The Maxim Gorky

by Maxim Gorky

  I asked them: “What do you think of Yaakov? Is he a good man?”

  “Yaakov? He’s all right. You can’t upset him whatever you do, even if you were to put hot coals in his chest.”

  What with his heavy labor at the boilers, and his appetite of a horse, the stoker slept but little. Often, when the watches were changed, without changing his clothes, sweating and dirty, he stayed the whole night on deck, talking with the passengers, and playing cards.

  In my eyes he was like a locked trunk in which something was hidden which I simply must have, and I obstinately sought the key by which I might open it.

  “What you are driving at, little brother, I cannot, for the life of me, understand,” he would say, looking at me with his eyes almost hidden under his eyebrows. “It is a fact that I have traveled about the world a lot. What about it? Funny fellow! You had far better listen to a story I have to tell you about what happened to me once——”

  And he told me how there had lived, somewhere in one of the towns he had passed through, a young consumptive lawyer who had a German wife—a fine, healthy woman, without children. And this German woman was in love with a dry-goods merchant. The merchant was married, and his wife was beautiful and had three children. When he discovered that the German woman was in love with him, he planned to play a practical joke on her. He told her to meet him in the garden at night, and invited two of his friends to come with him, hiding them in the garden among the bushes.

  “Wonderful! When the German woman came, he said, ‘Here she is, all there!’ And to her, he said, ‘I am no use to you, lady; I am married. But I have brought two of my friends to you. One of them is a widower, and the other a bachelor.’ The German woman—ach! she gave him such a slap on the face that he fell over the garden bench, and then she trampled his ugly mug and his thick head with her heel! I had brought her there, for I was dvornik at the lawyer’s house. I looked through a chink in the fence, and saw how the soup was boiling. Then the friends sprang out upon her, and seized her by the hair, and I dashed over the fence, and beat them off. ‘You must not do this, Mr. Merchants!’ I said. The lady had come trustfully, and he had imagined that she had evil intentions. I took her away, and they threw a brick at me, and bruised my head. She was overcome with grief, and almost beside herself. She said to me, as we crossed the yard: ‘I shall go back to my own people, the Germans, as soon as my husband dies!’ I said to her, ‘Of course you must go back to them.’ And when the lawyer died, she went away. She was very kind, and so clever, too! And the lawyer was kind, too,—God rest his soul!”

  Not being quite sure that I had understood the meaning of this story, I was silent. I was conscious of something familiar, something which had happened before, something pitiless and blind about it. But what could I say?

  “Do you think that is a good story?” asked Yaakov.

  I said something, making some confused objections, but he explained calmly:

  “People who have more than is necessary are easily amused, but sometimes, when they want to play a trick on some one, it turns out not to be fun at all. It doesn’t come off as they expected. Merchants are brainy people, of course. Commerce demands no little cleverness, and the life of clever persons is very dull, you see, so they like to amuse themselves.”

  Beyond the prow, all in a foam, the river rushed swiftly. The seething, running water was audible, the dark shore gliding slowly along with it. On the deck lay snoring passengers. Among the benches, among the sleeping bodies, a tall faded woman in a black frock, with uncovered gray head, moved quietly, coming towards us. The stoker, nudging me, said softly:

  “Look—she is in trouble!”

  And it seemed to me that other people’s griefs were amusing to him. He told me many stories, and I listened greedily. I remember his stories perfectly, but I do not remember one of them that was happy. He spoke more calmly than books. In books, I was often conscious of the feelings of the writer,—of his rage, his joy, his grief, his mockery; but the stoker never mocked, never judged. Nothing excited either his disgust or his pleasure to any extent. He spoke like an impartial witness at a trial, like a man who was a stranger alike to accuser, accused, and judge. This equanimity aroused in me an ever-increasing sense of irritated sorrow, a feeling of angry dislike for Yaakov.

