by Maxim Gorky
Gríshka waved his hand.
“Well…the devil take the whole lot of you!—And what the devil do I want you for, anyway?”
“You’re a savage blockhead,” began the doctor, argumentatively.
“Don’t you bark!” shouted Gríshka.—“Well, you cursed trollop, I’m going! I think we shall never see each other again…but perhaps we shall…that will be as I choose! But if we do meet again—it won’t be good for you, I warn you!”
And Orlóff moved toward the door.
“Good-bye…tragedian!…” said the doctor sardonically, when Gríshka came on a level with him.
Grigóry halted, and raising his mournful flashing eyes to him, he said in a repressed, low tone:
“Don’t you touch me…don’t wind the spring up tight…it has unwound, and hasn’t hit anybody…so let it go at that.”
He picked up his cap from the floor, stuck it on his head, bristled up, and went out, without even glancing at his wife.
The doctor gazed searchingly at her. She stood before him pale, with an insensible sort of face.—The doctor nodded his head in the direction of Grigóry, and asked her:
“What is the matter with him?”
“I don’t know.…”
“Hm.… And where will he go now?”
“On a drunken spree!”—replied Mrs. Orlóff firmly.
The doctor frowned and went away.
Matréna looked out of the window. The figure of a man was moving swiftly along, in the evening twilight, through wind and rain, from the barracks to the town. The figure was alone, in the midst of the wet, gray plain…The face of Matréna Orlóff turned still paler, she went into a corner, fell on her knees, and began to pray, zealously executing ground-reverences,18 sighing out her petitions in a passionate whisper, and rubbing her breast and her throat with hands which trembled with emotion.
* * * *
One day I was inspecting the trade-school in N.… My guide was a well-known man, one of its founders. He conducted me over this model school, and explained things to me:
“As you see, we have reason to boast.… Our nurseling is growing and developing splendidly. The teaching corps are wonderfully well matched. In the boot and shoe shop, for example, we have a woman teacher, a plain female shoemaker, a peasant woman, that is to say, even a very ordinary peasant woman, such a dainty, roguish creature, but of irreproachable conduct.—However, devil take that side of the matter.… Ye-es! So then, as I was saying, that shoemaker is a simple little peasant woman, but how she does work!… how cleverly she teaches her trade, with what love she treats the little children—it’s amazing! she’s an invaluable worker.… She works for twelve rubles a month, and lodgings at the school…and she supports two orphans, to hoot, on her scanty means! She’s a very interesting figure, I must tell you.”
He praised the woman shoemaker so zealously that he evoked in me a desire to make her acquaintance. This was soon arranged, and one day Matréna Ivánovna Orlóff narrated to me the sad story of her life. For a while, after she had separated from her husband, he gave her no rest:—He came to her in a drunken condition, kicked up rows, spied on her everywhere, and was merciless. She bore it patiently.
When the barracks were closed the woman doctor suggested to Matréna Ivánovna that she should get a place at the school, and defend her against her husband. Both undertakings were successful, and Mrs. Orlóff entered upon a tranquil, laborious life: under the guidance of her acquaintances, the women medical practitioners, she learned to read and write, took two orphans out of the asylum to rear,—a girl and a boy,—and was working away, content with herself, with grief and terror recalling her past. She was perfectly devoted to her pupils, understood the significance of her activity in a broad sense, discharged it in a thoroughly competent manner, and had won general interest and sympathy for herself among the managers of the school. But she was coughing with a dry, suspicious cough, an ominous flush burned on her sunken cheeks, and her gray eyes held much melancholy. Her married life with uneasy Gríshka was taking effect.
But he had dropped his wife, and it was now the third year since he had annoyed her. He sometimes made his appearance in N., but did not show himself to Matréna. He was “on the tramp,” as she defined to me his manner of life.
