by Maxim Gorky
“That would have been illegal,”—remarks the teacher.
“Illegal? But is the merchant himself legal?”—inquires Kuválda bitterly.—“What’s a merchant? Let us examine that coarse and awkward phenomenon: first of all, every merchant is a peasant. He makes his appearance from the village, and, after the lapse of a certain time, he becomes a merchant. In order to become a merchant, he must have money. Where can the peasant get money? It is well known that money is not the reward of the labors of the upright. Hence, the peasant has played the scoundrel, in one way or another. Hence, a merchant is a scoundrelly-peasant!”
“That’s clever!”—the audience expresses its approval of the orator’s deduction.
But Tyápa roars, as he rubs his chest. He roars in exactly the same way when he drinks his first glass of vódka to cure his drunken headache. The captain is radiant. The letters from correspondents are read. These contain, for the captain, “an overflowing sea,” to use his own words. Everywhere he sees how evil a thing the merchant is making of life, and how cleverly he crushes and spoils it. His speeches thunder out, and annihilate the merchant. They listen to him with satisfaction in their eyes, because he swears viciously.
“If only I wrote for the newspapers!”—he exclaims.—“Oh, I’d show up the merchant in his true light…I’ll demonstrate that he’s only an animal, temporarily discharging the functions of a man. I understand him! He? He’s rough, he’s stupid, he has no taste in life, he has no idea of the fatherland, and knows nothing more elevated than a five-kopék coin.”
The Gnawed Bone, who knew the captain’s weak side, and was fond of exasperating people, put in venomously:
“Yes, ever since the time when noblemen began unanimously to die of starvation—real men are disappearing from life.…”
“You’re right, you son of a spider and a toad; yes, ever since the nobles fell, there are no people! There are only merchants…and I ha-a-ate them!”
“That’s easily understood, because you, brother, also have been trodden into dust by them.…”
“I? I was ruined through my love of life…you fool! I loved life.—. but the merchant plunders it. I can’t endure him, for precisely that reason…and not because I’m a nobleman. I’m not a nobleman, if you want to know it, but simply a man who has seen better days. I don’t care a fig now for anything or anybody…and all life is to me a mistress who has abandoned me…for which I despise her, and am profoundly indifferent to her.”
“You lie!”—says The Gnawed Bone.
“I lie?”—yells Aristíd Kuválda, red with wrath.
“Why shout?”—rings out Martyánoff’s cold, gloomy bass.—“Why dispute? What do we care for either merchant or nobleman?”
“Inasmuch as we are neither one thing nor the other,” interpolates the deacon.
“Stop it, Gnawed Bone,”—says the teacher pacifically.—“Why salt a herring?”
He did not like quarrels, and, in general, did not like noise. When passions flared up around him, his lips were contorted in a painful grimace, and he calmly and persuasively endeavored to reconcile everybody with everybody else, and if he did not succeed in this, he left the company. Knowing this, the captain, if he was not particularly drunk, would restrain himself, as he was not desirous of losing, in the person of the teacher, the best listener to his speeches.
“I repeat,”—he continues, more quietly,—“I behold life in the hands of enemies, enemies not only of the noblemen, but enemies of every well-born man, greedy enemies, incapable of adorning life in any way.…”
“Nevertheless, brother,”—says the teacher,—“the merchants created Genoa, Venice, Holland,—it was merchants, the merchants of England who won India for their country, the Counts Stróganoff.…”44
“What have I to do with those merchants? I have in view Judas Petúnnikoff, and along with him.…”
“And what have you to do with them?” asks the teacher softly.
“Am not I alive? Aha! I am—hence I must feel indignant at the sight of the way in which the savage people who fill it are spoiling it.”
“And they laugh at the noble indignation of the cavalry captain, and of the man on the retired list,” teased The Gnawed Bone.
