The Maxim Gorky

by Maxim Gorky

  “Kireelka!” cried the district judge.

  The unhappy-looking peasant jumped to his feet, and pulling off his hat, bowed low before the judge; at the same time placing himself in a position which gave him the appearance of offering his head for decapitation.

  “Well, is it coming soon?”

  “It won’t detain your honour long; it will put in directly. Just see, your honour: this is the way it comes. At this rate it can’t help getting in in time. A little higher up there is a small headland; if it touches that, all will be right. It will all depend on that large block of ice. If that gets fixed in the passage by the headland, then all is up, for the ferry will get squeezed in the narrow passage, and all movement will be stopped.”

  “That’s enough! Hold your tongue!”

  The peasant closed his lips with a snap, and was silent.

  “Devil take it all!” cried the judge indignantly. “I told you, you idiot, to send two boats over to this side, didn’t I?”

  “Yes, your honour, you did,” replied the peasant, with an air of having deserved blame.

  “Well, and why did you not do so?”

  “I hadn’t time, because it went off all of a sudden.”

  “You blockhead!” replied the judge; then turning to Mamaieff, “These stupid asses can’t even understand ordinary language!”

  “Yes, that’s true; but then they’re nothing but peasants,” sneered Manaieff, with an ingratiating smirk. “They’re a silly race—a dull set of wooden blockheads; but let us hope that this renewed energy of the Zemstvo, this increase of schools, this enlightenment, this education”—

  “Schools! Oh yes, indeed! Reading—rooms, magic lanterns! A fine story! I know what it all means. But I’m no enemy to education, as you know yourself. And I know by experience that a good whipping educates quicker and better than does anything else. Birch rods cost the peasant nothing, whereas education strips him bare to the skin, and causes him more suffering than can any rod. Up to the present time education has brought nothing but ruin to the peasant. That’s my opinion. I don’t, however, object to their being taught; I only say wait a little.”

  “That’s it!” exclaimed the merchant, in a tone of voice that denoted thorough agreement. “It would really be better to wait a little; times are hard for the peasants just now. Failing harvests, sickness and disease, their unfortunate weakness for strong drinks, all these things undermine their prosperity, and then, on the top of this, they pile schools and reading-rooms! What’s to be done for the peasant under such circumstances? There is nothing to be done for him, believe me.”

  “Yes; nobody knows that better than you do, Nitrita Pavlovitch,” remarked Isaiah. His tone was firm but scrupulously polite, and he sighed devoutly as he spoke.

  “I should think so, indeed! Haven’t I been seventeen years among them? As for education, my opinion is this: if education is given at the proper time it’s all right, then it may benefit people. But if—excuse the expression—I have an empty belly, I don’t want to learn anything except, maybe, how to rob and steal.”

  “No, indeed, there’s no good at all in education!” exclaimed Isaiah, assuming an expression of good-natured respect.

  Mamaieff glanced at him, and drew in his lips.

  “There’s a peasant for you, that fellow Kireelka!” cried the judge, turning to us with something almost of solemnity in his face and in his voice. “Just look at him, please. He is anything but an ordinary peasant—he is a rare sort of animal! During the fire on board the steamer Gregory this ragamuffin, this gnat, rescued without anyone’s assistance six persons. It was late autumn then; for four long hours he laboured in peril of his life, soaked to the skin, for rain was coming down in torrents. When he had rescued six lives, he quietly disappeared; they looked for him everywhere, for they wanted to recompense him, to give him a medal for his bravery; and at last they found him, stealing away to hide himself in the dark woods. He has always managed his affairs well; he has been thrifty; he drove his young daughter-in-law into her grave; his old wife beats him sometimes with logs of wood; he is a drunkard, and at the same time he is pious. He sings in the church choir, and he possesses a fine beehive with good swarms of bees; added to all this, he is a great thief! Once a barge got stopped here, and he was caught stealing; he had carried off three bags of plums. You see what a curious character he is!”

