His face was yellowish, with
thin, radiate wrinkles around his eyes, his voice low, and his hands
always warm. In greeting the mother he would enfold her entire hand
in his long, powerful fingers, and after such a vigorous hand clasp
she felt more at ease and lighter of heart.
Other people came from the city, oftenest among them a tall,
well-built young girl with large eyes set in a thin, pale face.
She was called Sashenka. There was something manly in her walk
and movements; she knit her thick, dark eyebrows in a frown, and
when she spoke the thin nostrils of her straight nose quivered.
She was the first to say, "We are socialists!" Her voice when she
said it was loud and strident.
When the mother heard this word, she stared in dumb fright into
the girl's face. But Sashenka, half closing her eyes, said sternly
and resolutely: "We must give up all our forces to the cause of
the regeneration of life; we must realize that we will receive no
recompense."
The mother understood that the socialists had killed the Czar. It
had happened in the days of her youth; and people had then said
that the landlords, wishing to revenge themselves on the Czar for
liberating the peasant serfs, had vowed not to cut their hair until
the Czar should be killed.
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