by Maxim Gorky
“But why are you doing it, Pasha?” she said.
He raised his head, looked at her and, in a low voice, calmly replied:
“I want to know the truth.”
The sound of his voice was quiet, but firm, and his eyes shone stubbornly. She understood with her heart that her son had condemned himself for ever to something secret and frightening. Everything in life seemed to her inevitable, she was accustomed to submitting without thinking, and now she just started quietly crying, finding no words in her heart, which was tight with woe and anguish.
“Don’t cry!” said Pavel quietly and lovingly, and it seemed to her he was saying goodbye. “Just think, what sort of life do we lead? You’re forty – and have you really lived? My father beat you – and now I understand it was his woe he was venting on your sides, the woe of his life; it was crushing him, but he didn’t understand where it came from. He worked for thirty years, he began working when the whole factory fitted into just two blocks, and now there are seven of them!”
She listened to him in terror, greedily. Her son’s eyes were burning, beautiful and bright; leaning his chest against the table, he moved closer to her and, straight into her face, wet with tears, made his first speech about the truth he had understood. With all the power of youth and the ardour of a disciple, proud of his knowledge and believing religiously in its truth, he spoke of what was clear to him, spoke not so much for his mother as to test himself. At times he would stop, lost for words, and then he would see before him a distressed face, shining dimly, in which there were kind eyes, misted over with tears. The look in them was of terror and bewilderment. He felt sorry for his mother and started speaking again, but now of her, of her life.
“What joys have you known?” he asked. “How are you to remember what you’ve lived through?”
She listened and sadly shook her head, sensing something new, unknown to her, mournful and joyous, and it softly caressed her aching heart. She was hearing such speeches about herself, about her life, for the first time, and they awakened within her long-slumbering, unclear thoughts and gently fanned extinguished feelings of vague discontent with life – the thoughts and feelings of her distant youth. She had talked about life with the girls who were her friends, had talked for a long time about everything, but everyone, and she herself, had only ever complained – no one had explained why life was so hard and difficult. But now here before her sat her son, and what his eyes, face and words were saying, all of it touched her heart, filling it with a sense of pride in the son who had a true understanding of his mother’s life, was telling her about her sufferings and pitied her.
Mothers get no pity.
That she knew. All her son was saying about a woman’s life was the bitter, familiar truth, and quietly quivering in her breast was a tangle of sensations which warmed her more and more with its unfamiliar caress.
“And what do you want to do?” she asked, interrupting his speech.
“Study, and then – teach others. We workers must study. We need to find out, need to understand, why life is so hard for us.”
It was sweet for her to see that his blue eyes, always serious and severe, were burning now so softly and lovingly. A contented, quiet smile appeared on her lips, though tears still trembled in the wrinkles on her cheeks. Wavering inside her was an ambivalent feeling of pride in the son who saw the woe of life so well, yet she could not forget about his youth or the fact that he did not talk like everyone else, that he alone had decided to take issue with this life that was customary for all, and for her too. She felt like saying to him: “What can you do, dear?”
But she was afraid of hindering her admiration of the son who was suddenly revealed before her as so wise… albeit a little foreign to her.
Pavel saw the smile on his mother’s lips, the attention on her face, the love in her eyes, and it seemed to him that he had forced her to understand his truth, and youthful pride in the power of the word increased his faith in himself. Gripped by excitement, he spoke, now smiling, now knitting his brows, and at times in his words there was the sound of hatred, and when his mother heard its tough, ringing words, she shook her head in fright and asked her son quietly:
“Is it so, Pasha?”
“It is!” he replied, firm and strong. And he told her of those who, wishing the people well, sowed the truth among them, and how the enemies of life hunted them because of it like wild animals, put them in prison, sent them into penal servitude…
“I’ve seen such people!” he exclaimed hotly. “They’re the best people on earth!”
In her these people aroused fear, and again she wanted to ask her son: “Is it so?”
But she could not bring herself to do it and, with her heart standing still, she listened to stories about the people she could not understand, who had taught her son to talk and think in a manner so dangerous for him. Finally she said to him:
“It’ll soon be getting light, you should go to bed, go to sleep!”
“Yes, I will in a minute!” he agreed. And, leaning towards her, he asked: “Do you understand me?”
“I do!” she replied with a sigh. Tears came rolling from her eyes once more, and with a sob she added: “You’re done for!”
He stood up, took a turn around the room, and then said:
“Well, now you know what I do, where I go – I’ve told you everything! I beg of you, Mother, if you love me, don’t stand in my way!…”
“My sweet!” she exclaimed. “Maybe it would be better for me not to know anything!”
He took her hand and squeezed it firmly in both of his.
She was shaken by the word “Mother”, which he had said with such heated power, and this pressing of her hand, new and strange.
“I shan’t do anything!” she said in a breaking voice. “Just take care of yourself, take care!”