  Life burned before his eyes like the flame of the stove beneath the boilers. He stood in front of the stove with a wooden mallet in his pock-marked, coffee-colored hands, and softly struck the edge of the regulator, diminishing or increasing the heat.

  “Hasn’t all this done you harm?”

  “Who would harm me? I am strong. You see what blows I can give!”

  “I am not speaking of blows, but has not your soul been injured?”

  “The soul cannot be hurt. The soul does not receive injuries,” he said. “Souls are not affected by any human agency, by anything external.”

  The deck passengers, the sailors, every one, in fact, used to speak of the soul as often and as much as they spoke of the land, of their work, of food and women. “Soul” is the tenth word in the speech of simple people, a word expressive of life and movement.

  I did not like to hear this word so habitually on people’s slippery tongues, and when the peasants used foul language, defiling their souls, it struck me to the heart.

  I remember so well how carefully grandmother used to speak of the soul,—that secret receptacle of love, beauty, and joy. I believed that, after the death of a good person, white angels carried his soul to the good God of my grandmother, and He greeted it with tenderness.

  “Well, my dear one, my pure one, thou hast suffered and languished below.”

  And He would give the soul the wings of seraphim—six white wings. Yaakov Shumov spoke of the soul as carefully, as reluctantly, and as seldom as grandmother. When he was abused, he never blasphemed, and when others discussed the soul he said nothing, bowing his red, bull-like neck. When I asked him what the soul was like, he replied:

  “The soul is the breath of God.”

  This did not enlighten me much, and I asked for more; upon which the stoker, inclining his head, said:

  “Even priests do not know much about the soul, little brother; that is hidden from us.”

  He held my thoughts continually, in a stubborn effort to understand him, but it was an unsuccessful effort. I saw nothing else but him. He shut out everything else with his broad figure.

  The stewardess bore herself towards me with suspicious kindness. In the morning, I was deputed to take hot water for washing to her, although this was the duty of the second-class chambermaid, Lusha, a fresh, merry girl. When I stood in the narrow cabin, near the stewardess, who was stripped to the waist, and looked upon her yellow body, flabby as half-baked pastry, I thought of the lissom, swarthy body of “Queen Margot,” and felt disgusted. And the stewardess talked all the time, now complainingly and scolding, now crossly and mockingly.

  I did not grasp the meaning of her speech, although I dimly guessed at it—at its pitiful, low, shameful meaning. But I was not disturbed by it. I lived far away from the stewardess, and from all that went on in the boat. I lived behind a great rugged rock, which hid from me all that world. All that went on during those days and nights flowed away into space.

  “Our Gavrilovna is quite in love with you.” I heard the laughing words of Lusha as in a dream. “Open your mouth, and take your happiness.”

  And not only did she make fun of me, but all the dining-room attendants knew of the weakness of their mistress. The cook said, with a frown:

  “The woman has tasted everything, and now she has a fancy for pastry! People like that——! You look, Pyeshkov, before you leap.”

  And Yaakov also gave me paternal advice.

  “Of course, if you were a year or two older, I should give you different advice, but at your age, it is better for you to keep yourself to yourself. However, you must do as
you like.”

  “Shut up!” said I. “The whole thing is disgusting.”

  “Of course it is.”

  But almost immediately after this, trying to make the limp hair on his head stand up with his fingers, he said tersely, in well-rounded periods:

  “Well, one must look at it from her point of view, too. She has a miserable, comfortless job. Even a dog likes to be stroked, and how much more a human being. A female lives by caresses, as a mushroom by moisture. She ought to be ashamed of herself, but what is she to do?”

  I asked, looking intently into his elusive eyes:

  “Do you begrudge her that, then?”

  “What is she to me? Is she my mother? And if she were——But you are a funny fellow!”

  He laughed in a low voice, like the beating of a drum.

  Sometimes when I looked at him, I seemed to be falling into silent space, into a bottomless pit full of twilight.

  “Every one is married but you, Yaakov. Why haven’t you ever married?”

