The Maxim Gorky

by Maxim Gorky

  Tchelkache’s boat stopped and rocked on the water as though hesitating. Gavrilo lay flat on the bottom of the boat, covering his face with his hands, and Tchelkache prodded him with his oar, hissing furiously, but quite low.

  “Idiot, that’s the custom-house cruiser. The electric lantern! Get up, row with all your might! They’ll throw the light upon us! You’ll ruin us, devil, both of us!”

  When the sharp edge of the oar had been brought down once more, harder this time, on Gavrilo’s back, he arose and, not daring to open his eyes, resumed his seat and feeling for the oars, sent the boat ahead.

  “Softly, or I’ll kill you! Softly! Imbecile, may the devil take you! What are you afraid of? Say? A lantern and a mirror. That’s all! Softly with those oars, miserable wretch! They incline the mirror at will and light the sea to find out if any folks like us are roving over it. They’re on the watch for smugglers. We’re out of reach; they’re too far away, now. Don’t be afraid, boy, we’re safe! Now, we…”

  Tchelkache looked around him triumphantly.

  “Yes, we’re safe. Out! You were in luck, you worthless stick!”

  Gavrilo rowed in silence; breathing heavily, he cast sidelong glances at the spot where still rose and fell the sword of fire. He could not believe that it was only, as Tchelkache said, a lantern with a reflector. The cold, blue light, cutting the darkness, awoke silver reflections upon the sea; there seemed something mysterious about it, and Gavrilo again felt his faculties benumbed with fear. The presentiment of some misfortune oppressed him a second time. He rowed like a machine, bent his shoulders as though expecting a blow to descend and felt himself void of every desire, and without soul. The emotions of that night had consumed all that was human in him.

  Tchelkache was more triumphant than ever: his success was complete! His nerves, accustomed to shocks, were already calmed. His lips trembled and his eyes shone with an eager light. He felt strong and well, whistled softly, inhaled long breaths of the salt sea air, glanced about from right to left and smiled good-naturedly when his eyes fell upon Gavrilo.

  A light breeze set a thousand little waves to dancing. The clouds became thinner and more transparent although still covering the sky. The wind swept lightly and freely over the entire surface of the sea, but the clouds remained motionless, and seemed to be plunged in a dull, gray reverie.

  “Come, brother, wake up, it’s time! Your soul seems to have been shaken out of your skin; there’s nothing left but a bag of bones. My dear fellow! We have hold of the good end, eh?”

  Gavrilo was glad to hear a human voice, even though it was that of Tchelkache.

  “I know it,” said he, very low.

  “That’s right, little man! Take the tiller, I’ll row; You’re tired, aren’t you?”

  Gavrilo mechanically changed places, and when Tchelkache saw that he staggered, he pitied him more still and patted him on the shoulder,

  “Don’t be afraid! You’ve made a good thing out of it. I’ll pay you well. Would you like to have twenty-five rubles, eh?”

  “I—I don’t need anything. All I ask is to reach land!”

  Tchelkache removed his hand, spat and began to row; his long arms sent the oars far back of him.

  The sea had awakened. It sported with its tiny waves, brought them forth, adorned them with a fringe of foam, tumbled them over each other and broke them into spray. The foam as it melted sighed and the air was filled with harmonious sounds and the plashing of water. The darkness seemed to be alive.

  “Well! tell me…” began Tchelkache. “You’ll return to the village, you’ll marry, you’ll set to work to plough and sow, your wife’ll present you with many children, you’ll not have enough bread and you’ll just manage to keep soul and body together all your life! So…is it such a pleasant prospect?”

  “What pleasure can there be in that?” timidly and shudderingly replied Gavrilo. “What can one do?”

  Here and there, the clouds were rent by the wind and, through the spaces, the cold sky studded with a few stars looked down. Reflected by the joyous sea, these stars leaped upon the waves, now disappearing, now shining brightly.

