She heard the words that had once frightened her--riot, socialism,
politics--uttered more and more frequently among the simple folk,
though accompanied by derision. However, behind their ridicule it
was impossible to conceal an eagerness to understand, mingled with
fear and hope, with hatred of the masters and threats against them.
Agitation disturbed the settled, dark life of the people in slow but
wide circles. Dormant thoughts awoke, and men were shaken from their
usual forced calm attitude toward daily events. All this the mother
saw more clearly than others, because she, better than they, knew the
dismal, dead face of existence; she stood nearer to it, and now saw
upon it the wrinkles of hesitation and turmoil, the vague hunger for
the new. She both rejoiced over the change and feared it. She
rejoiced because she regarded this as the cause of her son; she feared
because she knew that if he emerged from prison he would stand at
the head of all, in the most dangerous place, and--he would perish.
She often felt great thoughts needful to everybody stirring in her
bosom, but scarcely ever was able to make them live in words; and
they oppressed her heart with a dumb, heavy sadness.
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