The Maxim Gorky

by Maxim Gorky

  Petúnnikoff smiled the smile of the conqueror, and went into the night lodging-house, but suddenly halted, shuddering. In the door, facing him, with a stick in his hand and a huge sack on his shoulder, stood a terrible old man, bristling like a hedgehog with the rags which covered his long body, bent beneath the weight of his burden, and with his head bowed upon his breast exactly as though he were about to hurl himself at the merchant.

  “What do you want?” shouted Petúnnikoff.—“Who are you?”

  “A man…” rang out a dull, hoarse voice.

  This hoarse rattle rejoiced and reassured Petúnnikoff. He even smiled.

  “A man! Akh, you queer fellow…do such men exist?”

  And stepping aside, he let the old man pass him, as the latter marched straight at him, and muttered dully: “There are various sorts of men…as God wills.… There are worse men than I…worse than I…yes!”

  The overcast sky gazed silently into the dirty courtyard, and at the clean man, with the small, pointed, gray beard, who was walking over the ground, measuring something with his footsteps and with his sharp little eyes. On the roof of the old house a crow sat and croaked triumphantly, as it stretched out its neck, and rocked to and fro. In the stern, gray storm-clouds, which thickly covered the sky, there was something strained and implacable, as though they, in preparing to discharge a downpour of rain, were firmly resolved to wash away all the filth from this unhappy, tortured, melancholy earth.

  38Kuválda means a mallet; or, figuratively, a clown.—Translator.

  39The barges for transporting wood, and so forth, on Russian rivers, are put together with huge wooden pegs. After being unloaded, at their destination, they are broken up, and the hole-riddled planks are sold at a very low price.—Translator.

  40“Document” or (literally) “paper,” here, as often, means the passport.—Translator.

  41As the reader will perceive, later on, Petúnnikoff’s name was not Iuda (Judas). This is Kuválda’s sarcasm.—Translator.

  42This “corridor-waiter” in Russian hotels, prepares the samovár, or makes coffee, in a small, up-stairs buffet, near the bedrooms of his allotted section, and serres, with bread, butter and cream, or whatever is ordered. It is also his duty to bring up all other meals which are served in private rooms.—Translator.

  43A verst is two-thirds of a mile.—Translator.

  44Yermák Timoféevitch, the conqueror of Siberia, was in the service of the Counts Stróganoff.—Translator.

  45The Parish (or White) Clergy, in the Holy Orthodox Church of the East, beginning with the rank of Sub-Deacon, must be married—and must be married before they are ordained. They cannot marry again. This rule ceases with an Arch-Priest, which is the highest rank attainable by the White Clergy. Bishops must be celibates.—Translator.

  46The colloquial abbreviation for St. Petersburg.—Translator.

  47“A stone building” does not mean literally stone in Russia, as it does elsewhere. “Stone,” in this connection, means brick, rubble, or any other substance, with an external dressing of mastic, washed with white or any gay hue. Briefly, not of wood.—Translator.

  48Diminutive of Egór (George).—Translator.

  49An arshín (the Russian equivalent of the yard) is twenty-eight inches.—Translator.

  50“Prosperous and peaceful life” is a (sarcastic) quotation from the “Many Years” (Long Life), which is proclaimed in church, at the end of the service, on special occasions, in honor of royal or distinguished persons.—Translator.

  51The regulation reply, in the army, to a superior, is not plain “da” (yes), but “tótchno tak!” The negative is correspondingly regulated.—Translator.

  52Charles XII of Sweden, defeated at Poltáva by Peter the Great.—Translator.

  53A quotation from the Funeral and Requiem Services.—Translator.

  54From the Funeral and Requiem Services.—Translator.

