sat down in a corner, and began to read, his tin lamp hanging on
the wall over his head, the mother, after removing the dishes, came
out from the kitchen and carefully walked up to him. He raised his
head, and without speaking looked at her with a questioning expression.

"Nothing, Pasha, just so!" she said hastily, and walked away, moving
her eyebrows agitatedly. But after standing in the kitchen for a
moment, motionless, thoughtful, deeply preoccupied, she washed her
hands and approached her son again.

"I want to ask you," she said in a low, soft voice, "what you read
all the time."

He put his book aside and said to her: "Sit down, mother."

The mother sat down heavily at his side, and straightening herself
into an attitude of intense, painful expectation waited for
something momentous.

Without looking at her, Pavel spoke, not loudly, but for some reason
very sternly:

"I am reading forbidden books. They are forbidden to be read because
they tell the truth about our--about the workingmen's life. They
are printed in secret, and if I am found with them I will be put in
prison--I will be put in prison because I want to know the truth."

Breathing suddenly became difficult for her. Opening her eyes wide
she looked at her son, and he seemed to her new, as if a stranger.
His voice was different, lower, deeper, more sonorous. He pinched