The Maxim Gorky

by Maxim Gorky

“It seems to me, too,” he said, “that this book is not true, but I cannot explain where it is wrong. Still, after all, as a guess at the plan of the world, it is very pretty.” I liked it when he answered: “I do not know; I cannot say.” And I stood very close to him, for evidently in this lay his honesty. When a teacher decides to be conscious of his ignorance, it must be that he has some knowledge.

  He knew much that was unknown to me and which he related to me with marvelous simplicity. Once he told me how the sun and the stars and the earth were created, and he talked as if he himself saw this fiery work, done by an unknown and wise hand. I did not understand his God, but that did not trouble me. The principal force of this world he called some kind of matter, but I placed instead of matter God, and all went smoothly.

  “God is not yet created,” he said, smiling.

  The question of God was a standing source of argument between Mikhail and his uncle. As soon as Mikhail said God, Uncle Peter would get angry.

  “He has begun it again. Don’t you believe him, Matvei. He has inherited that from his mother.”

  “Wait, Uncle. The question of God for Matvei is the principal question.”

  “Don’t you believe it, Mishka. Send him to the devil, Matvei. There are no Gods. It is a dark wood—religion, churches and all such things are a dark wood, where robber bandits live. It is a hoax.”

  But Mikhail insisted obstinately. “The God about whom I speak existed when men unanimously created Him from the stuff of their brains, to illumine the darkness of their existence. But when the people were divided into slaves and masters, into little bits and pieces; when they lost their thought and their will-power, God was lost, God was destroyed.”

  “Do you hear, Matvei?” Peter would cry out happily. “He is dead! Long live his memory!”

  His nephew looked straight into his face, and lowering his voice, continued:

  “The main crime which the masters of life have committed is the destruction of the creative power of the people. The time will come when the will of the people will again converge to one point, and then, again, the unconquerable and miraculous power will arise and the resurrection of God will take place. It is He whom you seek, Matvei.”

  Uncle Peter waved his hands like a wood-cutter.

  “Don’t believe him, Matvei. He is wrong.”

  And turning to his nephew, he stormed at him:

  “You have caught church thoughts, Mishka, like stolen cucumbers from a strange garden, and you confuse people with them. When you say that the working people are called to renew life, then renew it, but don’t gather up that which the priests have brought up from their holes and dropped!”

  It interested me to listen to these people, and their mutual respect and equality surprised me. They argued with heat, but they did not offend each other with evil language and abuse. At times the blood would mount to Uncle Peter’s head, and he would tremble; but Mikhail only lowered his voice and seemed to bend his large opponent to the earth. Two men stood opposite me, and both of them denied God out of the fulness of their sincere faith!

  “But what is my faith?” I asked myself, and found no answer.

  During my stay with Mikhail the thought about the place of God among people sank and lost its strength and dropped its former boldness and was supplanted by a quantity of other thoughts, and instead of the question, “Where is God?” stood other questions: “Who am I, and why? Wherefore do I seek God?”

  I understood that it was senseless.

  In the evenings workingmen came to Mikhail and interesting conversations took place. The teacher spoke to them about life and explained to them the laws which were bad. He knew them remarkably well and explained them clearly. The workingmen were mostly young men, dried up by the heat of the factory. Their skins were eaten by soot, their faces were dark, their eyes sorrowful. They listened with serious eagerness, silent and frowning, and at first they seemed to me morose and servile. But later I understood their life better and saw that they could sing and dance and joke with the young girls.

  The conversations of Mikhail and his uncle were always on the same subjects—the power of money, the abasement of the workingmen, the greed of the masters and the absolute necessity of destroying divisions of men into classes.

  But I was no workingman and no master. I was not in search of money, and they laid too much stress on capital, and thereby lowered themselves. At first I argued with Mikhail, pointing out that man’s first duty was to find his spiritual birthplace and that then he would see his own place on earth, and he would find his freedom.

  I spoke briefly, but with heat. The workingmen listened to my speech good-naturedly and attentively, like honest judges, and some of the elder ones even agreed with me. But when I finished Mikhail began with his quiet smile and annihilated my words.

  “You are right, Matvei, when you say that man lives in mystery and does not know whether God, that is, his spirit, is his enemy or his friend. But you are not right when you say that we, who are arbitrarily bound in the chains of the terrible misery of our daily toil, can free ourselves from the yoke of greed without destroying the actual prison which surrounds us. First of all we must learn the strength of our next-door enemy and learn his cunning. For this we must find each other and discover in each other the one thing which unites each with all. And this one thing is our unconquerable, I can say miraculous, strength. Slaves never had a God. They raised human laws which were forced on them without, to Godhood, nor can there ever be a God for slaves, for He is created from the flames of the sweet consciousness of the spiritual relationship of each toward all. Temples are not created from gravel and debris, but from strong whole stones. Isolation is the breaking away from the parental whole. It is a sign of the weakness and the blindness of the soul, for in the whole is immortality and in isolation inevitable slavery and darkness and inconsolable yearning and death.”