Not knowing why care needed to be taken, she added miserably:
“You keep getting thinner…”
And embracing his strong, slim body with a warm, caressing gaze, she began speaking quietly and hurriedly:
“God keep you! Live as you want – I won’t stand in your way. I ask just one thing: don’t talk to people fearlessly! You need to beware of people – everyone hates everyone else! They live on greed, they live on envy. Everyone’s happy to do harm. As soon as you start to expose them and judge them, they’ll come to hate you and be your undoing!”
Her son stood in the doorway, listening to this miserable speech, and when his mother had finished, he said with a smile:
“People are bad, yes. But when I found out that there’s truth in the world, people became better!…”
He smiled again and continued:
“I don’t understand myself how it happened! From childhood I’d been afraid of everyone, I’d begun to grow up and started hating – some for their nastiness, some for I don’t know what, just because! But now everyone’s become different for me – am I sorry for everyone, or something? I can’t understand it, but my heart got softer when I found out that not everyone’s to blame for what’s dirty about them…”
He fell silent, as though listening to something inside him, and then said thoughtfully in a low voice:
“That’s what the truth does to you!”
She glanced at him and pronounced quietly:
“There’s a dangerous change in you, oh Lord!”
When he had gone to bed and fallen asleep, his mother got up cautiously from her bed and quietly went over to him. Pavel lay with his chest uppermost, and clearly drawn on the white pillow was his swarthy, stubborn, severe face. Pressing her hands to her breast, barefooted and in just her nightshirt, his mother stood by his bed, her lips moved without sound, and slowly and evenly, one after another, there came flowing from her eyes big, turbid tears.
And again they started living in silence, distant, yet close to each other.
One day in the middle of the week, a holiday, Pavel said to his mother as he was leaving the house:
“I’ll be having guests from town on Saturday.”
“From town?” his mother repeated, and then suddenly she let out a sob.
“Well, what’s that about, Mamasha?” Pavel exclaimed discontentedly.
Wiping her face with her apron, she answered with a sigh:
“I don’t know, it’s just…”
“Are you afraid?”
“Yes, I am,” she confessed.
He leant towards her face and, angrily, just like his father, said:
“It’s through fear that we’re all done for! And those who give us orders exploit our fear and make us even more frightened.”
His mother howled miserably:
“Don’t be angry! How can I not be afraid? I’ve lived in fear all my life, my soul’s all overgrown with fear!”
In a low voice, and more softly, he said:
“Forgive me – there’s no other way!”
And he left.
For three days her heart quaked, sinking every time she remembered there would be some strange, terrible people coming to the house. These were the ones who had shown her son the road down which he was going…
On Saturday, in the evening, Pavel came back from the factory, washed, changed and, going back out somewhere, said without looking at his mother:
“If they arrive, say I’ll be back soon. And please don’t be afraid…”
She sank onto a bench, powerless. Her son gave her a glum look and suggested:
“Perhaps you might… go out somewhere?”
This offended her. With a negative shake of the head she said:
“No. Why should I?”
It was the end of November. During the day, light, dry snow had fallen onto the frozen ground, and now it could be heard squeaking under the feet of her departing son. Dense darkness lay motionless against the window panes, inimically lying in wait for something. With her hands resting on the bench, the mother sat and waited, gazing at the door…
It seemed to her as if cautiously stealing towards the house from all directions in the darkness there were people, hunched over and looking all around, strangely dressed and wicked. Here was someone already walking around the house and running his hands over the wall.
Now the sound of whistling could be heard. It wound through the quietness in a slender little stream, sad and melodic, straying pensively through the wilderness of the darkness, seeking something, getting closer. And suddenly, by the window, it disappeared, as though it had sunk into the wood of the wall.
Someone’s feet started shuffling in the lobby; the mother gave a start and, raising her eyebrows tensely, stood up.
The door was opened. First a head in a big, shaggy hat was poked into the room, then, hunched over, a long body came slowly through, straightened up, unhurriedly raised its right hand and, with a noisy sigh, said in a rich, chesty voice:
“Good evening!”
The mother bowed silently.
“Is Pavel not at home?”
The man slowly removed his fur jacket, lifted one leg, knocked the snow off the boot with his hat, then did the same with the other leg, threw the hat into a corner and, swaying on his long legs, came into the room. He went up to a chair, examined it as though trying to convince himself of its solidity, finally sat down and, putting his hand over his mouth, yawned. His head was perfectly round, and the hair cut smooth, his cheeks were clean-shaven and the ends of his long moustache drooped down. After examining the room carefully with big, bulging grey eyes, he crossed his legs and, rocking on the chair, asked:
“And is this your hut, or are you renting?”
Sitting opposite him, the mother replied:
“Renting.”
“Not much of a hut!” he remarked.
“Pasha will soon be back – won’t you wait?” the mother asked him.
“I already am!” said the tall man serenely.