  “Why? I have always been a favorite with the women, thank God, but it’s like this. When one is married, one has to live in one place, settle down on the land. My land is very poor, a very small piece, and my uncle has taken even that from me. When my young brother came back from being a soldier, he fell out with our uncle, and was brought before the court for punching his head. There was blood shed over the matter, in fact. And for that they sent him to prison for a year and a half. When you come out of prison, son, there is only one road for you; and that leads back to prison again. His wife was such a pleasant young woman—but what is the use of talking about it? When one is married, one ought to be master of one’s own stable. But a soldier is not even master of his own life.”

  “Do you say your prayers?”

  “You fun—n—y—y fellow, of course I do!”

  “But how?”

  “All kinds of ways.”

  “What prayers do you say?”

  “I know the night prayers. I say quite simply, my brother: ‘Lord Jesus, while I live, have mercy on me, and when I am dead give me rest. Save me, Lord, from sickness——’ and one or two other things I say.”

  “What things?”

  “Several things. Even what you don’t say, gets to Him.”

  His manner to me was kind, but full of curiosity, as it might have been to a clever kitten which could perform amusing tricks. Sometimes, when I was sitting with him at night, when he smelt of naphtha, burning oil, and onions, for he loved onions and used to gnaw them raw, like apples, he would suddenly ask:

  “Now, Olekha, lad, let’s have some poetry.”

  I knew a lot of verse by heart, besides which I had a large notebook in which I had copied my favorites. I read “Rousslan” to him,’ and he listened without moving, like a deaf and dumb man, holding his wheezy breath. Then he said to me in a low voice:

  “That’s a pleasant, harmonious, little story. Did you make it up yourself? There is a gentleman called Mukhin Pushkin. I have seen him.”

  “But this man was killed ever so long ago.”

  “What for?”

  I told him the story in short words, as “Queen Margot” had told it to me. Yaakov listened, and then said calmly:

  “Lots of people are ruined by women.”

  I often told him similar stories which I had read in books. They were all mixed up, effervescing in my mind into one long story of disturbed, beautiful lives, interspersed with flames of passion. They were full of senseless deeds of heroism, blue-blooded nobility, legendary feats, duels and deaths, noble words and mean actions. Rokambol was confused with the knightly forms of Lya-Molya and Annibal Kokonna, Ludovic XI took the form of the Père Grandet, the Comet Otletaev was mixed up with Henry IV. This story, in which I changed the character of the people and altered events according to my inspiration, became a whole world to me. I lived in it, free as grand-father’s God, Who also played with every one as it pleased Him. While not hindering me from seeing the reality, such as it was, nor cooling my desire to understand living people, nevertheless this bookish chaos hid me by a transparent but impenetrable cloud from much of the infectious obscenity, the venomous poison of life. Books rendered many evils innocuous for me. Knowing how people loved and suffered, I could never enter a house of ill fame. Cheap depravity only roused a feeling of repulsion and pity for those to whom it was sweet. Rokambol taught me to be a Stoic, and not be conquered by circumstances. The hero of Dumas inspired me with the desire to give myself for some great cause. My favorite hero was the gay monarch, Henry IV, and it seemed to me that the glorious songs of B?ranger were written about him.

  He relieved the peasants of their taxes,

  And himself he loved to drink.

  Yes, and if the whole nation is happy,

  Why should the king not drink?

  Henry IV was described in novels as a kind man, in touch with his people. Bright as the sun, he gave me the idea that France—the most beautiful country in the whole world, the country of the knights—was equally great, whether represented by the mantle of a king or the dress of a peasant. Ange Piutou was just as much a knight as D’Artagnan. When I read how Henry was murdered, I cried bitterly, and ground my teeth with hatred of Ravaillac. This king was nearly always the hero of the stories I told the stoker, and it seemed to me that Yaakov also loved France and “Khenrik.”

  “He was a good man was King ‘Khenrik,’ whether he was punishing rebels, or whatever he was doing,” he said.

