The Maxim Gorky

by Maxim Gorky

  “What are you chattering about now? Human creatures are human creatures. Some are clever, some are fools. Read, and don’t talk so much. In books, if they are the right sort, you will find all you want to know.”

  I wanted to please him by giving him a present of some books.

  In Kazan I bought, for five copecks, “The Story of how a Soldier Saved Peter the Great”; but at that time the cook was drinking and was very cross, so I began to read it myself. I was delighted with it, it was so simple, easy to understand, interesting, and short. I felt that this book would give great pleasure to my teacher; but when I took it to him he silently crushed it in his hand into a round ball and threw it overboard.

  “That for your book, you fool!” he said harshly. “I teach you like a dog, and all you want to do is to gobble up idle tales, eh?” He stamped and roared. “What kind of book is that? Do I read nonsense? Is what is written there true? Well, speak!”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Well, I do know. If a man’s head were cut off, his body would fall down the staircase, and the other man would not have climbed on the haystack. Soldiers are not fools. He would have set fire to the hay, and that would have been the end. Do you understand?”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s right. I know all about Czar Peter, and that never happened to him. Run along.”

  I realized that the cook was right, but nevertheless the book pleased me. I bought the “Story” again and read it a second time. To my amazement, I discovered that it was really a bad book. This puzzled me, and I began to regard the cook with even more respect, while he said to me more frequently and more crossly than ever:

  “Oh, what a lot you need to be taught! This is no place for you.”

  I also felt that it was no place for me. Sergei behaved disgustingly to me, and several times I observed him stealing pieces of the tea-service, and giving them to the passengers on the sly. I knew that this was theft. Smouri had warned me more than once:

  “Take care. Do not give the attendants any of the cups and plates from your table.”

  This made life still harder for me, and I often longed to run away from the boat into the forest; but Smouri held me back. He was more tender to me every day, and the incessant movement on the boat held a terrible fascination for me. I did not like it when we stayed in port, and I was always expecting something to happen, and that we should sail from Kama to Byela, as far as Viatka, and so up the Volga, and I should see new places, towns, and people. But this did not happen. My life on the steamer came to an abrupt end. One evening when we were going from Kazan to Nijni the steward called me to him. I went. He shut the door behind me, and said to Smouri, who sat grimly on a small stool:

  “Here he is.”

  Smouri asked me roughly:

  “Have you been giving Serejka any of the dinner- and tea-services?”

  “He helps himself when I am not looking.”

  The steward said softly:

  “He does not look, yet he knows.”

  Smouri struck his knee with his fist; then he scratched his knee as he said:

  “Wait; take time.”

  I pondered. I looked at the steward. He looked at me, and there seemed to be no eyes behind his glasses.

  He lived without making a noise. He went about softly, spoke in low tones. Sometimes his faded beard and vacant eyes peeped out from some corner and instantly vanished. Before going to bed he knelt for a long time in the buffet before the icon with the ever-burning lamp. I could see him through the chink of the door, looking like a black bundle; but I had never succeeded in learning how the steward prayed, for he simply knelt and looked at the icon, stroking his beard and sighing.

  After a silence Smouri asked:

  “Has Sergei ever given you any money?”

  “No.”

  “Never?”

  “Never.”

  “He does not tell lies,” said Smouri to the steward, who answered at once in his low voice:

  “It comes to the same thing, please—”

  “Come!” cried the cook to me, and he came to my table, and rapped my crown lightly with his fingers.

  “Fool! And I am a fool, too. I ought to have looked after you.”

  At Nijni the steward dismissed me. I received nearly eight rubles, the first large money earned by me. When Smouri took farewell of me he said roughly:

  “Well, here you are. Now keep your eyes open,—do you understand? You mustn’t go about with your mouth open.”

  He put a tobacco-pouch of colored beads into my hand.

  “There you are! That is good handwork. My godchild made it for me. Well, good-by. Read books; that is the best thing you can do.”