I succeeded in making his acquaintance. I found him in one of the dives of the town, and after two or three sittings, he and I became friends. After repeating to me the story which his wife had told me, he meditated for a little while, and then said:
“So you see, Maxím Savvátievitch, it raised me up, and then dashed me down. So I never performed any heroic deed. Even to this day, I long to distinguish myself in some way.… I’d like to mash up the whole earth into dust or assemble a gang of comrades and kill off all the Jews…down to the very last one! Or, in general, something which would set me up above all men, and so that I could spit on them from a height.… And say to them: ‘Akh, you reptiles! Why do you live? How do you live? You’re a pack of hypocritical rascals, that’s all you are!’ And then, I’d kick up my heels from above or there below, and…they’d smash into bits! Ye-es, so I would! Devil take it…it’s tiresome! And akh, how tiresome and narrow life is to me!… I thought, when I got rid of Matréshka:—‘Co-ome now, Grínya,19 sail away into freedom, the anchor’s weighed!’ On the contrary, it didn’t come out that way—the channel was shallow! Stop! And I ran aground.… But I shan’t dry up, never fear! I shall display myself! How?—the devil only knows that!… My wife? Well I consign her to all the devils! Does a man like me want a wife?… What should I do with her…when I feel drawn in all four quarters at once?… I was born with uneasiness in my heart…and it is my fate to be a tramp! The very best position in the world is free—and yet cramped! I’ve walked and ridden in all directions…and found no consolation.… Do I drink? Of course, and what of that? Vodka extinguishes the heart, all the same.… And my heart bums with a great fire.… Everything is repulsive—towns, villages, people of different calibres…Faugh! Can’t anything better be invented? They’re all down on one another.… I’d like to choke the whole lot of them! Ekh, life, you’re the devil’s great wisdom!”
The heavy door of the dram-shop where Orlóff and I were sitting, kept opening incessantly, creaking in a voluptuous sort of way as it did so. And the interior of the dram-shop aroused one’s imagination of some sort of wild beast’s maw, which was slowly but inevitably devouring, one after the other, the poor Russian people, the uneasy and the rest.
1The evening service, composed of Vespers and Matins, which is used on Saturdays, and on the Eves of most other Feast-days. Sunday begins with sunset on Saturday, in the Holy Catholic Orthodox Church of the East, and the appointed evening service is obligatory before the Liturgy can be celebrated on Sunday morning.—Translator.
2Grísha and Gríshka are the diminutives of Grigóry.—Translator.
3“Mrs. Orlóff” is rather a stiff rendering of the feminine form “Orlóva,” minus all prefix, which is not at all disrespectful in Russian, but is somewhat confusing in English.—Translator.
4In Russian towns, people go or send, every morning, to the shops for bread, cream, butter.—Translator.
5A tart, non-intoxicating, liquor—thin beer—made by fermenting sour rye bread, or rye meal. Sometimes raisins, straw or watermelon juice are used to flavor it.—Translator.
6Mótrya is the diminutive for Matréna.—Translator.
7Sénka twists his words, in a way which cannot always be reproduced. This is a fair specimen.—Translator.
8The peasant wash-basin consists of a dosed vessel which is suspended from the wall, and contains water. The water trickles through a spout or faucet, on the hands—“running” water being regarded as the only clean water. The tub in which clothes are washed is a long trough, rounded at the bottom, and mounted on supports.—Trans
lator.
9By way of economizing, the peasants do not put sugar into their tea, but nibble at it, and thus sweeten their mouths, an inelegant and inconvenient, but highly satisfactory method of operation.—Translator.
10The hero of a seventeenth century Russian fairy-tale, after the Persian tale of “Rustem.”—Translator.
11A kalátch—a delicious and favorite form of bread, particularly good in Moscow.—Translator.
12A little less than half that amount in dollars.—Translator.
13Another diminutive of Matréna.—Translator.
14A third variation (Grísha, Gríshka), of Grigóry, in the diminutive. —Translator.
15For Ilyá of Muróm and the other famous epic heroes (bogatyry) see: “The Epic Songs of Russia,” by Isabel F. Hapgood. Charles Scribner’s Sons.
