by Maxim Gorky
“Ekh…How good it is!”
And in this exclamation there was always more meaning and feeling than in the rhetorical figures of many poets, who go into raptures more for the sake of maintaining their reputations as persons with an exquisite sense of the beautiful, than out of genuine adoration before the unspeakably caressing beauty of Nature …
Like everything else, poetry loses its holy beauty and directness, when it is turned into a profession.
* * * *
Two months passed, day by day, in the course of which Konováloff and I discussed many things and read a great deal. I read the “Revolt of Sténka” so often to him, that he could narrate it fluently, in his own words, page after page, from beginning to end.
This book had become for him what a fairy-tale sometimes becomes to an impressionable child. He called the objects with which he had to deal by the names of its heroes, and when, one day, one of the bread-moulds fell from the shelf and broke, he exclaimed, sadly and angrily:
“Akh you, voevóda!”33
Unsuccessful bread he nicknamed “Frólka,” the yeast he christened “Sténka’s thoughts”; Sténka himself was the synonym for everything exceptional, huge, unhappy, unsuccessful.
During all this time he hardly alluded to Kapitólina, whose letter I had read, and to whom I had composed a reply, on the first day of our acquaintance.
I knew that Konováloff had sent her money, to the care of a certain Philip, with a request that the latter would act as surety for her to the police, but no answer arrived, either from Philip or from the girl.
And all of a sudden, one evening when Konováloff and I were preparing to place the bread in the oven, the door of the bakery opened, and from out of the darkness of the damp ante-room a low-pitched, feminine voice, which was both timid and irritable, exclaimed:
“Excuse me.…”
“Whom do you want?” I inquired, while Konováloff, dropping the shovel at his feet, plucked at his beard in confusion.
“Does baker Konováloff work here?”
She now stood on the threshold, and the light of the hanging-lamp fell directly upon her head—on her white woollen kerchief. From beneath the kerchief gazed around, pretty, snub-nosed little face, with plump cheeks, and dimples in them from the smile of her full, red lips.
“Yes!” I answered her.
“Yes, yes!” Konováloff exulted suddenly and very noisily, it seemed, throwing aside his shovel, and hastening forward, with huge strides, toward the visitor.
“Sáshenka!” she sighed deeply, as she advanced to meet him.
They embraced, Konováloff bending low to reach her.
“Well, what now? How did you get here? Have you been here long? Hey? So it’s you! Are you free? That’s good! Now do you see? I told you…your way is open before you again! Go ahead boldly!”—Konováloff hastily explained himself to her, as he still stood on the threshold, without removing his arms, which encircled her neck and waist.
“Maxím…you fight it out alone to-day, my boy, while I attend to the ladies’ department.… Where are you stopping, Kápa?”
“I came straight here to you.…”
“He-e-ere? You can’t possibly stay here—we bake bread here, and…it’s utterly impossible! Our boss is the strictest sort of a man. I must settle you for the night somewhere…in lodgings, say. Come on!”
And they departed. I remained to struggle with the bread, and had no expectation of seeing Konováloff before the next morning; but, to my no small surprise, he made his appearance three hours later. My astonishment was still further increased, when, on glancing at him, with the anticipation of seeing the radiance of joy in his face, I perceived that it was merely cross, bored, and fatigued.
“What’s the matter with you?” I asked, intensely interested in this mood of my friend, which was so unsuited to the event.
“Nothing,” he replied dejectedly, and, after a pause, he spat with considerable ferocity.
“No, but all the same?…” I persisted.
“Well, what business is it of yours?” he retorted wearily, stretching himself at full length on the bin.—“All the same…all the same.… All the same—she’s a woman! There you have the whole thing!”
