by Maxim Gorky
I did not wish to believe that “every one lied in these affairs.” How about Queen Margot, then? And of course Jikharev was not lying. And I knew that Sitanov had loved a “street” girl, and she had deceived him. He had not beaten her for it, as his comrades advised him to do, but had been kind to her.
The large woman went on rocking, smiling like a corpse, waving her handkerchief. Jikharev jumped convulsively about her, and I looked on and thought: “Could Eve, who was able to deceive God, have been anything like this horse?” I was seized by a feeling of dislike for her.
The faceless images looked from the dark walls; the dark night pressed against the window-panes. The lamps burned dimly in the stuffy workshop; if one listened, one could hear above the heavy trampling and the din of voices the quick dropping of water from the copper wash-basin into the tub.
How unlike this was to the life I read of in books! It was painfully unlike it. At length they all grew weary of this, and Kapendiukhin put the harmonica into Salautin’s hands, and cried:
“Go on! Fire away!”
He danced like Vanka Tzigan, just as if he was swimming in the air. Then Pavl Odintzov and Sorokhin danced passionately and lightly after him. The consumptive Davidov also moved his feet about the floor, and coughed from the dust, smoke, and the strong odor of vodka and smoked sausage, which always smells like tanned hide.
They danced, and sang, and shouted, but each remembered that they were making merry, and gave each other a sort of test—a test of agility and endurance.
Tipsy Sitanov asked first one and then another:
“Do you think any one could really love a woman like that?”
He looked as if he were on the verge of tears.
Larionovich, lifting the sharp bones of his shoulders, answered:
“A woman is a woman—what more do you want?”
The two of whom they spoke disappeared unnoticed. Jikharev reappeared in the workshop in two or three days, went to the bath, and worked for two weeks in his corner, without speaking, pompous and estranged from every one.
“Have they gone?” asked Sitanov of himself, looking round the workshop with sad blue-gray eyes. His face was not handsome, for there was something elderly about it, but his eyes were clear and good. Sitanov was friendly to me—a fact which I owed to my thick note-book in which I had written poetry. He did not believe in God, but it was hard to understand who in the workshop, beside Larionovich, loved God and believed in Him. They all spoke of Him with levity, derisively, just as they liked to speak of their mistresses. Yet when they dined, or supped, they all crossed themselves, and when they went to bed, they said their prayers, and went to church on Sundays and feast days.
Sitanov did none of these things, and he was counted as an unbeliever.
“There is no God,” he said.
“Where did we all come from, then?”
“I don’t know.”
When I asked him how God could possibly not be, he explained:
“Don’t you see that God is height!”
He raised his long arm above his head, then lowered it to an arshin from the floor, and said:
“And man is depth! Is that true? And it is written: Man was created in the image and likeness of God,—as you know! And what is Golovev like?”
This defeated me. The dirty and drunken old man, in spite of his years, was given to an unmentionable sin. I remembered the Viatski soldier, Ermokhin, and grandmother’s sister. Where was God’s likeness in them?
“Human creatures are swine—as you know,” said Sitanov, and then he tried to console me. “Never mind, Maxim, there are good people; there are!”
He was easy to get on with; he was so simple. When he did not know anything, he said frankly:
“I don’t know; I never thought about it!”
This was something unusual. Until I met him, I had only come across people who knew everything and talked about everything. It was strange to me to see in his note-book, side by side with good poetry which touched the soul, many obscene verses which aroused no feeling but that of shame. When I spoke to him about Pushkin, he showed me “Gavrialad,” which had been copied in his book.
“What is Pushkin? Nothing but a jester, but that Benediktov—he is worth paying attention to.”
And closing his eyes he repeated softly:
“Look at the bewitching bosom
Of a beautiful woman.”
For some reason he was especially partial to the three lines which he quoted with joyful pride:
“Not even the orbs of an eagle
Into that warm cloister can penetrate
And read that heart.”
“Do you understand that?”
It was very uncomfortable to me to have to acknowledge that I did not understand what he was so pleased about.
CHAPTER XIV
My duties in the workshop were not complicated.
In the morning when they were all asleep, I had to prepare the samovar for the men, and while they drank tea in the kitchen, Pavl and I swept and dusted the workshop, set out red, yellow, or white paints, and then I went to the shop. In the evening I had to grind up colors and “watch” the work. At first I watched with great interest, but I soon realized that all the men who were engaged on this handicraft which was divided up into so many processes, disliked it, and suffered from a torturing boredom.
The evenings were free. I used to tell them stories about life on the steamer and different stories out of books, and without noticing how it came about, I soon held a peculiar position in the workshop as story-teller and reader.
I soon found out that all these people knew less than I did; almost all of them had been stuck in the narrow cage of workshop life since their childhood, and were still in it. Of all the occupants of the workshop, only Jikharev had been in Moscow, of which he spoke suggestively and frowningly:
“Moscow does not believe in tears; there they know which side their bread is buttered.”
None of the rest had been farther than Shuya, or Vladimir. When mention was made of Kazan, they asked me:
“Are there many Russians there? Are there any churches?”
