The Maxim Gorky

by Maxim Gorky

  The painter rested his elbows on the table and, raising his head, gazed at the mountains where, on the very edge of the precipice, moving their large branches, stood huge pine-trees.

  “We, our whole regiment, were sent to Bologna. The peasantry there were in revolt, some demanding that the rent of land should be lowered, others shouting about the necessity for raising wages: both parties seemed to be in the wrong. ‘To lower rents and increase wages, what nonsense!’ thought I. ‘That would ruin the landowners.’ To me, who was a town-dweller, it seemed utter foolishness. I was very indignant—the heat helped to make one so, and the constant travelling from place to place and the mounting guard at night. For, you know, these fine fellows were breaking the machinery belonging to the landowners; and it pleased them to burn the corn and to try to spoil everything that did not belong to them. Just think of it!”

  He sipped his wine and, becoming more animated, went on:

  “They roamed about the fields in droves like sheep, always silently, but threateningly and as if they meant business. We used to scatter them, threatening them with our bayonets sometimes. Now and then we struck them with the butts of our rifles. Without showing much fear, they dispersed in leisurely fashion, but always came together again. It was a tedious business, like mass, and it lasted for days, like an attack of fever. Luoto, our non-commissioned officer, a fine fellow from Abruzzi, himself a peasant, was anxious and troubled: he turned quite yellow and thin, and more than once he said to us:

  “‘It’s a bad business, boys; it will probably be necessary to shoot, damn it!’

  “His grumbling upset us still more; and then, you know, from every corner, from every hillock and tree we could see peeping the obstinate heads of the peasants; their angry eyes seemed to pierce us. For these people, naturally enough, did not regard us in a very friendly light.”

  “Drink,” said little Vincenzo cordially, pushing a full glass towards his friend.

  “Thank you. Long live the people who persist!” exclaimed the locksmith in his bass voice. He emptied the glass, wiped his moustache with his hands, and continued:

  “Once I stood on a small hillock near an olive grove, guarding some trees which the peasants had been injuring. At the bottom of the hill two men were at work, an old man and a youth. They were digging a ditch. It was very hot, the sun burnt like fire, one felt irritable, longed to be a fish, and I remember I eyed them angrily. At noon they both left off work, and got out some bread and cheese and a jug of wine. ‘Oh, devil take them!’ thought I to myself. Suddenly the old man, who previously had not once looked at me, said something to the youth, who shook his head disapprovingly, but the old man shouted:

  ‘Go on!’ He said this very sternly.

  “The youth came up to me with the jug in his hand, and said, not very willingly, you know:

  “‘My father thinks that you would like a drink and offers you some wine.’

  “I felt embarrassed, but I was pleased. I refused, nodding at the same time to the old man and thanking him. He responded by looking at the sky.

  “‘Drink it, signor, drink it. We offer this to you as a man, not as a soldier. We do not expect a soldier to become kinder because he has drunk our wine!’

  “‘Damn you, don’t get nasty,’ I thought to myself, and having drunk about three mouthfuls I thanked him. Then they began to eat down below. A little later I was relieved by Ugo from Salertino. I told him quietly that these two peasants were good fellows. The same night, as I stood at the door of a barn where the machinery was kept a slate fell on my head from the roof—it did not do much damage, but another slate, striking my shoulder edgewise, hurt me so severely that my left arm dropped benumbed.”

  The locksmith burst into a loud laugh, his mouth wide open, his eyes half-closed.

  “Slates, stones, sticks,” said he, through his laughter, “in those days and at that place were alive. This independent action of lifeless things made some pretty big bumps on our heads. Wherever a soldier stood or walked, a stick would suddenly fly at him from the ground, or a stone fall upon him from the sky. It made us savage, as you can guess.”

  The eyes of the little painter became sad, his face turned pale and he said quietly:

  “One always feels ashamed to hear of such things.”

  “What is one to do? People take time to get wise. Then I called for help. I was led into a house where another fellow lay, his face cut by a stone. When I asked him how it happened he said, smiling, but not with mirth:

  “‘An old woman, comrade, an old grey witch struck me, and then proposed that I should kill her!’

  “‘Was she arrested?’

  “‘I said that I had done it myself, that I had fallen and hurt myself. The commander did not believe it, I could see it by his eyes. But, don’t you see, it was awkward to confess that I had been wounded by an old woman. Eh? The devil! Of course they are hard pressed and one can understand that they do not love us!’

  “‘H’m!’ thought I. The doctor came and two ladies with him, one of them fair and very pretty, evidently a Venetian. I don’t remember the other. They looked at my wound. It was slight, of course. They applied a poultice and went away.”

  The locksmith frowned, became silent and rubbed his hands hard; his companion filled the glasses again with wine; as he lifted the decanter the wine seemed to dance in the air like a live red fire.

  “We used both to sit at the window,” continued the locksmith darkly. “We sat in such a way that the light did not fall on us, and there once we heard the charming voice of this fair lady. She and her companion were walking with the doctor in the garden outside the window and talking in French, which I understand very well.