  “More to the left!” said Tchelkache. “We shall soon be there, Yes!…it is ended. We’ve done a good stroke of work. In a single night, you understand—five hundred rubles gained! Isn’t that doing well, say?”

  “Five hundred rubles!” repeated Gavrilo, distrustfully, but he was immediately seized with fright and quickly asked, kicking the bales at the bottom of the boat: “What are those things?”

  “That’s silk. A very dear thing. If it were to be sold for its real value, it would bring a thousand rubles. But I don’t raise the price…clever that, eh?”

  “Is it possible?” asked Gavrilo. “If I only had as much!”

  He sighed at the thought of the country, of his miserable life, his toil, his mother and all those far-distant and dear things for which he had gone away to work, and for which he had suffered so much that night. A wave of memory swept over him: he saw his village on a hill-side with the river at the bottom, hidden by birches, willows, mountain-ash and wild cherry trees. The picture breathed some life in him and gave him a little strength.

  “Oh, Lord, how much good it would do!” he sighed, sadly.

  “Yes! I imagine that you’d very quickly board the train and—good-evening! Oh, how the girls would love you, yonder, in the village! You could have your pick. You could have a new house built. But for a new house, there might not be enough…”

  “That’s true. A house, no; wood is very dear with us.”

  “Never mind, you could have the one that you have repaired. Do you own a horse?”

  “A horse? Yes, there’s one, but he’s very old!”

  “Then a horse, a good horse! A cow…sheep…poultry…eh?”

  “Why do you say that? If only!… Ah! Lord, how I might enjoy life.”

  “Yes, brother, life under those circumstances would not be bad… I, too, I know a little about such things. I also have a nest belonging to me. My father was one of the richest peasants of his village.”

  Tchelkache rowed slowly. The boat danced upon the waves which beat against its sides; it scarcely advanced over the somber sea, now disporting itself harder than ever. The two men dreamed, rocked upon the water and gazing vaguely around them. Tchelkache had spoken to Gavrilo of his village with the purpose of quieting him and helping him to recover from his emotion. He at first spoke with a sceptical smile hidden under his moustache, but as he talked and recalled the joys of country life, in regard to which he himself had long since been disabused, and that he had forgotten until this moment, he became carried away, and instead of talking to the lad, he began unconsciously to harangue:

  “The essential part of the life of a peasant, brother, is liberty. You must be your own master. You own your house: it is not worth much, but it belongs to you. You possess a piece of ground, a little corner, perhaps, but it is yours. Your chickens, eggs, apples are yours. You are a king upon the earth. Then you must be methodical… As soon as you are up in the morning, you must go to work. In the spring it is one thing, in the summer another, in the autumn and winter still another. From wherever you may be you always return to your home. There is warmth, rest!… You are a king, are you not?”

  Tchelkache had waxed enthusiastic over this long enumeration of the privileges and rights of the peasant, forgetting only to speak of his duties.

  Gavrilo looked at him with curiosity, and was also aroused to enthusiasm. He had already had time in the course of this conversation to forget with whom he was dealing; he saw before him only a peasant like himself, attached to the earth by labor, by several generations of laborers, by memories of childhood, but who had voluntarily withdrawn from it and its cares and who was now suffering the punishment of his ill-advised act.

  “Yes, comrade, that’s true! Oh! how true that is! See now,
take your case, for instance: what are you now, without land? Ah! friend, the earth is like a mother: one doesn’t forget it long.”

  Tchelkache came to himself. He felt within him that burning sensation that always seized upon him when his self-love as a dashing devil-may-care fellow was wounded, especially when the offender was of no account in his eyes.

  “There he goes again!” he exclaimed fiercely. “You imagine, I suppose that I’m speaking seriously. I’m worth more than that, let me tell you!”

  “Why, you funny fellow!” replied Gavrilo, again intimidated, “am I speaking of you? There are a great many like you! My God, how many unfortunate persons, vagabonds there are on the earth!”

  “Take the oars again, dolt!” commanded Tchelkache shortly, restraining himself from pouring forth a string of fierce oaths that rose in his throat.