His serenity, soft voice and the simplicity of his face reassured the mother. The man looked at her openly and benevolently, there was a merry spark playing in the depths of his transparent eyes and there was something in his figure as a whole, angular and stooping with long legs, that was amusing and prepossessing. He was dressed in a blue shirt and black baggy trousers tucked into his boots. She wanted to ask him who he was, where he was from, if he had known her son long, but suddenly his entire body gave a lurch and he himself asked her:
“Who was it who gave your forehead a crack, nenko?”*
He asked gently, with a clear smile in his eyes, but this question offended the woman. She pursed her lips and, after a pause, enquired with cold politeness:
“And what is that to you, my dear sir?”
His entire body rocked towards her:
“Don’t you be cross now, will you! The reason I asked is because my foster-mother’s head was cracked too, just the same as yours. Hers, you see, was cracked by her lover, a cobbler, with a last. She was a laundress, and he a cobbler. It was after she’d taken me in as her son that she came across him somewhere or other, the drunkard, to her great misfortune. He really did beat her, I can tell you! My skin used to prickle in fear…”
The mother felt disarmed by his candour, and it occurred to her that Pavel might be angry with her for her unfriendly reply to this eccentric fellow. With a guilty smile she said:
“I wasn’t angry, but it was really very immediate… your asking. It was my hubby that treated me to it – may he rest in peace! Would you be a Tatar?”
The man twitched his legs and smiled so broadly that his ears even moved towards the back of his head. Then he said seriously:
“Not yet.”*
“Your way of talking doesn’t seem Russian!” the mother explained with a smile, getting his joke.
“It’s better than Russian!” said the guest with a merry shake of the head. “I’m Ukrainian, from the town of Kaneva.”
“And have you been here long?”
“I lived for about a year in town, and now I’ve moved to your factory, a month ago. I’ve found good people here – your son and others. I’m going to live here for a while!” he said, tugging at his moustache.
She liked him and, obeying a desire to repay him somehow for his words about her son, she suggested:
“Maybe you’ll have some tea?”
“What, am I going to enjoy your hospitality alone?” he replied, raising his shoulders. “When everyone’s gathered, then you can do the honours…”
He had reminded her of her fear.
“If only they could all be like this!” she wished ardently.
Footsteps rang out in the lobby again, the door opened hurriedly, and the mother again stood up. But to her surprise, into the kitchen came a girl of no great height, with the plain face of a peasant and a thick plait of fair hair. She asked quietly:
“Am I late?”
“Not at all!” replied the Ukrainian, looking in from the other room. “On foot?”
“Of course! Are you Pavel Mikhailovich’s mother? Hello! My name’s Natasha…”
“And your patronymic?” the mother asked.
“Vasilyevna. And you are?”
“Pelageya Nilovna.”
“Well, so now we’re acquainted…”
“Yes!” said the mother, sighing a little and scrutinizing the girl with a smile.
The Ukrainian was helping her to remove her outer clothes and asking:
“Is it cold?”
“Out in the open, very! It’s the wind…”
Her voice was fruity and clear, her mouth small and plump, and altogether she was round and fresh. With her outer clothes off, she rubbed her rosy cheeks hard with little hands that were red from the cold, and then went through
quickly into the other room, the heels of her ankle boots clicking sonorously over the floor.
“She’s not wearing galoshes!” flashed through the mother’s head.
“Ye-es,” drawled the girl, shivering. “I’m chilled to the bone… and how!”
“I’ll heat up the samovar for you right away!” said the mother, immediately in a hurry as she went off into the kitchen. “Right away…”
It seemed to her as if she had known this girl for a long time and loved her with the good, sympathetic love of a mother. Smiling, she listened to the conversation in the other room.
“Why are you so miserable, Nakhodka?” the girl was asking.
“Oh, it’s nothing,” the Ukrainian answered in a low voice. “The widow has kind eyes, and it occurred to me that maybe my mother’s are the same. I often think of my mother, you know, and it still seems to me that she’s alive.”
“Didn’t you say she was dead?”
“It’s my foster-mother that’s dead. But I’m talking about my real mother. It seems to me that she’s somewhere in Kiev, collecting alms. And drinking vodka. And when she’s drunk, the police slap her cheeks.”
“Ah, you warm-hearted thing!” thought the mother, and sighed.
Natasha started saying something quickly and heatedly in a low tone. The resonant voice of the Ukrainian rang out again.
“Oh, you’re still young, comrade, damp behind the ears! Giving birth is hard, teaching someone goodness even harder…”
“How about that!” the mother exclaimed inwardly, and she wanted to say something gentle to the Ukrainian. But the door opened unhurriedly, and in came Nikolai Vesovshchikov, the son of the old thief Danila, regarded by the whole settlement as being unsociable. He was always morosely shunning people and was mocked for it. Surprised, she asked him:
“What do you want, Nikolai?”
His broad palm wiped his pockmarked face with its prominent cheekbones, and without any greeting he asked in a muffled voice:
“Is Pavel at home?”
“No.”
He looked into the other room and went in, saying:
“Hello, comrades…”