The Maxim Gorky

by Maxim Gorky

“I don’t know!” replied Foma, nodding his head mournfully.

  “Think of it—search.”

  “I am unable to think. Nothing comes out of my thinking.”

  “Eh, you, my child!” said Sasha, softly and disdainfully, moving away from him. “Your head is superfluous to you.”

  Foma neither caught her tone nor noticed her movement. Leaning his hands against the bench, he bent forward, looked at the floor, and, swaying his body to and fro, said:

  “Sometimes I think and think—and the whole soul is stuck round with thoughts as with tar. And suddenly everything disappears, without leaving any trace. Then it is dark in the soul as in a cellar—dark, damp and empty—there is nothing at all in it! It is even terrible—I feel then as though I were not a man, but a bottomless ravine. You ask me what I want?”

  Sasha looked at him askance and pensively began to sing softly:

  “Eh, when the wind blows—mist comes from the sea.”

  “I don’t want to carouse—it is repulsive! Always the same—the people, the amusements, the wine. When I grow malicious—I’d thrash everybody. I am not pleased with men—what are they? It is impossible to understand them—why do they keep on living? And when they speak the truth—to whom are we to listen? One says this, another that. While I—I cannot say anything.”

  “Eh, without thee, dear, my life is weary,”

  sang Sasha, staring at the wall before her. And Foma kept on rocking and said:

  “There are times when I feel guilty before men. Everybody lives, makes noise, while I am frightened, staggered—as if I did not feel the earth under me. Was it, perhaps, my mother that endowed me with apathy? My godfather says that she was as cold as ice—that she was forever yearning towards something. I am also yearning. Toward men I am yearning. I’d like to go to them and say: ‘Brethren, help me! Teach me! I know not how to live!. And if I am guilty—forgive me!’ But looking about, I see there’s no one to speak to. No one wants it—they are all rascals! And it seems they are even worse than I am. For I am, at least, ashamed of living as I am, while they are not! They go on.”

  Foma uttered some violent, unbecoming invectives and became silent. Sasha broke off her song and moved still farther away from him. The wind was raging outside the window, hurling dust against the window-panes. Cockroaches were rustling on the oven as they crawled over a bunch of pine wood splinters. Somewhere in the yard a calf was lowing pitifully.

  Sasha glanced at Foma, with a sarcastic smile, and said:

  “There’s another unfortunate creature lowing. You ought to go to him; perhaps you could sing in unison. And placing her hand on his curly head she jestingly pushed it on the side.

  “What are people like yourself good for? That’s what you ought to think of. What are you groaning about? You are disgusted with being idle—occupy yourself, then, with business.”

  “Oh Lord!” Foma nodded his head. “It is hard for one to make himself understood. Yes, it is hard!” And irritated, he almost cried out: “What business? I have no yearning toward business! What is business? Business is merely a name—and if you should look into the depth, into the root of it—you’ll find it is nothing but absurdity! Do I not understand it? I understand everything, I see everything, I feel everything! Only my tongue is dumb. What aim is there in business? Money? I have plenty of it! I could choke you to death with it, cover you with it. All this business is nothing but fraud. I meet business people—well, and what about them? Their greediness is immense, and yet they purposely whirl about in business that they might not see themselves. They hide themselves, the devils. Try to free them from this bustle—what will happen? Like blind men they will grope about hither and thither; they’ll lose their mind—they’ll go mad! I know it! Do you think that business brings happiness into man? No, that’s not so—something else is missing here. This is not everything yet! The river flows that men may sail on it; the tree grows—to be useful; the dog—to guard the house. There is justification for everything in the world! And men, like cockroaches, are altogether superfluous on earth. Everything is for them, and they—what are they for? Aha! Wherein is their justification? Ha, ha, ha!”

  Foma was triumphant. It seemed to him that he had found something good for himself, something severe against men. And feeling that, because of this, there was great joy in him, he laughed loudly.

  “Does not your head ache?” inquired Sasha, anxiously, scrutinizing his face.