  THE INSOLENT MAN

  The irritated, angry editor was running to and fro in the large, light editorial office of the “N—— Gazette,” crumpling in his hand a copy of the publication, spasmodically shouting and swearing. It was a tiny figure, with a sharp, thin face, decorated with a little beard and gold eyeglasses. Stamping loudly with his thin legs, encased in gray trousers, he fairly whirled about the long table, which stood in the middle of the room, and was loaded down with crumpled newspapers, galley-proofs, and fragments of manuscript. At the table, with one hand resting upon it, while with the other he wiped his brow, stood the publisher—a tall, stout, fair-haired man, of middle age, and with a faint grin on his white, well-fed face, he watched the editor with merry, brilliant eyes. The maker-up, an angular man, with a yellow face and a sunken chest, in a light-brown coat, which was very dirty and far too long for him, was shrinking closely against the wall. He raised his brows, and gazed at the ceiling with staring eyes, as though trying to recall something, or in meditation, but a moment later, wrinkled up his nose in a disenchanted way, and dropped his head dejectedly on his breast. In the doorway stood the form of the office boy; men with anxious, dissatisfied countenances kept entering and disappearing, jostling him on their way. The voice of the editor, cross, irritated, and ringing, sometimes rose to a squeal, and made the publisher frown and the maker-up shudder in affright.

  “No…this is such a rascally piece of business! I’ll start a criminal suit against this scoundrel.… Has the proof-reader arrived? Devil take it,—I ask—has the proof-reader arrived? Call all the compositors here! Have you told them? No, just imagine, what will happen now! All the newspapers will take it up.… Dis-grrrace! All Russia will hear of it.… I won’t let that scoundrel off!”

  And raising his hands which held the newspaper to his head, the editor stood rooted to the spot, as though endeavoring to wrap his head in the paper, and thus protect it from the anticipated disgrace.

  “Find him first…” advised the publisher, with a dry laugh.

  “I’ll f-find him, sir! I’ll f-find him!”—the editor’s eyes blazed, and starting on his gallop once more, and pressing the newspaper to his breast, he began to tousle it fiercely.—“I’ll find him, and I’ll roast him.… And where’s that proof-reader?… Aha!… Here.… Now, sir, I beg that you will favor me with your company, my dear sirs! Hm!… ‘The peaceful commanders of the leaden armies …’ ha, ha! Pass in…there, that’s it!”

  One after another the compositors entered the room. They already knew what the trouble was, and each one of them had prepared himself to play the part of the culprit, in view of which fact, they all unanimously expressed in their grimy faces, impregnated with lead dust, complete immobility and a sort of wooden composure. They huddled together, in the corner of the room, in a dense group. The editor halted in front of them, with his hands, clutching the newspaper, thrown behind his back. He was shorter in stature than they, and he was obliged to hold back his head, in order to look them in the face. He made this movement too quickly, and his spectacles flew up on his forehead; thinking that they were about to fall, he flung his hand into the air to catch them, but, at that moment, they fell back again on the bridge of his nose.

  “Devil take you…” he gritted his teeth.

  Happy smiles beamed on the grimy countenances of the compositors. Someone uttered a suppressed laugh.

  “I have not summoned you hither that you may show your teeth at me!”—shouted the editor viciously, turning livid.—“I should think you had disgraced the newspaper enough already.… If there be an honest man among you, who understands what a newspaper is, what the press is, let him tell who was the author of this.… In the leading article.…” The editor began nervously to unfold the paper.

  “But what’s it all about?” said a voice, in which nothing but simple curiosity was audible.

>   “Ah! You don’t know? Well, then…here…‘Our factory legislation has always served the press as a subject for hot discussion…that is to say, for the talking of stupid trash and nonsense!…’ There, now! Are you satisfied? Will the man who added that ‘talking’ be pleased…and, particularly—the word ‘talking’! how grammatical and witty!—well, sirs, which of you is the author of that ‘stupid trash and non-sense’?”

  “Whose article is it? Yours? Well, and you are the author of all the nonsense that is said in it,”—rang out the same calm voice which had previously put the question to the editor.

