The mother recalled Rybin--his blood, his face, his burning eyes,
his words. Her heart was compressed again with a bitter feeling
of impotence; and along the entire road to the city the powerful
figure of black-bearded Mikhail with his torn shirt, his hands
bound behind his back, his disheveled head, clothed in wrath and
faith in his truth, stood out before her on the drab background of
the gray day. And as she regarded the figure, she thought of the
numberless villages timidly pressed to the ground; of the people,
faint-heartedly and secretly awaiting the coming of truth; and of
the thousands of people who senselessly and silently work their
whole lifetime without awaiting the coming of anything.
Life represented itself to her as an unplowed, hilly field which
mutely awaits the workers and promises a harvest to free and honest
hands: "Fertilize me with seeds of reason and truth; I will return
them to you a hundredfold."
When from afar she saw the roofs and spires of the city, a warm joy
animated and eased her perturbed, worn heart. The preoccupied faces
of those people flashed up in her memory who, from day to day,
without cease, in perfect confidence kindle the fire of thought
and scatter the sparks over the whole earth.
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