Liberius

Liberius is presented not through a direct appearance in these passages but through the recollections of a woman whose family is woven into the upheavals around Varykino. Her account identifies him as her nephew, a celebrated leader of peasant forces who grew up among factory workers. The details give his public role a social history: he is associated with workers and peasants, and his rise is remembered within a family that has itself been drawn toward the new government.

Identity and Background

The woman explains that her nephew was always drawn to the people and grew up among workers at the Varykino factories. She describes him as being at the head of the peasant forces and already a celebrity. Her account ties his political prominence to both a childhood among industrial workers and his later leadership among peasants, without specifying how he moved from one role to the other.

Yurii Andreievich recognizes the family connection: Liberius is her nephew, while she is the sister-in-law of Mikulitsyn. The recognition also connects her to the local reputation of an energetic, adaptable woman known for a succession of occupations—as barber, seamstress, signal woman, and general helper. Yurii keeps his discovery to himself so as not to reveal what he knows.

Family and Political Setting

The woman situates Liberius within a family of four sisters, herself included, all of them working women. One sister has died; that sister’s husband was a political exile who managed one of the local factories, and their son is Liberius. The family’s experience therefore spans wage-earning work, political exile, factory management, and leadership of peasant forces.

She says that it is natural for the sisters to be drawn to the new government because it claims to stand on the side of ordinary people. She contrasts this political alignment with the investigations, informing, and shootings of the present, while maintaining that the new government’s guiding idea is different. Her remarks do not establish Liberius’s own precise beliefs or actions, but place his public reputation within a family’s sympathetic account of the revolution and its social claims.

Later Recollection and Human Ties

In a later conversation, Lara speaks of Glafira, the woman who gave Yurii a haircut when he arrived, and of Glafira’s sisters, who live with their eldest sister, Avdotia, a librarian. Lara calls them an honest working family and considers asking them to care for Katenka if she and Yurii are arrested. This recollection reinforces the family’s practical solidarity: they are not only connected to revolutionary leadership but are also imagined as people who might shelter a child in danger.

Lara says that Sima is unusual, deeply original, and exceptionally well educated, though not an intellectual in the conventional sense. She thinks Sima and Yurii share strikingly similar views and would feel reassured if Sima raised Katenka. These details broaden the portrait of the family surrounding Liberius, presenting its members as workers with intellectual and personal qualities that complicate any simple division between political celebrity and ordinary life.