  He took me under the arms, lifted me up, kissed me, and placed me firmly on the jetty. I was sorry for him and for myself. I could hardly keep from crying when I saw him returning to the steamer, pushing aside the porters, looking so large, heavy, solitary. So many times since then I have met people like him, kind, lonely, cut off from the lives of other people.

  CHAPTER VII

  Grandfather and grandmother had again gone into the town. I went to them, prepared to be angry and warlike; but my heart was heavy. Why had they accounted me a thief?

  Grandmother greeted me tenderly, and at once went to prepare the samovar. Grandfather asked as mockingly as usual:

  “Have you saved much money?”

  “What there is belongs to me,” I answered, taking a seat by the window. I triumphantly produced a box of cigarettes from my pocket and began to smoke importantly.

  “So-o-o,” said grandfather, looking at me fixedly—“so that sit! You smoke the devil’s poison? Isn’t it rather soon?”

  “Why, I have even had a pouch given to me,” I boasted.

  “A pouch?” squeaked grandfather. “What! Are you saying this to annoy me?”

  He rushed upon me, with his thin, strong hands outstretched, his green eyes flashing. I leaped up, and stuck my head into his stomach. The old man sat on the floor, and for several oppressive moments looked at me, amazedly blinking, his dark mouth open. Then he asked quietly:

  “You knock me down, your grandfather? The father of your mother?”

  “You have knocked me about enough in the past,” I muttered, not understanding that I had acted abominably.

  Withered and light, grandfather rose from the floor, sat beside me, deftly snatched the cigarette from me, threw it out of the window, and said in a tone of fear:

  “You mad fool! Don’t you understand that God will punish you for this for the rest of your life? Mother,”—he turned to grandmother,—“did you see that? He knocked me down—he! Knocked me down! Ask him!”

  She did not wait to ask. She simply came over to me, seized me by the hair, and beat me, saying:

  “And for that—take this—and this!”

  I was not hurt, but I felt deeply insulted, especially by grandfather’s laughter. He jumped on a chair, slapped his legs with his hands, and croaked through his laughter:

  “Th-a-t’s right! Tha-a-t’s right!”

  I tore myself away, and ran out to the shed, where I lay in a corner crushed, desolate, listening to the singing of the samovar.

  Then grandmother came to me, bent over me, and whispered hardly audibly:

  “You must forgive me, for I purposely did not hurt you. I could not do otherwise than I did, for grandfather is an old man. He has to be treated with care. He has fractured some of his small bones, and, besides, sorrow has eaten into his heart. You must never do him any harm. You are not a little boy now. You must remember that. You must, Olesha! He is like a child, and nothing more.”

  Her words laved me like warm water. That friendly whisper made me feel ashamed of myself, and, light-hearted, I embraced her warmly. We kissed.

  “Go to him. Go along. It is all right,
only don’t smoke before him yet. Give him time to get used to the idea.”

  I went back to the room, glanced at grandfather, and could hardly keep from laughing. He really was as pleased as a child. He was radiant, twisting his feet, and running his paws through his red hair as he sat by the table.

  “Well, goat, have you come to butt me again? Ach, you—brigand! Just like your father! Freemason! You come back home, never cross yourself; and start smoking at once. Ugh, you—Bonaparte! you copeck’s worth of goods!”

  I said nothing. He had exhausted his supply of words and was silent from fatigue. But at tea he began to lecture me.

  “The fear of God is necessary to men; it is like a bridle to a horse. We have no friend except God. Man is a cruel enemy to man.” That men were my enemies, I felt was the truth, but the rest did not interest me.

  “Now you will go back to Aunt Matrena, and in the spring you can go on a steamboat again. Live with them during the winter. And you need not tell them that you are leaving in the spring.”

  “Now, why should he deceive people?” said grandmother, who had just deceived grandfather by pretending to give me a beating.