“Good! It’s stupid, I agree.… As a man who has seen better days, I am bound to obliterate in myself all the feelings and thoughts which were formerly mine. That’s true, I admit.… But wherewith shall I and all of you—wherewith shall we arm ourselves, if we discard these feelings?”
“Now you’re beginning to talk sensibly,” the teacher encourages him.
“We require something else, different views of life, different feelings…we require something new…for we ourselves are a novelty in life.…”
“We undoubtedly do require that,”—says the teacher.
“Why?”—inquires The End.—“Isn’t it all the same what we say or think? We haven’t long to live…I’m forty years old, you’re fifty…not one among us is under thirty. And even at twenty, you wouldn’t live long such a life.”
“And how are we a novelty?”—grins The Gnawed Bone.—“The naked brigade has always existed.”
“And it founded Rome,”—says the teacher.
“Yes, of course,”—exults the captain.—“Romulus and Remus,—weren’t they members of the Golden Squad of robbers? And we, also, when our hour comes, will found.…”
“A breach of the public tranquillity and peace,” interpolates The Gnawed Bone. He laughs loudly, pleased with himself. His laugh is evil, and soul-rending. Símtzoff, the deacon, and Tarás-and-a-Half join in. The ingenuous eyes of the dirty little lad Meteor burn with clear flame, and his cheeks flush. The End says, exactly as though he were pounding on their heads with a hammer:
“All that’s nonsense…dreams…rubbish!”
It was strange to see these people, driven out of life, tattered, impregnated, with vódka and wrath, irony and dirt, thus engaged in discussion.
To the captain such conversations were decidedly a feast for the heart. He talked more than anybody else, and this afforded him the opportunity of thinking himself better than all the rest. But, no matter how low a man has fallen,—he will never deny himself the delight of feeling himself stronger, more sensible, although even better fed than his neighbor. Aristíd Kuválda abused this delight, but did not get surfeited with it, to the dissatisfaction of The Gnawed Bone, The Peg-top, and other “Have-beens,” who took very little interest in such questions.
But, on the other hand, politics was a universal favorite. A conversation on the theme of the imperative necessity that India should be conquered, or about the repression of England, might go on interminably. With no less passion did they discuss the means for radically exterminating the Hebrews from the face of the earth, but in this question The Gnawed Bone always got the upper hand, and had concocted wonderfully harsh projects, and the captain, who always wished to be the leading personage, avoided this theme. They talked readily, much, and evilly of women, but the teacher always came to their rescue, and got angry if they smeared it on too thickly. They yielded to him, for they all regarded him as an extraordinary man, and they borrowed from him, on Saturdays, the money which he had earned during the week.
Altogether, he enjoyed many privileges: for example, they did not beat him on those rare occasions when the discussion wound up in a universal thrashing match. He was permitted to bring women to the night lodging-house; no one else enjoyed that right, for the captain warned everyone:
“Don’t you bring any women to my house.… Women, merchants, and philosophy are the three causes of my had luck. I’ll give any man a sound drubbing whom I see making his appearance with a woman…and I’ll thrash the woman too.… For indulging in philosophy, I’ll tear off the offender’s head.…”
He could tear off a head: in spite of his age, he possessed astonishing strength. Moreover, every time that he fough
t, he was aided by Martyánoff. Gloomy and taciturn as a grave-stone, when a general fight was in progress the latter always placed himself back to back with Kuválda, and then they formed an all-destroying and indestructible machine.
One day, drunken Símtzoff, without rhyme or reason, wound his talons in the teacher’s hair and pulled out a lock of it. Kuválda, with one blow of his fist, laid him out senseless for half an hour, and when he came to himself he made him eat the teacher’s hair. The man ate it, fearing that he would be beaten to death.
In addition to reading the newspaper, discussions, and fighting, card-playing formed one of their diversions. They played without Martyánoff, because he could not play honestly, which he announced himself, after he had been caught several times cheating.
