The Maxim Gorky

by Maxim Gorky

  “You don’t know it all!” said Foma, threateningly, rising to his feet. “But I know everything about you—everything.”

  “Yes? Then the better it is for me,” said Medinskaya, calmly.

  She also arose from the couch, as though about to go away somewhere, but after a few seconds she again seated herself on the couch. Her face was serious, her lips were tightly compressed, but her eyes were lowered, and Foma could not see their expression. He thought that when he told her, “I know everything about you!” she would be frightened, she would feel ashamed and confused, would ask his forgiveness for having made sport of him. Then he would embrace her and forgive her. But that was not the case; it was he who was confused by her calmness. He looked at her, searching for words to resume his speech, but found them not.

  “It is better,” she repeated firmly and drily. “So you have learned everything, have you? And, of course, you’ve censured me, as I deserve. I understand. I am guilty before you. But no, I cannot justify myself.”

  She became silent and suddenly, lifting her hands with a nervous gesture, clasped her head, and began to adjust her hair.

  Foma heaved a deep sigh. Her words had killed in him a certain hope—a hope, whose presence in his heart he only felt now that it was dead. And shaking his head, he said, with bitter reproach:

  “There was a time when I looked at you and thought, ‘How beautiful she is, how good, the dove!’ And now you say yourself, ‘I am guilty.’ Ah!”

  The voice of the youth broke down. And the woman began to laugh softly.

  “How fine and how ridiculous you are, and what a pity that you cannot understand all this!”

  The youth looked at her, feeling himself disarmed by her caressing words and melancholy smile. That cold, harsh something, which he had in his heart against her, was now melting before the warm light of her eyes. The woman now seemed to him small, defenseless, like a child. She was saying something in a gentle voice as though imploring, and forever smiling, but he paid no attention to her words.

  “I’ve come to you,” said he, interrupting her words, “without pity. I meant to tell you everything. And yet I said nothing. I don’t feel like doing it. My heart sank. You are breathing upon me so strangely. Eh, I should not have seen you! What are you to me? It would be better for me to go away, it seems.”

  “Wait, dearest, don’t go away!” said the woman, hastily, holding out her hand to him. “Why so severe? Do not be angry at me! What am I to you? You need a different friend, a woman just as simple-minded and sound-souled as you are. She must be gay, healthy. I—I am already an old woman. I am forever worrying. My life is so empty and so weary, so empty! Do you know, when a person has grown accustomed to live merrily, and then cannot be merry, he feels bad! He desires to live cheerfully, he desires to laugh, yet he does not laugh—it is life that is laughing at him. And as to men. Listen! Like a mother, I advise you, I beg and implore you—obey no one except your own heart! Live in accordance with its promptings. Men know nothing, they cannot tell you anything that is true. Do not heed them.”

  Trying to speak as plainly and intelligibly as possible, she was agitated, and her words came incoherently hurriedly one after another. A pitiful smile played on her lips all the time, and her face was not beautiful.

  “Life is very strict. It wants all people to submit to its requests, and only the very strong ones can resist it with impunity. It is yet questionable whether they can do it! Oh, if you knew how hard it is to live. Man goes so far that he begins to fear his own self. He is split into judge and criminal—he judges his own self and seeks justification before himself. And he is willing to pass days and nights with those that despise him, and that are repulsive to him—just to avoid being alone with himself.”

  Foma lifted his head and said distrustfully, with surprise:

  “I cannot understand what it is! Lubov also says the same.”

  “Which Lubov? What does she say?”

  “My foster-sister. She says the same,—she is forever complaining of life. It is impossible to live, she says.”

  “Oh, she is yet young! And it is a great happiness that she already speaks of this.”

  “Happiness!” Foma drawled out mockingly. “It must be a fine happiness that makes people sigh and complain.”

  “You’d better listen to complaints. There is always much wisdom in these complaints of men. Oh! There is more wisdom in these complaints than anywhere else. You listen to these,—they will teach you to find your way.”

