Thus, in this cloud of bewilderment and despondency, beneath the weight of melancholy expectations, she lived in silence for one day, two, but on the third day Sasha came and said to Nikolai:
“Everything’s prepared! Today at one o’clock…”
“Already prepared?” he asked in surprise.
“But why not, though? I only had to get a place and clothing for Rybin; Gobun took everything else upon himself. Rybin will have to walk just one block. He’ll be met in the street by Vesovshchikov, disguised, of course; he’ll throw a coat over him, give him a hat and show him the route. I’ll be waiting for him, I’ll give him a change of clothes and take him away.”
“Not bad! And who’s Gobun?” asked Nikolai.
“You’ve seen him. It was in his apartment you had classes with the metal workers.”
“Ah! I remember. A rather eccentric old man…”
“He’s a retired soldier, a roof-maker. A man of little education with an inexhaustible hatred for all violence… A bit of a philosopher,” said Sasha pensively, looking out of the window. The mother listened to her in silence, and slowly ripening inside her was something still unclear.
“Gobun wants to free his nephew – you remember, Yevchenko, you liked him, that foppish, immaculate one?”
Nikolai nodded his head.
“He has everything well organized,” Sasha continued, “but I’m beginning to have doubts about it succeeding. Exercise is taken by everyone together; when the prisoners see the ladder, I think a lot are going to want to escape…”
Closing her eyes, she paused, and the mother moved closer to her.
“And they’ll get in each other’s way…”
All three of them were standing in front of the window, the mother behind Nikolai and Sasha. Their rapid talk was stirring up a troubled feeling in her heart…
“I’m going to go there!” she said suddenly.
“Why?” asked Sasha.
“Don’t go, dear! You might somehow get caught! Don’t do it!” Nikolai advised.
The mother looked at him and repeated, more quietly, but more insistently:
“No, I’m going to go…”
They quickly exchanged glances, and Sasha, shrugging her shoulders, said:
“It’s to be understood…”
Turning to the mother, she took her by the arm, swayed towards her and said in a voice that was simple and dear to the mother’s heart:
“I’ll tell you all the same that there’s no point in your expecting…”
“Sweetheart!” the mother exclaimed, pressing the girl against her with a trembling hand. “Take me along – I won’t get in the way! I need this. I don’t believe it’s possible – escaping!”
“She’s coming!” the girl said to Nikolai.
“It’s your affair!” he answered, bowing his head.
“We can’t be together. You go into the fields, to the allotments. The wall of the prison can be seen from there. But what if you’re asked what you’re doing there?”
Gladdened, the mother replied confidently:
“I’ll think of something to say!…”
“Don’t forget that you’re known to the prison warders!” said Sasha. “And if they see you there…”
“They won’t!” the mother exclaimed.
Hope that had been smouldering unnoticed all the time suddenly flared up painfully bright in her breast and enlivened her…
“And maybe he too…” she thought, hurriedly putting on her things.
An hour later the mother was in the field behind the prison. A sharp wind was flying around her, blowing her dress out, beating against the frozen earth, shaking the ramshackle fence of the allotment she was passing and striking the low wall of the prison with all its might. After toppling over the wall, it swept some men’s cries up from the yard, scattered them through the air and carried them off into the sky. There the clouds were scudding quickly, opening little apertures up into the blue heights.
Behind the mother was an allotment, in front of her the graveyard, and to the right, about ten sazhens* away, the prison. There was a soldier lunging a horse by the graveyard, while another standing next to him was stamping his feet noisily on the ground, shouting, whistling and laughing. There was no one else anywhere near the prison.
She went slowly on past them towards the graveyard fence, throwing stealthy glances backwards and to the right. And suddenly she felt that her feet had grown cold and heavy, as though they had frozen to the ground: out from around the corner of the prison, walking hurriedly, as lamplighters always do, came a stooping man with a ladder on his shoulder. Blinking in fright, the mother glanced quickly at the soldiers: they were marking time, while the horse was running around them; she looked at the man with the ladder: he had already set it against the wall and was climbing up unhurriedly. After waving a hand into the yard, he quickly descended and disappeared around the corner. The mother’s heart was beating hurriedly, but the seconds were passing slowly. Against the dark wall of the prison, the line of the ladder was hardly noticeable amid patches of dirt and brick laid bare by fallen plaster. And suddenly above the wall there was a black head, up grew a body, which rolled over the wall and slid down it. Another head appeared in a shaggy hat, a black shape rolled down onto the ground and vanished quickly around the corner. Mikhailo straightened up, looked around and tossed his head.
