humour, said to him:
"Yegor Fiodorych, I have a favour to ask of you."
"What is it?"
"There's a young man from my village here, a good boy He's
without a job."
"Well?"
"Wouldn't you take him?"
"What do I want him for?"
"Use him as man of all work round the place."
"How about Polikarpych?"
"What good is he? It's about time you dismissed him."
"That wouldn't be fair. He has been with me so many years. I can't
let him go just so, without any cause."
"Supposing he has worked for you for years. He didn't work for nothing. He got paid for it. He's certainly saved up a few dollars
for his old age."
"Saved up! How could he? From what? He's not alone in the
world. He has a wife to support, and she has to eat and drink also."
"His wife earns money, too, at day's work as charwoman."
"A lot she could have made! Enough for kvas."
"Why should you care about Polikarpych and his wife? To tell you
the truth, he's a very poor servant. Why should you throw your
money away on him? He never shovels the snow away on time, or
does anything right. And when it comes his turn to be night
watchman, he slips away at least ten times a night. It's too cold for
him. You'll see, some day, because of him, you will have trouble
with the police. The quarterly inspector will descend on us, and it
won't be so agreeable for you to be responsible for Polikarpych."
"Still, it's pretty rough. He's been with me fifteen years. And to
treat him that way in his old age—it would be a sin."
"A sin! Why, what harm would you be doing him? He won't
starve. He'll go to the almshouse. It will be better for him, too, to
be quiet in his old age."
Sharov reflected.
"All right," he said finally. "Bring your friend here. I'll see what I can do."
"Do take him, sir. I'm so sorry for him. He's a good boy, and he's
been without work for such a long time. I know he'll do his work
well and serve you faithfully. On account of having to report for
military duty, he lost his last position. If it hadn't been for that, his master would never have let him go."
IV
The next evening Gerasim came again and asked:
"Well, could you do anything for me?"
"Something, I believe. First let's have some tea. Then we'll go see my master."
Even tea had no allurements for Gerasim. He was eager for a
decision; but under the compulsion of politeness to his host, he
gulped down two glasses of tea, and then they betook themselves
to Sharov.
Sharov asked Gerasim where he had lived before end what work
he could do. Then he told him he was prepared to engage him as
man of all work, and he should come back the next day ready to
take the place.
Gerasim was fairly stunned by the great stroke of fortune. So
overwhelming was his joy that his legs would scarcely carry him.
He went to the coachman's room, and Yegor said to him:
"Well, my lad, see to it that you do your work right, so that I shan't have to be ashamed of you. You know what masters are like. If
you go wrong once, they'll be at you forever after with their fault-
finding, and never give you peace."
"Don't worry about that, Yegor Danilych."
"Well—well."
Gerasim took leave, crossing the yard to go out by the gate.
Polikarpych's rooms gave on the yard, and a broad beam of light
from the window fell across Gerasim's way. He was curio as to get
a glimpse of his future home, but the panes were all frosted over,
and it was impossible to peep through. However, he could hear
what the people inside were saying.
"What will we do now?" was said in a woman's voice.
"I don't know, I don't know," a man, undoubtedly Polikarpych,
replied. "Go begging, I suppose."
"That's all we can do. There's nothing else left," said the woman.
"Oh, we poor people, what a miserable life we lead. We work and
work from early morning till late at night, day after day, and when
we get old, then it's, 'Away with you!'"
"What can we do? Our master is not one of us. It wouldn't be worth
the while to say much to him about it. He cares only for his own
advantage."
"All the masters are so mean. They don't think of any one but
themselves. It doesn't occur to them that we work for them
honestly and faithfully for years, and use up our best strength in
their service. They're afraid to keep us a year longer, even though
we've got all the strength we need to do their work. If we weren't
strong enough, we'd go of our own accord."
"The master's not so much to blame as his coachman. Yegor
Danilych wants to get a good position for his friend."