16Tchizh means—a canary-bird. Tchízhik—a little canary-bird.—Translator.
17The Holy Orthodox Catholic Church of the East, of which Russia is now the most prominent representative, has four different burial-services: one for ecclesiastics, one for laymen, which undergoes certain changes if the burial takes place at Easter-tide (making the third), and one for children, or “infants,” meaning children under eight years of age. All are very beautiful and touching. The above exclamation is the general one.—Translator.
18That is—touching the forehead to the floor.—Translator.
19Another variation of Grigóry.—Translator.
KONOVÁLOFF
As I carelessly ran my eye over the newspaper, it fell upon the name of Konováloff, and as it arrested my attention, I read the following:
“Last night, Alexánder Ivánovitch Konováloff, petty burgher of the town of Muróm, aged forty, hanged himself to the ventilator of the stove in the general ward of the local prison. The suicide was arrested in Pskóff, for vagrancy, and was forwarded by stages, under police escort, to his native place. The prison authorities state that he was always a quiet, reticent, thoughtful man. The prison doctor decided that melancholia must be regarded as the cause which incited Konováloff to suicide.” I read this brief announcement in brevier type—it is the custom to print notes about the destruction of insignificant people in small type—I read it through, and reflected that I might be able to throw a somewhat clearer light upon the cause which had led that meditative man to go out of life, because I had known him, and, at one time, had lived with him. Indeed, I had not even the right to remain silent concerning him:—he was a splendid young fellow, and such as he are not often met with on life’s highway.
I was eighteen years old when I first met Konováloff. At that time, I was working in a bakery, as assistant baker. The baker was a soldier from “the musical division,” a terrible vódka-drinker, who frequently spoiled the dough, and when he was drunk, was fond of playing tunes on his lips, and strumming out various pieces with his fingers on anything that came handy. When the proprietor of the bakery reprimanded him for having spoiled his wares, or for being behindhand with them in the morning, he flew into a rage, and cursed the proprietor, cursed him mercilessly, always calling his attention, at the same time, to his musical talent.
“The dough has stood too long!”—he shouted, bristling up his long red mustache, and making a noise with his thick lips, which were always moist, for some reason or other.—“The crust is burned! The bread is raw! Akh, the devil take you, you cock-eyed spectre! Was I born into the world to do this work? Curse you and your work—I’m a musician! Do you understand? If the viola-player got drunk, I used to play the viola: if the hautboy man was under arrest, I blew the hautboy; if the cornet-à-piston has fallen ill, who can take his place? Sutchkóff, I! Glad to do my best, your Well-Born!20 Tim-tar-ram-ta-ddi! But you’re a p-peasant, katzáp!21 Pay me my wages and discharge me!”
And the proprietor, a corpulent, bloated man, with small squinting eyes which were buried in fat, and a feminine face, stamped about the floor with his short, fat legs, his huge body swaying heavily the while, and roared, in a squealing voice:
“Ruiner! Destroyer! Christ-seller of a Judas! Oh Lord, why hast Thou chastised me with such a man!” Spreading his short fingers wide apart, he raised his hands to heaven, and all of a sudden roared loudly, in an ear-splitting voice:—
“And what if I hand you over to the police for your mutiny?”
“Hand the servitor of the Tzar and the Fatherland over to the police?” bellowed the soldier, and started to administer a drubbing to the proprietor. The latter beat a retreat, spitting to one side in disgust, snorting wrathfully and cursing. This was all that he could do—it was summer, a season when it is extremely difficult to find a good baker in the Vólga river-town.
Such scenes were of almost every day occurrence. The soldier drank, spoiled the dough and played various marches and waltzes or “numbers,” as he expressed it; the proprietor gnashed his teeth, and the result of it all was, that I was obliged to work for two, which was not very logical, and was very fatiguing.
And I was highly delighted when, one day, the following scene took place between the proprietor and the soldier. “Well, soldier,” said the proprietor, making his appearance in the bakery with a beaming and satisfied countenance, and his little eyes sparkled with a malicious smile,—“well, soldier, puff out your lips, and play the campaign march!”
