by Maxim Gorky
The old man was trembling with the fever of his exultation, and fairly hopped as he stood before Foma.
“Calm yourself, father!” said Taras, slowly rising from his chair and walking up to his father. “Why confuse the young man? Come, let us sit down.”
He gave Foma a fleeting smile, and, taking his father by the arm, led him toward the table.
“I believe in blood,” said Yakov Tarasovich; “in hereditary blood. Therein lies all power! My father, I remember, told me: ‘Yashka, you are my genuine blood!’ There. The blood of the Mayakins is thick—it is transferred from father to father and no woman can ever weaken it. Let us drink some champagne! Shall we? Very well, then! Tell me more—tell me about yourself. How is it there in Siberia?”
And again, as though frightened and sobered by some thought, the old man fixed his searching eyes upon the face of his son. And a few minutes later the circumstantial but brief replies of his son again aroused in him a noisy joy. Foma kept on listening and watching, as he sat quietly in his corner.
“Gold mining, of course, is a solid business,” said Taras, calmly, with importance, “but it is a rather risky operation and one requiring a large capital. The earth says not a word about what it contains within it. It is very profitable to deal with foreigners. Dealings with them, under any circumstances, yield an enormous percentage. That is a perfectly infallible enterprise. But a weary one, it must be admitted. It does not require much brains; there is no room in it for an extraordinary man; a man with great enterprising power cannot develop in it.”
Lubov entered and invited them all into the dining-room. When the Mayakins stepped out Foma imperceptibly tugged Lubov by the sleeve, and she remained with him alone, inquiring hastily:
“What is it?”
“Nothing,” said Foma, with a smile. “I want to ask you whether you are glad?”
“Of course I am!” exclaimed Lubov.
“And what about?”
“That is, what do you mean?”
“Just so. What about?”
“You’re queer!” said Lubov, looking at him with astonishment. “Can’t you see?”
“What?” asked Foma, sarcastically.
“What’s the trouble with you?” said Lubov, looking at him uneasily.
“Eh, you!” drawled out Foma, with contemptuous pity. “Can your father, can the merchant class beget anything good? Can you expect a radish to bring forth raspberries? And you lied to me. Taras is this, Taras is that. What is in him? A merchant, like the other merchants, and his paunch is also that of the real merchant. He-he!” He was satisfied, seeing that the girl, confused by his words, was biting her lips, now flushing, now turning pale.
“You—you, Foma,” she began, in a choking voice, and suddenly stamping her foot, she cried:
“Don’t you dare to speak to me!”
On reaching the threshold of the room, she turned her angry face to him, and ejaculated in a low voice, emphatically:
“Oh, you malicious man!”
Foma burst into laughter. He did not feel like going to the table, where three happy people were engaged in a lively conversation. He heard their merry voices, their contented laughter, the rattle of the dishes, and he understood that, with that burden on his heart, there was no place for him beside them. Nor was there a place for him anywhere. If all people only hated him, even as Lubov hated him now, he would feel more at ease in their midst, he thought. Then he would know how to behave with them, would find something to say to them. While now he could not understand whether they were pitying him or whether they were laughing at him, because he had lost his way and could not conform himself to anything. As he stood awhile alone in the middle of the room, he unconsciously resolved to leave this house where people were rejoicing and where he was superfluous. On reaching the street, he felt himself offended by the Mayakins. After all, they were the only people near to him in the world. Before him arose his godfather’s face, on which the wrinkles quivered with agitation, and illuminated by the merry glitter of his green eyes, seemed to beam with phosphoric light.
“Even a rotten trunk of a tree stands out in the dark!” reflected Foma, savagely. Then he recalled the calm and serious face of Taras and beside it the figure of Lubov bowing herself hastily toward him. That aroused in him feelings of envy and sorrow.
“Who will look at me like that? There is not a soul to do it.”
He came to himself from his broodings on the shore, at the landing-places, aroused by the bustle of toil. All sorts of articles and wares were carried and carted in every direction; people moved about hastily, care-worn, spurring on their horses excitedly, shouting at one another, filling the street with unintelligible bustle and deafening noise of hurried work. They busied themselves on a narrow strip of ground, paved with stone, built up on one side with tall houses, and the other side cut off by a steep ravine at the river, and their seething bustle made upon Foma an impression as though they had all prepared themselves to flee from this toil amid filth and narrowness and tumult—prepared themselves to flee and were now hastening to complete the sooner the unfinished work which would not release them. Huge steamers, standing by the shore and emitting columns of smoke from their funnels, were already awaiting them. The troubled water of the river, closely obstructed with vessels, was softly and plaintively splashing against the shore, as though imploring for a minute of rest and repose.
“Your Honour!” a hoarse cry rang out near Foma’s ears, “contribute some brandy in honour of the building!”
Foma glanced at the petitioner indifferently; he was a huge, bearded fellow, barefooted, with a torn shirt and a bruised, swollen face.
“Get away!” muttered Foma, and turned away from him.
