by Maxim Gorky
“The string of rafts is moored in three places, isn’t it?
“In three, of course!”
“Cut the connections!”
“And they?”
“Keep quiet! Cut!”
“But—”
“Cut! Quietly, so they don’t notice it!”
The peasant took the axe in his hands, slowly walked up to the place where one link was well fastened to another link, struck a few times with his axe, and returned to Foma.
“I’m not responsible, your Honour,” he said.
“Don’t be afraid.”
“They’ve started off,” whispered the peasant with fright, and hastily made the sign of the cross. And Foma gazed, laughing softly, and experienced a painful sensation that keenly and sharply stung his heart with a certain strange, pleasant and sweet fear.
The people on the raft were still pacing to and fro, moving about slowly, jostling one another, assisting the ladies with their wraps, laughing and talking, and the raft was meanwhile turning slowly and irresolutely in the water.
“If the current carries them against the fleet,” whispered the peasant, “they’ll strike against the bows—and they’ll be smashed into splinters.”
“Keep quiet!”
“They’ll drown!”
“You’ll get a boat, and overtake them.”
“That’s it! Thank you. What then? They’re after all human beings. And we’ll be held responsible for them.” Satisfied now, laughing with delight, the peasant dashed in bounds across the rafts to the shore. And Foma stood by the water and felt a passionate desire to shout something, but he controlled himself, in order to give time for the raft to float off farther, so that those drunken people would not be able to jump across to the moored links. He experienced a pleasant caressing sensation as he saw the raft softly rocking upon the water and floating off farther and farther from him every moment. The heavy and dark feeling, with which his heart had been filled during this time, now seemed to float away together with the people on the raft. Calmly he inhaled the fresh air and with it something sound that cleared his brain. At the very edge of the floating raft stood Sasha, with her back toward Foma; he looked at her beautiful figure and involuntarily recalled Medinskaya. The latter was smaller in size. The recollection of her stung him, and he cried out in a loud, mocking voice:
“Eh, there! Good-bye! Ha! ha! ha!”
Suddenly the dark figures of the people moved toward him and crowded together in one group, in the centre of the raft. But by this time a clear strip of water, about three yards wide, was flashing between them and Foma.
There was a silence lasting for a few seconds.
Then suddenly a hurricane of shrill, repulsively pitiful sounds, which were full of animal fright, was hurled at Foma, and louder than all and more repulsive than all, Zvantzev’s shrill, jarring cry pierced the ear:
“He-e-elp!”
Some one—in all probability, the sedate gentleman with the side whiskers—roared in his basso:
“Drowning! They’re drowning people!”
“Are you people?” cried Foma, angrily, irritated by their screams which seemed to bite him. And the people ran about on the raft in the madness of fright; the raft rocked under their feet, floated faster on account of this, and the agitated water was loudly splashing against and under it. The screams rent the air, the people jumped about, waving their hands, and the stately figure of Sasha alone stood motionless and speechless on the edge of the raft.
“Give my regards to the crabs!” cried Foma. Foma felt more and more cheerful and relieved in proportion as the raft was floating away from him.
“Foma Ignatyevich!” said Ookhtishchev in a faint, but sober voice, “look out, this is a dangerous joke. I’ll make a complaint.”
“When you are drowned? You may complain!” answered Foma, cheerfully.
“You are a murderer!” exclaimed Zvantzev, sobbing. But at this time a ringing splash of water was heard as though it groaned with fright or with astonishment. Foma shuddered and became as though petrified. Then rang out the wild, deafening shrieks of the women, and the terror-stricken screams of men, and all the figures on the raft remained petrified in their places. And Foma, staring at the water, felt as though he really were petrified. In the water something black, surrounded with splashes, was floating toward him.
Rather instinctively than consciously, Foma threw himself with his chest on the beams of the raft, and stretched out his hands, his head hanging down over the water. Several incredibly long seconds passed. Cold, wet arms clasped his neck and dark eyes flashed before him. Then he understood that it was Sasha.
