Maksim Gorky

“ To us both, as I have said before, all the workmen seemed to be good people, but their lives were bad, unworthy of them, unbearably dull. At the time of the winter snowstorms, when everything on the earth—the houses, the trees—was shaken, howled, and wept, and in Lent, when the melancholy bells rang out, the dullness of it all flowed over the workshop like a wave, as oppressive as lead, weighing people down, killing all that was alive in them, driving them to the tavern, to women, who served the same purpose as vodka in helping them to forget. ”

“ I often wondered why Grigori Shishlin was the master and Phoma Tuchkov the workman. A strong, fair fellow, with curly hair, an aquiline nose, and gray, clever eyes in his round face, Phoma was not like a peasant. If he had been well-dressed, he might have been the son of a merchant of good family. He was gloomy, taciturn, businesslike. Being well educated, he kept the accounts of the contractor, drew up the estimates, and could set his comrades to work successfully, but he worked unwillingly himself.
"You won't make work last forever," he said calmly. He despised books. ”

“ When grandmother came to see me I used to tell her joyfully about Queen Margot, and she, taking a pinch of snuff with great enjoyment, said heartily:
"Well, well; that is very nice. You see, there are plenty of good people about. You only have to look for them, and then you will find them."
And one day she suggested:
"How would it be if I went to her and said thank you for what she does for you?"
"No; it is better not."
"Well, if you don't want me to——Lord! Lord! how good it all is! I would like to go on living for ever and ever!" ”

“ The horses quivered with the effort of making their way through the snow-drifts. From the belfry of the church behind the shop the bells rang out with a melancholy sound every day. It was Lent, and every stroke of the bell fell upon my brain as if it had been a pillow, not hurting, but stupefying and deafening, me. One day when I was in the yard unpacking a case of new goods just received, at the door of the shop, the watchman of the church, a crooked old man, as soft as if he were made of rags and as ragged as if he had been torn to pieces by dogs, approached me. ”

“ Grandmother prostrated herself on the grave, sobbed and groaned, and went away, followed by grandfather, his eyes hidden by the peak of his cap, clutching at his worn coat.
"They have sown the seed in unplowed ground," he said suddenly, running along in front, just like a crow on the plowed field.
"What does he mean?" I asked grandmother. "God bless him! He has his thoughts," she answered.
It was hot. Grandmother went heavily; her feet sank in the warm sand. She halted frequently, mopping her perspiring face with her handkerchief. ”

“ Sitanov's quiet words stuck in my memory:
"In these affairs every one lies; that's part of the business. Every one is ashamed; no one loves any one—but it is simply an amusement."
I did not wish to believe that "every one lied in these affairs." How about Queen Margot, then? And of course Jikharev was not lying. And I knew that Sitanov had loved a "street" girl, and she had deceived him. He had not beaten her for it, as his comrades advised him to do, but had been kind to her.
The large woman went on rocking, smiling like a corpse, waving her handkerchief. ”

“ Ephimushka lives like a woman. He is peaceable, and is harmless as far as you are concerned. He is clever, too—humpbacks are never fools! And there's Gregory Shishlin. He has a fad—he will neither take from others nor give of his own. He works for nothing; any one can take him in, but he can deceive no one. He is not governed by his reason."
"He is good, then?"
Osip looked at me as if I were a long way from him, and uttered these memorable words:
"True enough, he is good. To be good is the easiest way for lazy people. To be good, my boy, does not need brains." ”

“ The consumptive Davidov also moved his feet about the floor, and coughed from the dust, smoke, and the strong odor of vodka and smoked sausage, which always smells like tanned hide.
They danced, and sang, and shouted, but each remembered that they were making merry, and gave each other a sort of test—a test of agility and endurance.
Tipsy Sitanov asked first one and then another:
"Do you think any one could really love a woman like that?"
He looked as if he were on the verge of tears.
Larionovich, lifting the sharp bones of his shoulders, answered:
"A woman is a woman—what more do you want?" ”

