The Maxim Gorky

by Maxim Gorky

  The cook shook in her chair, crying out in astonishment and fright:

  “Matvey, what does this mean?”

  “Excuse me,” said Zimin, passing his hand reassuringly before her face. “This is a serious matter.” Then he said to Yevsey in a decided stern tone, “Young man, put your overcoat on. You must go home. And I, too, must go. Put your overcoat on.”

  Yevsey smiled. He still felt empty and light. It was a pleasant sensation, but his eyes were dim, and the caustic tickling taste in his mouth came back again. He scarcely realized how he walked away, but he did not forget that all were silent, and no one said good-by to him.

  In the street Zimin nudged his shoulder, and said not aloud but emphatically:

  “I beg you not to come to my sister any more.”

  “Why? Did I offend you?” asked Yevsey.

  “No, not in the least.”

  “Why, then?”

  “Who are you?”

  “A peddler.”

  “Then how do you know what I am, and that I am being followed?”

  “An acquaintance told me.”

  “A spy?”

  “Yes.”

  “So? And you are a spy, too?”

  “No,” said Yevsey. But looking into Zimin’s lean, pale face, he remembered the calm and dull sound of his voice, and without an effort corrected himself. “Yes, I, too.”

  They walked a few steps in silence.

  “Well, go,” said Zimin, suddenly halting. His voice sounded subdued and sorrowful. He shook his head strangely. “Go away.”

  Yevsey leaned his back against the enclosure, and gazed at the man, blinking his eyes. Zimin, too, looked at Yevsey, shaking his right hand.

  “Why?” said Yevsey, in perplexity. “Didn’t I tell you the truth? That you are being tracked?”

  “Well?”

  “And you are angry?”

  Zimin bent toward him, and poured a wave of hissing words upon Klimkov.

  “Yes, go to the devil! I know without you that they are tracking me. What’s the matter? Is business going badly among you? Did you think you’d buy me? And betray people behind my back? Or did you want to throw a sop to your conscience? Go to hell! I say, go, or else I’ll give you a black eye.”

  Yevsey started from his leaning posture, and walked off.

  “Vermin!” he heard breathed behind him contemptuously.

  Klimkov stopped, turned around, and for the first time swore at anybody with the whole power of his voice:

  “Vermin yourself! You —— cur!”

  Zimin did not rejoin. His steps were inaudible. Somewhere Yevsey heard the snow crunching under the runners of a cab and the grinding of iron on stone.

  “He went back there,” thought Klimkov, walking slowly along the pavement. “He will tell. Masha will curse me.” He spat out, then hummed:

  “Oh, garden, garden mine!” He stopped at a lamp-post, feeling he had to calm himself.

  “Here I am, and I can sing if I want to. If a policeman hears it and asks, ‘What are you bawling there?’ I’ll show him my ticket from the Department of Safety. ‘Oh, excuse me!’ he’ll say. But if the joiner should sing, he’ll be hustled off to the station-house, and they’ll give him a cudgelling. ‘Don’t disturb the peace!’” Klimkov smiled, and peered into the darkness. “Well, brother, won’t you strike up a song?”

  However this failed to calm him as he had expected. His heart was sad, and a bitter soapy saliva seemed to be glued in his mouth, making tears well up in his eyes.

  “O Ga-a-a-arden, ga-a-a-arden mine!

  Green is this garden of mine.”

  He sang with the full power of his lungs, shutting his eyes tight. This did not help either. The dry, prickly tears trickled through his lids, and chilled his cheeks.

  “Ky-a-b!” Klimkov called in a low voice, still trying to put on a bold front. But when he had seated himself in the sleigh, his body grew faint, as if a great many tightly drawn fibres had suddenly burst within him. His head drooped, and swaying from side to side in his seat he mumbled:

  “A fine insult—very strong—thank you! Oh, you good people, wise people—”

  This complaining was pleasant. It filled his heart with drunken sweetness. Yevsey had often felt this sweetness in his childhood. It set him in a martyr-like attitude toward people, and made him more significant to himself.