“Merchant! When you die you can’t take your money with you. Give me for one glass of brandy, or are you too lazy to put your hand into your pocket?”
Foma again looked at the petitioner; the latter stood before him, covered more with mud than with clothes, and, trembling with intoxication, waited obstinately, staring at Foma with blood-shot, swollen eyes.
“Is that the way to ask?” inquired Foma.
“How else? Would you want me to go down on my knees before you for a ten-copeck piece?” asked the bare-footed man, boldly.
“There!” and Foma gave him a coin.
“Thanks! Fifteen copecks. Thanks! And if you give me fifteen more I’ll crawl on all fours right up to that tavern. Do you want me to?” proposed the barefooted man.
“Go, leave me alone!” said Foma, waving him off with his hand.
“He who gives not when he may, when he fain would, shall have nay,” said the barefooted man, and stepped aside.
Foma looked at him as he departed, and said to himself:
“There is a ruined man and yet how bold he is. He asks alms as though demanding a debt. Where do such people get so much boldness?”
And heaving a deep sigh, he answered himself:
“From freedom. The man is not fettered. What is there that he should regret? What does he fear? And what do I fear? What is there that I should regret?”
These two questions seemed to strike Foma’s heart and called forth in him a dull perplexity. He looked at the movement of the working people and kept on thinking: What did he regret? What did he fear?
“Alone, with my own strength, I shall evidently never come out anywhere. Like a fool I shall keep on tramping about among people, mocked and offended by all. If they would only jostle me aside; if they would only hate me, then—then—I would go out into the wide world! Whether I liked or not, I would have to go!”
From one of the landing wharves the merry “dubinushka”4 had already been smiting the air for a long time. The carriers were doing a certain work, which required brisk movements, and were adapting the song and the refrain to them.
“In the tavern sit great merchants
Drinking liquors strong,”
narrated the leader, in a bold recitative. The company joined in unison:
“Oh, dubinushka, heave-ho!”
And then the bassos smote the air with deep sounds:
“It goes, it goes.”
And the tenors repedated:
“It goes, it goes.”
Foma listened to the song and directed his footsteps toward it, on the wharf. There he noticed that the carriers, formed in two rows, were rolling out of the steamer’s hold huge barrels of salted fish. Dirty, clad in red blouses, unfastened at the collar, with mittens on their hands, with arms bare to the elbow, they stood over the hold, and, merrily jesting, with faces animated by toil, they pulled the ropes, all together, keeping time to their song. And from the hold rang out the high, laughing voice of the invisible leader:
“But for our peasant throats
There is not enough vodka.”
And the company, like one huge pair of lungs, heaved forth loudly and in unison:
“Oh, dubinushka, heave-ho!”
Foma felt pleased and envious as he looked at this work, which was as harmonious as music. The slovenly faces of the carriers beamed with smiles, the work was easy, it went on smoothly, and the leader of the chorus was in his best vein. Foma thought that it would be fine to work thus in unison, with good comrades, to the tune of a cheerful song, to get tired from work to drink a glass of vodka and eat fat cabbage soup, prepared by the stout, sprightly matron of the company.
“Quicker, boys, quicker!” rang out beside him someone’s unpleasant, hoarse voice.
Foma turned around. A stout man, with an enormous paunch, tapped on the boards of the landing bridge with his cane, as he looked at the carriers with his small eyes and said:
“Bawl less and work faster.”
His face and neck were covered with perspiration; he wiped it off every now and then with his left hand and breathed heavily, as though he were going uphill.
Foma cast at the man a hostile look and thought:
“Others are working and he is sweating. And I am still worse than he. I’m like a crow on the fence, good for nothing.”
From each and every impression there immediately stood out in his mind the painful thought of his unfitness for life. Everything that attracted his attention contained something offensive to him, and this something fell like a brick upon his breast. At one side of him, by the freight scales, stood two sailors, and one of them, a square-built, red-faced fellow, was telling the other:
“As they rushed on me it began for fair, my dear chap! There were four of them—I was alone! But I didn’t give in to them, because I saw that they would beat me to death! Even a ram will kick out if you fleece it alive. How I tore myself away from them! They all rolled away in different directions.”
“But you came in for a sound drubbing all the same?” inquired the other sailor.
“Of course! I caught it. I swallowed about five blows. But what’s the difference? They didn’t kill me. Well, thank God for it!”
“Certainly.”
“To the stern, devils, to the stern, I’m telling you!” roared the perspiring man in a ferocious voice at two carriers who were rolling a barrel of fish along the deck.
“What are you yelling for?” Foma turned to him sternly, as he had started at the shout.
“Is that any of your business?” asked the perspiring man, casting a glance at Foma.
“It is my business! The people are working and your fat is melting away. So you think you must yell at them?” said Foma, threateningly, moving closer toward him.
“You—you had better keep your temper.”
The perspiring man suddenly rushed away from his place and went into his office. Foma looked after him and also went away from the wharf; filled with a desire to abuse some one, to do something, just to divert his thoughts from himself at least for a short while. But his thoughts took a firmer hold on him.
