Why speak in whispers, pray? All this they
don't dare say before people in the tavern, for example. What is
it, I ask? A secret? The secret place is our holy church, as old
as the apostles. All the other secrets hatched in the corners are
the offspring of delusions. I wish you good health."
Raising his hand in an affected manner, he lifted his cap, and waving
it in the air, walked away, leaving the mother to her perplexity.
Vlasova's neighbor, Marya Korsunova, the blacksmith's widow, who
sold food at the factory, on meeting the mother in the market place
also said to her:
"Look out for your son, Pelagueya!"
"What's the matter?"
"They're talking!" Marya tendered the information in a hushed
voice. "And they don't say any good, mother of mine! They speak
as if he's getting up a sort of union, something like those
Flagellants--sects, that's the name! They'll whip one another like
the Flagellants----"
"Stop babbling nonsense, Marya! Enough!"
"I'm not babbling nonsense! I talk because I know."
The mother communicated all these conversations to her son. He
shrugged his shoulders in silence, and the Little Russian laughed
with his thick, soft laugh.
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