  Foma heard the woman’s voice, which sounded convincing; and perplexed, looked about him. Everything had long been familiar to him, but today it looked somewhat new to him. A mass of trifles filled the room, all the walls were covered with pictures and shelves, bright and beautiful objects were staring from every corner. The reddish light of the lamp filled one with melancholy. Twilight wrapped everything in the room, and only here and there the gold of the frames, or the white spots of marble flashed dimly. Heavy fabrics were motionlessly hanging before the doors. All this embarrassed and almost choked Foma; he felt as though he had lost his way. He was sorry for the woman. But she also irritated him.

  “Do you hear how I speak to you? I wish I were your mother, or your sister. Never before did anybody awaken in me so warm and kindred a feeling as you have done. And you, you look at me in such an unfriendly way. Do you believe me? Yes? No?”

  He looked at her and said with a sigh:

  “I don’t know. I used to believe you.”

  “And now?” she asked hastily.

  “And now—it is best for me to go! I don’t understand anything, and yet I long to understand. I do not even understand myself. On my way to you I knew what to say, and here all is confused. You have put me up on the rack, you have set me on edge. And then you tell me—‘I am as a mother to you’—which means—begone!”

  “Understand me, I feel sorry for you!” the woman exclaimed softly.

  Foma’s irritation against her was growing stronger and stronger, and as he went on speaking to her, his words became absurd. While he spoke, he kept on moving his shoulders as though tearing something that entangled him.

  “Sorry? What for? I do not need it. Eh, I cannot speak well! It is bad to be dumb. But—I would have told you! You did not treat me properly—indeed, why have you so enticed a man? Am I a plaything for you?”

  “I only wanted to see you by my side,” said the woman simply, in a guilty voice.

  He did not hear these words.

  “And when it came to the point, you were frightened and you shut yourself off from me. You began to repent. Ha, ha! Life is bad! And why are you always complaining of some life? What life? Man is life, and except man there is no life. You have invented some other monster. You have done this to deceive the eye, to justify yourself. You do some mischief, you lose yourself in different inventions and foolishnesses and then you sigh! Ah, life! Oh, life! And have you not done it yourself? And covering yourself with complaints, you confuse others. You have lost your way, very well, but why do you want to lead me astray? Is it wickedness that speaks in you: ‘I feel bad,’ you say, ‘let him also feel bad—there, I’ll besprinkle his heart with my poisonous tears!’ Isn’t that so? Eh! God has given you the beauty of an angel, but your heart—where is it?”

  Standing before her, he trembled in every limb, and examined her from head to foot with reproachful looks. Now his words came freely from his heart, he spoke not loud, but with power and pleasure. Her head raised, the woman stared into his face, with wide-open eyes. Her lips were trembling and deep wrinkles appeared at the corners of her mouth.

  “A beautiful person should lead a good life. While of you they say things.” Foma’s voice broke down; he raised his hand and concluded in a dull voice:

  “Goodbye!”

  “Goodbye!” said Medinskaya, softly.

  He did not give her his hand, b
ut, turning abruptly, he walked away from her. But already at the door he felt that he was sorry for her, and he glanced at her across his shoulder. There, in the corner, she stood alone, her head bent, her hands hanging motionless.

  Understanding that he could not leave her thus, he became confused, and said softly, but without repenting:

  “Perhaps I said something offensive—forgive me! For after all I love you,” and he heaved a deep sigh.

  The woman burst into soft, nervous laughter.

  “No, you have not offended me. God speed you.”

  “Well, then goodbye!” repeated Foma in a still lower voice.

  “Yes,” replied the woman, also in a low voice.

  Foma pushed aside the strings of beads with his hand; they swung back noisily and touched his cheeks. He shuddered at this cold touch and went out, carrying away a heavy, perplexed feeling in his breast, with his heart beating as though a soft but strong net were cast over it.