  They again changed places. Tchelkache, while clambering over the bales to return to the helm, experienced a sharp desire to give Gavrilo a good blow that would send him overboard, and, at the same time, he could not muster strength to look him in the face.

  The short conversation was ended; but now Gavrilo’s silence even savored to Tchelkache of the village. He was lost in thoughts of the past and forgot to steer his boat; the waves had turned it and it was now going out to sea. They seemed to understand that this boat had no aim, and they played with it and lightly tossed it, while their blue fires flamed up under the oars. Before Tchelkache’s inward vision, was rapidly unfolded a series of pictures of the past—that far distant past separated from the present by a wall of eleven years of vagrancy. He saw himself again a child, in the village, he saw his mother, red-cheeked, fat, with kind gray eyes,—his father, a giant with a tawny beard and stern countenance,—himself betrothed to Amphissa, black-eyed with a long braid down her back, plump, easy-going, gay… And then, himself, a handsome soldier of the guard; later, his father, gray and bent by work, and his mother, wrinkled and bowed. What a merry-making there was at the village when he had returned after the expiration of his service! How proud the father was of his Gregori, the moustached, broad-shouldered soldier, the cock of the village! Memory, that scourge of the unfortunate, brings to life even the stones of the past, and, even to the poison, drunk in former days, adds drops of honey; and all this only to kill man by the consciousness of his faults, and to destroy in his soul all faith in the future by causing him to love the past too well.

  Tchelkache was enveloped in a peaceful whiff of natal air that was wafting toward him the sweet words of his mother, the sage counsel of his father, the stern peasant, and many forgotten sounds and savory odors of the earth, frozen as in the springtime, or freshly ploughed, or lastly, covered with young wheat, silky, and green as an emerald… Then he felt himself a pitiable, solitary being, gone astray, without attachments and an outcast from the life where the blood in his veins had been formed.

  “Hey! Where are we going?” suddenly asked Gavrilo.

  Tchelkache started and turned around with the uneasy glance of a wild beast.

  “Oh! the devil! Never mind… Row more cautiously… We’re almost there.”

  “Were you dreaming?” asked Gavrilo, smiling.

  Tchelkache looked searchingly at him. The lad was entirely himself again; calm, gay, he even seemed complacent. He was very young, all his life was before him. That was bad! But perhaps the soil would retain him. At this thought, Tchelkache grew sad again, and growled out in reply:

  “I’m tired!…and the boat rocks!”

  “Of course it rocks! So, now, there’s no danger of being caught with this?”

  Gavrilo kicked the bales.

  “No, be quiet. I’m going to deliver them at once and receive the money. Yes!”

  “Five hundred?”

  “Not less, probably…”

  “It’s a lot! If I had it, poor beggar that I am, I’d soon let it be known.”

  “At the village?…”

  “Sure! without delay…”

  Gavrilo let himself be carried away by his imagination. Tchelkache appeared crushed. His moustache hung down straight; his right side was all wet from the waves, his eyes were sunken in his head and without life. He was a pitiful and dull object. His likeness to a bird of prey had disappeared; self-abasement appeared in the very folds of his dirty blouse.

  “I’m tired, worn out!”

  “We are landing… Here we are.”

  Tchelkache abruptly turned the boat and guided it toward something black that arose from the water.

  The sky was covered with clouds, and a fine, drizzling rain began to fall, pattering joyously on the crests of the waves.

  “Stop!… Softly!” ordered Tchelkache.

  The bow of the boat hit the hull of a vessel.

  “Are the devils sleeping?” growled Tchelkache, catching the ropes hanging over the side with his boat-hook. “The ladder isn’t lowered. In this rain, besides… It couldn’t have rained before! Eh! You vermin, there! Eh!”

  “Is that you Selkache?” came softly from above.

  “Lower the ladder, will you!”

  “Good-day, Selkache.”

  “Lower the ladder, smoky devil!” roared Tchelkache.