The dull horror, which had suddenly seized him, vanished, replaced now by wild, rebellious joy. Having dragged the woman out of the water, he grasped her by the waist, clasped her to his breast, and, not knowing what to say to her, he stared into her eyes with astonishment. She smiled at him caressingly.
“I am cold,” said Sasha, softly, and quivered in every limb.
Foma laughed gaily at the sound of her voice, lifted her into his arms and quickly, almost running, dashed across the rafts to the shore. She was wet and cold, but her breathing was hot, it burned Foma’s cheek and filled his breast with wild joy.
“You wanted to drown me?” said she, firmly, pressing close to him. “It was rather too early. Wait!”
“How well you have done it,” muttered Foma, as he ran.
“You’re a fine, brave fellow! And your device wasn’t bad, either, though you seem to be so peaceable.”
“And they are still roaring there, ha! ha!”
“The devil take them! If they are drowned, we’ll be sent to Siberia,” said the woman, as though she wanted to console and encourage him by this. She began to shiver, and the shudder of her body, felt by Foma, made him hasten his pace.
Sobs and cries for help followed them from the river. There, on the placid water, floated in the twilight a small island, withdrawing from the shore toward the stream of the main current of the river, and on that little island dark human figures were running about.
Night was closing down upon them.
CHAPTER IX
One Sunday afternoon, Yakov Tarasovich Mayakin was drinking tea in his garden and talking to his daughter. The collar of his shirt unbuttoned, a towel wound round his neck, he sat on a bench under a canopy of verdant cherry-trees, waved his hands in the air, wiped the perspiration off his face, and incessantly poured forth into the air his brisk speech.
“The man who permits his belly to have the upper hand over him is a fool and a rogue! Is there nothing better in the world than eating and drinking? Upon what will you pride yourself before people, if you are like a hog?”
The old man’s eyes sparkled irritably and angrily, his lips twisted with contempt, and the wrinkles of his gloomy face quivered.
“If Foma were my own son, I would have made a man of him!”
Playing with an acacia branch, Lubov mutely listened to her father’s words, now and then casting a close and searching look in his agitated, quivering face. Growing older, she changed, without noticing it, her suspicious and cold relation toward the old man. In his words she now began to find the same ideas that were in her books, and this won her over on her father’s side, involuntarily causing the girl to prefer his live words to the cold letters of the book. Always overwhelmed with business affairs, always alert and clever, he went his own way alone, and she perceived his solitude, knew how painful it was, and her relations toward her father grew in warmth. At times she even entered into arguments with the old man; he always regarded her remarks contemptuously and sarcastically; but more tenderly and attentively from time to time.
“If the deceased Ignat could read in the newspapers of the indecent life his son is leading, he would have killed Foma!” said Mayakin, striking the table with his fists. “How they have writ
ten it up! It’s a disgrace!”
“He deserves it,” said Lubov.
“I don’t say it was done at random! They’ve barked at him, as was necessary. And who was it that got into such a fit of anger?”
“What difference does it make to you?” asked the girl.
“It’s interesting to know. How cleverly the rascal described Foma’s behaviour. Evidently he must have been with him and witnessed all the indecency himself.”
“Oh, no, he wouldn’t go with Foma on a spree!’ said Lubov, confidently, and blushed deeply at her father’s searching look.
“So! You have fine acquaintances, Lubka!” said Mayakin with humorous bitterness. “Well, who wrote it?”
“What do you wish to know it for, papa?”
“Come, tell me!”
She had no desire to tell, but the old man persisted, and his voice was growing more and more dry and angry. Then she asked him uneasily:
“And you will not do him any ill for it?”
“I? I will—bite his head off! Fool! What can I do to him? They, these writers, are not a foolish lot and are therefore a power—a power, the devils! And I am not the governor, and even he cannot put one’s hand out of joint or tie one’s tongue. Like mice, they gnaw us little by little. And we have to poison them not with matches, but with roubles. Yes! Well, who is it?”
