"
"Remove the ribbons, please, Yakovlev! Cut them off!" A saber
was heard issuing from its scabbard. The mother closed her eyes,
awaiting shouts; but it grew quieter.
The people growled like wolves at bay; then silently drooping their
heads, crushed by the consciousness of impotence, they moved forward,
filling the street with the noise of their tramping. Before them
swayed the stripped cover of the coffin with the crumpled wreaths,
and swinging from side to side rode the mounted police. The mother
walked on the pavement; she was unable to see the coffin through the
dense crowd surrounding it, which imperceptibly grew and filled the
whole breadth of the street. Back of the crowd also rose the gray
figures of the mounted police; at their sides, holding their hands
on their sabers, marched the policemen on foot, and everywhere were
the sharp eyes of the spies, familiar to the mother, carefully
scanning the faces of the people.
"Good-by, comrade, good-by!" plaintively sang two beautiful voices.
"Don't!" a shout was heard. "We will be silent, comrades--
for the present."
The shout was stern and imposing; it carried an assuring threat,
and it subdued the crowd.
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