The Maxim Gorky

by Maxim Gorky

  And grandmother would give him her most cordial smile.

  “Are you still working your hardest?”

  “Yes; always working, like a convict.”

  Grandmother conversed with him affectionately and well, but in the tone of a senior. Sometimes he called my mother to mind.

  “Ye-es, Varvara Vassilievna. What a woman! A heroine, eh?”

  His wife turned to grandmother and put in:

  “Do you remember my giving her that cloak—black silk trimmed with jet?”

  “Of course I do.”

  “It was quite a good one.”

  “Ye-es,” muttered the master, “a cloak, a palm; and life is a trickster.”[1]

  [1] A play on the words “tal’ma, cloak; pal’ma, palm; shelma, trickster.

  “What are you talking about?” asked his wife, suspiciously.

  “I? Oh, nothing in particular. Happy days and good people soon pass away.”

  “I don’t know what is the matter with you,” said my mistress, uneasily.

  Then grandmother was taken to see the new baby, and while I was clearing away the dirty cups and saucers from the table the master said to me:

  “She is a good old woman, that grandmother of yours.”

  I was deeply grateful to him for those words, and when I was alone with grandmother, I said to her, with a pain in my heart:

  “Why do you come here? Why? Can’t you see how they—”.

  “Ach, Olesha, I see everything,” she replied, looking at me with a kind smile on her wonderful face, and I felt conscience-stricken. Why, of course she saw everything and knew everything, even what was going on in my soul at that moment. Looking round carefully to see that no one was coming, she embraced me, saying feelingly:

  “I would not come here if it were not for you. What are they to me? As a matter of fact, grandfather is ill, and I am tired with looking after him. I have not been able to do any work, so I have no money, and my son Mikhail has turned Sascha out. I have him now to give food and drink, too. They promised to give you six rubles a month, and I don’t suppose you have had a ruble from them, and you have been here nearly half a year.” Then she whispered in my ear: “They say they have to lecture you, scold you, they say that you do not obey; but, dear heart, stay with them. Be patient for two short years while you grow strong. You will be patient, yes?”

  I promised. It was very difficult. That life oppressed me; it was a threadbare, depressing existence. The only excitement was about food, and I lived as in a dream. Sometimes I thought that I would have to run away, but the accursed winter had set in. Snow-storms raged by night, the wind rushed over the top of the house, and the stanchions cracked with the pressure of the frost. Whither could I run away?

  * * * *

  They would not let me go out, and in truth it was no weather for walking. The short winter day, full of the bustle of housework, passed with elusive swiftness. But they made me go to church, on Saturday to vespers and on Sunday to high mass.

  I liked being in church. Standing somewhere in a corner where there was more room and where it was darker, I loved to gaze from a distance at the iconastasis, which looked as if it were swimming in the candlelight flowing in rich, broad streams over the floor of the reading-desk. The dark figures of the icons moved gently, the gold embroidery on the vestments of the priests quivered joyfully, the candle flames burned in the dark-blue atmosphere like golden bees, and the heads of the women and children looked like flowers. All the surroundings seemed to blend harmoniously with the singing the choir. Everything seemed to be imbued with the weird spirit of legends. The church seemed to oscillate like a cradle, rocking in pitch-black space.

  Sometimes I imagined that the church was sunk deep in a lake in which it lived, concealed, a life peculiar to itself, quite different from any other form of life. I have no doubt now that this idea had its source in grandmother’s stories of the town of Kitej, and I often found myself dreamily swaying, keeping time, as it were, with the movement around me. Lulled into somnolence by the singing of the choir, the murmur of prayers, the breath of the congregation, I concentrated myself upon the melodious, melancholy story:

  “They are closing upon us, the accursed Tatars.

  Yes, these unclean beasts are closing in upon Kite;

  The glorious; yea, at the holy hour of matins.

  O Lord, our God!

  Holy Mother of God!

  Save Thy servants

  To sing their morning praises,

  To listen to the holy chants!

  Oi, let not the Tatars

  Jeer at holy church;

  Let them not put to shame

  Our women and maidens;

  Seize the little maids to be their toys,

  And the old men to be put to a cruel death!

  And the God of Sabaoth heard,

  The Holy Mother heard,

  These human sighs,

  These Christians’ plaints.

  And He said, the Lord of Sabaoth,

  To the Holy Angel Michael,

  ‘Go thou, Michael,

  Make the earth shake under Kite;;

  Let Kite; sink into the lake!’

  And there to this day

  The people do pray,

  Never resting, and never weary

  From matins to vespers,

  Through all the holy offices,

  Forever and evermore!”

  At that time my head was full of grandmother’s poetry, as full as a beehive of honey. I used even to think in verse.

  I did not pray in church. I felt ashamed to utter the angry prayers and psalms of lamentation of grandfather’s God in the presence of grandmother’s God, Who, I felt sure, could take no more pleasure in them than I did myself, for the simple reason that they were all printed in books, and of course He knew them all by heart, as did all people of education. And this is why, when my heart was oppressed by a gentle grief or irritated by the petty grievances of every day, I tried to make up prayers for myself. And when I began to think about my uncongenial work, the words seemed to form themselves into a complaint without any effort on my part:

  “Lord, Lord! I am very miserable!

