The women walked down the street in silence, reached the open
country, and strode on side by side along the wide beaten road
between a double row of birches.
"Won't you get tired?" the mother asked.
"Do you think I haven't done much walking? All this is an old
story to me."
With a merry smile, as if speaking of some glorious childhood
frolics, Sofya began to tell the mother of her revolutionary work.
She had had to live under a changed name, use counterfeit documents,
disguise herself in various costumes in order to hide from spies,
carry hundreds and hundreds of pounds of illegal books through
various cities, arrange escapes for comrades in exile, and escort
them abroad. She had had a printing press fixed up in her quarters,
and when on learning of it the gendarmes appeared to make a search,
she succeeded in a minute's time before their arrival in dressing
as a servant, and walking out of the house just as her guests were
entering at the gate. She met them there. Without an outer wrap,
a light kerchief on her head, a tin kerosene can in her hand, she
traversed the city from one end to the other in the biting cold of
a winter's day. Another time she had just arrived in a strange city
to pay a visit to friends.
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