Now and then some one
would come over, and looking carefully about him would say to Pavel:
"Well, brother, you are reading books here, and you know the laws.
Explain to me, then----"
And he would tell Pavel about some injustice of the police or the
factory administration. In complicated cases Pavel would give the
man a note to a lawyer friend in the city, and when he could, he
would explain the case himself.
Gradually people began to look with respect upon this young, serious
man, who spoke about everything simply and boldly, and almost never
laughed, who looked at everybody and listened to everybody with an
attention which searched stubbornly into every circumstance, and
always found a certain general and endless thread binding people
together by a thousand tightly drawn knots.
Vlasova saw how her son had grown up; she strove to understand his
work, and when she succeeded, she rejoiced with a childlike joy.
Pavel rose particularly in the esteem of the people after the
appearance of his story about the "Muddy Penny."
Back of the factory, almost encircling it with a ring of putrescence,
stretched a vast marsh grown over with fir trees and birches.
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