“Do you remember, when I was going to school, a Gymnasium student used to come up to us. Yozhov? Such a dark little fellow!”
“Mm! Of course, I saw him. I know him. So it’s he?”
“Yes.”
“The little mouse! Even at that time one could see already that something wrong would come out of him. Even then he stood in the way of other people. A bold boy he was. I should have looked after him then. Perhaps, I might have made a man of him.”
Lubov looked at her father, smiled inimically, and asked hotly:
“And isn’t he who writes for newspapers a man?”
For a long while, the old man did not answer his daughter. Thoughtfully, he drummed with his fingers against the table and examined his face, which was reflected in the brightly polished brass of the samovar. Then he raised his head, winked his eyes and said impressively and irritably:
“They are not men, they are sores! The blood of the Russian people has become mixed, it has become mixed and spoiled, and from the bad blood have come all these book and newspaper-writers, these terrible Pharisees. They have broken out everywhere, and they are still breaking out, more and more. Whence comes this spoiling of the blood? From slowness of motion. Whence the mosquitoes, for instance? From the swamp. All sorts of uncleanliness multiply in stagnant waters. The same is true of a disordered life.”
“That isn’t right, papa!” said Lubov, softly.
“What do you mean by—not right?”
“Writers are the most unselfish people, they are noble personalities! They don’t want anything—all they strive for is justice—truth! They’re not mosquitoes.”
Lubov grew excited as she lauded her beloved people; her face was flushed, and her eyes looked at her father with so much feeling, as though imploring him to believe her, being unable to convince him.
“Eh, you!” said the old man, with a sigh, interrupting her. “You’ve read too much! You’ve been poisoned! Tell me—who are they? No one knows! That Yozhov—what is he? Only God knows. All they want is the truth, you say? What modest people they are! And suppose truth is the very dearest thing there is? Perhaps everybody is seeking it in silence? Believe me—man cannot be unselfish. Man will not fight for what belongs not to him, and if he does fight—his name is ‘fool,’ and he is of no use to anybody. A man must be able to stand up for himself, for his own, then will he attain something! Here you have it! Truth! Here I have been reading the same newspaper for almost forty years, and I can see well—here is my face before you, and before me, there on the samovar is again my face, but it is another face. You see, these newspapers give a samovar face to everything, and do not see the real one. And yet you believe them. But I know that my face on the samovar is distorted. No one can tell the real truth; man’s throat is too delicate for this. And then, the real truth is known to nobody.”
“Papa!” exclaimed Lubov, sadly, “But in books and in newspapers they defend the general interests of all the people.”
“And in what paper is it written that you are weary of life, and that it was time for you to get married? So, there your interest is not defended! Eh! You! Neither is mine defended. Who knows what I need? Who, but myself, understands my interests?”
“No, papa, that isn’t right, that isn’t right! I cannot refute you, but I feel that this isn’t right!” said Lubov almost with despair.
“It is right!” said the old man, firmly. “Russia is confused, and there is nothing steadfast in it; everything is staggering! Everybody lives awry, everybody walks on one side, there’s no harmony in life. All are yelling out of tune, in different voices. And not one understands what the other is in need of! There is a mist over everything—everybody inhales that mist, and that’s why the blood of the people has become spoiled—hence the sores. Man is given great liberty to reason, but is not permitted to do anything—that’s why man does not live; but rots and stinks.”
“What ought one to do, then?” asked Lubov, resting her elbows on the table and bending toward her father.
“Everything!” cried the old man, passionately. “Do everything. Go ahead! Let each man do whatever he knows best! But for that liberty must be given to man—complete freedom! Since there has come a time, when everyraw youth believes that he knows everything and was created for the complete arrangement of life—give him, give the rogue freedom! Here, Carrion, live! Come, come, live! Ah! Then such a comedy will follow; feeling that his bridle is off, man will then rush up higher than his ears, and like a feather will fly hither and thither. He’ll believe himself to be a miracle worker, and then he’ll start to show his spirit.”
