CHAPTER XX
"Comrades!" the voice of Pavel was heard. "Soldiers are people the
same as ourselves. They will not strike us! Why should they beat
us? Because we bear the truth necessary for all? This our truth is
necessary to them, too. Just now they do not understand this; but
the time is nearing when they will rise with us, when they will
march, not under the banner of robbers and murderers, the banner
which the liars and beasts order them to call the banner of glory
and honor, but under our banner of freedom and goodness! We ought
to go forward so that they should understand our truth the sooner.
Forward, comrades! Ever forward!"
Pavel's voice sounded firm, the words rang in the air distinctly.
But the crowd fell asunder; one after the other the people dropped
off to the right or to the left, going toward their homes, or
leaning against the fences. Now the crowd had the shape of a wedge,
and its point was Pavel, over whose head the banner of the laboring
people was burning red.
At the end of the street, closing the exit to the square, the mother
saw a low, gray wall of men, one just like the other, without faces.
On the shoulder of each a bayonet was smiling its thin, chill smile;
and from this entire immobile wall a cold gust blew down on the
workmen, striking the breast of the mother and penetrating her heart.
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