"
"I'm putting up the samovar already!" the Little Russian called
from the kitchen.
"How is Pavel? Have they let anybody else out besides yourself?"
Nikolay bent his head and answered:
"I'm the only one they've let go." He raised his eyes to the
mother's face and said slowly, speaking through his teeth with
ponderous emphasis: "I told them: 'Enough! Let me go! Else
I'll kill some one here, and myself, too!' So they let me go!"
"Hm, hm--ye-es," said the mother, recoiling from him and involuntarily
blinking when her gaze met his sharp, narrow eyes.
"And how is Fedya Mazin?" shouted the Little Russian from the
kitchen. "Writing poetry, is he?"
"Yes! I don't understand it," said Nikolay, shaking his head.
"They've put him in a cage and he sings. There's only one thing
I'm sure about, and that is I have no desire to go home."
"Why should you want to go home? What's there to attract you?"
said the mother pensively. "It's empty, there's no fire burning,
and it's chilly all over."
Vyesovshchikov sat silent, his eyes screwed up. Taking a box of
cigarettes from his pocket he leisurely lit one of them, and looking
at the gray curl of smoke dissolve before him he grinned like a
big, surly dog.
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