“I can’t help smuggling a card.… It’s my habit.…”
“That does happen,”—deacon Tarás confirmed his statement.—“I got into the habit of beating my wife after the Liturgy on Sundays; so, you know, when she died, such sadness overpowered me on Sundays as is even in credible. I lived through one Sunday, and I saw that things were bad! Another—I bore it. On the third—I hit my cook one blow.… She took offence.… ‘I’ll hand you over to the justice of the peace,’ says she. Imagine my position! On the fourth Sunday I thrashed her as though she were my wife! Then I paid her ten rubles, and went on beating her after the plan I had established until I got married.…”45
“Deacon,—you lie! How could you marry a second time?”—The Gnawed Bone interrupted him.
“Hey? Why I did it so…she looked after my household affairs.…”
“Did you have any children?”—the teacher asked him.
“Five.… One was drowned.… The eldest,…he was an amusing little boy! Two died of diphtheria.… One daughter married some student or other, and went with him to Siberia, and the other wanted to educate herself, and died in Peter46…of consumption, they say.… Ye-es…there were five of them…of course! We ecclesiastics are fruitful.…”
He began to explain precisely why this was so, arousing homeric laughter by his narration. When they had laughed until they were tired, Alexéi Maxímovitch Símtzoff remembered that he, also, had a daughter.
“Her name was Lídka.… She was such a fat girl.…”
And it must have been that he could recall nothing further, for he stared at them all, smiled apologetically…and stopped talking.
These people talked little with one another about their pasts, referred to them very rarely, and always in general terms, and in a more or less sneering tone. Possibly, such an attitude toward the past was wise, for, to the majority of people, the memory of the past relaxes energy in the present, and undermines hope for the future.
* * * *
But on rainy, overcast, cold days of autumn, these people with pasts assembled in Vavíloff’s tavern. There they were known, somewhat feared, as thieves and bullies, rather despised as desperate drunkards, but, at the same time, they were respected and listened to, being regarded as very clever people. Vavíloff’s tavern was the Club of Vyézhaya Street, and the men with pasts were the intelligent portion of the Club.
On Saturday evenings, on Sundays from morning until night, the tavern was full, and the people with a past were welcome guests there. They brought with them, into the midst of the inhabitants of the street, ground down with poverty and woe, their spirit, which contained some element that lightened the lives of these people, exhausted and distracted in their pursuit of a morsel of bread, drunkards of the same stamp as the denizens of Kuválda’s refuge, and outcasts from the town equally with them. Skill in talking about everything and ridiculing everything, fearlessness of opinion, harshness of speech, the absence of fear in the presence of that which the entire street feared, the challenging audacity of these men—could not fail to please the street. Moreover, nearly all of them knew the laws, were able to give any bit of advice, write a petition, help in cheating with impunity. For all this they were paid with vódka, and flattering amazement at their talents.
In their sympathies, the street was divided into two nearly equal parties: one asserted that the “captain was a lot more of a man than the teacher, a real warrior! His bravery and brains were huge!” The other party was convinced that the teacher, in every respect, “tipped the scales” over Kuválda. Kuválda’s admirers were those petty burghers who were known to the street as thoroughgoing drunkards, thieves, and hair-brained fellows, to whom the path from the beggar’s wallet to the prison did not seem a dangerous road. The teacher was admired by the more steady-going people, who cherished hopes of something, who expected something, who were eternally busy about something, and were rarely full-fed. The character of the relations of Kuválda and the teacher toward the street is accurately defined by the following example. One day, the subject under discussion in the tavern was an ordinance of the city council, by which the inhabitants of Vyézhaya Street were bound: to fill up the ruts and holes in their street, but not to employ manure and the corpses of domestic animals for that purpose, but to apply to that end only broken bricks and rubbish from the place where some buildings were in process of erection.
“Where am I to get those same broken bricks, if, during the whole course of my life I never have wanted to build anything but a starling-house, and haven’t yet got ready even for that?”—plaintively remarked Mokéi Anísimoff, a man who peddled rusks, which his wife baked for him.