“That sailor there, he tore himself away, and he’s safe and sound! Yes, while I—”
In the evening he again went up to the Mayakins. The old man was not at home, and in the dining-room sat Lubov with her brother, drinking tea. On reaching the door Foma heard the hoarse voice of Taras:
“What makes father bother himself about him?”
At the sight of Foma he stopped short, staring at his face with a serious, searching look. An expression of agitation was clearly depicted on Lubov’s face, and she said with dissatisfaction and at the same time apologetically:
“Ah! So it’s you?”
“They’ve been speaking of me,” thought Foma, as he seated himself at the table. Taras turned his eyes away from him and sank deeper in the armchair. There was an awkward silence lasting for about a minute, and this pleased Foma.
“Are you going to the banquet?”
“What banquet?”
“Don’t you know? Kononov is going to consecrate his new steamer. A mass will be held there and then they are going to take a trip up the Volga.”
“I was not invited,” said Foma.
“Nobody was invited. He simply announced on the Exchange: ‘Anybody who wishes to honour me is welcome!
“I don’t care for it.”
“Yes? But there will be a grand drinking bout,” said Lubov, looking at him askance.
“I can drink at my own expense if I choose to do so.”
“I know,” said Lubov, nodding her head expressively.
Taras toyed with his teaspoon, turning it between his fingers and looking at them askance.
“And where’s my godfather?” asked Foma.
“He went to the bank. There’s a meeting of the board of directors today. Election of officers is to take place.
“They’ll elect him again.”
“Of course.”
And again the conversation broke off. Foma began to watch the brother and the sister. Having dropped the spoon, Taras slowly drank his tea in big sips, and silently moving the glass over to his sister, smiled to her. She, too, smiled joyously and happily, seized the glass and began to rinse it assiduously. Then her face assumed a strained expression; she seemed to prepare herself for something and asked her brother in a low voice, almost reverently:
“Shall we return to the beginning of our conversation?”
“If you please,” assented Taras, shortly.
“You said something, but I didn’t understand. What was it? I asked: ‘If all this is, as you say, Utopia, if it is impossible, dreams, then what is he to do who is not satisfied with life as it is?’”
The girl leaned her whole body toward her brother, and her eyes, with strained expectation, stopped on the calm face of her brother. He glanced at her in a weary way, moved about in his seat, and, lowering his head, said calmly and impressively:
“We must consider from what source springs that dissatisfaction with life. It seems to me that, first of all, it comes from the inability to work; from the lack of respect for work. And, secondly, from a wrong conception of one’s own powers. The misfortune of most of the people is that they consider themselves capable of doing more than they really can. And yet only little is required of man: he must select for himself an occupation to suit his powers and must master it as well as possible, as attentively as possible. You must love what you are doing, and then labour, be it ever so rough, rises to the height of creativeness. A chair, made with love, will always be a good, beautiful and solid chair. And so it is with everything. Read Smiles. Haven’t you read him? It is a very sensible book. It is a sound book. Read Lubbock. In general, remember that the English people constitute the nation most qualified for labour, which fact explains their astonishing success in the domain of industry and commerce. With them labour is almost a cult. The height of culture stands always directly dependent upon the love of labour. And the higher the culture the mo
re satisfied are the requirements of man, the fewer the obstacles on the road toward the further development of man’s requirements. Happiness is possible—it is the complete satisfaction of requirements. There it is. And, as you see, man’s happiness is dependent upon his relation toward his work.”
Taras Mayakin spoke slowly and laboriously, as though it were unpleasant and tedious for him to speak. And Lubov, with knitted brow, leaning toward him, listened to his words with eager attention in her eyes, ready to accept everything and imbibe it into her soul.
“Well, and suppose everything is repulsive to a man?” asked Foma, suddenly, in a deep voice, casting a glance at Taras’s face.
“But what, in particular, is repulsive to the man?” asked Mayakin, calmly, without looking at Foma.
Foma bent his head, leaned his arms against the table and thus, like a bull, went on to explain himself:
“Nothing pleases him—business, work, all people and deeds. Suppose I see that all is deceit, that business is not business, but merely a plug that we prop up with it the emptiness of our souls; that some work, while others only give orders and sweat, but get more for that. Why is it so? Eh?”
“I cannot grasp your idea,” announced Taras, when Foma paused, feeling on himself Lubov’s contemptuous and angry look.
“You do not understand?” asked Foma, looking at Taras with a smile. “Well, I’ll put it in this way:
A man is sailing in a boat on the river. The boat may be good, but under it there is always a depth all the same. The boat is sound, but if the man feels beneath him this dark depth, no boat can save him.”
Taras looked at Foma indifferently and calmly. He looked in silence, and softly tapped his fingers on the edge of the table. Lubov was uneasily moving about in her chair. The pendulum of the clock told the seconds with a dull, sighing sound. And Foma’s heart throbbed slowly and painfully, as though conscious that here no one would respond with a warm word to its painful perplexity.