  This speech made us all turn our attention to the clever peasant, who stood in front of us with eyes cast down, and sniffing vigorously. His gaze was fixed on the elegant shoes of the district judge, and two suggestive little wrinkles played round the corner of his mouth, though his lips were firmly closed, and his face was void of all expression.

  “Come, let us examine him. Tell us, Kireelka, what benefits are to be derived from learning to read?”

  Kireelka sighed, moved his lips, but no word escaped from them.

  “Come now, you can read!” continued the judge, in a more imperative tone. “You must know whether learning to read has made it easier for you to live or not!”

  “That depends upon circumstances,” said Kireelka, dropping his head still lower on his breast.

  “But you must tell us something more definite than that. You can read and write, so you surely can say whether you gain any benefit by it?”

  “Benefit, well perhaps. But no, I think there is more; that is, if we look upon it in the right light, those who teach us may gain something by it.”

  “What can they gain by it? And who do you mean by ‘they’?”

  “Well, I mean the teachers, or maybe the Zemstvo, or somebody.”

  “You stupid creature! But I ask you about yourself; for you personally, is it of any use?”

  “That is just as you wish, your honour.”

  “How just as I wish?”

  “Why, to be sure, just as you wish. You see, you are our masters.”

  “Be off with you!”

  The ends of the judge’s moustache quivered, and his face grew very red.

  “Well, you see, he has said little, but I think you are well answered. No, gentlemen, the time is not yet ripe for teaching the peasant his A B C; he must be thoroughly disciplined first. The peasant is nothing but a vicious child; that is what he is. Nevertheless, it is of him that the foundations are made. Do you understand? He is the groundwork, the base of the pyramid of the State. If that base should suddenly begin to shake, do you not understand what serious disorder might be produced in the State?”

  “That’s quite true,” reflected Mamaieff. “Certainly the foundations ought to be kept strong.”

  As I also was interested in the cause of the peasants, I, at this point, joined in the conversation, and in a short time all four of us were hotly and eagerly deciding the future of the peasantry. The true vocation of every individual seems to be to lay down rules for his neighbour’s conduct; and those preachers are in the wrong who declare that we are all egoists; for in our altruistic aspirations to improve the human race, we forget our own shortcomings; and this may account for the fact that much of the evil of the world is concealed from us. We continued thus to argue, whilst the river wound its serpentine course in front of our eyes, swishing against the banks with its cold grey scales of ice.

  In the same way our conversation twisted and wound like an angry snake, that flings itself now on one side, and now on the other, in the endeavour to seize its prey, which nevertheless continues to escape. And the cause of all our talk, the peasant himself, who sat there, at no great distance from us, on the sandy bank, in silence, and with a countenance wholly devoid of expression—who was he, and what was he?

  Mamaieff again took up the conversation.

  “No, he is not such a fool as you say; he is not really stupid; it’s not so easy to get round him.”

  The district judge seemed to be losing his temper. “I don’t say he is a fool; I say he is demo
ralised!” “Pray don’t misunderstand me. I say he has no control over himself. No control such as it is necessary to exercise over children—that is where the root of the evil lies.”

  “And with all due deference, I beg to think that there is nothing wrong with him! He is one of the Great Maker’s children, like all of us; but, I must apologise perhaps for mentioning it, he is tormented out of his senses. I mean, bad government has deprived him of all hope for the future.”

  It was Isaiah who spoke in a suave, respectful voice, smiling softly, and sighing all the time. His eyes were half closed, as if he feared to look straight at anyone; but the swelling on the side of his head seemed to be overflowing with laughter, ready to burst into loud mirth, but not daring to do so. “I for my part urge that there is nothing the matter with the peasant but hunger. Only give him enough good food, and he would soon be everything we I could desire.”

  “You believe he is starved!” exclaimed the judge irritably. “In the devil’s name, what makes you think so?”

  “To me it seems quite clear.”

