by Maxim Gorky
The conversation dropped off. The bees and wasps circled busily around humming in the stifling atmosphere. The birds chirped, and somewhere at a distance a song was heard straying through the fields. After a pause Rybin said:
“Well, we’ve got to get to work. Do you want to rest? There are boards inside the shanty. Pick up some dry leaves for them, Yakob. And you, mother, give us the books. Where are they?”
The mother and Sofya began to untie their sacks. Rybin bent down over them, and said with satisfaction:
“That’s it! Well, well—not a few, I see. Have you been in this business a long time? What’s your name?” he turned toward Sofya.
“Anna Ivanovna. Twelve years. Why?”
“Nothing.”
“Have you been in prison?”
“I have.”
He was silent, taking a pile of books in his hand, and said to her, showing his teeth:
“Don’t take offense at the way I speak. A peasant and a nobleman are like tar and water. It’s hard for them to mix. They jump away from each other.”
“I’m not a lady. I’m a human being,” Sofya retorted with a quiet laugh.
“That may be. It’s hard for me to believe it; but they say it happens. They say that a dog was once a wolf. Now I’ll hide these books.”
Ignaty and Yakob walked up to him, and both stretched out their hands.
“Give us some.”
“Are they all the same?” Rybin asked of Sofya.
“No, they’re different. There’s a newspaper here, too.”
“Oh!”
The three men quickly walked into the shack.
“The peasant is on fire,” said the mother in a low voice, looking after Rybin thoughtfully.
“Yes,” answered Sofya. “I’ve never seen such a face as his—such a martyrlike face. Let’s go inside, too. I want to look at them.”
When the women reached the door they found the men already engrossed in the newspapers. Ignaty was sitting on the board, the newspaper spread on his knees, and his fingers run through his hair. He raised his head, gave the women a rapid glance, and bent over his paper again. Rybin was standing to let the ray of sun that penetrated a chink in the roof fall on his paper. He moved his lips as he read. Ignaty read kneeling, with his breast against the edge of the board.
Sofya felt the eagerness of the men for the word of truth. Her face brightened with a joyful smile. Walking carefully over to a corner, she sat down next to the mother, her arm on the mother’s shoulder, and gazed about silently.
“Uncle Mikhaïl, they’re rough on us peasants,” muttered Yakob without turning.
Rybin looked around at him, and answered with a smile:
“For love of us. He who loves does not insult, no matter what he says.”
Ignaty drew a deep breath, raised his head, smiled satirically, and closing his eyes said with a scowl:
“Here it says: ‘The peasant has ceased to be a human being.’ Of course he has.” Over his simple, open face glided a shadow of offense. “Well, try to wear my skin for a day or so, and turn around in it, and then we’ll see what you’ll be like, you wiseacre, you!”
“I’m going to lie down,” said the mother quietly. “I got tired, after all. My head is going around. And you?” she asked Sofya.
“I don’t want to.”
The mother stretched herself on the board and soon fell asleep. Sofya sat over her looking at the people reading. When the bees buzzed about the mother’s face, she solicitously drove them away.
Rybin came up and asked:
“Is she asleep?”
“Yes.”
He was silent for a moment, looked fixedly at the calm sleeping face, and said softly:
“She is probably the first mother who has followed in the footsteps of her son—the first.”
“Let’s not disturb her; let’s go away,” suggested Sofya.
“Well, we have to work. I’d like to have a chat with you; but we’ll put it off until evening. Come, boys.”
CHAPTER IV
The three men walked away, leaving Sofya in the cabin. Then from a distance came the sound of the ax blows, the echo straying through the foliage. In a half-dreamy condition of repose, intoxicated with the spicy odor of the forest, Sofya sat just outside the door, humming a song, and watching the approach of evening, which gradually enfolded the forest. Her gray eyes smiled softly at some one. The reddening rays of the sun fell more and more aslant. The busy chirping of the birds died away. The forest darkened, and seemed to grow denser. The trees moved in more closely about the choked-up glade, and gave it a more friendly embrace, covering it with shadows. Cows were lowing in the distance. The tar men came, all four together, content that the work was ended.