"Yes, he's a serpent. He knows how to wag his tongue. You wait,
you foul-mouthed beast, I'll get even with you. I'll go straight to
the master and tell him how the fellow deceives him, how he steals
the hay and fodder. I'll put it down in writing, and he can convince
himself how the fellow lies about us all."
"Don't, old woman. Don't sin."
"Sin? Isn't what I said all true? I know to a dot what I'm saying,
and I mean to tell it straight out to the master. He should see with
his own eyes. Why not? What can we do now anyhow? Where
shall we go? He's ruined us, ruined us."
The old woman burst out sobbing.
Gerasim heard all that, and it stabbed him like a dagger. He
realised what misfortune he would be bringing the old people, and
it made him sick at heart. He stood there a long while, saddened,
lost in thought, then he turned and went back into the coachman's
room.
"Ah, you forgot something?"
"No, Yegor Danilych." Gerasim stammered out, "I've come—
listen—I want to thank you ever and ever so much—for the way
you received me—and—and all the trouble you took for me—
but—I can't take the place."
"What! What does that mean?"
"Nothing. I don't want the place. I will look for another one for
myself."
Yegor flew into a rage.
"Did you mean to make a fool of me, did you, you idiot? You
come here so meek—'Try for me, do try for me'—and then you
refuse to take the place. You rascal, you have disgraced me!"
Gerasim found nothing to say in reply. He reddened, and lowered
his eyes. Yegor turned his back scornfully and said nothing more.
Then Gerasim quietly picked up his cap and left the coachman's
room. He crossed the yard rapidly, went out by the gate, and
hurried off down the street. He felt happy and lighthearted.
ONE AUTUMN NIGHT
BY MAXIM GORKY
Once in the autumn I happened to be in a very unpleasant and
inconvenient position. In the town where I had just arrived and
where I knew not a soul, I found myself without a farthing in my
pocket and without a night's lodging.
Having sold during the first few days every part of my costume
without which it was still possible to go about, I passed from the
town into the quarter called "Yste," where were the steamship
wharves—a quarter which during the navigation season fermented
with boisterous, laborious life, but now was silent and deserted, for
we were in the last days of October.
Dragging my feet along the moist sand, and obstinately
scrutinising it with the desire to discover in it any sort of fragment
of food, I wandered alone among the deserted buildings and
warehouses, and thought how good it would be to get a full meal.
In our present state of culture hunger of the mind is more quickly
satisfied than hunger of the body. You wander about the streets,
you are surrounded by buildings not bad-looking from the outside
and—you may safely say it—not so badly furnished inside, and the
sight of them may excite within you stimulating ideas about
architecture, hygiene, and many other wise and high-flying
subjects. You may meet warmly and neatly dressed folks—all very
polite, and turning away from you tactfully, not wishing
offensively to notice the lamentable fact of your existence. Well,
well, the mind of a hungry man is always better nourished and
healthier than the mind of the well-fed man; and there you have a
situation from which you may draw a very ingenious conclusion in
favour of the ill fed.
The evening was approaching, the rain was falling, and the wind
blew violently from the north. It whistled in the empty booths and
shops, blew into the plastered window-panes of the taverns, and
whipped into foam the wavelets of the river which splashed noisily
on the sandy shore, casting high their white crests, racing one after
another into the dim distance, and leaping impetuously over one
another's shoulders. It seemed as if the river felt the proximity of
winter, and was running at random away from the fetters of ice
which the north wind might well have flung upon her that very
night. The sky was heavy and dark; down from it swept incessantly
scarcely visible drops of rain, and the melancholy elegy in nature
all around me was emphasised by a couple of battered and
misshapen willow-trees and a boat, bottom upwards, that was
fastened to their roots.
The overturned canoe with its battered keel and the miserable old
trees rifled by the cold wind—everything around me was bankrupt,
barren, and dead, and the sky flowed with undryable tears…
Everything around was waste and gloomy … it seemed as if
everything were dead, leaving me alone among the living, and for
me also a cold death waited.