The captain felt himself called upon to express his opinion upon the matter in hand, and banged his fist down upon the table, thereby attracting attention to himself.
“Where are you to get broken bricks and rubbish? Go, my lads, the whole street-full of you, into town, and pull down the city hall. It’s so old that it’s not fit for anything. Thus you will render double service in beautifying the town—you will make Vyézhaya Street decent, and you will force them to build a new city hall. Take the Mayor’s horses to cart the stuff, and seize his three daughters—they’re girls thoroughly suited to harness. Or tear down the house of Judas Petúnnikoff, and pave the street with wood. By the way, Mokéi, I know what your wife used to-day to bake your rolls:—the shutters from the third window, and two steps from the porch of Judas’ house.”
When the audience had laughed their fill and had exercised their wits on the captain’s proposition, staid market-gardener Pavliúgin inquired:
“But what are we to do, anyway, Your Well-Born?…Hey? What do you think?…”
“I? Don’t move hand or foot! If the street gets washed away—well, let it!”
“Several houses are about to tumble down.…”
“Don’t hinder them, let them tumble down! If they do—squeeze a contribution out of the town; if it won’t give it,—go ahead and sue it! Whence does the water flow? From the town? Well, then the town is responsible for the destruction of the houses.…”
“They say the water comes from the rains.…”
“But the houses in the town don’t tumble down on account of that? Hey? It extorts taxes from you, and gives you no voice in discussing your rights! It ruins your lives and your property, and then makes you do the repairs! Thrash it from the front and the rear!”
And one half of the street, convinced by the radical Kuválda, decided to wait until their wretched hovels should be washed away by rain-water from the town.
The more sedate persons found in the teacher a man who drew up a capital and convincing statement to the city council on their behalf.
In this statement the refusal of the street to comply with the city council’s ordinance was so solidly founded that the council granted it. The street was permitted to use the rubbish which was left over from repairs to the barracks, and five horses from the fire-wagon were assigned to them to cart it. More than this—it was recognized as indispensable that, in due course, a drain-pipe should be laid through the street. This, and many other things, created great popularity in the street fo
r the teacher. He wrote petitions, printed remarks in the newspapers. Thus, for example, one day Vavíloff’s patrons noticed that the herrings and other victuals in Vavíloff’s tavern were entirely unsuited to their purpose. And so, two days later, as Vavíloff stood at his lunch-counter, newspaper in hand, he publicly repented.
“It’s just—that’s the only thing I can say! It’s a fact that I did buy rusty herrings, herrings that weren’t quite good. And the cabbage—had rather forgotten itself…that’s so! Everybody knows that every man wants to chase as many five-kopék pieces into his pocket as possible. Well, and what of that? It has turned out exactly the other way; I made the attempt, and a clever man has held me up to public scorn for my greed.… Quits!”
This repentance produced a very good impression on the public, and furnished Vavíloff with the opportunity of feeding the public with the herrings and the cabbage, and all this the public devoured unheeding to the sauce of their own impressions. A very significant fact, for it not only augmented the prestige of the teacher, but it made the residents acquainted with the power of the printed word. It happened that the teacher was reading a lecture on practical morals in the tavern. “I saw you,”—said he, addressing the painter Yáshka Tiúrin,—“I saw you, Yákoff, beating your wife.…”
Yáshka had already “touched himself up” with two glasses of vódka, and was in an audaciously free-and-easy mood. The public looked at him, in the expectation that he would immediately surprise them with some wild trick, and silence reigned in the tavern.
“You saw me, did you? And were you pleased?”—inquired Yáshka.
The audience laughed discreetly.
“No, I wasn’t,”—replied the teacher. His tone was so impressively serious that the audience kept quiet.
“It struck me that I was doing my best,”—Yáshka braved it out, foreseeing that the teacher would “floor” him.—“My wife was satisfied…she can’t get up to-day.…”