Awakened by their voices the mother walked out from the cabin, yawning and smiling. Rybin was calmer and less gloomy. The surplus of his excitement was drowned in exhaustion.
“Ignaty,” he said, “let’s have our tea. We do housekeeping here by turns. Today Ignaty provides us with food and drink.”
“Today I’d be glad to yield my turn,” remarked Ignaty, gathering up pieces of wood and branches for an open-air fire.
“We’re all interested in our guests,” said Yefim, sitting down by Sofya’s side.
“I’ll help you,” said Yakob softly.
He brought out a big loaf of bread baked in hot ashes, and began to cut it and place the pieces on the table.
“Listen!” exclaimed Yefim. “Do you hear that cough?”
Rybin listened, and nodded.
“Yes, he’s coming,” he said to Sofya. “The witness is coming. I would lead him through cities, put him in public squares, for the people to hear him. He always says the same thing. But everybody ought to hear it.”
The shadows grew closer, the twilight thickened, and the voices sounded softer. Sofya and the mother watched the actions of the peasants. They all moved slowly and heavily with a strange sort of cautiousness. They, too, constantly followed the women with their eyes, listening attentively to their conversation.
A tall, stooping man came out of the woods into the glade, and walked slowly, firmly supporting himself on a cane. His heavy, raucous breathing was audible.
“There is Savely!” exclaimed Yakob.
“Here I am,” said the man hoarsely. He stopped, and began to cough.
A shabby coat hung over him down to his very heels. From under his round, crumpled hat straggled thin, limp tufts of dry, straight, yellowish hair. His light, sparse beard grew unevenly upon his yellow, bony face; his mouth stood half-open; his eyes were sunk deep beneath his forehead, and glittered feverishly in their dark hollows.
When Rybin introduced him to Sofya he said to her:
“I heard you brought books for the people.”
“I did.”
“Thank you in the name of the people. They themselves cannot yet understand the book of truth. They cannot yet thank; so I, who have learned to understand it, render you thanks in their behalf.” He breathed quickly, with short, eager breaths, strangely drawing in the air through his dry lips. His voice broke. The bony fingers of his feeble hands crept along his breast trying to button his coat.
“It’s bad for you to be in the woods so late; it’s damp and close here,” remarked Sofya.
“Nothing is good for me any more,” he answered, out of breath. “Only death!”
It was painful to listen to him. His entire figure inspired a futile pity that recognized its own powerlessness, and gave way to a sullen feeling of discomfort.
The wood pile blazed up; everything round about trembled and shook; the scorched shadows flung themselves into the woods in fright. The round face of Ignaty with its inflated cheeks shone over the fire. The flames died down, and the air began to smell of smoke. Again the trees seemed to draw close and unite with
the mist on the glade, listening in strained attention to the hoarse words of the sick man.
“But as a witness of the crime, I can still bring good to the people. Look at me! I’m twenty-eight years old; but I’m dying. About ten years ago I could lift five hundred pounds on my shoulders without an effort. With such strength I thought I could go on for seventy years without dropping into the grave, and I’ve lived for only ten years, and can’t go on any more. The masters have robbed me; they’ve torn forty years of my life from me; they’ve stolen forty years from me.”
“There, that’s his song,” said Rybin dully.
The fire blazed up again, but now it was stronger and more vivid. Again the shadows leaped into the woods, and again darted back to the fire, quivering about it in a mute, astonished dance. The wood crackled, and the leaves of the trees rustled softly. Alarmed by the waves of the heated atmosphere, the merry, vivacious tongues of fire, yellow and red, in sportive embrace, soared aloft, sowing sparks. The burning leaves flew, and the stars in the sky smiled to the sparks, luring them up to themselves.