I was then eighteen years old—a good time!
I walked and walked along the cold wet sand, making my
chattering teeth warble in honour of cold and hunger, when
suddenly, as I was carefully searching for something to eat behind
one of the empty crates, I perceived behind it, crouching on the
ground, a figure in woman's clothes dank with the rain and
clinging fast to her stooping shoulders. Standing over her, I
watched to see what she was doing. It appeared that she was
digging a trench in the sand with her hands—digging away under
one of the crates.
"Why are you doing that?" I asked, crouching down on my heels
quite close to her.
She gave a little scream and was quickly on her legs again. Now
that she stood there staring at me, with her wide-open grey eyes
full of terror, I perceived that it was a girl of my own age, with a
very pleasant face embellished unfortunately by three large blue
marks. This spoilt her, although these blue marks had been
distributed with a remarkable sense of proportion, one at a time,
and all were of equal size—two under the eyes, and one a little
bigger on the forehead just over the bridge of the nose. This
symmetry was evidently the work of an artist well inured to the
business of spoiling the human physiognomy.
The girl looked at me, and the terror in her eyes gradually died
out… She shook the sand from her hands, adjusted her cotton
head-gear, cowered down, and said:
"I suppose you too want something to eat? Dig away then! My
hands are tired. Over there"—she nodded her head in the direction
of a booth—"there is bread for certain … and sausages too… That
booth is still carrying on business."
I began to dig. She, after waiting a little and looking at me, sat
down beside me and began to help me.
We worked in silence. I cannot say now whether I thought at that
moment of the criminal code, of morality, of proprietorship, and all
the other things about which, in the opinion of many experienced
persons, one ought to think every moment of one's life. Wishing to
keep as close to the truth as possible, I must confess that
apparently I was so deeply engaged in digging under the crate that
I completely forgot about everything else except this one thing:
What could be inside that crate?
The evening drew on. The grey, mouldy, cold fog grew thicker and
thicker around us. The waves roared with a hollower sound than
before, and the rain pattered down on the boards of that crate more
loudly and more frequently. Somewhere or other the night-
watchman began springing his rattle.
"Has it got a bottom or not?" softly inquired my assistant. I did not understand what she was talking about, and I kept silence.
"I say, has the crate got a bottom? If it has we shall try in vain to break into it. Here we are digging a trench, and we may, after all,
come upon nothing but solid boards. How shall we take them off?
Better smash the lock; it is a wretched lock."
Good ideas rarely visit the heads of women, but, as you see, they
do visit them sometimes. I have always valued good ideas, and
have always tried to utilise them as far as possible.
Having found the lock, I tugged at it and wrenched off the whole
thing. My accomplice immediately stooped down and wriggled
like a serpent into the gaping-open, four cornered cover of the crate
whence she called to me approvingly, in a low tone:
"You're a brick!"
Nowadays a little crumb of praise from a woman is dearer to me
than a whole dithyramb from a man, even though he be more
eloquent than all the ancient and modern orators put together.
Then, however, I was less amiably disposed than I am now, and,
paying no attention to the compliment of my comrade, I asked her
curtly and anxiously:
"Is there anything?"
In a monotonous tone she set about calculating our discoveries.
"A basketful of bottles—thick furs—a sunshade—an iron pail."
All this was uneatable. I felt that my hopes had vanished… But
suddenly she exclaimed vivaciously:
"Aha! here it is!"
"What?"
"Bread … a loaf … it's only wet … take it!"
A loaf flew to my feet and after it herself, my valiant comrade. I
had already bitten off a morsel, stuffed it in my mouth, and was
chewing it…
"Come, give me some too!… And we mustn't stay here… Where
shall we go?" she looked inquiringly about on all sides… It was
dark, wet, and boisterous.
"Look! there's an upset canoe yonder … let us go there."