  It was night by this time; the moon was shining and the frost covered the puddles with coatings of dull silver. Foma walked along the sidewalk, he broke these with his cane, and they cracked mournfully. The shadows of the houses fell on the road in black squares, and the shadows of the trees—in wonderful patterns. And some of them looked like thin hands, helplessly clutching the ground.

  “What is she doing now?” thought Foma, picturing to himself the woman, alone, in the corner of a narrow room, in the reddish half-light.

  “It is best for me to forget her,” he decided. But he could not forget her; she stood before him, provoking in him now intense pity, now irritation and even anger. And her image was so clear, and the thoughts of her were so painful, as though he was carrying this woman in his breast. A cab was coming from the opposite side, filling the silence of the night with the jarring of the wheels on the cobble-stones and with their creaking on the ice. When the cab was passing across a moonlit strip, the noise was louder and more brisk, and in the shadows it was heavier and duller. The driver and the passenger in it were shaking and hopping about; for some reason or other they both bent forward and together with the horse formed one big, black mass. The street was speckled with spots of light and shade, but in the distance the darkness seemed thick as though the street were fenced off by a wall, rising from earth to the skies. Somehow it occurred to Foma that these people did not know whither they were going. And he, too, did not know whither he was going. His house rose before his imagination—six big rooms, where he lived alone. Aunt Anfisa had gone to the cloister, perhaps never to return—she might die there. At home were Ivan, the old deaf dvornik, the old maid, Sekleteya, his cook and servant, and a black, shaggy dog, with a snout as blunt as that of a sheat-fish. And the dog, too, was old.

  “Perhaps I really ought to get married,” thought Foma, with a sigh.

  But the very thought of how easy it was for him to get married made him ill at ease, and even ridiculous in his own eyes. It were but necessary to ask his godfather tomorrow for a bride,—and before a month would pass, a woman would live with him in his house. And she would be near him day and night. He would say to her: “Let’s go for a walk!” and she would go. He would tell her: “Let’s go to sleep!” and again she would go. Should she desire to kiss him, she would kiss him, even though he did not like it. And if he should tell her: “Go away, I don’t want it,” she would feel offended. What would he speak to her about? What would she tell him? He thought and pictured to himself young ladies of his acquaintance, daughters of merchants. Some of them were very pretty, and he knew that any one of them would marry him willingly. But he did not care to have any of them as his wife. How awkward and shameful it must be when a girl becomes a wife. And what does the newly-married couple say to each other after the wedding, in the bedroom? Foma tried to think what he would say in such a case, and confused, he began to laugh, finding no appropriate words. Then he recalled Luba Mayakin. She would surely be first to say something, uttering some unintelligible words, which were foreign to herself. Somehow it seemed to him that all her words were foreign, and she did not speak as was proper for a girl of her age, appearance and descent.

  And here his thoughts rested on Lubov’s complaints. His gait became slower; he was now astounded by the fact that all the people that were near to him and with whom he talked a great deal, always spoke to him of life. His father, his aunt, his godfather, Lubov, Sophya Pavlovna, all these either taught him to understand life, or complained of it. He recalled the words said by the old man on the steamer about Fate, and many other remarks on life, reproaches and bitter complaints against it, which he happened to hear from all sorts of people.

  “What does it mean?” he thought, “what is life, if it is not man? And man always speaks as if life were something else, something outside of man, and that something hinders him from living. Perhaps it is the devil?”

  A painful feeling of fear fell on the youth; he shuddered and hastily looked around. The street was deserted and quiet; the dark windows of the houses stared dimly into the dark of night, and along the walls and fences Foma’s shadow followed him.

  “Driver!” he cried out aloud, quickening his steps. The shadow started and crawled after him, frightened, black, silent. It seemed to Foma that there was a cold breath behind him, and that something huge, invisible, and terrible was overtaking him. Frightened, he almost ran to meet the cab, which appeared noisily from the darkness, and when he seated himself in the cab, he dared not look back, though he wished to do so.