  Oh, let me grow up quickly,

  For this life I can’t endure.

  O Lord, forgive!

  From my studies I get no benefit,

  For that devil’s puppet, Granny Matrena,

  Howls at me like a wolf,

  And my life is very bitter!”

  To this day I can remember some of these prayers. The workings of the brain in childhood leave a very deep impression; often they influence one’s whole life.

  I liked being in church; I could rest there as I rested in the forests and fields. My small heart, which was already familiar with grief and soiled by the mire of a coarse life, laved itself in hazy, ardent dreams. But I went to church only during the hard frosts, or when a snow-storm swept wildly up the streets, when it seemed as if the very sky were frozen, and the wind swept across it with a cloud of snow, and the earth lay frozen under the snow-drifts as if it would never live again.

  When the nights were milder I used to like to wander through the streets of the town, creeping along by all the darkest corners. Sometimes I seemed to walk as if I had wings, flying along like the moon in the sky. My shadow crept in front of me, extinguishing the sparkles of light in the snow, bobbing up and down comically. The night watchman patrolled the streets, rattle in hand, clothed in a heavy sheepskin, his dog at his side. Vague outlines of people came out of yards and flitted along the streets, and the dog gave chase. Sometimes I met gay young ladies with their escorts. I had an idea that they also were playing truant from vespers.

  Sometimes through a lighted fortochka[1] there came a peculiar smell, faint, unfamiliar, suggestive of a kind of life of which I was ign
orant. I used to stand under the windows and inhale it, trying to guess what it was to live like the people in such a house lived. It was the hour of vespers, and yet they were singing merrily, laughing, and playing on a sort of guitar. The deep, stringy sound flowed through the fortochka.

  [1] A small square of glass in the double window which is set on hinges and serves as a ventilator.

  Of special interest to me were the one-storied, dwarfed houses at the corners of the deserted streets, Tikhonovski and Martinovski. I stood there on a moonlight night in mid-Lent and listened to the weird sounds—it sounded as if some one were singing loudly with his mouth closed—which floated out through the fortochka together with a warm steam. The words were indistinguishable, but the song seemed to be familiar and intelligible to me; but when I listened to that, I could not hear the stringy sound which languidly interrupted the flow of song. I sat on the curbstone thinking what a wonderful melody was being played on some sort of insupportable violin—insupportable because it hurt me to listen to it. Sometimes they sang so loudly that the whole house seemed to shake, and the panes of the windows rattled. Like tears, drops fell from the roof, and from my eyes also.

  The night watchman had come close to me without my being aware of it, and, pushing me off the curbstone, said:

  “What are you stuck here for?”

  “The music,” I explained.

  “A likely tale! Be off now!”

  I ran quickly round the houses and returned to my place under the window, but they were not playing now. From the fortochka proceeded sounds of revelry, and it was so unlike the sad music that I thought I must be dreaming. I got into the habit of running to this house every Saturday, but only once, and that was in the spring, did I hear the violoncello again, and then it played without a break till midnight. When I reached home I got a thrashing.

  These walks at night beneath the winter sky through the deserted streets of the town enriched me greatly. I purposely chose streets far removed from the center, where there were many lamps, and friends of my master who might have recognized me. Then he would find out how I played truant from vespers. No “drunkards,” “street-walkers,” or policemen interfered with me in the more remote streets, and I could see into the rooms of the lower floors if the windows were not frozen over or curtained.

  Many and diverse were the pictures which I saw through those windows. I saw people praying, kissing, quarreling, playing cards, talking busily and soundlessly the while. It was a cheap panoramic show representing a dumb, fish-like life.

  I saw in one basement room two women, a young one and another who was her senior, seated at a table; opposite them sat a school-boy reading to them. The younger woman listened with puckered brows, leaning back in her chair; but the elder, who was thin, with luxuriant hair, suddenly covered her face with her hands, and her shoulders heaved. The school-boy threw down the book, and when the younger woman had sprung to her feet and gone away, he fell on his knees before the woman with the lovely hair and began to kiss her hands.

  Through another window I saw a large, bearded man with a woman in a red blouse sitting on his knee. He was rocking her as if she had been a baby, and was evidently singing something, opening his mouth wide and rolling his eyes. The woman was shaking with laughter, throwing herself backward and swinging her feet. He made her sit up straight again, and again began to sing, and again she burst out laughing. I gazed at them for a long time, and went away only when I realized that they meant to keep up their merriment all night.

  There were many pictures of this kind which will always remain in my memory, and often I was so attracted by them that I was late in returning home. This aroused the suspicions of my employers, who asked me:

  “What church did you go to? Who was the officiating priest?”

  They knew all the priests of the town; they knew what gospel would be read, in fact, they knew everything. It was easy for them to catch me in a lie.

  Both women worshiped the wrathful God of my grandfather—the God Who demanded that we should approach Him in fear. His name was ever on their lips; even in their quarrels they threatened one another:

  “Wait! God will punish you! He will plague you for this! Just wait!”