The old man paused awhile and, lowering his voice, went on, with a malicious smile:
“But there is very little of that creative spirit in him! He’ll bristle up for a day or two, stretch himself on all sides—and the poor fellow will soon grow weak. For his heart is rotten—he, he, he! Here, he, he, he! The dear fellow will be caught by the real, worthy people, by those real people who are competent to be the actual civil masters, who will manage life not with a rod nor with a pen, but with a finger and with brains.
“What, they will say. Have you grown tired, gentlemen? What, they will say, your spleens cannot stand a real fire, can they? So—” and, raising his voice, the old man concluded his speech in an authoritative tone:
“Well, then, now, you rabble, hold your tongues, and don’t squeak! Or we’ll shake you off the earth, like worms from a tree! Silence, dear fellows! Ha, ha, ha! That’s how it’s going to happen, Lubavka! He, he, he!”
The old man was in a merry mood. His wrinkles quivered, and carried away by his words, he trembled, closed his eyes now and then, and smacked his lips as though tasting his own wisdom.
“And then those who will take the upper hand in the confusion will arrange life wisely, after their own fashion. Then things won’t go at random, but as if by rote. It’s a pity that we shall not live to see it!”
The old man’s words fell one after another upon Lubov like meshes of a big strong net—they fell and enmeshed her, and the girl, unable to free herself from them, maintained silence, dizzied by her father’s words. Staring into his face with an intense look, she sought support for herself in his words and heard in them something similar to what she had read in books, and which seemed to her the real truth. But the malignant, triumphant laughter of her father stung her heart, and the wrinkles, which seemed to creep about on his face like so many dark little snakes, inspired her with a certain fear for herself in his presence. She felt that he was turning her aside from w
hat had seemed so simple and so easy in her dreams.
“Papa!” she suddenly asked the old man, in obedience to a thought and a desire that unexpectedly flashed through her mind. “Papa! and what sort of a man—what in your opinion is Taras?”
Mayakin shuddered. His eyebrows began to move angrily, he fixed his keen, small eyes on his daughter’s face and asked her drily:
“What sort of talk is this?”
“Must he not even be mentioned?” said Lubov, softly and confusedly.
I don’t want to speak of him—and I also advise you not to speak of him! “—the old man threatened her with his finger and lowered his head with a gloomy frown. But when he said that he did not want to speak of his son, he evidently did not understand himself correctly, for after a minute’s silence he said sternly and angrily:
“Taraska, too, is a sore. Life is breathing upon you, milksops, and you cannot discriminate its genuine scents, and you swallow all sorts of filth, wherefore there is trouble in your heads. That’s why you are not competent to do anything, and you are unhappy because of this incompetence. Taraska. Yes. He must be about forty now. He is lost to me! A galley-slave—is that my son? A blunt-snouted young pig. He would not speak to his father, and—he stumbled.”
“What did he do?” asked Lubov, eagerly listening to the old man’s words.
“Who knows? It may be that now he cannot understand himself, if he became sensible, and he must have become a sensible man; he’s the son of a father who’s not stupid, and then he must have suffered not a little. They coddle them, the nihilists! They should have turned them over to me. I’d show them what to do. Into the desert! Into the isolated places—march! Come, now, my wise fellows, arrange life there according to your own will! Go ahead! And as authorities over them I’d station the robust peasants. Well, now, honourable gentlemen, you were given to eat and to drink, you were given an education—what have you learned? Pay your debts, pray. Yes, I would not spend a broken grosh on them. I would squeeze all the price out of them—give it up! You must not set a man at naught. It is not enough to imprison him! You transgressed the law, and are a gentleman? Never mind, you must work. Out of a single seed comes an ear of corn, and a man ought not be permitted to perish without being of use! An economical carpenter finds a place for each and every chip of wood—just so must every man be profitably used up, and used up entire, to the very last vein. All sorts of trash have a place in life, and man is never trash. Eh! it is bad when power lives without reason, nor is it good when reason lives without power. Take Foma now. Who is coming there—give a look.”