I had great difficulty in getting an explanation out of him, and, at last, he gave it to me, approximately in the following words:
“I say—she’s a woman! And if I hadn’t been a fool, nothing would have come of it. You understand? Well.… Now you say; a woman is also a human being! Of course, she walks on her hind paws, doesn’t eat grass, talks with words, laughs…in short, she isn’t a beast. But, all the same, she’s no company for the likes of us men.… Ye-es! Why? Well…I don’t know! I feel that she doesn’t fit in, but why—is more than I can understand.… Now, there she—Kapitólina,—this is the line she takes up:—‘I want to live with you’—that means with me—‘as your wife. I want,’ says she, ‘to be your watch-dog.… ‘It’s perfectly absurd! Come, now, my dear girl,’ says I, ‘you’re a fool; just consider, what will it be like to live with me? In the first place, there’s my tippling; in the second place, I have no home; in the third, I am a vagabond, and I can’t live in one place.…’ and so forth and so on, with a lot more, says I to her. But she—doesn’t care a fig about my tippling. ‘All men who work at trades are bitter drunkards,’ says she, ‘yet they have wives; you’ll get a house,’ says she, ‘when you have a wife, and then you won’t run off anywhere.…’ Says I: ‘Kápa, I can’t possibly bring myself to do it, because I know that I don’t understand how to lead such a life, and I can’t learn how.’ And says she, ‘Then I’ll jump into the river!’ And says I to her: ‘You ffo-oo-oll!’ Then she took to lashing me with her tongue, and didn’t she let it loose! ‘Akh, you meddler, you brazen-faced monster, you deceiver, you long-legged devil!’ says she.… And she started in to rail at me, and rail…she simply seemed to be in such a rage at me, that I came near taking to my heels. Then she began to cry. She cried and upbraided me: ‘Why did you take me out of that place,’ says she, ‘if you didn’t want me? Why did you lure me away from that place,’ says she, ‘and where am I to go now?’ says she. ‘You red-headed fool,’ says she.… Faugh! Well, and what am I to do with her now?”
“Well, and why did you get her away from that place, as a matter of fact?” I inquired.
“Why? What a queer fellow you are! Because I was sorry for her, apparently! You see, a man gets stuck in the mud…and he feels sorry for every passer-by. But set up a wife, and all the rest of it…not much! I won’t consent to that. What sort of a family man would I make? And if I could stick to that, I would have married long ago. What good chances I have had! I might have married money.. and all that sort of thing. But if this sort of thing is beyond my power, how am I to do it? She’s crying…that’s not a good thing…of course.… But what am I to do about it? I can’t help it!”
He went so far as to shake his head in confirmation of his plaintive “I can’t.” He rose from the bin, and ruffling his beard and his hair with both hands, he began to stride about the bakery with drooping head, and spitting in disgust.
“Maxím!” he began, in an entreating, disconcerted way, “couldn’t you go to her, sort of tell her the why and how of it…hey? Do go, that’s a good fellow!”
“What am I to say to her?”
“Tell her the whole truth—Say ‘He just can’t do it. It isn’t the right thing for him to do …’ And see here, this is what you can say to her…tell her…‘there is something the matter with him.’”
“Is that the truth?” I laughed.
“We-ell…no, it isn’t the truth.… But it’s a good excuse, isn’t it? Akh, devil take you! What a mess a wife is! Isn’t that so? And I never thought of such a thing, not even one little minute. Come, now, what am I to do with a wife?”
He flourished his hands with so much perplexity and terror as
he said this, that it was clear he absolutely did not know what to do with a wife! And, despite the comicality of his statement of this whole affair, its dramatic side made me do some hard thinking over the situation of my comrade and of this girl. Meanwhile, he continued to stalk about the bakery, and talk to himself, as it were.
“And she doesn’t please me now, it’s awful how repulsive she is to me! She’s just sucking me in, and dragging me down somewhere, exactly like a bottomless bog. A nice husband you’ve picked out for yourself! You’re not very clever, but you’re a crafty girl.”
This was the instinct of the vagabond beginning to speak in him, aroused by the feeling of eternal striving after his freedom, which had been assailed.