“What’s that for?!” gloomily said the soldier, who was lying on the tub with the dough, and, as usual, was half drunk.
“Prepare to march, corporal!” said the proprietor exultantly.
“Whither?” inquired the soldier, lowering his legs off the tub, and feeling that something was wrong.
“Wherever you like—to a Turkish woman or an English woman, as you please.”
“How am I to understand that?” shouted the soldier vehemently.
“You are to understand that I won’t keep you another hour. Go upstairs, get your wages, and take yourself off—march!”
The soldier had become accustomed to feel his strength, and the helpless position of his master, and the latter’s announcement somewhat sobered him: he could not help understanding how difficult it would be for him, with his knowledge of the trade, to find another place.
“Come now, you’re lying!…” he said with alarm, rising to his feet.
“Get out with you,—get out.…”
“Get out?”
“Clear out!”
“That means, I have worked myself out,” and the soldier shook his head sadly.… “You have sucked the blood out of me, sucked me dry, and now you turn me out. That’s clever! That’s good! Akh, you…spider!”
“I’m a spider, am I?” boiled up the proprietor.
“Yes, you are! A blood-sucking spider—that’s what you are!” said the soldier with conviction, and walked, reeling, toward the door.
The proprietor looked after him with a spiteful laugh, and his little eyes glittered joyfully.
“Go along with you, now, and get a place with somebody! Ye-es! I’ve given you such a character everywhere, my dear little dove, that you may beg as you will—no one will take you! They won’t hire you anywhere.… I’ve settled your hash for you, you rotten-headed, stupid, infernal creature!”
“Have you already hired a new baker?” I inquired.
“A new one? No, he isn’t new—he’s the old one. He was my friend. Ah, what a baker! Regular gold! But he’s a drunkard also, eh, what a drunkard! Only, he has long fits of hard drinking.… Now he’ll come, and set to work, and for three or four months he’ll strain every sinew and toil away like a bear! He’ll know no sleep, no rest, and won’t stick at the wages, no matter what you give him. He’ll work and sing! He sings so, my dear fellow, that it’s even impossible to listen to him—your heart grows heavy with it. He sings, and sings—and then he takes to drink again!”
The proprietor
sighed, and waved his hand with a hopeless gesture.
“And when he starts in to drink—there’s no stopping him. He drinks until he falls ill, or has drunk himself stark naked.… Then he feels ashamed of himself, probably, for he vanishes somewhere, like an unclean spirit at the smell of incense.… And here he is.… Have you really come, Lesá?”
“Yes,” replied a deep, chest voice from the threshold. There, with his shoulder propped against the jamb of the door, stood a tall, broad-shouldered peasant, about thirty years of age. In costume, he was a typical tramp; in face and figure, a genuine Slav—a rare specimen of the race. He wore a red cotton shirt, incredibly dirty and tattered, full trousers of coarse, home-made linen, and on one of his feet were the remains of a rubber boot, while on the other was an old leather boot-leg. His light, reddish-brown hair was tangled all over his head, and small chips, straws and bits of paper stuck in the snarls: all these things also adorned his luxuriant, light-reddish beard, which covered his chest like a fan. His long, pallid, weary face was lighted up by large, pensive blue eyes, which gazed at me with a caressing smile. And his lips which were handsome, although a trifle pale, also smiled beneath his reddish mustache. This smile seemed to say:
“This is the sort of fellow I am.… Don’t condemn me.…”
“Come in, Sashók, here’s your helper,” said the proprietor, rubbing his hands, and affectionately eyeing over the mighty form of the new baker. The latter stepped forward silently, and offered me his long hand, with the powerful wrist of a legendary hero; we exchanged greetings; he seated himself on the bench, stretched his legs out in front of him, stared at them, and said to the proprietor:
“Buy me two changes of shirts, Nikola Nikítitch, and boot-slippers.22 And some linen for a cap.”