  CHAPTER XIX

  In the morning Yevsey lay in bed frowning up at the ceiling.

  “Put my foot into it!” he thought dismally, as the recollection of what had happened the day before came back to him. “No, I oughtn’t to track people, but track myself.” The idea seemed strange to him. “How’s that, though? Am I rascally toward myself?”

  He remembered the melancholy hazel eyes of the joiner, the expression of dignity on his thin face, and his assured voice as he said, “It’s chilly.” Suddenly Yevsey was perplexed to feel within himself something alien, something ready to struggle with him. He rose to his feet, took in as much air as he could, and for a long time stood without emitting breath, as if to stifle inside himself that which was alien and which hindered him.

  “I must stop all this. What do I want it for?” he urged himself. Nevertheless ease did not return. He began to dress lazily, compelling himself to think about the task of the day.

  Now he seldom went about with goods, because there was much other work to be done. This day, for instance, he was to go to a factory suburb to observe the workingmen, with the object of discovering the persons who distributed proclamations.

  He smeared his hands with soot and oil, then washed them with soap, after which an oily film was left, such as on the hands of metal workers. This was not essential. But Klimkov liked to dye his tufty hair, and color his brows and mustache. Such proceedings made his work more interesting, and heightened its gravity.

  The handsome Grokhotov had been very assiduous in teaching Yevsey the art of disguising his face and figure. Grokhotov was sincerely attracted by the work. He possessed a large supply of beards, mustaches, and wigs of all colors, and could paste scars and warts on the face. Sometimes he would display his mimic arts to his comrades. Suddenly, right in everybody’s presence, he would give his face, voice, and figure a striking resemblance to one of the officials. Or he would cackle like a goose, roar like a lion, bark like a dog, or meow like a cat. His astonished audience praised him generously, and held their sides with laughter, while he, smiling sedately, declared modestly:

  “Just the A B C’s. Wait until I’ve been at it a year. Then I’ll go on the stage. I’ll hit off all the celebrities, and I’ll imitate every animal on earth.”

  Melnikov would look at him with contempt, and spit out. Once he even shouted:

  “Hey, you clown, show us a louse.”

  “The louse is a mute insect,” remarked the spy.

  “Well, then, profit by its example. Eat and keep quiet.”

  While dressing Klimkov remembered this interchange of words, which in turn recalled Anatol.

  “There,” he thought, “Anatol would have made a good spy. But Zimin wouldn’t do at all. His eyes are in the way. You can recognize him by the eyes at once. He certainly wants to take Masha as his mistress.”

  Yevsey stopped at the door, his heart unpleasantly gripped by this conjecture. But the next instant he waved his hand carelessly.

  “To the devil with all of them! What do I care?”

  This thought, which had calmed him before, now irritated a sore spot in his feelings.

  The sun was shining, water flowed from the roofs babbling and washing away the dirty reddish snow. The people walked quickly and merrily. The good chimes of the Lenten bells floated lengthily in the warm moist atmosphere, mingling in a broad ribbon of soft sounds, which waved in the air, and floated from the city into the pale bluish distance.

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p; “Now to go off somewhere, to walk in the fields, in the deserts,” thought Yevsey, as he entered the narrow streets of the factory suburb.

  Round about him rose the red filthy walls, supporting themselves one against the other. The sky over them was besmirched with smoke, the air was steeped in the stifling odor of warm oil. White teeth gleamed angrily in the dirty faces of the workingmen. All the surroundings were unlovely, and the eyes quickly wearied in looking upon the smoked stone cages in which the men worked.

  At noon Klimkov, exhausted and feeling insulted by everything he saw, entered a tavern, where he ordered dinner to be brought to him at a small table next to a window. He reluctantly listened to the people’s conversation. There were not many, but all were workingmen, who lazily cast short words at one another as they ate and drank. The only lively sound was of a young incessant voice which reached him from a corner.

  “No, think, where does wealth come from?”