  When we spoke this way it seemed to me that his eyes saw a great light in the distance. He drew me into his circle and every one forgot about me, but looked at him with happiness. At first this offended me. I thought that they misunderstood my thoughts and that no one was willing to accept any one’s thoughts but Mikhail’s. Unnoticed I would go away from them, sit down in a corner and quietly hold council with my pride.

  I made friends with the pupils. On holidays they surrounded Uncle Peter and me like ravens around sheaves of corn. He would make some toy for them while I was bombarded with questions about Kiev, Moscow and everything I had seen. Often one of them would ask me a question which would make my eyes bulge out in astonishment. There was a young boy there called Fedia Sachkof, a quiet, serious child. Once when I was going with him through the wood, speaking to him about Christ, he suddenly said in a firm tone:

  “Christ did not think of remaining a small boy all his life—for instance, a boy of my age. If He had done so, He could have lived and still have accused the rich and aided the poor, and He would not have been crucified. He would have been a small boy, and they would have been sorry for Him. But the way He did it, it is as if He had never been here.”

  Fedia was about eleven. His little face was white and transparent, and his eyes were critical.

  There was another boy, Mark Lobof, a pupil of the last class. He was a thin, quick-tempered, sharp fellow, very impudent and a bully. He would whistle low, and pinch, beat and push the children. Once I saw him persecuting a small, quiet boy until the latter burst into tears.

  “Mark,” I said to him, “suppose he fought you back.”

  Mark looked at me, laughed and answered:

  “He won’t fight. He is gentle and good.”

  “Then why do you hurt him?”

  “Just so,” he answered.

  He whistled and then added: “Because he is gentle.”

  “Well, suppose he is?” I asked.

  “What are the gentle ones made for?”

&nb
sp; He said that in a remarkably quiet tone, and it was evident that at twelve years old he was already sure that the gentle people were created for insults.

  Each child was wise in his own way, and the more I was with them the more I thought about their fate. What did they do to deserve the wretched, offensive life which awaited them?

  I reminded myself of Christa and my son, and remembering them, angry thoughts arose in my soul. Do you not forbid the women free birth of children because you fear that they might give birth to some one dangerous and inimical to you? Do you not violate woman’s will because her free son is terrible to you, since he is not tied to you by any bonds? You have time and the right to bind your children whom you have brought up and equipped for the affairs of life; but you fear that nobody’s child whom you have denied your supervision may grow up into your implacable enemy.

  There was such a nobody’s child in the factory. His name was Stepa. He was black as a beetle, pockmarked, and without eyebrows. His eyes were little and sharp, and he was quick at everything, and very gay.

  Our acquaintance began with his coming up to me one holiday and saying:

  “Monk, I heard you are illegitimate. Well, so am I.” And he walked alongside of me.

  He was thirteen, had already finished school and was working in the factory. He walked along, blinked his eyes, and asked:

  “Is the earth large?”

  I explained to him as best I could. “Why do you want to know?” I asked.

  “I need to know. Why should I stick in one place? I am not a tree. As soon as I learn the locksmithing trade, I am going far into Russia, to Moscow, and farther still. I am going everywhere.”

  He spoke as if he were threatening some one. “I am coming!”

  I watched him closely after this meeting. He had a serious streak in him. He was always where Mikhail’s comrades talked, and he listened and squinted his eyes as if taking aim where to send himself. He had a special way of playing tricks. He teased only those who stood near to the boss.

  Once at dinner, he said: “It is dull here, monk.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know, but they are a rotten lot. Work and trouble, nothing more. As soon as I learn my trade I am going to get out of here, quick.”

  Whenever he spoke of his future wanderings his eyes became large and he glanced boldly and had the look of a conqueror, who staked his all on his own strength.

  I liked this creature, and I felt something mature in his speech. “He won’t get lost,” I thought to myself as I looked at him.

  My soul ached for my own son. How was he and what was going to happen to him on this earth?

  CHAPTER XXIII

  There was a quiet growth of new feelings within me. I felt that each man sent out to me a sharp, thin ray which touched me unseen and imperceptibly reached my heart. And I accepted these hidden rays ever more willingly.

  At times the workingmen assembled in Mikhail’s rooms, and then I felt that a burning cloud formed from their thoughts, which surrounded me and carried me strangely upward with itself.

  Suddenly every one began to understand me more and more. I stood in their circle, and they were my body and I was their soul and their will, and my speech was their voice. And at times it was I that was a part of the body, and I heard the cry of my own soul from other mouths, and it sounded good when I heard it. But when time passed and there was silence I again remained alone and for myself.

  I remembered my former communion with God in my prayers. Then I had been glad when I could wipe myself out from my memory and cease to exist. In my relationship with people I did not lose myself; instead I grew larger, taller, and the strength of my soul increased many-fold. In this, too, lay self-forgetfulness, but it did not destroy me. It quenched my bitter thoughts and the anguish of isolation.

  I realized this mistily and vaguely. I felt that a new seed was growing in my soul, but I could not understand it. I only knew that it pulled me determinedly toward people.