  “For goodness’ sake, do tell me! Why, fifty years ago, he did not know what hunger meant. He was then well fed, healthy, humble—h’m! I did not mean that exactly. I meant to say—I—I—myself am hungry just now! And hungry—devil take him!—because of his stupidity. Come now, what do you think of that? I had given orders for the boats to be sent over here to wait for me. Well, when I get here, there sits Kireelka, just as if nothing were the matter. No, really, they are a dreadful set of idiots, I assure you. I mean they have not the least respect or the least obedience for the commands of those who are set in authority over them.”

  “Well, it would be a good thing if we could get something to eat,” said Mamaieff in a melancholy voice.

  “Ah, it would indeed!” sighed Isaiah.

  Suddenly all four of us, who a few moments before had been snarling irritably at each other over our argument, grew silent, feeling suddenly united by the common pangs of hunger, felt in common. We all turned towards poor Kireelka, who grew confused under our gaze, and began dragging at his hat.

  “Whatever have you done with that boat—eh?” Isaiah asked him reproachfully.

  “Well, supposing the boat had been here, you couldn’t have eaten it,” replied Kireelka, with a hangdog look on his face, which made us all turn our backs on him.

  “Six mortal hours have I been sitting here!” ejaculated Mamaieff, taking out his gold watch and looking at it.

  “There now, you see!” angrily exclaimed the judge, twisting his moustache. “And this wretch says there will be a block in the ice directly, and I want to know if we shall get off before that—eh?”

  It almost appeared as if the judge imagined that Kireelka had some power over the river, and considered that he was entirely to blame for our long delay. However that might be, the judge’s question set all poor Kireelka’s muscles in motion. He crawled to the very edge of the bank, shaded his eyes with his hand, and with a troubled look on his face tried to peer out into the distance. His lips moved, and he spasmodically kicked out one leg, as if he were trying either to work a spell or to utter some inaudible commands to the river.

  The ice was moving slowly down in an ever more compact mass, the grey-blue blocks ground against each other with a grating sound as they broke, cracked, and split into small fragments, sometimes showing the muddy waters below, and then once again hiding them from view. The river had the appearance of some enormous body eaten by some terrible skin disease, as it lay spread out before us, covered with scabs and sores; while some invisible hand seemed to be trying to purify it from the filthy scales which disfigured its surface. Any minute it seemed to us we might behold the river, freed from its bondage, and flowing past us in all its might and beauty, with its waves once more sparkling and gleaming under the sunlight, which, piercing the clouds, would cast bright, joyful glances earthwards.

  “They will be here soon now, your honour!” exclaimed Kireelka in a cheerful voice. “The ice is getting thinner there, and they are just at the headland now.”

  He pointed with his cap, which he held in his hand, into the distance, where, however, I could see nothing but ice.

  “Is it far from here to Olchoff?”

  “Well, your honour, by the nearest way it would be about five versts.”

  “Devil take it all! A-hem. I say, have you got anything with you? Potatoes or bread?”

  “Bread? Well, yes, your honour, I have got a bit of bread with me, but as for potatoes—no—I haven’t any; they didn’t yield this year.”

  “Well, have you got the bread with you?”

  “Yes, here it is, inside my shirt.”

  “Faugh! Why the devil do you put it into your pazoika?”

  “Well, there isn’t much of it—only a pound or two; and it keeps warmer there.”

  “You fool! I wish I had sent my man over to Olchoff; he might have got some milk or something else there; but this idiot kept on saying, ‘Very so-on, very so-on!’ The devil! how vexing it all is!”

  The judge continued to twist his moustache angrily, but the merchant cast longing glances in the direction of the peasant’s pazoika. This latter stood with bowed head, slowly raising his hand towards his shirt front. Isaiah meanwhile was making signs to him. When he caught sight of them he moved noiselessly towards my friend, keeping his face turned to the judge’s back.

