At noon the throbbing song of spring hopes hung tremblingly and caressingly over the village.
They were preparing to celebrate the first of May.

Leaflets appeared in the factory explaining the significance of this holiday, and even the young men not affected by the propaganda said, as they read them: "Yes, we must arrange a holiday!" Vyesovshchikov exclaimed with a sullen grin: "It's time! Time we stopped playing hide and seek!" Fedya Mazin was in high spirits.

He had grown very thin.

With his nervous, jerky gestures, and the trepidation in his speech, he was like a caged lark.

He was always with Yakob Somov, taciturn and serious beyond his years.
Samoylov, who had grown still redder in prison, Vasily Gusev, curly-haired Dragunov, and a number of others argued that it was necessary to come out armed, but Pavel and the Little Russian, Somov, and others said it was not.
Yegor always came tired, perspiring, short of breath, but always joking.
"The work of changing the present order of things, comrades, is a great work, but in order to advance it more rapidly, I must buy myself a pair of boots!" he said, pointing to his wet, torn shoes.