“That’s not my song. Thousands of people sing it. But they sing it to themselves, not realizing what a salutary lesson their unfortunate lives hold for all. How many men, tormented to death by work, miserable cripples, maimed, die silently from hunger! It is necessary to shout it aloud, brothers, it is necessary to shout it aloud!” He fell into a fit of coughing, bending and all a-shiver.
“Why?” asked Yefim. “My misery is my own affair. Just look at my joy.”
“Don’t interrupt,” Rybin admonished.
“You yourself said a man mustn’t boast of his misfortune,” observed Yefim with a frown.
“That’s a different thing. Savely’s misfortune is a general affair, not merely his own. It’s very different,” said Rybin solemnly. “Here you have a man who has gone down to the depths and been suffocated. Now he shouts to the world, ‘Look out, don’t go there!’”
Yakob put a pail of cider on the table, dropped a bundle of green branches, and said to the sick man:
“Come, Savely, I’ve brought you some milk.”
Savely shook his head in declination, but Yakob took him under the arm, lifted him, and made him walk to the table.
“Listen,” said Sofya softly to Rybin. She was troubled and reproached him. “Why did you invite him here? He may die any minute.”
“He may,” retorted Rybin. “Let him die among people. That’s easier than to die alone. In the meantime let him speak. He lost his life for trifles. Let him suffer a little longer for the sake of the people. It’s all right!”
“You seem to take particular delight in it,” exclaimed Sofya.
“It’s the masters who take pleasure in Christ as he groans on the cross. But what we want is to learn from a man, and make you learn something, too.”
At the table the sick man began to speak again:
“They destroy lives with work. What for? They rob men of their lives. What for, I ask? My master—I lost my life in the textile mill of Nefidov—my master presented one prima donna with a golden wash basin. Every one of her toilet articles was gold. That basin holds my life-blood, my very life. That’s for what my life went! A man killed me with work in order to comfort his mistress with my blood. He bought her a gold wash basin with my blood.”
“Man is created in the image of God,” said Yefim, smiling. “And that’s the use to which they put the image. Fine!”
“Well, then don’t be silent!” exclaimed Rybin, striking his palm on the table.
“Don’t suffer it,” added Yakob softly.
Ignaty laughed. The mother observed that all three men spoke little, but listened with the insatiable attention of hungry souls, and every time that Rybin spoke they looked into his face with watchful eyes. Savely’s talk produced a strange, sharp smile on their faces. No feeling of pity for the sick man was to be detected in their manner.
Bending toward Sofya the mother whispered:
“Is it possible that what he says is true?”
Sofya answered aloud:
“Yes, it’s true. The newspapers tell about such gifts. It happened in Moscow.”
“And the man wasn’t executed for it?” asked Rybin dully. “But he should have been executed, he should have been led out before the people and torn to pieces. His vile, dirty flesh should have been thrown to the dogs. The people will perform great executions when once they arise. They’ll shed much blood to wash away their wrongs. This blood is theirs; it has been drained from their veins; they are its masters.”
“It’s cold,” said the sick man. Yakob helped him to rise, and led him to the fire.
The wood pile burned evenly and glaringly, and the faceless shadows quivered around it. Savely sat down on a stump, and stretched his dry, transparent hands toward the fire, coughing. Rybin nodded his head to one side, and said to Sofya in an undertone:
“That’s sharper than books. That ought to be known. When they tear a workingman’s hand in a machine or kill him, you can understand—the workingman himself is at fault. But in a case like this, when they suck a man’s blood out of him and throw him away like a carcass—that can’t be explained in any way. I can comprehend every murder; but torturing for mere sport I can’t comprehend. And why do they torture the people? To what purpose do they torture us all? For fun, for mere amusement, so that they can live pleasantly on the earth; so that they can buy everything with the blood of the people, a prima donna, horses, silver knives, golden dishes, expensive toys for their children. You work, work, work, work more and more, and I’ll hoard money by your labor and give my mistress a golden wash basin.”
