, came and told him about the director’s decision.

“We got together, the older ones,” said Sizov steadily, “had a talk about it, and so our comrades have sent us to you to ask, as you’re a learned man, if there’s a law that lets the director battle the mosquitoes with our copeck?”

“Think about it!” said Makhotin, his narrow eyes flashing. “Four years ago they were collecting for a bathhouse, the rogues. Three thousand eight hundred was collected. Where’s it gone? There’s no bathhouse!”

Pavel explained the injustice of the tax and the venture’s clear financial benefit for the factory; they both left wearing frowns. After seeing them off, the mother said with a grin:

“There, Pasha, even old men have started coming to you for your wisdom.”

Preoccupied, Pavel sat down at the table without replying and began writing something. A few minutes later he said to her:

“A request for you: go into town and hand over this note…”

“Is it dangerous?” she asked.

“Yes. They print a newspaper for us there. It’s vital that the matter of the copeck gets into this issue…”

“All right!” she responded. “Just a minute…”

This was the first errand her son had given her. She was glad he had told her frankly what it was about.

“This I can understand, Pasha!” she said, putting her things on. “They really are just stealing! What’s the man’s name – Yegor Ivanovich?”

She returned late in the evening, tired but pleased.

“I saw Sashenka!” she told her son. “She sends her regards. And that Yegor Ivanovich is such a plain and simple man, a real joker! He talks funny.”

“I’m glad you like them!” said Pavel quietly.

“Plain and simple people, Pasha! It’s good when people are plain and simple! And they all respect you…”

Pavel did not go to work again on the Monday, as he had a headache. But at lunchtime Fedya Mazin came running, excited and happy, and, panting with fatigue, reported:

“Come on! The whole factory’s up in arms. They sent me to fetch you. Sizov and Makhotin say you can explain things best of all. Such doings!”

Pavel began putting his things on in silence.

“The women came running – they’re screaming!”

“I’m coming too!” announced the mother. “What are they getting up to there? I’m coming!”

“Come on!” said Pavel.

They went down the street quickly and in silence. The mother was gasping for breath in her agitation and sensed something important was coming. At the factory gates stood a crowd of women, grumbling and shrill. When the three of them slipped through into the yard, they immediately found themselves in a dense black crowd that was buzzing with excitement. The mother saw that all heads were turned in the same direction, towards the wall of the blacksmith’s shop, where, waving their arms, on a pile of old iron and against a background of red brick, stood Sizov, Makhotin, Vyalov and another half-dozen older, influential workers.

“Vlasov’s coming!” someone shouted.

“Vlasov? Let’s have him here…”

“Quiet!” men immediately shouted in several places.

And somewhere nearby, Rybin’s even voice was ringing out:

“It’s not the copeck we need to stand up for, it’s justice – there! It’s not our copeck that’s dear to us; it’s no more round than any other, but it is heavier: there’s more human blood in it than in the director’s rouble – there! And it’s not the copeck we prize, it’s blood and the truth – there!”

His words fell upon the crowd and wrung out heated exclamations:

“True, Rybin!”

“That’s right, stoker!”

“Vlasov’s here!”

Drowning out the heavy din of machinery, the hard sighs of steam and the hissing of wires, the voices merged into a noisy vortex. People came running in haste from everywhere, waving their arms, inflaming one another with heated, caustic words. The irritation that was always lurking drowsily in tired breasts was awakening, demanding an outlet, flying triumphantly through the air, spreading its dark wings ever wider, gripping the men ever more strongly, enticing them to follow it, bringing them together, being reborn as flaming anger. Above the crowd billowed a cloud of soot and dust, sweat-soaked faces burned, the skin of cheeks cried black tears. Eyes glittered in dark faces and teeth shone.

Pavel appeared where Sizov and Makhotin were standing, and his cry rang out:

“Comrades!”

His mother saw that his face had turned pale and his lips were trembling; she involuntarily moved forward, pushing the crowd aside. People said to her irritably:

“Where d’you think you’re going?”

She was pushed, but this did not stop the mother; shouldering and elbowing people apart, she slowly shoved her way through, ever closer to her son, obeying her desire to stand alongside him.

And Pavel, having ejected from his chest the word in which it was his wont to invest profound and important meaning, felt his throat had been constricted by a spasm of joie de guerre;* he was gripped by a desire to throw his heart to the people, alight with the fire of his dream of truth.

“Comrades!” he repeated, drawing rapture and strength from this word. “We are the people who build churches and factories, who forge chains and money, we are the living force that feeds and entertains everyone from the cradle to the grave…”

“There!” cried Rybin.

“Always and everywhere we are first when it comes to work, but in last place in life. Who worries about us? Who wants to do well by us? Who thinks of us as people? Nobody!”

“Nobody!” someone’s voice responded like an echo.

Regaining his self-control, Pavel began speaking more simply and calmly, and the crowd moved slowly towards him, joining together to form a dark, thousand-headed body. It looked into his face with hundreds of attentive eyes and sucked in his words.

“We won’t achieve a better lot until we feel ourselves to be comrades, a family of friends, firmly bound by one desire, the desire to fight for our rights.”

“Get to the point!” came a rude cry from somewhere near the mother.

“Don’t interrupt!” two low exclamations rang out in different places.

Smoke-blackened faces frowned mistrustfully, sullenly; dozens of eyes looked seriously and thoughtfully into Pavel’s face.

“A socialist, but no fool!” someone remarked.

“My! That’s bold talk!” said a tall, one-eyed worker, pushing into the mother’s shoulder.

“It’s time we understood, comrades, that no one but ourselves is going to help us! One for all and all for one – that’s our law, if we want to overcome the enemy!”

“He’s talking sense, lads!” cried Makhotin.

And with a sweeping swing of the arm, he shook his fist in the air.

“The director must be called out!” Pavel continued.

This hit the crowd like a whirlwind.