  The person who spoke was a broad-shouldered, curly-haired fellow. Yevsey looked at him in vexation, and turned away. He frequently heard talks about wealth, which always inspired him with a sense of bored perplexity. He felt they were dictated only by envy and greed. He knew that just such talks were accounted noxious, and he forcibly compelled himself to listen to them, though today he wanted to traverse the broad light streets of the city.

  “You work cheaply, and you buy dearly. Isn’t it so?” cried the curly-headed fellow. “All wealth is accumulated from the money by which we are underpaid for our work. Let’s take an example.”

  “Everybody’s greedy,” thought Yevsey. “How Masha snatched the beads yesterday! All are scoundrels. And the reason Zimin did not strike me was because he was afraid I would call the police. Ha! They drove me out, but they kept my presents. If they thought me a dirty fellow, they should have returned my presents, the skunks!”

  Filling himself with the pleasant bitterness that comes from censuring people, he was carried away by it, and no longer heard or saw anything. Suddenly, however, a merry voice fell upon his ear.

  “What, Yevsey Klimkov?”

  He raised his head hastily, and wanted to rise, but was unable to do so. He saw standing before him the curly-headed orator, whom, however, he did not recognize.

  “You don’t know me? Yakov, your cousin.”

  He laughed, held out his hand to Yevsey, and seated himself opposite him at the table. His laughter enveloped Klimkov in a warm cloud of reminiscences—of the church, the quiet ravine, the fire, and the talks of the blacksmith. Silent, smiling in embarrassment, he carefully pressed his cousin’s hand.

  “I didn’t recognize you.”

  “Of course!” exclaimed Yakov. “Your memory gets weak in the city. Various things creep upon you from all sides, so no place is left for the old. How are you getting along?”

  “So, so.”

  “Out of work?”

  “Yes.”

  Klimkov answered unwillingly. He wanted to know whereby this meeting might be dangerous for him. But Yakov spoke for both. He rapidly gave an account of the village, as if it were absolutely necessary for him to get through with it as quickly as possible. In two minutes he had told Yevsey that his father had gotten blind, that his mother was always sick, and that he had been living in the city three years working in the factory.

  “There, you’ve got the whole story.”

  Yakov was even more thickly besmudged with soot and oil than most of the men. Though his clothes were torn he seemed to be rich. He was outspoken and free in his demeanor. Klimkov looked at him with pleasure, and recalled without malice how this strong fellow had beaten him.

  “Is he a revolutionist, too?” he asked himself timidly.

  “Well, how are you getting along?” said Yakov. His broad round face, glossy and smiling good-naturedly, called for frankness in return, which Klimkov, however, did not want to give. He felt the new and alien thing that he had found in his soul in the morning growing in him. In the desire to evade Yakov’s questions, he himself began to interrogate.

  “And how are you?”

  “Work is hard, and life is easy. I like the city very much. It’s a smart thing, the city is. And how simple, how intelligible things are here. It’s true that work for us fellows is, you may say, humiliating. There’s so much work, and so little time to live. Your whole day, your whole life goes to your employer. You can keep only minutes for yourself. There’s no time to read a book. I’d like to go to theatre, but when will I sleep? Do you read books?”

  “No.”

  “Well, yes, you have no time. Isn’t it so? Though I manage to read after all. Such books as you get here! You start one, and you just sink away, as if a dear girl and you were embracing. Honest! How do you get along with girls? Lucky?”

  “So, so,” said Yevsey.

  “They love me! The girls here, too—ah, God, what a life! Do you go to the theatre?”

  “I’ve been.”

  “I love theatre. I snatch up everything, as if I were going to leave tomorrow, or die. Really! I like to hear music, everything—the zoological garden—that’s a nice place, too.”

  The red of excitement broke through the black layer of dirt of Yakov’s cheeks. His eyes burned eagerly. He smacked his lips, as if he were sucking in something refreshing and vivifying.