  “‘Did you notice the colour of his eyes?’ she asked. ‘He is a peasant of course, and once he has taken off his uniform will no doubt become a socialist, like they all are here. People with eyes like that want to conquer the whole world, to reconstruct the whole of life, to drive us out, to destroy us in order that some blind, tedious justice should triumph!’

  “‘Foolish fellows,’ said the doctor—‘half children, half brutes.’

  “‘Brutes, that is quite true. But what is there childish about them?’

  “‘What about those dreams of universal equality?’

  “‘Yes, just imagine it. The fellow with the eyes of an ox and the other with the face of a bird our equals! You, she and I their equals, the equals of these people of inferior blood! People who can be bidden to come and kill their fellows, who are brutes like them.…’

  “She spoke much and vehemently. I listened and thought:

  “‘Quite right, signora.’ I had seen her more than once, and you know of course that no one dreams more ardently of a woman than a soldier. I imagined her to be kind and clever and warmhearted; and at that time I had an idea that the landed nobility were especially clever, or gifted, or something of the kind. I don’t know why!

  “I asked my comrade:

  “‘Do you understand this language?’

  “No, he did not understand. Then I translated for him the fair lady’s speech. The fellow got as angry as the devil, and started to jump about the room, his one eye glistening—the other was bandaged.

  “‘Is that so?’ he murmured. ‘Is that possible? She makes use of me and does not look upon me as a man. For her sake I allow my dignity to be offended and she denies it. For the sake of guarding her property I risk losing my soul.’

  “He was not a fool and felt that he had been very much insulted, and so did I. The following day we talked about this lady in a loud voice, not heeding Luoto, who only muttered:

  “‘Be more careful, boys; don’t forget that you are soldiers, and that there is such a thing as discipline.’

  “No, we did not forget it. But many of us, almost all, to tell you the truth, became deaf and blind, and these young peasants made use of our deafness a
nd blindness to very good purpose. They won. They treated us very well indeed. The fair lady could have learnt from them: for instance, they could have taught her very convincingly how honest people should be valued. When we left the place whither we had come with the idea of shedding blood, many of us were given flowers. As we marched along the streets of the village not stones and slates but flowers were thrown at us, my friend. I think we had deserved it. One may forget a cool reception when one has received such a good send-off!”

  He laughed heartily, then said:

  “That is what you should turn into verse, Vincenzo.”

  The painter replied with a pensive smile:

  “Yes, it’s a good subject for a small poem. I think I may be able to do something with it. But when a man is over twenty-five he is a poor lyric poet.”

  He threw away the crumpled flower, picked another and, looking round, continued quietly:

  “When one has covered the road from mother’s breast to the breast of one’s sweetheart, one must go on to another kind of happiness.”

  The locksmith became silent, tilting his wine in the glass.

  Below them the sea murmurs softly; in the hot air above the vineyards floats the perfume of flowers.

  “It is the sun that makes us so lazy and good-for-nothing,” murmured the locksmith.

  “I don’t seem to be able to manage lyric verse satisfactorily now. I am rather sick about it,” said Vincenzo quietly, knitting his thin brows.

  “Have you written anything lately?”

  The painter did not reply at once.

  “Yes, yesterday I wrote something on the roof of the Hotel Como.”

  And he read in a low tone and pensive and sing-song manner:

  “The autumn sun falls softly, taking leave,

  And lights the greyness of the lonely shore.

  The greedy waves o’erlip the scattered stones

  And lick the sun into the cold blue sea.

  The autumn wind goes gleaning yellow leaves,

  To toss them idly in the blust’ring air.

  Pale is the sky, and wild the angry sea,

  The sun still faintly smiles, and sinks, and sets.”

  They were both silent for a time. The painter’s head had sunk and his eyes were fixed on the ground. The big, burly locksmith smiled and said at last:

  “One can speak in a beautiful way about everything, but what is most beautiful of all is a word about a good man, a song of good people.”

  THE HUNCHBACK

  The sun, like a golden rain, streams down through the dark curtain of vine leaves on to the terrace of the hotel; it is as if golden threads were strung in the air.

  On the grey pavement and on the white table-cloths the shadows make strange designs, and it seems as though, if one looked long at them, one might learn to read them as one reads poetry, one might learn the meaning of it all. Bunches of grapes gleam in the sun, like pearls or the strange dull stone olivine, and the water in the decanter on the table sparkles like blue diamonds.

  In the passage between the tables lies a round lace handkerchief, dropped, without a doubt, by a woman divinely fair—it cannot be otherwise, one cannot think otherwise on this sultry day full of glowing poetry, a day when everything banal and commonplace becomes invisible and hides from the sun, as if ashamed of itself.

  All is quiet, save for the twitter of the birds in the garden and the humming of the bees as they hover over the flowers. From the vineyards on the mountain-side the sounds of a song float on the hot air and reach the ear: the singers are a man and a woman. Each verse is separated from the others by a moment’s pause, and this interval of silence lends a special expression to the song, giving it something of the character of a prayer.

  A lady comes from the garden and ascends the broad marble steps; she is old and very tall. Her dark face is serious; her brows are contracted in a deep frown, and her thin lips are tightly compressed, as if she had just said:

  “No!”