  He never exclaimed, never interrupted my stories with questions, but listened in silence, with lowered brows and immobile face, like an old stone covered with fungus growth. But if, for some reason, I broke off my speech, he at once asked:

  “Is that the end?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Don’t leave off, then!”

  Of the French nation he said, sighing:

  “They had a very easy time of it!”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, you and I have to live in the heat. We have to labor, while they lived at ease. They had nothing to do but to sing and walk about—a very consoling life!”

  “They worked, too!”

  “It doesn’t say so in your stories,” observed the stoker with truth, and I suddenly realized clearly that the greater number of the books which I had read hardly ever spoke of the heroes working, or of the hardships they had to encounter.

  “Now I am going to sleep for a short time,” said Yaakov, and falling back where he lay, he was soon snoring peacefully.

  In the autumn, when the shores of the Kama were turning red, the leaves were taking a golden tinge, and the crosswise beams of the sun grew pallid, Yaakov unexpectedly left the boat. The day before, he had said to me:

  “The day after to-morrow, you and I, my lad, will be in Perm. We will go to the bath, steam ourselves to our hearts’ content, and when we have finished will go together to a Traktir. There is music and it is very pleasant. I like to see them playing on those machines.”

  But at Sarapulia there came on the boat a stout man with a flabby, womanish face. He was beardless and whiskerless. His long warm cloak, his cap with ear flaps of fox fur, increased his resemblance to a woman. He at once engaged a small table near the kitchen, where it was warmest, asked for tea to be served to him, and began to drink the yellow boiling liquid. As he neither unfastened his coat nor removed his cap, he perspired profusely.

  A fine rain fell unweariedly from the autumn mist. It seemed to me that when this man wiped the sweat from his face with his checked handkerchief, the rain fell less, and in proportion as he began to sweat again, it began to rain harder.

  Very soon Yaakov appeared, and they began to look at a map together. The passenger drew his finger across it, but Yaakov said:

  “What’s that? Nothing! I spit upon it!”

  “All right,” sa
id the passenger, putting away the map in a leather bag which lay on his knees. Talking softly together, they began to drink tea.

  Before Yaakov went to his watch, I asked him what sort of a man this was. He replied, with a laugh:

  “To see him, he might be a dove. He is a eunuch, that’s what he is. He comes from Siberia—a long way off! He is amusing; he lives on a settlement.”

  Setting his black strong heels on the deck, like hoofs, once again he stopped, and scratched his side.

  “I have hired myself to him as a workman. So when we get to Perm, I shall leave the boat, and it will be good-by to you, lad ? We shall travel by rail, then by river, and after that by horses. For five weeks we shall have to travel, to get to where the man has his colony.”

  “Did you know him before?” I asked, amazed at his sudden decision.

  “How should I know him? I have never seen him before. I have never lived anywhere near him.”

  In the morning Yaakov, dressed in a short, greasy fur-coat, with sandals on his bare feet, wearing Medvyejenok’s tattered, brimless straw hat, took hold of my arm with his iron grasp, and said:

  “Why don’t you come with me, eh? He will take you as well, that dove, if you only tell him you want to go. Would you like to? Shall I tell him? They will take away from you something which you will not need, and give you money. They make a festival of it when they mutilate a man, and they reward him for it.”

  The eunuch[1] stood on board, with a white bundle under his arm, 2nd looked stubbornly at Yaakov with his dull eyes, which were heavy and swollen, like those of a drowned person. I abused him in a low voice, and the stoker once more took hold of my arm.

  “Let him alone! There’s no harm in him. Every one has his own way of praying. What business is it of ours? Well, good-by. Good luck, to you!” And Yaakov Shumov went away, rolling from side to side like a bear, leaving in my heart an uneasy, perplexed feeling. I was sorry to lose the stoker, and angry with him. I was, I remember, a little jealous and I thought fearfully, “Fancy a man going away like that, without knowing where he is going!”