  On the Sunday in the first week of Lent, the old woman cooked some butters and burned them all. Flushed with the heat of the stove, she cried angrily:

  “The devil take you!” And suddenly, sniffing at the frying-pan, her face grew dark, and she threw the utensil on the floor and moaned: “Bless me, the pan has been used for flesh food! It is unclean! It did not catch when I used it clean on Monday.”

  Falling on her knees, she entreated with tears: “Lord God, Father, forgive me, accursed that I am! For the sake of Thy sufferings and passion forgive me! Do not punish an old fool, Lord!”

  The burned fritters were given to the dog, the pan was destroyed, but the young wife began to reproach her mother-in-law in their quarrels.

  “You actually cooked fritters in Lent in a pan which had been used for flesh-meat.”

  They dragged their God into all the household affairs, into every corner of their petty, insipid lives, and thus their wretched life acquired outward significance and importance, as if every hour was devoted to the service of a Higher Power. The dragging of God into all this dull emptiness oppressed me, and I used to look involuntarily into the corners, aware of being observed by invisible beings, and at night I was wrapped in a cloud of fear. It came from the corner where the ever-burning lamp flickered before the icon.

  On a level with this shelf was a large window with two sashes joined by a stanchion. Fathomless, deep-blue space looked into the window, and if one made a quick movement, everything became merged in this deep-blue gulf, and floated out to the stars, into the deathly stillness, without a sound, just as a stone sinks when it is thrown into the water.

  I do not remember how I cured myself of this terror, but I did cure myself, and that soon. Grandmother’s good God helped me, and I think it was then that I realized the simple truth, namely, that no harm could come to me; that I should not be punished without fault of my own; that it was not the law of life that the innocent should suffer; and that I was not responsible for the faults of others.

  I played truant from mass too, especially in the spring, the irresistible force of which would not let me go to church. If I had a seven-copeck piece given me for the collection, it was my destruction. I bought hucklebones, played all the time mass was going on, and was inevitably late home. And one day I was clever enough to lose all the coins which had been given me for prayers for the dead and the blessed bread, so that I had to take some one else’s portion when the priest came from the altar and handed it round.

  I was terribly fond of gambling, and it became a craze with me. I was skilful enough, and strong, and I swiftly gained renown in games of hucklebones, billiards, and skittles in the neighboring streets.

  During Lent I was ordered to prepare for communion, and I went to confession to our neighbor Father Dorimedont Pokrovski. I regarded him as a hard man, and had committed many sins against him personally. I had thrown stones at the summer-house in his garden, and had quarreled with his children. In fact he might call to mind, if he chose, many similar acts annoying to him. This made me feel very uneasy, and when I stood in the poor little church awaiting my turn to go to confession my heart throbbed tremulously.

  But Father Dorimedont greeted me with a good-natured, grumbling exclamation.

  “Ah, it is my neighbor! Well, kneel down! What sins have you committed?”

  He covered my head with a heavy velvet cloth. I inhaled the odor of wax and incense. It was difficult to speak, and I felt reluctant to do so.

  “Have you been obedient to your elders?”

  “No.”

  “Say, ‘I have sinned.’”

  To my own surprise I let fall:

  “I have stolen.”
/>   “How was that? Where?” asked the priest, thoughtfully and without haste.

  “At the church of the three bishops, at Pokrov, and at Nikoli.”

  “Well, that is in all the churches. That was wrong, my child; it was a sin. Do you understand?”

  “I understand.”

  “Say, ‘I have sinned.’ What did you steal for? Was it for something to eat?”

  “Sometimes and sometimes it was because I had lost money at play, and, as I had to take home some blessed bread, I stole it.”

  Father Dorimedont whispered something indistinctly and wearily, and then, after a few more questions, suddenly inquired sternly:

  “Have you been reading forbidden books?”

  Naturally I did not understand this question, and I asked:

  “What books do you mean?”

  “Forbidden books. Have you been reading any?”

  “No; not one.”

  “Your sins are remitted. Stand up!”

  I glanced at his face in amazement. He looked thoughtful and kind. I felt uneasy, conscience-stricken. In sending me to confession, my employers had spoken about its terrors, impressing on me to confess honestly even my slightest sins.

  “I have thrown stones at your summer-house,” I deposed.

  The priest raised his head and, looking past me, said:

  “That was very wrong. Now go!”

  “And at your dog.”

  “Next!” called out Father Dorimedont, still looking past me.

  I came away feeling deceived and offended. To be put to all that anxiety about the terrors of confession, and to find, after all, that it was not only far from terrible, but also uninteresting! The only interesting thing about it was the question about the forbidden books, of which I knew nothing. I remembered the school-boy reading to the women in that basement room, and “Good Business,” who also had many black, thick books, with unintelligible illustrations.

  The next day they gave me fifteen copecks and sent me to communion. Easter was late. The snow had been melted a long time, the streets were dry, the roadways sent up a cloud of dust, and the day was sunny and cheerful. Near the church was a group of workmen gambling with hucklebones. I decided that there was plenty of time to go to communion, and asked if I might join in.