“Run, run!” whispered the mother, stamping her foot.
There was a humming in her ears, and loud cries were reaching her, and then there was a third head above the wall. Clutching her hands to her breast, the mother watched, rooted to the spot. A blond head without a beard surged up, as though wanting to break free, but then it suddenly vanished behind the wall. The shouting was ever louder and wilder, and the wind carried the shrill trills of whistles through the air. Mikhailo was walking beside the wall, and then he was already beyond it and crossing the open space between the prison and the buildings of the town. It seemed to her that he was walking too slowly and should not have his head lifted so high – anyone who looked into his face would remember it for ever. She whispered:
“Quickly… quickly…”
Something behind the prison wall made a dry banging noise, and the tinkling of broken glass was heard. Digging his feet into the ground, the soldier with the horse was pulling it towards him; the other, with his fist held up to his mouth, was shouting something in the direction of the prison, and when he had finished, he turned his head side on to the prison and cocked his ear.
The mother was straining and twisting her neck in all directions, and her eyes, seeing everything, believed nothing – too simple and quick had been the accomplishment of what she had imagined would be fearful and complicated, and that speed, having stunned her, was lulling her consciousness. Rybin was no longer to be seen in the street: there was some tall man in a long coat walking along and a little girl running. Out from around the corner of the prison sped three jailers running close to one another, each with his right hand stretched out in front of him. One of the soldiers rushed towards them, while the other ran around the horse, trying to mount it, but it was jumping about, being uncooperative, and everything around was bobbing up and down with it as well. Whistles cut through the air incessantly, choking on their noise. And their alarming, desperate cries awakened the consciousness of danger in the woman; giving a start, she set off alongside the fence of the graveyard, following the jailers, but they and the soldiers ran around the other corner of the prison and disappeared. Running the same way in their wake went the Assistant Prison Governor in an unbuttoned tunic. From somewhere the police appeared, and ordinary people came running.
The wind was spinning around and rushing about, as though rejoicing at something, bearing ragged, confused cries and whistling to the woman’s ears… This chaos gladdened the mother, and she started striding quicker, thinking:
“So he could’ve as well!”
Suddenly from around the corner of the fence there raced out towards her a pair of policemen.
“Stop!” cried one, breathing hard. “A man with a beard – have you seen him?”
She pointed a hand at the allotments and answered calmly:
“He ran that way – what is it?”
“Yegorov! Blow your whistle!”
She set off for home. She felt sorry about something, and there was something bitter and disappointing weighing on her heart. As she was entering a street from the field, a cab cut across her path. Raising her head, she caught sight of a young man with a fair moustache and a pale, tired face inside the vehicle. He looked at her too. He was sitting crookedly, and probably because of this his right shoulder was higher than his left.
Nikolai greeted her joyfully.
“Well, how was it?”
“It seemed to be a success…”
Trying to recreate all the minor details in her memory, she started telling him about the escape and spoke as if relaying somebody else’s story, while doubting the truth of it.
“We’re in luck!” said Nikolai, rubbing his hands. “But how afraid I was for you! The devil knows how afraid! You know, Nilovna, take my friendly advice – don’t be afraid of the trial! The sooner it is, the nearer Pavel’s freedom, believe me! Perhaps he’ll get away on the road. And the trial’s a thing more or less like this…”
He started drawing a picture of a court session for her, and she listened and understood that he was afraid of something and wanted to reassure her.
“Maybe you think I’m going to say something to the judges,” she suddenly said. “Ask them for something?”
He leapt up, started waving his arms at her and cried in an offended tone:
“Not at all!”
“I’m afraid, it’s true! What I’m afraid of, I don’t know!…” She paused with her eyes roaming the room.
“Sometimes I think they’ll start being offensive to Pasha, scoffing at him. ‘You common fellow, you,’ they’ll say, ‘you son of a common man! What have you dreamt up?’ And Pasha’s proud – he’ll give them such an answer! Or Andrei’ll jeer at them. All of them there are hot-headed. And so you think: ‘What if he can’t endure it?’… And they’ll give him such a sentence you’ll never ever see him again!”
Nikolai was glumly silent, tugging at his little beard.
“You can’t get these ideas out of your head!” the mother said quietly. “It’s a fearful thing, a trial! When they start looking into everything and weighing it up! It’s really fearful! It’s not the punishment that’s fearful, but the trial. I don’t know how to put it…”
She sensed that Nikolai did not understand her, and this hampered her desire to talk about her fear even more.