  Quiet envy stirred in Yevsey, envy of this healthy body with its keen appetites. He stubbornly recalled how Yakov had pummeled his sides with his powerful fists; and something sad softly hindered him from doing violence to himself. Quick, joyous speech came from Yakov without cease; the ringing exulting words and exclamations fluttered around Yevsey like swallows. He drank in the live spring-talk, involuntarily smiling. He seemed to himself to be splitting in two, torn by the desire to listen, and the awkward, almost shameful feeling that possessed him. Though he wished to speak in his turn, he feared he might betray himself. His shirt collar pressed his neck. He turned his head around, and suddenly saw Grokhotov on the street at the window. Over the spy’s left shoulder and arm hung torn breeches, dirty shirts, and jackets. He gave Yevsey a scarcely perceptible wink as he shouted in a sour voice:

  “I sell and buy old clothes.”

  “It’s time for me to be going,” said Yevsey, jumping to his feet.

  “You are free on Sundays, aren’t you? Oh, yes, you’re out of work. Well, then, let’s go to the zoological gardens. Come to me. No, I’d better go to you. Where do you live?”

  Yevsey was silent. He did not want to tell him where he lodged.

  “What’s the matter? Do you live with a girl? That doesn’t matter. You’ll introduce me to her. That’s all. What are you ashamed of? Is that it?”

  “You see I don’t live alone.”

  “Well, yes.”

  “But I don’t live with a girl. I live with an old man.”

  Yakov guffawed.

  “How funny you are! The devil knows how you speak. Well, we don’t want an old man, of course. I live with two comrades. It’s not convenient for anyone to call on me either. Come, let’s agree on a place where we can meet.”

  They decided on a meeting-place, and left the café. Yakov on taking leave gave his cousin an affectionate and vigorous handshake, and Yevsey left him in precipitate haste as if he feared his cousin would return to take it back. On his way he reflected dismally:

  “I cannot go on the side of the city where the railway station is, because I’ll meet Zimin there, and they’ll beat me. Here, the toughest place, the place they call a hot-bed of revolutionists, Yakov will be in my way. I can’t do a thing. I can’t turn anywhere.”

  A feeling of spiteful irritation glided over his soul like a grey shadow.

  “I sell old clothes,” sang Grokhotov behind his back, then whispered, “Buy a shirt from me, Klimkov.”

  Yevsey turned around, took some rag in his hand, and examined it silently, while
the spy praising the wares aloud, managed to get in a whisper, “See here, you just hit it. That curly-headed fellow, I had my eyes on him. He’s a Socialist. Hold on to him. You can hook a great many with him. He’s a young fellow, a simple sort of fellow, do you hear?” He tore the rag from Yevsey’s hand, and shouted in an offended tone, “Five kopeks for such a garment as this? You’re making sport of me, friend. Why should you insult me? Go your way, go.” And shouting his wares, Grokhotov strode down the street.

  “There, I myself am going to be under surveillance,” thought Yevsey, looking at Grokhotov’s back.

  When a spy with little experience became acquainted with a workingman, he was obliged to report the fact immediately to the spy above him. The latter either gave him as an assistant a spy with more experience, or he himself went among the workingmen; upon which the other spies would say of him enviously:

  “He ‘noosed’ himself into the provocatorship.”

  The role of provocator was considered dangerous, so by way of compensation the officers at once gave money rewards for the handing over of a group of people. All the spies not only gladly “noosed” themselves, but sometimes also even tripped one another up in the endeavor to snatch away the lucky chance. In this way the entire business was not infrequently spoiled. More than once it happened that a spy had already gotten inside a circle of workingmen, when suddenly in some secret manner they learned of his profession; whereupon they would beat him if he had not succeeded in time in slipping away from the circle. This was called “snapping the noose.”

  It was hard for Klimkov to believe that Yakov was a Socialist, though at the same time he wanted to believe it. The envy his cousin aroused was transformed again into irritation against him for having put himself in his way. Yevsey now also recalled the blows his cousin had bestowed upon him.

  In the evening, with eyes turned aside, he informed Piotr of his acquaintance.

  “Well, what of it?” asked Piotr angrily.

  “Nothing.”

  “You don’t know what you must do? Then what the devil is the use of teaching you fellows?” Piotr hastened off, crumpled, lean, with dark stains under his eyes.