  “My soul aches!” exclaimed Foma, passionately. “And it aches because it is upright—because it is not to be satisfied with trifles. Answer it, how to live? To what purpose? There—take my godfather—he is wise! He says—create life! But he’s the only one like this. Well, I’ll ask him, wait! And everybody says—life has usurped us! Life has choked us. I shall ask these, too. And how can we create life? You must keep it in your hands to do this, you must be master over it. You cannot make even a pot, without taking the clay into your hands.”

  “Listen!” said Sasha, seriously. “I think you ought to get married, that’s all!”

  “What for?” asked Foma, shrugging his shoulders.

  “You need a bridle.”

  “All right! I am living with you—you are all of a kind, are you not? One is not sweeter than the other. I had one before you, of the same kind as you. No, but that one did it for love’s sake. She had taken a liking to me—and consented; she was good—but, otherwise, she was in every way the same as you—though you are prettier than she. But I took a liking to a certain lady—a lady of noble birth! They said she led a loose life, but I did not get her. Yes, she was clever, intelligent; she lived in luxury. I used to think—that’s where I’ll taste the real thing! I did not get her—and, it may be, if I had succeeded, all would have taken a different turn. I yearned toward her. I thought—I could not tear myself away. While now that I have given myself to drink, I’ve drowned her in wine—I am forgetting her—and that also is wrong. O man! You are a rascal, to be frank.”

  Foma became silent and sank into meditation. And Sasha rose from the bench and paced the hut to and fro, biting her lips. Then she stopped short before him, and, clasping her hands to her head, said:

  “Do you know what? I’ll leave you.”

  “Where will you go?” asked Foma, without lifting his head.

  “I don’t know—it’s all the same!”

  “But why?”

  “You’re always saying unnecessary things. It is lonesome with you. You make me sad.”

  Foma lifted his head, looked at her and burst into mournful laughter.

  “Really? Is it possible?”

  “You do make me sad! Do you know? If I should reflect on it, I would understand what you say and why you say it—for I am also of that sort—when the time comes, I shall also think of all this. And then I shall be lost. But now it is too early for me. No, I want to live yet, and then, later, come what will!”

  “And I—will I, too, be lost?” asked Foma, indifferently, already fatigued by his words.

  “Of course!” replied Sasha, calmly and confidently. “All such people are lost. He, whose character is inflexible, and who has no brains—what sort of a life is his? We are like this.”

  “I have no character at all,” said Foma, stretching himself. Then after a moment’s silence he added:

  “And I have no brains, either.”

  They were silent for a minute, eyeing each other.

  “What are we going to do?” asked Foma.

  “We must have dinner.”

  “No, I mean, in general? Afterward?”

  “Afterward? I don’t know?”

  “So you are leaving me?”

  “I am. Come, let’s carouse some more before we part. Let’s go to Kazan, and there we’ll have a spree—smoke and flame! I’ll sing your farewell song.”

  “Very well,” assented Foma. “It’s quite proper at le
ave taking. Eh, you devil! That’s a merry life! Listen, Sasha. They say that women of your kind are greedy for money; are even thieves.”

  “Let them say,” said Sasha, calmly.

  “Don’t you feel offended?” asked Foma, with curiosity. “But you are not greedy. It’s advantageous to you to be with me. I am rich, and yet you are going away; that shows you’re not greedy.”

  “I?” Sasha thought awhile and said with a wave of the hand: “Perhaps I am not greedy—what of it? I am not of the very lowest of the street women. And against whom shall I feel a grudge? Let them say whatever they please. It will be only human talk, not the bellowing of bulls. And human holiness and honesty are quite familiar to me! Eh, how well I know them! If I were chosen as a judge, I would acquit the dead only l” and bursting into malicious laughter, Sasha said: “Well, that will do, we’ve spoken enough nonsense. Sit down at the table!”