“No, you won’t catch me with that sort of worm, I’m too big a fish for that!” he exclaimed vauntingly.—“This is the way I’ll take it, yes…and, after all, what of it?”—And, coming to a halt in the middle of the bakery, he sighed, and fell into thought. I watched the play of expression on his excited countenance, and tried to divine what conclusion he had arrived at.
“Maxím! Hey, there, let’s be off for the Kubán!”
I had not expected this. I had certain literary—pedagogical designs on him: I cherished the hope of teaching him to read and write, and of imparting to him all that I knew myself at that time. It would have been curious to observe how this experiment would turn out.… He had given me his word not to move from the spot for the whole summer; this had lightened my task, and now, all of a sudden …
“Now you are talking nonsense!” I said to him, somewhat disconcerted.
“Well, what else is there for me to do?” he cried.
I began to tell him that, in all probability, Kapitólina’s designs on him were not so decidedly serious as he imagined, and that he must watch and wait.
And, as it turned out, he had not so very long to wait.
We were sitting on the floor, with our backs to the windows, and chatting. It was almost midnight, and an hour and a half or two hours had elapsed since Konováloff’s return. All at once, the crash of breaking glass rang out behind us, and a pretty heavy stone thundered noisily down upon the floor beside us. We both sprang to our feet in affright, and rushed to the window.
“I missed fire!” screamed a shrill voice through the opening.—“My aim was bad! If it hadn’t been for that.…”
“C-cco-ome ’long!” bellowed a fierce bass voice.—“C-cco-ome’l-llong, and I’ll settle him…later on!”
A despairing, hysterical, and drunken laugh, shrill and nerve-splitting, floated in from the street through the shattered window.
“It’s she!” said Konováloff, sorrowfully.
All I had been able to descry, so far, was a pair of legs hanging from the sidewalk into the opening before the window. There they dangled and bobbed about in a queer fashion, the heels striking against the brick wall, as though in search of a support.
“C-co-ome’long, now!” jabbered the fierce bass voice.
“Let me go! Don’t drag me, give me a chance to ease my heart. Good-bye, Sáshka! Good-bye.…” An unprintable curse followed these words.
On approaching closer to the window, I caught sight of Kapitólina. Bending down very low, with her hands propped on the sidewalk, she was trying to look into the bakery, and her dishevelled hair lay in disorder over her shoulders and bosom. The white kerchief was pushed on one side, the bodice of her gown was tom. Kapitólina was horribly drunk, and was reeling from side to side, hiccoughing, cursing, screaming hysterically, trembling all over, her garments all dishevelled, her face red, intoxicated, drenched with tears.
Over her leaned the tall figure of a man, and he, resting one hand on her shoulder, and the other against the wall of the house, kept on roaring:
“C-cco-ome’long!” …
“Sáshka! You have ruined me…remember that! Curse you, you red-headed devil! May you never behold an hour of God’s sunshine! I did hope…I should reform…you jeered at me, you gallow’s-bird…all right! Let’s make up! Ah!… He has hid himself! Shame on you, you cursed ugly mug!…Sásha…dearest.…”
“I haven’t hid myself,” said Konováloff, in a deep, thick voice, approaching the window and climbing up on a bin.—“I’m not hiding…but there’s no use in your going on like this…I certainly meant kindly by you; it will be a good thing, I thought, but you have rushed off wildly, in the most utterly absurd way.…”
“Sáshka! Can you kill me?”
“Why did you get drunk? Don’t you know what would have happened…to-morrow?” …
“Sáshka! Sáshka! Drown me!”
“Sto-o-op that! C-co-ome’long!”
“You scound-rrrel! Why did you pretend to be a good man?”
“What’s all this noise, hey? Who are you?”
The whistle of the night-watchman interposed in this dialogue, drowned it, then subsided.
“Why did I trust you, you devil!…” sobbed the girl under the window.
Then her legs suddenly quivered, flashed upward in haste, and vanished in the gloom. A dull sound of voices and uproar rang out.
“I won’t go to the station-house! Sá-ásha!” shrieked the girl plaintively.
Feet trampled noisily along the pavement.