  “It is impossible to live without deceit,” declared grandfather. “Just tell me now. Who lives without deceiving others?”

  In the evening, while grandfather was reading his office, grandmother and I went out through the gate into the fields. The little cottage with two windows in which grandfather lived was on the outskirts of the town, at the back of Kanatni Street, where grandfather had once had his own house.

  “So here we are again!” said grandmother, laughing. “The old man cannot find a resting-place for his soul, but must be ever on the move. And he does not even like it here; but I do.”

  Before us stretched for about three versts fields of scanty herbage, intersected by ditches, bounded by woods and the line of birches on the Kazan highroad. From the ditches the twigs of bushes projected, the rays of a cold sunset reddened them like blood. A soft evening breeze shook the gray blades of grass. From a nearer pathway, also like blades of grass, showed the dark form of town lads and girls. On the right, in the distance, stood the red walls of the burial-ground of the Old Believers. They called it “The Bugrovski Hermitage.” On the left, beyond the causeway, rose a dark group of trees; there was the Jewish cemetery. All the surroundings were poor, and seemed to lie close to the wounded earth. The little houses on the outskirts of the town looked timidly with their windows on the dusty road. Along the road wandered small, ill-fed fowl. Toward the Dyevichia Monastery went a herd of lowing cows, from the camp came the sound of martial music. The brass instruments brayed.

  A drunken man came along, ferociously holding out a harmonica. He stumbled and muttered:

  “I am coming to thee—without fail.”

  “Fool!” said grandmother, blinking in the red sunlight. “Where are you going? Soon you will fall down and go to sleep, and you will be robbed in your sleep. You will lose your harmonica, your consolation.”

  I told her all about the life on the boat as I looked about me. After what I had seen I found it dull here; I felt like a fish out of water. Grandmother listened in silence and with attention, just as I liked to listen to her. When I told her about Smouri she crossed herself and said:

  “He is a good man, help him, Mother of God; he is good! Take care, you, that you do not forget him! You should always remember what is good, and what is bad simply forget.”

  It was very difficult for me to tell her why they had dismissed me, but I took courage and told her. It made no impression whatever on her. She merely said calmly:

  “You are young yet; you don’t know how to live.”

  “That is what they all say to one another, ‘You don’t know how to live’—peasants, sailors, Aunt Matrena to her son. But how does one learn?”

  She compressed her lips and shook her head.

  “I don’t know myself.”

  “And yet you say the same as the others!”

  “And why should I not say it?” replied grandmother, calmly. “You must not be offended. You are young; you are not expected to know. And who does know, after all? Only rogues. Look at your grandfather. Clever and well educated as he is, yet he does not know.”

  “And you—have you managed your life well?”

  “I? Yes. And badly also; all ways.”

  People sauntered past us, with their long shadows following them. The dust rose like smoke under their feet, burying those shadows. Then the evening sadness became more oppressive. The sound of grandfather’s grumbling voice flowed from the window:

  “Lord, in Thy wrath do not condemn me, nor in Thy rage punish me!”

  Grandmother said, smiling:

  “He has made God tired of him. Every evening he has his tale of woe, and about what? He is old now, and he does not need anything; yet he is always complaining and working himself into a frenzy about something. I expect God laughs when He hears his voice in the evening. There’s Vassili Kashirin grumbling again!’ Come and go to bed now.”

  * * * *

  I made up my mind to take up the occupation of catching singing-birds. I thought it would be a good way of earning a living. I would catch them, and grandmother would sell them. I bought a net, a hoop, and a trap, and made a cage. At dawn I took my place in a hollow among the bushes, while grandmother went in the woods with a basket and a bag to find the last mushrooms, bulbs, and nuts.

  The tired September sun had only just risen. Its pale rays were now extinguished by clouds, now fell like a silver veil upon me in the causeway. At the bottom of the hollow it was still dusk, and a white mist rose from it. Its clayey sides were dark and bare, and the other side, which was more sloping, was covered with grass, thick bushes, and yellow, brown, and scarlet leaves. A fresh wind raised them and swept them along the ditch.