"Let us go then!" And off we set, demolishing our booty as we
went, and filling our mouths with large portions of it… The rain
grew more violent, the river roared; from somewhere or other
resounded a prolonged mocking whistle—just as if Someone great
who feared nobody was whistling down all earthly institutions and
along with them this horrid autumnal wind and us its heroes. This
whistling made my heart throb painfully, in spite of which I
greedily went on eating, and in this respect the girl, walking on my
left hand, kept even pace with me.
"What do they call you?" I asked her—why I know not.
"Natasha," she answered shortly, munching loudly.
I stared at her. My heart ached within me; and then I stared into the
mist before me, and it seemed to me as if the inimical countenance
of my Destiny was smiling at me enigmatically and coldly.
* * * * *
The rain scourged the timbers of the skiff incessantly, and its softpatter induced melancholy thoughts, and the wind whistled as it
flew down into the boat's battered bottom through a rift, where
some loose splinters of wood were rattling together—a disquieting
and depressing sound. The waves of the river were splashing on
the shore, and sounded so monotonous and hopeless, just as if they
were telling something unbearably dull and heavy, which was
boring them into utter disgust, something from which they wanted
to run away and yet were obliged to talk about all the same. The
sound of the rain blended with their splashing, and a long-drawn
sigh seemed to be floating above the overturned skiff—the endless,
labouring sigh of the earth, injured and exhausted by the eternal
changes from the bright and warm summer to the cold misty and
damp autumn. The wind blew continually over the desolate shore
and the foaming river—blew and sang its melancholy songs…
Our position beneath the shelter of the skiff was utterly devoid of
comfort; it was narrow and damp, tiny cold drops of rain dribbled
through the damaged bottom; gusts of wind penetrated it. We sat in
silence and shivered with cold. I remembered that I wanted to go to
sleep. Natasha leaned her back against the hull of the boat and
curled herself up into a tiny ball. Embracing her knees with her
hands, and resting her chin upon them, she stared doggedly at the
river with wide-open eyes; on the pale patch of her face they
seemed immense, because of the blue marks below them. She
never moved, and this immobility and silence—I felt it—gradually
produced within me a terror of my neighbour. I wanted to talk to
her, but I knew not how to begin.
It was she herself who spoke.
"What a cursed thing life is!" she exclaimed plainly, abstractedly, and in a tone of deep conviction.
But this was no complaint. In these words there was too much of
indifference for a complaint. This simple soul thought according to
her understanding—thought and proceeded to form a certain
conclusion which she expressed aloud, and which I could not
confute for fear of contradicting myself. Therefore I was silent, and
she, as if she had not noticed me, continued to sit there immovable.
"Even if we croaked … what then…?" Natasha began again, this
time quietly and reflectively, and still there was not one note of
complaint in her words. It was plain that this person, in the course
of her reflections on life, was regarding her own case, and had
arrived at the conviction that in order to preserve herself from the
mockeries of life, she was not in a position to do anything else but
simply "croak"—to use her own expression.
The clearness of this line of thought was inexpressibly sad and
painful to me, and I felt that if I kept silence any longer I was
really bound to weep… And it would have been shameful to have
done this before a woman, especially as she was not weeping
herself. I resolved to speak to her.
"Who was it that knocked you about?" I asked. For the moment I could not think of anything more sensible or more delicate.
"Pashka did it all," she answered in a dull and level tone.
"And who is he?"
"My lover… He was a baker."
"Did he beat you often?"
"Whenever he was drunk he beat me… Often!"
And suddenly, turning towards me, she began to talk about herself,
Pashka, and their mutual relations. He was a baker with red
moustaches and played very well on the banjo. He came to see her
and greatly pleased her, for he was a merry chap and wore nice
clean clothes. He had a vest which cost fifteen rubles and boots
with dress tops. For these reasons she had fallen in love with him,
and he became her "creditor." And when he became her creditor he made it his business to take away from her the money which her
other friends gave to her for bonbons, and, getting drunk on this
money, he would fall to beating her; but that would have been
nothing if he hadn't also begun to "run after" other girls before her very eyes.