For them, Perm was in Siberia, and they would not believe that Siberia was beyond the Urals.
“Sandres come from the Urals; and sturgeon—where are they found? Where do they get them? From the Caspian Sea? That means that the Urals are on the sea!”
Sometimes I thought that they were laughing at me when they declared that England was on the other side of the Atlantic, and that Bonaparte belonged by birth to a noble family of Kalonga. When I told them stories of what I had seen, they hardly believed me, but they all loved terrible tales intermixed with history. Even the men of mature years evidently preferred imagination to the truth. I could see very well that the more improbable the events, the more fantastic the story, the more attentively they listened to me. On the whole, reality did not interest them, and they all gazed dreamily into the future, not wishing to see the poverty and hideousness of the present.
This astonished me so much the more, inasmuch as I had felt keenly enough the contradiction existing between life and books. Here before me were living people, and in books there were none like them—no Smouri, stoker Yaakov, fugitive Aleksander Vassiliev, Jikharev, or washerwoman Natalia.
In Davidov’s trunk a torn copy of Golitzinski’s stories was found—“Ivan Vuijigin,” “The Bulgar,” “A Volume of Baron Brambeuss.” I read all these aloud to them, and they were delighted. Larionovich said:
“Reading prevents quarrels and noise; it is a good thing!”
I began to look about diligently for books, found them, and read almost every evening. Those were pleasant evenings. It was as quiet as night in the workshop; the glass balls hung over the tables like white cold stars, their rays lighting up shaggy and bald heads. I saw round me at the table, cal
m, thoughtful faces; now and again an exclamation of praise of the author, or hero was heard. They were attentive and benign, quite unlike themselves. I liked them very much at those times, and they also behaved well to me. I felt that I was in my right place.
“When we have books it is like spring with us; when the winter frames are taken out and for the first time we can open the windows as we like,” said Sitanov one day.
It was hard to find books. We could not afford to subscribe to a library, but I managed to get them somehow, asking for them wherever I went, as a charity. One day the second officer of the fire brigade gave me the first volume of “Lermontov,” and it was from this that I felt the power of poetry, and its mighty influence over people. I remember even now how, at the first lines of “The Demon,” Sitanov looked first at the book and then at my face, laid down his brush on the table, and, embracing his knee with his long arms, rocked to and fro, smiling.
“Not so much noise, brothers,” said Larionovich, and also laying aside his work, he went to Sitanov’s table where I was reading. The poem stirred me painfully and sweetly; my voice was broken; I could hardly read the lines. Tears poured from my eyes. But what moved me still more was the dull, cautious movement of the workmen. In the workshop everything seemed to be diverted from its usual course—drawn to me as if I had been a magnet. When I had finished the first part, almost all of them were standing round the table, closely pressing against one another, embracing one another, frowning and laughing.
“Go on reading,” said Jikharev, bending my head over the book.
When I had finished reading, he took the book, looked at the title, put it under his arm, and said:
“We must read this again! We will read it to-morrow! I will hide the book away.”
He went away, locked “Lermontov” in his drawer, and returned to his work. It was quiet in the workshop; the men stole back to their tables. Sitanov went to the window, pressed his forehead against the glass, and stood there as if frozen. Jikharev, again laying down his brush, said in a stern voice:
“Well, such is life; slaves of God—yes—ah!”
He shrugged his shoulders, hid his face, and went on:
“I can draw the devil himself; black and rough, with wings of red flame, with red lead, but the face, hands, and feet—these should be bluish-white, like snow on a moonlight night.”
Until close upon supper-time he revolved about on his stool, restless and unlike himself, drumming with his fingers and talking unintelligibly of the devil, of women and Eve, of paradise, and of the sins of holy men.
“That is all true!” he declared. “If the saints sinned with sinful women, then of course the devil may sin with a pure soul.”
They listened to him in silence; probably, like me, they had no desire to speak. They worked unwillingly, looking all the time at their watches, and as soon as it struck ten, they put away their work altogether.
Sitanov and Jikharev went out to the yard, and I went with them. There, gazing at the stars, Sitanov said:
“Like a wandering caravan
Thrown into space, it shone.”
“You did not make that up yourself!”
“I can never remember words,” said Jikharev, shivering in the bitter cold. “I can’t remember anything; but he, I see—It is an amazing thing—a man who actually pities the devil! He has made you sorry for him, hasn’t he?”
“He has,” agreed Sitanov.
“There, that is a real man!” exclaimed Jikharev reminiscently. In the vestibule he warned me: “You, Maxim, don’t speak to any one in the shop about that book, for of course it is a forbidden one.”
I rejoiced; this must be one of the books of which the priest had spoken to me in the confessional.
We supped languidly, without the usual noise and talk, as if something important had occurred and we could not keep from thinking about it, and after supper, when we were going to bed, Jikharev said to me, as he drew forth the book:
“Come, read it once more!”
Several men rose from their beds, came to the table, and sat themselves round it, undressed as they were, with their legs crossed.
