Sizov appeared at her side. He took off his hat and waving it to the measure of the song, said: "They're marching openly, eh, mother? And composed a song, too! What a song, mother, eh?" "The Czar for the army soldiers must have, Then give him your sons----" "They're not afraid of anything," said Sizov. "And my son is in the grave. The factory crushed him to death, yes!" The mother's heart beat rapidly, and she began to lag behind. She was soon pushed aside hard against a fence, and the close-packed crowd went streaming past her. She saw that there were many people, and she was pleased. "Rise up, awake, you workingmen!" It seemed as if the blare of a mighty brass trumpet were rousing men and stirring in some hearts the willingness to fight, in other hearts a vague joy, a premonition of something new, and a burning curiosity; in still others a confused tremor of hope and curiosity. The song was an outlet, too, for the stinging bitterness accumulated during years. The people looked ahead, where the red banner was swinging and streaming in the air. All were saying something and shouting; but the individual voice was lost in the song--the new song, in which the old note of mournful meditation was absent. It was not the utterance of a soul wandering in solitude along the dark paths of melancholy perplexity, of a soul beaten down by want, burdened with fear, deprived of individuality, and colorless. It breathed no sighs of a strength hungering for space; it shouted no provoking cries of irritated courage ready to crush both the good and the bad indiscriminately. It did not voice the elemental instinct of the animal to snatch freedom for freedom's sake, nor the feeling of wrong or vengeance capable of destroying everything and powerless to build up anything. In this song there was nothing from the old, slavish world. It floated along directly, evenly; it proclaimed an iron virility, a calm threat. Simple, clear, it swept the people after it along an endless path leading to the far distant future; and it spoke frankly about the hardships of the way. In its steady fire a heavy clod seemed to burn and melt--the sufferings they had endured, the dark load of their habitual feelings, their cursed dread of what was coming. "They all join in!" somebody roared exultantly. "Well done, boys!" Apparently the man felt something vast, to which he could not give expression in ordinary words, so he uttered a stiff oath. Yet the malice, the blind dark malice of a slave also streamed hotly through his teeth. Disturbed by the light shed upon it, it hissed like a snake, writhing in venomous words. "Heretics!" a man with a broken voice shouted from a window, shaking his fist threateningly. A piercing scream importunately bored into the mother's ears--"Rioting against the emperor, against his Majesty the Czar? No, no?"