The spy gave him a quick look and spat.

“You might let me through!” the mother pleaded. “You can see I’m someone with a burden, and my back’s breaking!”

“Go on, go on!” the guard cried angrily. “Having an argument as well…”

The mother reached her spot, set the pots down on the ground and, wiping the sweat from her face, looked around.

The Gusev brothers, metalworkers, came up to her straight away, and the elder, Vasily, asked loudly, knitting his brows:

“Got any pies?”

“I’ll bring some tomorrow!” she replied.

This was the agreed password. The brothers’ faces brightened. Ivan, unable to restrain himself, exclaimed:

“Amazing, Holy Mother…”

Vasily squatted down, peering into a pot, and at that same moment there was suddenly a sheaf of leaflets in his bosom.

“Ivan,” he said loudly, “we’re not going home, let’s get our dinner from her!” Meanwhile he was quickly stuffing booklets into the tops of his boots. “The new trader needs our support…”

“She does!” Ivan agreed, chuckling.

Looking around cautiously, the mother cried:

“Cabbage soup, hot noodle soup!”

And discreetly taking out the booklets, sheaf by sheaf, she thrust them into the brothers’ hands. Each time some books disappeared from her hands, the face of the gendarme officer would flare up before her in a yellow blot, like the light of a match in a dark room, and she would say to him in her mind with a sense of gloating:

“Take that, then, sir…”

Handing over the next sheaf, she would add contentedly:

“And that…”

Workers would come up with cups in their hands; when they were close, Ivan Gusev would start chuckling loudly, and Vlasova would calmly stop the handover, pouring out the cabbage or the noodle soup, while the Gusevs laughed at her:

“Nilovna’s working smoothly!”

“You’ll even go catching mice if needs be!” some stoker remarked morosely. “And they’ve snatched her breadwinner away. The swine! Come on, then, three copecks’ worth of noodle soup. Never mind, Mother! You’ll get by!”

“Thank you for the kind word!” She smiled at him.

Moving away, he growled in an aside:

“A kind word doesn’t cost me much…”

Vlasova cried:

“Hot food – cabbage soup, noodle soup, broth…”

And while she thought about how she would tell her son of her first experience, the yellow face of the officer, perplexed and angry, was forever there before her. Its black moustache stirred in dismay, and from beneath the upper lip, which was curled in irritation, shone the white ivory of firmly clenched teeth. Joy sang in her breast like a bird, her brows quivered slyly and, smoothly doing her job, she kept on repeating to herself:

“And take that too!…”

XVI

In the evening, when she was having some tea, from outside the window came the squelching of horses’ hooves in the mud, and a familiar voice rang out. She leapt up and rushed into the kitchen towards the door; someone was walking quickly through the lobby, everything started to spin before her eyes and, leaning against the doorpost, she gave the door a kick.

“Good evening, nenko,” came the familiar voice, and long, thin arms came to rest on her shoulders.

The anguish of disappointment flared up in her heart, as did joy at seeing Andrei. They flared up and blended into one big burning sensation; it enveloped her in a hot wave, enveloped and lifted her, and she buried her face in Andrei’s chest. He squeezed her tight with trembling arms, and in silence the mother quietly cried, while he stroked her hair and said, as if singing:

“Don’t cry, nenko, don’t weary your heart! I tell you honestly: they’ll release him soon! They have nothing against him, and the lads are all as silent as boiled fish…”

Putting an arm around the mother’s shoulders, he led her into the other room, and pressing up against him, she wiped the tears from her face with the quick gesture of a squirrel and swallowed his words down greedily with the whole of her breast.

“Pavel sends you his greetings, he’s as well and cheerful as he could possibly be. It’s cramped there! They got hold of more than a hundred people, ours and from town, and they’re three or four to a cell. The prison authorities are all right. They’re good people, and they’re tired – the damned gendarmes have given them so much work to do! So they aren’t very strict in their commands, the authorities, they just carry on saying: ‘Keep things quiet, gentlemen, don’t put us in a spot!’ Well, and everything’s going all right. People talk, pass books on to one another, share food. It’s a good prison! It’s old and dirty, but it’s kind of soft and easy. The criminals are a fine bunch too – they help us a lot. They’ve released me, Bukin and four others. They’ll soon release Pavel too – that’s for sure! Vesovshchikov will be inside longest of all: they’re really angry with him. He curses everyone tirelessly! The gendarmes can’t stand the sight of him. It’s quite possible he’ll be put on trial, or else one day he’ll be given a drubbing. Pavel tries to persuade him: ‘Stop it, Nikolai! They won’t be any better, will they, for your cursing them!’ But he growls: ‘I’m going to scratch them from the face of the earth like scabs!’ Pavel’s holding up well, steady and firm. He’ll be released soon, I tell you…”

“Soon!” said the mother, reassured and smiling gently. “Soon, I know!”

“That’s good, then, if you know! Well, pour me some tea; tell me how you’ve been.”

He looked at her, all smiles, so dear and fine, and in his round eyes shone a spark that was loving and a little sad.

“I love you very much, Andryusha!” said the mother with a deep sigh, scrutinizing his thin face, overgrown with funny little tufts of dark hair.

“A little’s enough for me. I know you love me – you can love everyone, you have a big heart!” said the Ukrainian, rocking on his chair.

“No, I love you especially!” she insisted. “If you had a mother, people would envy her for having such a son!…”

The Ukrainian shook his head and rubbed it hard with both hands.

“I have a mother somewhere too…” he said quietly.

“Do you know what I did today?” she exclaimed, and hurriedly, choking in her satisfaction and with a little embellishment, she recounted how she had carried the literature through into the factory.

He widened his eyes in surprise at first, then began chuckling and, shifting his feet around, drummed his fingers on his head and cried out joyously:

“Oho! Well, that’s no joke! That’s something worthwhile! Won’t Pavel be pleased, eh? That’s great, nenko! Both for Pavel and for everyone!”

He was clicking his fingers in delight, whistling, and his whole body was rocking and shining with joy, eliciting a strong, full echo in her.

“My dear Andryusha!” she began, as if her heart had opened and a stream of words full of quiet joy had come splashing and spurting out of it.