And again when I had finished reading, Jikharev said, strumming his fingers on the table:
“That is a living picture of him! Ach, devil, devil—that’s how he is, brothers, eh?”
Sitanov leaned over my shoulder, read something, and laughed, as he said:
“I shall copy that into my own note-book.” Jikharev stood up and carried the book to his own table, but he turned back and said in an offended, shaky voice:
“We live like blind puppies—to what end we do not know. We are not necessary either to God or the devil! How are we slaves of the Lord? The Jehovah of slaves and the Lord Himself speaks with them! With Moses, too! He even gave Moses a name; it means ‘This is mine’—a man of God. And we—what are we?”
He shut up the book and began to dress himself, asking Sitanov:
“Are you coming to the tavern?”
“I shall go to my own tavern,” answered Sitanov softly.
When they had gone out, I lay down on the floor by the door, beside Pavl Odintzov. He tossed about for a long time, snored, and suddenly began to weep quietly.
“What is the matter with you?”
“I am sick with pity for all of them,” he said. “This is the fourth year of my life with them, and I know all about them.”
I also was sorry for these people. We did not go to sleep for a long time, but talked about them in whispers, finding goodness, good traits in each one of them, and also something which increased our childish pity.
I was very friendly with Pavl Odintzov. They made a good workman of him in the end, but it did not last long; before the end of three years he had begun to drink wildly, later on I met him in rags on the Khitrov market-place in Moscow, and not long ago I heard that he had died of typhoid. It is painful to remember how many good people in my life I have seen senselessly ruined. People of all nations wear themselves out, and to ruin themselves comes natural but nowhere do they wear themselves out so terribly quickly, so senselessly, as in our own Russia.
Then he was a round-headed boy two years older than myself; he was lively, intelligent, and upright; he was talented, for he could draw birds, cats, and dogs excellently, and was amazingly clever in his caricatures of the workmen, always depicting them as feathered. Sitanov was shown as a sad-looking woodcock standing on one leg, Jikharev as a cock with a torn comb and no feathers on his head; sickly Davidov was an injured lapwing. But best of all was his drawing of the old chaser, Golovev, representing him as a bat with large whiskers, ironical nose, and four feet with six nails on each. From the round, dark face, white, round eyes gazed forth, the pupils of which looked like the grain of a lentil. They were placed crossways, thus giving to the face a lifelike and hideous expression.
The workmen were not offended when Pavl showed them the caricatures, but the one of Golovev made an unpleasant impression on them all, and the artist was sternly advised:
“You had better tear it up, for if the old man sees it, he will half kill you!”
The dirty, putrid, everlastingly drunk old man was tiresomely pious, and inextinguishably malicious. He vilified the whole workshop to the shopman whom the mistress was about to marry to her niece, and who for that reason felt himself to be master of the whole house and the workpeople. The workmen hated him, but they were afraid of him, and for the same reason were afraid of Golovev, too.
Pavl worried the chaser furiously and in all manner of ways, just as if he had set before himself the aim of never allowing Golovev to have a moment’s peace. I helped him in this with enthusiasm, and the workshop amused itself with our pranks, which were almost always pitilessly coarse. But we were warned:
“You will get into trouble, children! Kouzka-Juchek will half kill you!”
Kouzka-Juch
ek was the nickname of the shopman, which was given to him on the quiet by the workshop.
The warning did not alarm us. We painted the face of the chaser when he was asleep. One day when he was in a drunken slumber we gilded his nose, and it was three days before he was able to get the gold out of the holes in his spongy nose. But every time that we succeeded in infuriating the old man, I remembered the steamboat, and the little Viatski soldier, and I was conscious of a disturbance in my soul. In spite of his age, Golovev was so strong that he often beat us, falling upon us unexpectedly; he would beat us and then complain of us to the mistress.
She, who was also drunk every day, and for that reason always kind and cheerful, tried to frighten us, striking her swollen hands on the table, and crying: “So you have been saucy again, you wild beast? He is an old man, and you ought to respect him! Who was it that put photographic solution in his glass, instead of wine?”
“We did.”
The mistress was amazed.
“Good Lord, they actually admit it! Ah, accursed ones, you ought to respect old men!”
She drove us away, and in the evening she complained to the shopman, who spoke to me angrily:
“How can you read books, even the Holy Scriptures, and still be so saucy, eh? Take care, my brother!”
The mistress was solitary and touchingly sad. Sometimes when she had been drinking sweet liqueurs, she would sit at the window and sing:
“No one is sorry for me,
And pity have I from none;
What my grief is no one knows;
To whom shall I tell my sorrow.”
And sobbingly she drawled in the quavering voice of age:
“U—00—00—”
One day I saw her going down the stairs with a jug of warm milk in her hands, but suddenly her legs gave way under her. She sat down, and descended the stairs, sadly bumping from step to step, and never letting the jug out of her hand. The milk splashed over her dress, and she, with her hands outstretched, cried angrily to the jug:
“What is the matter with you, satyr? Where are you going?”