  Round her spare shoulders is a long, broad, gold-coloured scarf edged with lace, which looks almost like a mantle. The grey hair of her little head, which is too small for her size, is covered with black lace. In one hand she carries a long-handled red sunshade, in the other a black velvet bag embroidered in silver. She walks as firmly as a soldier through the web of sunbeams, tapping the noisy pavement with the end of her sunshade.

  Her profile is the very picture of sternness: her nose is aquiline and on the end of her sharp chin grows a large grey wart; her rounded forehead projects over dark hollows where, in a network of wrinkles, her eyes are hidden. They are hidden so deep that the woman appears almost blind.

  On the steps behind her, swaying from side to side like a duck, appears noiselessly the square body of a hunchback with a large, heavy, forward-hanging head, covered with a grey soft hat. His hands are in the pockets of his waistcoat, which makes him look broader and more angular still. He wears a white suit and white boots with soft soles. His weak mouth is half open, disclosing prominent, yellow and uneven teeth. The dark moustache which grows on his upper lip is unsightly, for the bristles are sparse and wiry. He breathes quickly and heavily. His nostrils quiver but the moustache does not move. He moves his short legs jerkily as he walks. His large eyes gaze languidly, as if tired, at the ground; and on his small body are displayed many large things: a large gold ring with a cameo on the first finger of his left hand, a large golden charm with two rubies at the end of a black ribbon fob, and a large—a too large—opal, an unlucky stone, in his blue necktie.

  A third figure follows them leisurely along the terrace. It is that of another old woman, small and round, with a kind red face and quick eyes: she is, one may guess, of an amiable and talkative disposition.

  They walk across the terrace through the hotel doorway, looking like people out of a picture of Hogarth’s—sad, ugly, grotesque, unlike anything else under the sun. Everything seems to grow dark and dim in their presence.

  They are Dutch people, brother and sister, the children of a diamond merchant and banker. Their life has been full of strange events if one may believe what is lightly said of them.

  As a child, the hunchback was quiet, self-contained, always musing, and not fond of toys. This attracted no special attention from anybody except his sister. His father and mother thought that was how a deformed boy should be; but in the girl, who was four years older than her brother, his character aroused a feeling of anxiety.

  Almost every day she was with him, trying in all possible ways to awaken in him some animation. To make him laugh she would push toys towards him. He piled them one on top of another, building a sort of pyramid. Only very rarely did he reward her efforts with a forced smile; as a rule he looked at his sister, as at everything else, with a forlorn look in his large eyes which seemed to suffer from some strange kind of blindness. This look chilled her ardour and irritated her.

  “Don’t dare to look at me like that! You will grow up an idiot!” she shouted, stamping her foot. And she would pinch him and beat him. He whimpered and put up his long arms to guard his head, but he never ran away from her and never complained.

  Later on, when she thought that he could understand what had become quite clear to her she kept saying to him:

  “Since you are a freak, you must be clever, or else everybody will be ashamed of you, father, mother, and everybody! Even other people will be ashamed that in such a rich house there should be a freak. In a rich house everything must be beautiful and clever. Do you understand that?”

  “Yes,” said he, in his serious way, inclining his large head towards one side and looking into her face with his dark, lifeless eyes.

  His father and mother were pleased with this attitude of their daughter towards her brother. They praised her good heart in his presence and by degrees she became the acknowledged guardian of the hunchback. She taught him to play with to
ys, helped him to prepare his lessons, read him stories about princes and fairies.

  But, as formerly, he piled his toys in tall heaps, as if trying to reach something. He did his lessons carelessly and badly; but at the marvellous in tales he smiled in a curious, indecisive way, and once he asked his sister:

  “Are princes ever hunchbacks?”

  “No.”

  “And knights?”

  “Of course not.”

  The boy sighed, as though tired; but putting her hand on his bristly hair his sister said:

  “But wise wizards are always hunchbacks.”

  “That means that I shall be a wizard,” submissively remarked the hunchback, and then, after pondering a while, he said:

  “Are fairies always beautiful?”

  “Always.”

  “Like you?”

  “Perhaps. I think they are even more beautiful,” she said frankly.

  When he was eight years old his sister noticed that when, during their walks, they passed houses in course of construction a strange expression of astonishment always appeared on the boy’s face; he would look intently at the people working and then turn his expressionless eyes questioningly to her.

  “Does that interest you?” she asked. And he, who spoke little as a rule, replied:

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know.”

  But once he explained:

  “Such little people, and such small bricks, and the houses are so big.… Is the whole town made like that?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “And our house?”

  “Of course.”

  Looking at him she said in a decisive manner:

  “You will be a famous architect, that’s it.”

  They bought a lot of wooden cubes for him, and from that time on an ardent passion for building took possession of him: for whole days he would sit silently on the floor of his room, building tall towers, which fell down with a crash, only to be built again. So constant did his preoccupation become that even at table, during dinner, he used to try to build things with the knives and forks and napkin rings. His eyes became deeper and more concentrated, his arms more agile and very restless, and he handled every object that came within his reach.