Nobody's afraid."
Several seconds of wavering seemed to have the effect of joining
everything in her; her heart began to beat calmly.
"What's going to happen now? How will they go about it with me?"
she thought, her senses strung to a keener observation.
The spy called a station guard, and whispered something to him,
directing his look toward her. The guard glanced at him and moved
back. Another guard came, listened, grinned, and lowered his brows.
He was an old man, coarse-built, gray, unshaven. He nodded his head
to the spy, and walked up to the bench where the mother sat. The
spy quickly disappeared.
The old man strode leisurely toward the mother, intently thrusting
his angry eyes into the mother's face. She sat farther back on the
bench, trembling. "If they only don't beat me, if they only don't
beat me!"
He stopped at her side; she raised her eyes to his face.
"What are you looking at?" he asked in a moderated voice.
"Nothing."
"Hm! Thief! So old and yet----"
It seemed to her that his words struck her face once, twice, rough
and hoarse; they wounded her, as if they tore her cheeks, ripped
out her eyes.
"I'm not a thief! You lie!" she shouted with all the power of her
chest; and everything before her jumped and began to whirl in a
whirlwind of revolt, intoxicating her heart with the bitterness of
insult.
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