  This was insolent, and all involuntarily assumed that the person who was to blame for the affair had been found. A movement took place in the hall: the publisher drew nearer to the group, the editor raised himself on tiptoe, in the endeavor to see over the heads of the compositors into the face of the speaker. The compositors separated. Before the editor stood a stoutly-built young fellow, in a blue blouse, with a pock-marked face, and curling locks of hair which stood up in a crest above his left temple. He stood with his hands thrust deeply into the pockets of his trousers, and, indifferently riveting his gray, mischievous eyes on the editor, he smiled faintly from out of his curling, light-brown beard. Everybody looked at him:—the publisher, with brows contracted in a scowl, the editor with amazement and wrath, the maker-up with a suppressed smile. The faces of the compositors expressed both badly-concealed satisfaction and alarm and curiosity.

  “So…it’s you?”—inquired the editor, at last, pointing at the pock-marked compositor with his finger and compressing his lips in a highly significant manner.

  “Yes…it’s I.…” replied the latter, grinning in a particularly simple and offensive manner.

  “A-ah!… Very glad to know it! So it’s you? Why did you put it in, permit me to inquire?”

  “But have I said that I did put it in?”—and the compositor glanced at his comrades.

  “It certainly was he, Mítry55 Pávlovitch,” the maker-up remarked to the editor.

  “Well, if I did, I did,”—assented the compositor, not without a certain good-nature, and waving his hand he smiled again.

  Again all remained silent. No one had expected so prompt and calm a confession, and it acted upon them all as a surprise. Even the editor’s wrath was converted, for a moment, into amazement. The space around the pock-marked man grew wider, the maker-up went off quickly to the table, the compositors stepped aside …

  “Then you did it deliberately, intentionally?” inquired the publisher, smiling, and staring at the pock-marked man with eyes round with astonishment.

  “Be so good as to answer!”—shouted the editor, flourishing the crumpled newspaper.

  “Don’t shout…I’m not afraid. A great many people have yelled at me, and all without any cause! …” and in the compositor’s eyes sparkled a daring, impudent light.… “Exactly so …” he went on, shifting from foot to foot, and now addressing the publisher,—“I put in the words deliberately.…”

  “You hear?”—the editor appealed to the audience.

  “Well, as a matter of fact, what did you mean by it, you devil’s doll!”—the publisher suddenly flared up.—“Do you understand how much harm you have done me?”

  “It’s nothing to you.… I think it must even have increased the retail sales. But here’s the editor…really, that bit didn’t exactly suit his taste.”

  The editor was fairly petrified with indignation; he stood in front of that cool, malicious man, and flashed his eyes in silence, finding no words wherewith to express his agitated feelings.

  “Well, it will be the worse for you, brother, on account of this!”—drawled the publisher malevolently, and, suddenly softening, he slapped his knee with his hand.

  In reality, he was pleased with what had happened, and with the workman’s insolent reply: the editor had always treated him rather patronizingly, making no effort to conceal his consciousness of his own mental superiority, and now he, that same conceited, self-confident man, was thrown prostrate in the dust…and by whom?

  “I’ll pay you off for your insolence to me, my dear soul!” he added.

  “Why, you certainly won’t overlook it so!” assented the compositor.

  This tone and these words again produced a sensation. The compositors exchanged glances with one another, the maker-up elevated his eyebrows, and seemed to shrivel up, the editor retreated to the table, and supporting himself on it with his hands, more disconcerted and offended than angry, he stared intently at his foe.

  “What’s your name?” inquired the publisher, taking his notebook from his pocket.

  “Nikólka56 Gvózdeff, Vasíly Ivánovitch!” the maker-up promptly stated.

  “And you, you lackey of Judas the Traitor, hold your tongue when you’re not spoken to,“—said the compositor, with a surly glance at the maker-up.—“I have a tongue of my own…I answer for myself.… My name is Nikoláï Semyónovitch Gvózdeff. My residence .…”

  “We’ll find that out!”—promised the publisher.—“And now, take yourself off to the devil! Get out, all of you!…”

  With a heavy shuffling of feet, the compositors departed. Gvózdeff followed them.

