"
The mother laughed, and Nikolay, too. This again confused and
vexed Ignaty.
"Don't be uneasy!" Nikolay soothed him. "You won't have to bind
peasants. You trust us."
"Well, well," said Ignaty, set at ease, smiling at Nikolay with
confidence and merriness in his eyes. "If you could get me to
the factory. There, they say, the fellows are mighty smart."
A fire seemed to be ever burning in his broad chest, unsteady as
yet, not confident in its own power. It flashed brightly in his
eyes, forced out from within; but suddenly it would nearly expire
in fright and flicker behind the smoke of perplexed alarm and
embarrassment.
The mother rose from behind the table, and looking through the
window reflected:
"Ah, life! Five times in the day you laugh and five times you weep.
All right. Well, are you through, Ignaty? Go to bed and sleep."
"But I don't want to."
"Go on, go on!"
"You're stern in this place. Thank you for the tea, for the sugar,
for the kindness."
Lying down in the mother's bed he mumbled, scratching his head:
"Now everything'll smell of tar in your place. Ah, it's all for
nothing all this--plain coddling! I don't want to sleep.
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