  On the morning of the next day Foma and Sasha stood side by side on the gangway of a steamer which was approaching a harbour on the Ustye. Sasha’s big black hat attracted everybody’s attention by its deftly bent brim, and its white feathers, and Foma was ill at ease as he stood beside her, and felt as though inquisitive glances crawled over his perplexed face. The steamer hissed and quivered as it neared the landing-bridge, which was sprinkled by a waiting crowd of people attired in bright summer clothes, and it seemed to Foma that he noticed among the crowd of various faces and figures a person he knew, who now seemed to be hiding behind other people’s backs, and yet lifted not his eye from him.

  “Let’s go into the cabin!” said he to his companion uneasily.

  “Don’t acquire the habit of hiding your sins from people,” replied Sasha, with a smile. “Have you perhaps noticed an acquaintance there?”

  “Mm. Yes. Somebody is watching me.”

  “A nurse with a milk bottle? Ha, ha, ha!”

  “Well, there you’re neighing!” said Foma, enraged, looking at her askance. “Do you think I am afraid?”

  “I can see how brave you are.”

  “You’ll see. I’ll face anybody,” said Foma, angrily, but after a close look at the crowd in the harbour his face suddenly assumed another expression, and he added softly:

  “Oh, it’s my godfather.”

  At the very edge of the landing-stage stood Yakov Tarasovich, squeezed between two stout women, with his iron-like face lifted upward, and he waved his cap in the air with malicious politeness. His beard shook, his bald crown flashed, and his small eye pierced Foma like borers.

  “What a vulture!” muttered Foma, raising his cap and nodding his head to his godfather.

  His bow evidently afforded great pleasure to Mayakin. The old man somehow coiled himself up, stamped his feet, and his face seemed beaming with a malicious smile.

  “The little boy will get money for nuts, it seems!” Sasha teased Foma. Her words together with his godfather’s smile seemed to have kindled a fire in Foma’s breast.

  “We shall see what is going to happen,” hissed Foma, and suddenly he became as petrified in malicious calm. The steamer made fast, and the people rushed in a wave to the landing-place. Pressed by the crowd, Mayakin disappeared for awhile from the sight of his godson and appeared again with a maliciously triumphant smile. Foma stared at him fixedly, with knitted brow, and came toward him slowly pacing the gang planks. They jostled him in the back, they leaned on him, they squeezed him, and this provoked Foma still more. Now he came face to face with the old man, and the latter greeted him with a polite bow, and asked:

  “Whither are you travelling, Foma Ignatyich?”

  “About my affairs,” replied Foma, firmly, without greeting his godfather.

  “That’s praiseworthy, my dear sir!” said Yakov Tarasovich, all beaming with a smile. “The lady with the feathers—what is she to you, may I ask?”

  “She’s my mistress,” said Foma, loud, without lowering his eyes at the keen look of his godfather.

  Sasha stood behind him calmly examining over his shoulder the little old man, whose head hardly reached Foma’s chin. Attracted by Foma’s loud words, the public looked at them, scenting a scandal. And Mayakin, too, perceived immediately the possibility of a scandal and instantly estimated correctly the quarrelsome mood of his godson. He contracted his wrinkles, bit his lips, and said to Foma, peaceably:

  “I have something to speak to you about. Will you come with me to the hotel?”

  “Yes; for a little while.”

  “You have no time, then? It’s a plain thing, you must be making haste to wreck another barge, eh?” said the old man, unable to contain himself any longer.

  “And why not wreck them, since they can be wrecked?” retorted Foma, passionately and firmly.

  “Of course, you did not earn them yourself; why should you spare them? Well, come. And couldn’t we drown that lady in the water for awhile?” said Mayakin, softly.

  “Drive to the town, Sasha, and engage a room at the Siberian Inn. I’ll be there shortly!” said Foma and turning to Mayakin, he announced boldly:

  “I am ready! Let us go!”

  Neither of them spoke on their way to the hotel. Foma, seeing that his godfather had to skip as he went in order to keep up with him, purposely took longer strides, and the fact that the old man could not keep step with him supported and strengthened in him the turbulent feeling of protest which he was by this time scarcely able to master.