  On the ground, among the turnip-tops, the goldfinch uttered its cry. I saw, among the ragged, gray grass, birds with red caps on their lively heads. About me fluttered curious titmouses. They made a great noise and fuss, comically blowing out their white cheeks, just like the young men of Kunavin Street on a Sunday. Swift, clever, spiteful, they wanted to know all and to touch everything, and they fell into the trap one after the other. It was pitiful to see how they beat their wings, but my business was strictly commerce. I changed the birds over into the spare cage and hid them in a bag. In the dark they kept quiet.

  A flock of siskins settled on a hawthorn-bush. The bush was suffused by sunlight. The siskins were glad of the sun and chirped more merrily than ever. Their antics were like those of schoolboys. The thirsty, tame, speckled magpie, late in setting out on his journey to a warmer country, sat on the bending bough of a sweetbriar, cleaning his wing feathers and insolently looking at his prey with his black eyes. The lark soared on high, caught a bee, and, carefully depositing it on a thorn, once more settled on the ground, with his thievish head alert. Noiselessly flew the talking-bird,—the hawfinch,—the object of my longing dreams, if only I could catch him. A bullfinch, driven from the flock, was perched on an alder-tree. Red, important, like a general, he chirped angrily, shaking his black beak.

  The higher the sun mounted, the more birds there were, and the more gayly they sang. The hollow was full of the music of autumn. The ceaseless rustle of the bushes in the wind, and the passionate songs of the birds, could not drown that soft, sweetly melancholy noise. I heard in it the farewell song of summer. It whispered to me words meant for my ears alone, and of their own accord they formed themselves into a song. At the same time my memory unconsciously recalled to my mind pictures of the past. From somewhere above grandmother cried:

  “Where are you?”

  She sat on the edge of the pathway. She had spread out a handkerchief on which she had laid bread, cucumber, turnips, and apples. In the midst of this display a small, very beautiful cut-glass decanter stood. It had a crystal st
opper, the head of Napoleon, and in the goblet was a measure of vodka, distilled from herbs.

  “How good it is, O Lord!” said grandmother, gratefully.

  “I have composed a song.”

  “Yes? Well?”

  I repeated to her something which I thought was like poetry.

  “That winter draws near the signs are many;

  Farewell to thee, my summer sun!”

  But she interrupted without hearing me out.

  “I know a song like that, only it is a better one.”

  And she repeated in a singsong voice:

  “Oi, the summer sun has gone

  To dark nights behind the distant woods!

  Ekh! I am left behind, a maiden,

  Alone, without the joys of spring.

  Every morn I wander round;

  I trace the walks I took in May.

  The bare fields unhappy look;

  There it was I lost my youth.

  Oi, my friends, my kind friends,

  Take my heart from my white breast,

  Bury my heart in the snow!”

  My conceit as an author suffered not a little, but I was delighted with this song, and very sorry for the girl.

  Grandmother said:

  “That is how grief sings. That was made up by a young girl, you know. She went out walking all the springtime, and before the winter her dear love had thrown her over, perhaps for another girl. She wept because her heart was sore. You cannot speak well and truly on what you have not experienced for yourself. You see what a good song she made up.”

  When she sold a bird for the first time, for forty copecks, she was very surprised.

  “Just look at that! I thought it was all nonsense, just a boy’s amusement; and it has turned out like this!”

  “You sold it too cheaply.”

  “Yes; well?”

  On market-days she sold them for a ruble, and was more surprised than ever. What a lot one might earn by just playing about!

  “And a woman spends whole days washing clothes or cleaning floors for a quarter of a ruble, and here you just catch them! But it isn’t a nice thing to do, you know, to keep birds in a cage. Give it up, Olesha!”