  “Oh! Isn’t he ill-natured today… Eh! Oh!”

  “Go up, Gavrilo!” commanded Tchelkache to his companion.

  In a moment they were on the deck, where three dark and bearded individuals were looking over the side at Tchelkache’s boat and talking animatedly in a strange and harsh language. A fourth, clad in a long gown, advanced toward Tchelkache, shook his hand in silence and cast a suspicious glance at Gavrilo.

  “Get the money ready for tomorrow morning,” briefly said Tchelkache. “I’m going to sleep, now. Come Gavrilo. Are you hungry?”

  “I’m sleepy,” replied Gavrilo,

  In five minutes, he was snoring on the dirty deck; Tchelkache sitting beside him, was trying on an old boot that he found lying there. He softly whistled, animated both by sorrow and anger. Then he lay down beside Gavrilo, without removing the boot from his foot, and putting his hands under the back of his neck he carefully examined the deck, working his lips the while.

  The boat rocked joyously on the water; the sound of wood creaking dismally was heard, the rain fell softly on the deck, the waves beat against the sides. Everything resounded sadly like the lullaby of a mother who has lost all hope for the happiness of her son.

  Tchelkache, with parted lips, raised his head and gazed around him…and murmuring a few words, lay down again.

  * * * *

  He was the first to awaken, starting up uneasily; then suddenly quieting down he looked at Gavrilo, who was still sleeping. The lad was smiling in his sleep, his round, sun-burned face irradiated with joy.

  Tchelkache sighed and climbed up a narrow rope ladder. The opening of the trap-door framed a piece of leaden sky. It was daylight, but the autumn weather was gray and gloomy.

  It was two hours before Tchelkache reappeared. His face was red, his moustache curled fiercely upward; his eyes beamed with gaiety and good-nature. He wore high, thick boots, a coat and leather trowsers; he looked like a hunter. His costume, which, although a little worn, was still in good condition and fitted him well, made him appear broader, concealed his too angular lines and gave him a martial air.

  “Hey! Youngster, get up!” said he touching Gavrilo with his foot.

  The last named started up, and not recognizing him just at first, gazed at him vacantly. Tchelkache burst out laughing.

  “How you’re gotten up!…” finally exclaimed Gavrilo, smiling broadly. “You are a gentleman!”

  “We do that quickly here! What a coward you are! Dear, dear! How many times did you make up your mind to die last night, eh? Say…”

  “But you see, it’s the first time I’ve ever done anything like this! One might lose his soul for the rest of his days!”<
br />
  “Would you be willing to go again?”

  “Again? I must know first what there would be in it for me.”

  “Two hundred.”

  “Two hundred, you say? Yes I’d go.”

  “Stop!… And your soul?”

  “Perhaps I shouldn’t lose it!” said Gavrilo, smiling. “And then one would be a man for the rest of his days!”

  Tchelkache burst out laughing. “That’s right, but we’ve joked long enough! Let us row to the shore. Get ready.”

  “I? Why I’m ready…”

  They again took their places in the boat. Tchelkache at the helm, Gavrilo rowing.

  The gray sky was covered with clouds; the troubled, green sea, played with their craft, tossing it on its still tiny waves that broke over it in a shower of clear, salt drops. Far off, before the prow of the boat, appeared the yellow line of the sandy beach; back of the stern was the free and joyous sea, all furrowed by the troops of waves that ran up and down, already decked in their superb fringe of foam. In the far distance, ships were rocking on the bosom of the sea and, on the left, was a whole forest of masts mingled with the white masses of the houses of the town. Prom there, a dull murmur is borne out to sea and blending with the sound of the waves swelled into rapturous music. Over all stretched a thin veil of mist, widening the distance between the different objects.

  “Eh! It’ll be rough tonight!” said Tchelkache, nodding his head in the direction of the sea.

  “A storm?” asked Gavrilo. He was rowing hard. He was drenched from head to foot by the drops blown by the wind.