Whistles, a dull roaring, yells.
“Sá-ásha! Dear man!”
It appeared as though someone were being mercilessly tortured.… All these noises retreated from us, grew fainter, duller, and died away, like a nightmare. Stunned, crushed by this scene, which had been enacted with astonishing swiftness, Konováloff and I stared into the street through the darkness, and could not recover ourselves from the weeping, roaring, curses, shouts of the police, groans of anguish. I recalled individual sounds, and could hardly persuade myself that it had all actually taken place. This brief but painful drama had come to an end with terrible rapidity.
“That’s all.. said Konováloff, with peculiar gentleness and simplicity, after listening a while longer in silence in the dark night, which gazed silently and sternly in at him through the window.
“How she gave it to me!…” he continued with amazement, after the lapse of several seconds, retaining his former attitude on the bin, kneeling and supporting his hands on the slope of the window-sill.—“She has got into the hands of the police…drunk…in company with some devil or other. She made up her mind quick!” He heaved a deep sigh, descended from the bin, seated himself on the sacks of flour, with his head clasped in his hands, rocked himself to and fro, and asked me, in an undertone:
“Tell me, Maxím, what was it that took place there just now?… That is to say, what share have I in it all now?”
I told him. It was all his affair, all the way through. First of all, one must understand what he wants to do, and when he begins a thing, he must set before himself its probable termination. He had not understood this in the least, did not know it, and was thoroughly to blame in every point. I was incensed at him—Kapitólina’s groans and cries, that drunken “C-come’long!”…all these things still rang in my ears, and I did not spare my comrade.
He listened to me with bowed head, and when I had finished, he raised it, and on his countenance I read alarm and amazement.
“There you have it!” he exclaimed…“That’s clever! Well, and…what now? Hey? How is it? What am I to do with her?”
In the tone of his words there was so much purely-childish in the sincerity of his confession of his fault toward the girl, and so much helpless astonishment, that I immediately felt sorry for my comrade, and reflected that, possibly, I had spoken very sharply and dictatorially to him.
“And why did I move her from that place?” said Konováloff, regretfully.—“Ekhma! She must be angry with me now…for now I have.… I’ll go there, to the police-station, and I’ll try…I’ll see her—and all the rest of it. I’ll say to her…something or other.…
Shall I go?”
I remarked that not much was likely to come of his seeing her again. What could he say to her? Moreover, intoxicated as she was, she was, probably, fast asleep by this time.
But he fortified himself in his idea.
“I’ll go, just wait. All the same, I wish her well…indeed I do. And what sort of people are they for her? I’ll go.… Here, you, just…I’ll be back before long.”
And putting on his cap, he hastily quitted the bakery, without even donning the boot-slippers, of which he was, generally, so vain.
I finished my work and lay down to sleep, but when I awoke in the morning, and, according to my wont, cast a glance at the place where Konováloff slept, he was not yet there.
He did not make his appearance until toward evening, when he presented himself gloomy, dishevelled, with harsh lines on his brow, and a sort of mist over his blue eyes. Without looking at me, he stepped up to the bins, to see what I had been doing, and then lay down, in silence, upon the floor.
“Well, did you see her?” I asked.
“That’s what I went for.”
“Well, what happened?”
“Nothing.”
It was plain that he did not wish to talk. Assuming that this mood of his would not last long, I did not bother him with questions. And all that day he maintained silence, only flinging at me curt remarks bearing on the work, when it was absolutely necessary, striding about the bakery with drooping head, and still with the same beclouded eyes with which he had arrived. Something seemed to have been extinguished within him; he worked slowly and languidly, as though held in bondage by his thoughts. At night, when we had already placed the last batch of loaves in the oven, and had not gone to sleep, for fear of their getting over-done, he asked me:
“Come, now, read me something about Sténka.”
As the description of the tortures stirred him up more than anything else, I began to read that passage to him. He listened, stretched out motionless upon the floor, breast upward, and stared unwinkingly at the smoke-begrimed vaults of the ceiling.