"Now, wasn't that an insult? I am not worse than the others. Of
course that meant that he was laughing at me, the blackguard. The
day before yesterday I asked leave of my mistress to go out for a
bit, went to him, and there I found Dimka sitting beside him drunk.
And he, too, was half seas over. I said, 'You scoundrel, you!' And
he gave me a thorough hiding. He kicked me and dragged me by
the hair. But that was nothing to what came after. He spoiled
everything I had on—left me just as I am now! How could I appear
before my mistress? He spoiled everything … my dress and my
jacket too—it was quite a new one; I gave a fiver for it … and tore
my kerchief from my head… Oh, Lord! What will become of me
now?" she suddenly whined in a lamentable overstrained voice.
The wind howled, and became ever colder and more boisterous…
Again my teeth began to dance up and down, and she, huddled up
to avoid the cold, pressed as closely to me as she could, so that I
could see the gleam of her eyes through the darkness.
"What wretches all you men are! I'd burn you all in an oven; I'd cut you in pieces. If any one of you was dying I'd spit in his mouth,
and not pity him a bit. Mean skunks! You wheedle and wheedle,
you wag your tails like cringing dogs, and we fools give ourselves
up to you, and it's all up with us! Immediately you trample us
underfoot… Miserable loafers'"
She cursed us up and down, but there was no vigour, no malice, no
hatred of these "miserable loafers" in her cursing that I could hear.
The tone of her language by no means corresponded with its
subject-matter, for it was calm enough, and the gamut of her voice
was terribly poor.
Yet all this made a stronger impression on me than the most
eloquent and convincing pessimistic bocks and speeches, of which
I had read a good many and which I still read to this day. And this,
you see, was because the agony of a dying person is much more
natural and violent than the most minute and picturesque
descriptions of death.
I felt really wretched—more from cold than from the words of my
neighbour. I groaned softly and ground my teeth.
Almost at the same moment I felt two little arms about me—one of
them touched my neck and the other lay upon my face—and at the
same time an anxious, gentle, friendly voice uttered the question:
"What ails you?"
I was ready to believe that some one else was asking me this and
not Natasha, who had just declared that all men were scoundrels,
and expressed a wish for their destruction. But she it was, and now
she began speaking quickly, hurriedly.
"What ails you, eh? Are you cold? Are you frozen? Ah, what a one
you are, sitting there so silent like a little owl! Why, you should
have told me long ago that you were cold. Come … lie on the
ground … stretch yourself out and I will lie … there! How's that?
Now put your arms round me?… tighter! How's that? You shall be
warm very soon now… And then we'll lie back to back… The
night will pass so quickly, see if it won't. I say … have you too
been drinking?… Turned out of your place, eh?… It doesn't
matter."
And she comforted me… She encouraged me.
May I be thrice accursed! What a world of irony was in this single
fact for me! Just imagine! Here was I, seriously occupied at this
very time with the destiny of humanity, thinking of the re-
organisation of the social system, of political revolutions, reading
all sorts of devilishly-wise books whose abysmal profundity was
certainly unfathomable by their very authors—at this very time. I
say, I was trying with all my might to make of myself "a potent
active social force." It even seemed to me that I had partially
accomplished my object; anyhow, at this time, in my ideas about
myself, I had got so far as to recognise that I had an exclusive right
to exist, that I had the necessary greatness to deserve to live my
life, and that I was fully competent to play a great historical part
therein. And a woman was now warming me with her body, a
wretched, battered, hunted creature, who had no place and no value
in life, and whom I had never thought of helping till she helped me
herself, and whom I really would not have known how to help in
any way even if the thought of it had occurred to me.
Ah! I was ready to think that all this was happening to me in a
dream—in a disagreeable, an oppressive dream.
But, ugh! it was impossible for me to think that, for cold drops of
rain were dripping down upon me, the woman was pressing close