The mother listened, looked, and once again, before her in the darkness, stretched the bright streak of the road that Pavel was going, and all those with whom he walked.
When they had concluded their supper, they sat around the fire, which consumed the wood quickly. Behind them hung the darkness, embracing forest and sky. The sick man with wide-open eyes looked into the fire, coughed incessantly, and shivered all over. The remnants of his life seemed to be tearing themselves from his bosom impatiently, hastening to forsake the dry body, drained by sickness.
“Maybe you’d better go into the shanty, Savely?” Yakob asked, bending over him.
“Why?” he answered with an effort. “I’ll sit here. I haven’t much time left to stay with people, very little time.” He paused, let his eyes rove about the entire group, then with a pale smile, continued: “I feel good when I’m with you. I look at you, and think, ‘Maybe you will avenge the wrongs of all who were robbed, of all the people destroyed because of greed.’”
No one replied, and he soon fell into a doze, his head limply hanging over his chest. Rybin looked at him, and said in a dull voice:
“He comes to us, sits here, and always speaks of the same thing, of this mockery of man. This is his entire soul; he feels nothing else.”
“What more do you want?” said the mother thoughtfully. “If people are killed by the thousands day after day working so that their masters may throw money away for sport, what else do you want?”
“It’s endlessly wearying to listen to him,” said Ignaty in a low voice. “When you hear this sort of thing once, you never forget it, and he keeps harping on it all the time.”
“But everything is crowded into this one thing. It’s his entire life, remember,” remarked Rybin sullenly.
The sick man turned, opened his eyes, and lay down on the ground. Yakob rose noiselessly, walked into the cabin, brought out two short overcoats, and wrapped them about his cousin. Then he sat down beside Sofya.
The merry, ruddy face of the fire smiled irritatingly as it illumined the dark figures about it; and the voices blended mournfully with the soft rustle and crackle of the flames.
Sofya began to tell about the universal struggle of the people for the right to life, about the co
nflicts of the German peasants in the olden times, about the misfortunes of the Irish, about the great exploits of the workingmen of France in their frequent battling for freedom.
In the forest clothed in the velvet of night, in the little glade bounded by the dumb trees, before the sportive face of the fire, the events that shook the world rose to life again; one nation of the earth after the other passed in review, drained of its blood, exhausted by combats; the names of the great soldiers for freedom and truth were recalled.
The somewhat dull voice of the woman seemed to echo softly from the remoteness of the past. It aroused hope, it carried conviction; and the company listened in silence to its music, to the great story of their brethren in spirit. They looked into her face, lean and pale, and smiled in response to the smile of her gray eyes. Before them the cause of all the people of the world, the endless war for freedom and equality, became more vivid and assumed a greater holiness. They saw their desires and thoughts in the distance, overhung with the dark, bloody curtain of the past, amid strangers unknown to them; and inwardly, both in mind and heart, they became united with the world, seeing in it friends even in olden times, friends who had unanimously resolved to obtain right upon the earth, and had consecrated their resolve with measureless suffering, and shed rivers of their own blood. With this blood, mankind dedicated itself to a new life, bright and cheerful. A feeling arose and grew of the spiritual nearness of each unto each. A new heart was born on the earth, full of hot striving to embrace all and to unite all in itself.
“A day is coming when the workingmen of all countries will raise their heads, and firmly declare, ‘Enough! We want no more of this life.’” Sofya’s low but powerful voice rang with assurance. “And then the fantastic power of those who are mighty by their greed will crumble; the earth will vanish from under their feet, and their support will be gone.”
“That’s how it will be,” said Rybin, bending his head. “Don’t pity yourselves, and you will conquer everything.”
The men listened in silence, motionless, endeavoring in no way to break the even flow of the narrative, fearing to cut the bright thread that bound them to the world. Only occasionally some one would carefully put a piece of wood in the fire, and when a stream of sparks and smoke rose from the pile he would drive them away from the woman with a wave of his hand.