  “Waiter!” said Mayakin, gently, on entering the hall of the hotel, and turning toward a remote corner, “let us have a bottle of moorberry kvass.”

  “And I want some cognac,” ordered Foma.

  “So-o! When you have poor cards you had better always play the lowest trump first!” Mayakin advised him sarcastically.

  “You don’t know my game!” said Foma, seating himself by the table.

  “Really? Come, come! Many play like that.”

  “How?”

  “I mean as you do—boldly, but foolishly.”

  “I play so that either the head is smashed to pieces, or the wall broken in half,” said Foma, hotly, and struck the table with his fist.

  “Haven’t you recovered from your drunkenness yet?” asked Mayakin with a smile.

  Foma seated himself more firmly in his chair, and, his face distorted with wrathful agitation, he said:

  “Godfather, you are a sensible man. I respect you for your common sense.”

  “Thank you, my son!” and Mayakin bowed, rising slightly, and leaning his hands against the table.

  “Don’t mention it. I want to tell you that I am no longer twenty. I am not a child any longer.”

  “Of course not!” assented Mayakin. “You’ve lived a good while, that goes without saying! If a mosquito had lived as long it might have grown as big as a hen.”

  “Stop your joking!” Foma warned him, and he did it so calmly that Mayakin started back, and the wrinkles on his face quivered with alarm.

  “What did you come here for?” asked Foma.

  “Ah! you’ve done some nasty work here. So I want to find out whether there’s much damage in it! You see, I am a relative of yours. And then, I am the only one you have.”

  “You are troubling yourself in vain. Do you know, papa, what I’ll tell you? Either give me full freedom, or take all my business into your own hands. Take everything! Everything—to the last rouble!”

  This proposition burst forth from Foma altogether unexpectedly to himself; he had never before thought of anything like it. But now that he uttered such words to his godfather it suddenly became clear to him that if his godfather were to take from him all his property he would become a perfectly free man, he could go wherever he pleased, do whatever he pleased. Until this moment he had been bound and enmeshed with something, but he knew not his fetters and was unable to break them, while now they were falling off of themselves so simply, so easi
ly. Both an alarming and a joyous hope blazed up within his breast, as though he noticed that suddenly light had begun to flash upon his turbid life, that a wide, spacious road lay open now before him. Certain images sprang up in his mind, and, watching their shiftings, he muttered incoherently:

  “Here, this is better than anything! Take everything, and be done with it! And—as for me—I shall be free to go anywhere in the wide world! I cannot live like this. I feel as though weights were hanging on me, as though I were all bound. There—I must not go, this I must not do. I want to live in freedom, that I may know everything myself. I shall search life for myself. For, otherwise, what am I? A prisoner! Be kind, take everything. The devil take it all! Give me freedom, pray! What kind of a merchant am I? I do not like anything. And so—I would forsake men—everything. I would find a place for myself, I would find some kind of work, and would work. By God! Father! set me at liberty! For now, you see, I am drinking. I’m entangled with that woman.”

  Mayakin looked at him, listened attentively to his words, and his face was stern, immobile as though petrified. A dull, tavern noise smote the air, some people went past them, they greeted Mayakin, but he saw nothing, staring fixedly at the agitated face of his godson, who smiled distractedly, both joyously and pitifully.

  “Eh, my sour blackberry!” said Mayakin, with a sigh, interrupting Foma’s speech. “I see you’ve lost your way. And you’re prating nonsense. I would like to know whether the cognac is to blame for it, or is it your foolishness?”

  “Papa!” exclaimed Foma, “this can surely be done. There were cases where people have cast away all their possessions and thus saved themselves.”

  “That wasn’t in my time. Not people that are near to me!” said Mayakin, sternly, “or else I would have shown them how to go away!”

  “Many have become saints when they went away.”

  “Mm! They couldn’t have gone away from me! The matter is simple—you know how to play at draughts, don’t you? Move from one place to another until you are beaten, and if you’re not beaten then you have the queen. Then all ways are open to you. Do you understand? And why am I talking to you seriously? Psha!”