  In those days I worked in the factory for forty kopecks a day, carrying on my shoulders heavy trays of iron, slag and brick. I hated this hellish place, with its dirt and its noise and its hubbub, and its heat which tortured the body.

  The factory had fastened itself onto the earth and pressed itself into her and sucked her insatiably night and day. It was out of breath from greed and groaned and spit out of its red-hot jaws fiery blood drawn from the earth. It cooled off, grew black, then again began to melt iron and to boil and thunder, flattening out the red iron and squirting up sparks and trembling in its whole frame, as it pulled out long strips like nerves, from the body of the earth.

  The wild labor seemed to me something terrible, something bordering on the insane. This groaning monster, devastating the lap of the earth, was digging an abyss under itself, and knowing that some day it would fall into it, screeched eagerly, with a thousand voices: “Hurry! Hurry! Hurry!”

  In fire and noise, under a rain of burning sparks, blackened men worked. It was no place for them. About them everything threatened to burn them by fiery death or to crush them by heavy iron; everything deafened and blinded. The unbearable heat dried up the blood, but they did their work quietly, walking about with a masterly confidence, like devils in hell, fearing nothing and knowing nothing.

  They lifted small levers with strong hands, and all around and above them hands and jaws of enormous machines moved quietly and terribly, crumbling the iron. It was hard to know whose mind and whose will reigned here. At times it was man who controlled and governed this factory according to his wishes. But other times it seemed that all the people and the whole factory were subject to the devil and that he laughed aloud, triumphantly and horribly as he saw the mad and difficult rush created by greed.

  The workers said to one another: “It is time to go to work.” Were the men masters of their work, or did it drive and crush them? I did not know. Work seemed difficult and masterful, but the human mind was sharp and quick. Sometimes there would ring out amid this devilish noise of whirring machines a victorious and care-free song. I would smile in my heart, remembering the story of Ivan the Fool, who rode on a whale up to heaven to catch the wonder-bird, Phoenix.

  The people in the factory, though they were not friendly to me, were all bold and proud. They were abusive, foul-mouthed and often drunk; yet they were free and fearless people. They were different from the pilgrims and the tillers of the soil, who offended me with their servile, confused souls, their hopeless complainings and their petty cheatings in their affairs with God and themselves. These people were bold in thought, and although they were hurt by the slavery of their labor, and grew angry with one another and even fought, yet if the bosses ever acted unfairly, thereby rousing their sense of justice, they would stand together against them as one man.

  And those workingmen who followed Mikhail were always among the first, spoke louder than the rest and seemed to fear nothing. Formerly, when I did not think about the people, I did not notice men; but now as I looked upon them I wished to detect differences, so that each one might stand out separately before me. I succeeded in this and yet not entirely. Their speech was different and each one had his own face, but their faith-was the same and their plans were one. Without haste, friendly and sincerely, they were building something new. Each one of them, among his fellows, was like a pleasant light; like a meadow in a thick wood for the wanderer who had lost his way. Each one drew to himself the workingmen who were wider awake than the rest, and all these followers of Mikhail were held together by one plan, and they created a spiritual circle in the factory, a fire of brightly burning thoughts.

  At first the workingmen were not friendly to me. They shouted and made fun of me.

  “Oh, you red-haired fly! You cloister-bug! You foul one! Parasite!”

  At times they struck me, but this I could not stand, and in such cases I did not spare my fists. Though peop
le admire strength, still one cannot gain esteem and attention through his fists, and I would have had to bear many beatings were it not that at one of my quarrels a friend of Mikhail’s, one Gavriel Kostin, interfered. He was a young metal pourer, very handsome and respected by the whole factory. Six men had come up to me and their looks boded ill for my back. But he stood next to me and said:

  “Why do you provoke a man, comrades? Is he not as much a worker as the rest of us? You do wrong, and against yourselves. Our strength lies in close friendship.”

  He said these few words, but he said them so well and so simply, as if he were talking to children. The friends of Mikhail always made use of every incident to spread their ideas.

  Kostin embarrassed my opponents and the words touched my heart also. I began to talk.

  “I did not become a monk,” I said, “to have much to eat, but because my soul was starved. I have lived and I have seen that everywhere labor is endless and hunger common; that everywhere there is swindle and fraud, bitterness and tears, brutality and every kind of darkness of the soul. By whom was this arranged? Where is our righteous and wise God? Does He see the infinite and eternal martyrdom of the people?”

  A crowd collected about me and listened earnestly to my words. I finished and there was silence.

  Finally, the head model-maker, Kriokof, said to Kostin:

  “That monk there sees things deeper than you and your comrades. He has taken hold of the root of the matter.”

  It pleased me to hear these words. Kriokof slapped me on my shoulder and said:

  “You have spoken well, brother, but all the same cut your hair by a yard. Such a mane catches the dirt and looks funny.”

  And some one called out:

  “And is in the way in a fight.”

  They were joking. Evidently their wrath had passed. Where there is laughter, there is man; the animal is gone.

  Kostin took me aside. “Be careful with such words, Matvei,” he said. “You can get into prison for them.”

  I was astonished. “What!”