  The ice was still gradually diminishing, and already fissures showed themselves between the blocks, like wrinkles on a pale, bloodless face. The play of these wrinkles seemed to give various expressions to the river, all of them alike cold and pensive, though sometimes sad or mocking, or even disfigured by pain. The heavy, damp mass of clouds overhead seemed to look down on the movements of the ice with a stolid, passionless expression. The grating of the ice blocks against the sand sounded now like a frightened whisper, awakening in those who listened to it a feeling of despondency.

  “Give me a bit of your bread,” I heard Isaiah say in a low whisper.

  At the same moment the merchant gave a grunt, and the judge called out in a loud, angry voice, “Kireelka, bring the bread here!” The poor peasant pulled off his cap with one hand, whilst with the other he drew the bread out of his shirt, laid it on his cap, and presented it to the judge, bending and bowing low, like a court lackey of the time of Louis XV. Taking the bread in his hand, the judge examined it with something like a look of disgust, smiled sourly, and turning to us, said—

  “Gentlemen, I see we all aspire to the possession of this piece of bread, and we all have a perfectly equal right to it—the right of hungry people. Well, let us divide equally this frugal meal. Devil take it! it is indeed a ludicrous position we are in! But what else is there to do? In my haste to start before the road got spoiled—Allow me to offer you”—

  With this he handed a piece of the bread to Mamaieff. The merchant looked at it askance, cocked his head on one side, measured with his eye the piece of bread, and bolted his share of it. Isaiah took what was left and gave me my share of it. Once more we sat down side by side, this time silently munching our—what shall I call it? For lack of a better word to describe it, I suppose I must call it bread. It was of the consistency of clay, and it smelt of sheepskin, saturated with perspiration, and with the stale odour of rotten cabbage; its flavour no words could express! I ate it, however, as I silently watched the dirty fragments of the river’s winter attire float slowly past.

  “Now this is what they call bread!” said our judge, looking reproachfully at the sour lump in his hand. “This is the Russian peasant’s food! He eats this stuff while the peasants of other countries eat cheese, good wheaten bread, and drink wine. There is sawdust, trash, and refuse of all sorts in this bread; and this is our peasant’s food on the eve of the twentieth century! I should like to know why that is so?”

  As the question seemed addressed to the merchant, he
sighed deeply, and meekly answered, “Yes, it’s not very grand food—not attractive!”

  “But I ask you why, sir?” demanded the judge.

  “Why? I suppose because the land is exhausted, if I may say so.”

  “Ahem! Nonsense, no such thing! All this talk about exhausted land is useless; it’s nothing but a fancy of the statisticians.”

  On hearing this remark Kireelka sighed deeply, and crushed his hat down on his head.

  “You tell me now, my good fellow, how does your land yield?” said the judge.

  “Well, that depends. When the land is healthy it yields—well, as much as you can want.”

  “Come, now, don’t try to get out of it! But give a straight answer. Does your land give good crops?”

  “If—-that is—then”—

  “Don’t lie!”

  “If good hands work it, why, then, it is all right” “Ah-ha! Do you hear that? Good hands! There it is! No hands to work the land! And why? What do we see? Drunkenness and slackness, idleness, sloth. There is no authority over the peasants. If they happen to have a bad crop one year, well, then, the Zemstvo comes at once to their aid, saying, ‘Here is seed for you; sow your land, my friend. Here is bread; eat it, my good friend.’ Now I tell you, this is all wrong! Why did the land yield good harvests up till 1861? Because when the crops were not good the peasant was brought before his master, who asked him, ‘How did you sow? How did you plough?’ and so on. The master then gave him some seed, and if the crops were then not good the peasant answered for it with a scarred back. His crops after that were sure to be good. Whereas, now he is protected by the Zemstvo, and has lost his capacity for work. It’s all because there is no master over him to teach him to use his senses!”

  “Yes, that’s just it. The proprietors knew well how to make their serfs work!” said Mamaieff, with assurance. “They could make what they liked out of the moujiks!”