There was such a nobody's child in the factory. His name was Stepa. He was black as a beetle, pockmarked, and without eyebrows. His eyes were little and sharp, and he was quick at everything, and very gay.
Our acquaintance began with his coming up to me one holiday and saying:
"Monk, I heard you are illegitimate. Well, so am I." And he walked alongside of me.
He was thirteen, had already finished school and was working in the factory. He walked along, blinked his eyes, and asked:
I explained to him as best I could. "Why do you want to know?" I asked.
"I need to know. Why should I stick in one place? I am not a tree. As soon as I learn the locksmithing trade, I am going far into Russia, to Moscow, and farther still. I am going everywhere."
He spoke as if he were threatening some one. "I am coming!"
I watched him closely after this meeting. He had a serious streak in him. He was always where Mikhail's comrades talked, and he listened and squinted his eyes as if taking aim where to send himself. He had a special way of playing tricks. He teased only those who stood near to the boss.
Once at dinner, he said: "It is dull here, monk."
"I don't know, but they are a rotten lot. Work and trouble, nothing more. As soon as I learn my trade I am going to get out of here, quick."
Whenever he spoke of his future wanderings his eyes became large and he glanced boldly and had the look of a conqueror, who staked his all on his own strength.
I liked this creature, and I felt something mature in his speech. "He won't get lost," I thought to myself as I looked at him.
My soul ached for my own son. How was he and what was going to happen to him on this earth?
There was a quiet growth of new feelings within me. I felt that each man sent out to me a sharp, thin ray which touched me unseen and imperceptibly reached my heart. And I accepted these hidden rays ever more willingly.
At times the workingmen assembled in Mikhail's rooms, and then I felt that a burning cloud formed from their thoughts, which surrounded me and carried me strangely upward with itself.
Suddenly every one began to understand me more and more. I stood in their circle, and they were my body and I was their soul and their will, and my speech was their voice. And at times it was I that was a part of the body, and I heard the cry of my own soul from other mouths, and it sounded good when I heard it. But when time passed and there was silence I again remained alone and for myself.