When you begin to accuse them and to judge them, they will hate you, and will hound you to destruction!" Pavel stood in the doorway listening to the melancholy speech, and when the mother had finished he said with a smile: "Yes, people are sorry creatures; but when I came to recognize that there is truth in the world, people became better." He smiled again and added: "I do not know how it happened myself! From childhood I feared everybody; as I grew up I began to hate everybody, some for their meanness, others--well, I do not know why--just so! And now I see all the people in a different way.

I am grieved for them all! I cannot understand it; but my heart turned softer when I recognized that there is truth in men, and that not all are to blame for their foulness and filth." He was silent as if listening to something within himself.

Then he said in a low voice and thoughtfully: "That's how truth lives." She looked at him tenderly.
"May God protect you!" she sighed.

"It is a dangerous change that has come upon you." When he had fallen asleep, the mother rose carefully from her bed and came gently into her son's room.

Pavel's swarthy, resolute, stern face was clearly outlined against the white pillow.