  “Stop…if you please.…” said the editor softly, but distinctly, and stretched out his hand after Gvózdeff.

  Gvózdeff turned toward him, with an indolent movement leaned against the door-jamb, and, as he twisted his beard, he riveted his insolent eyes upon the editor’s face.

  “I want to ask you about something,”—began the editor. He tried to maintain his composure, but this he did not succeed in doing: his voice broke, and rose to a shriek.—“You have confessed…that in creating this scandal…you had me in view. Yes? What is the meaning of that? revenge on me? I ask you—what did you do it for? Do you understand me? Can you answer me?”

  Gvózdeff twitched his shoulders, curled his lips, and dropping his head, remained silent for a minute. The publisher tapped his foot impatiently, the maker-up stretched his neck forward, and the editor bit his lips, and nervously cracked his fingers. All waited.

  “I’ll tell you, if you like.… Only, as I’m an uneducated man, perhaps it won’t be intelligible to you…Well, in that case, pray excuse me!… Now, here’s the way the matter stands. You write various articles, and inculcate on everybody philanthropy and all that sort of thing.… I can’t tell you all this in detail—I’m not much of a hand at reading and writing.… I think you know yourself, what you discourse about every day.… Well, and so I read your articles. You make comments on us workingmen…and I read it all.… And it disgusts me to read it, for it’s nothing but nonsense. Mere shameless words, Mítry Pávlovitch!… because you write—don’t steal, but what goes on in your own printing-office? Last week, Kiryákoff worked three days and a half, earned three rubles and eighty kopéks57 and fell ill. His wife comes to the counting-room for the money, but the manager tells her, that he won’t give it to her, and that she owes one ruble and twenty kopéks in fines. Now talk about not stealing! Why don’t you write about these ways of doing things? And about how the manager yells, and thrashes the poor little boys for every trifle?… You can’t write about that, because you pursue the same policy yourself.… You write that life in the world is hard for folks—and I’ll just tell you, that the reason you write all that, is because you don’t know how to do anything else. That’s the whole truth of the matter.… And that’s why you don’t see any of the brutal things that go on right under your nose, but you narrate very well about the brutalities of the Turks. So aren’t they nonsense—those articles of yours? I’ve been wanting this long time to put some words into your articles, just to shame you. And it oughtn’t to be needed again!”

  Gvózdeff felt himself a hero. He puffed out his chest proudly, held his head very high, and without attempting to conceal his triumph, he looked the editor straight in the face. But the editor sh
rank close against the table, clutched it with his hands, flung himself back, paling and flushing by turns, and smiling persistently in a scornful, confused, vicious, and suffering manner. His widely-opened eyes winked fast.

  “A socialist?”—inquired the publisher, with apprehension and interest, in a low voice, addressing the editor. The latter smiled a sickly smile, but made no reply, and hung his head.

  The maker-up went off to the window, where stood a tub in which grew a huge filodendron, that cast upon the floor a pattern of shade, took up his post behind the tub, and thence watched them all, with eyes which were as small, black, and shifty as those of a mouse. They expressed a certain impatient expectation, and now and then a little flash of joy lighted them up. The publisher stared at the editor. The latter was conscious of this, raised his head, and with an uneasy gleam in his eyes, and a nervous quiver in his face, he shouted after the departing Gvózdeff:

  “Stop…if you please! You have insulted me. But you are not in the right—I hope you feel that? I am grateful to you for…y-your…straightforwardness, with which you have spoken out, but, I repeat.…”

  He tried to speak ironically, but instead of irony, something wan and false rang in his words, and he paused, in order to tune himself up to a defence which should be worthy of himself and of this judge, as to whose right to sit in judgment upon him, the editor, he had never before entertained a thought.