Your own stick does not fall upon you so heavily. For them the
laws are to some extent a protection, but for us they are only
chains to keep us bound so we can't kick."
Three days afterwards in the evening, when the mother sat at the
table knitting stockings and the Little Russian was reading to her
from a book about the revolt of the Roman slaves, a loud knock was
heard at the door. The Little Russian went to open it and admitted
Vyesovshchikov with a bundle under his arm, his hat pushed back on
his head, and mud up to his knees.
"I was passing by, and seeing a light in your house, I dropped in to
ask you how you are. I've come straight from the prison."
He spoke in a strange voice. He seized Vlasov's hand and wrung it
violently as he added: "Pavel sends you his regards." Irresolutely
seating himself in a chair he scanned the room with his gloomy,
suspicious look.
The mother was not fond of him. There was something in his angular,
close-cropped head and in his small eyes that always scared her;
but now she was glad to see him, and with a broad smile lighting
her face she said in a tender, animated voice:
"How thin you've become! Say, Andriusha, let's dose him with tea.
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