  CHAPTER VII

  About a week passed since Foma spoke to Medinskaya. And her image stood fixedly before Foma by night and by day, awakening in his heart a gnawing feeling of anxiety. He longed to go to her, and was so much afflicted over her that even his bones were aching from the desire of his heart to be near her again. But he was sternly silent; he frowned and did not care to yield to this desire, industriously occupying himself with his affairs and provoking in himself a feeling of anger against the woman. He felt that if he went up to her, he would no longer find her to be the same as he had left her; something must have changed within her after that conversation, and she would no longer receive him as cordially as before, would not smile at him the clear smile that used to awaken in him strange thoughts and hopes. Fearing that all this was lost and that something else must have taken its place, he restrained himself and suffered.

  His work and his longing for the woman did not hinder him from thinking of life. He did not philosophize about this enigma, which was already stirring a feeling of alarm in his heart; he was not able to argue, but he began to listen attentively to everything that men said of life, and he tried to remember their words. They did not make anything clear to him; nay, they increased his perplexity and prompted him to regard them suspiciously. They were clever, cunning and sensible—he saw it; in dealings with them it was always necessary to be on one’s guard; he knew already that in important matters none of them spoke as they thought. And watching them carefully, he felt that their sighs and their complaints of life awakened in him distrust. Silently he looked at everybody with suspicion, and a thin wrinkle masked his forehead.

  One morning his godfather said to him on the Exchange:

  “Anany has arrived. He would like to see you. Go up to him toward evening, and see that you hold your tongue. Anany will try to loosen it in order to make you talk on business matters. He is cunning, the old devil; he is a holy fox; he’ll lift his eyes toward heaven, and meanwhile will put his paw into your pocket and grab your purse. Be on your guard.”

  “Do we owe him anything?” asked Foma.

  “Of course! We haven’t paid yet for the barge, and then fifty five-fathom beams were taken from him not long ago. If he wants everything at once—don’t give. A rouble is a sticky thing; the longer it turns about in your hand, the more copecks will stick to it. A rouble is like a good pigeon—it goes up in the air, you turn around and see—it has brought a whole flock w
ith it into the pigeon-house.”

  “But how can we help paying it now, if he demands it?”

  “Let him cry and ask for it—and you roar—but don’t give it to him.”

  “I’ll go up there soon.”

  Anany Savvich Shchurov was a rich lumber-dealer, had a big saw-mill, built barges and ran rafts. He had had dealings with Ignat, and Foma had more than once seen this tall, heavily-bearded, long-armed, white-haired old man, who kept himself as erect as a pine-tree. His big, handsome figure, his open face and his clear eyes called forth in Foma a feeling of respect for Shchurov, although he heard it rumoured that this lumber-dealer had gained his wealth not by honest toil and that he was leading an evil life at home, in an obscure village of the forest district; and Ignat had told Foma that when Shchurov was young and was but a poor peasant, he sheltered a convict in the bath-house, in his garden, and that there the convict made counterfeit money for him. Since that time Anany began to grow rich. One day his bathhouse burned down, and in the ashes they discovered the corpse of a man with a fractured skull. There was a rumour in the village that Shchurov himself had killed his workman—killed and then burned him. Such things had happened more than once with the good-looking old man; but similar rumours were on foot with reference to many a rich man in town—they had all, it was said, hoarded up their millions by way of robberies, murders and, mainly, by passing counterfeit money. Foma had heard such stories in his childhood and he never before considered whether they were true or not.

  He also knew that Shchurov had got rid of two wives—one of them died during the first night of the wedding, in Anany’s embraces. Then he took his son’s wife away from him, and his son took to drink for grief and would have perished in drunkenness had he not come to himself in time and gone off to save himself in a hermitage, in Irgiz. And when his mistress-daughter-in-law had passed away, Shchurov took into his house a dumb beggar-girl, who was living with him to this day, and who had recently borne him a dead child. On his way to the hotel, where Anany stayed, Foma involuntarily recalled all this, and felt that Shchurov had become strangely interesting to him.