“ As I walked along I thought how nice it would be to be a brigand; to rob the greedy and give the spoil to the poor; to make them all happy and satisfied, neither envying nor scolding one another, like bad-tempered curs. It was good to go thus to grandmother's God, to her Holy Virgin, and tell them all the truth about the bad lives people led, and how clumsily and offensively they buried one another in rubbishy sand. ”

“ I don't think I can remember a summer when the forests beyond the Volga did not catch fire. Every July the sky was clouded by a muddy yellow smoke; the leaden sun, all its brightness gone, looked down on the earth like a bad eye.
"As for forests, who cares about them?" said Osip. "They all belong to the nobles, or the crown; the peasants don't own them. And if towns catch fire, that is not a very serious business either. Rich people live in towns; they are not to be pitied. ”

“ Toward Petr and Grigori he behaved with good-natured derision, like a grown-up person towards children, and he said to Osip:
"Braggarts! Each shows the other his cleverness, as if they were playing at cards. One says: 'My cards are all such and such a color,' and the other says, 'And mine are trumps!'"
Osip observed hesitatingly:
"How could it be otherwise? Boasting is only human; all the girls walk about with their chests stuck out."
"All, yes, all. It is God, God all the time. But they hoard up money themselves!" said Ardalon impatiently. ”

“ The woods came to meet us like a dark army; the fir-trees spread out their wings like large birds; the birches looked like maidens. The acrid smell of the marshes flowed over the fields. My dog ran beside me with his pink tongue hanging out, often halting and snuffing the air, and shaking his foxlike head, as if in perplexity. Grandfather, in grandmother's short coat and an old peakless cap, blinking and smiling at something or other, walked as cautiously as if he were bent on stealing. ”

“ All human creatures are strangers to one another despite their sweet words and smiles. And more; we are all strangers on the earth, too; no one seems to be bound to it by a powerful feeling of love. Grandmother alone loved to be alive, and loved all creatures—grandmother and gracious Queen Margot.
Sometimes these and similar thoughts increased the density of the dark fog around me. Life had become suffocating and oppressive; but how could I live a different life? Whither could I go? I had no one to talk to, even, except Osip, and I talked to him more and more often. ”

“ She merely said calmly:
"You are young yet; you don't know how to live."
"That is what they all say to one another, 'You don't know how to live'—peasants, sailors, Aunt Matrena to her son. But how does one learn?"
She compressed her lips and shook her head.
"I don't know myself."
"And yet you say the same as the others!"
"And why should I not say it?" replied grandmother, calmly. "You must not be offended. You are young; you are not expected to know. And who does know, after all? Only rogues. Look at your grandfather. Clever and well educated as he is, yet he does not know." ”

“ The faceless images looked from the dark walls; the dark night pressed against the window-panes. The lamps burned dimly in the stuffy workshop; if one listened, one could hear above the heavy trampling and the din of voices the quick dropping of water from the copper wash-basin into the tub.
How unlike this was to the life I read of in books! It was painfully unlike it. At length they all grew weary of this, and Kapendiukhin put the harmonica into Salautin's hands, and cried:
"Go on! Fire away!" ”

“ He enlarged on the fact that all work disappears; certain people do it and others destroy it, neither valuing it nor understanding it.
At such times his sharp, pleasant face frowned, aged. He would sit on his bed on the floor, embracing his knees, and look long at the blue square of the window, at the roof of the shed which lay under a fall of snow, and at the stars in the winter sky.
The workmen snored, or talked in their sleep; one of them raved, choking with words; in the loft, Davidov coughed away what was left of his life. ”

“ Smouri looked much more like a fierce robber than they as he glanced loweringly at the barge and said loudly:
"Save me, God, from such a fate!"
Once I asked him:
"Why do you say that? You cook, while those others kill and steal."
"I don't cook; I only prepare. The women cook," he said, bursting out laughing; but after thinking a moment he added: "The difference between one person and another lies in stupidity. One man is clever, another not so clever, and a third may be quite a fool. To become clever one must read the right books—black magic and what not. ”

“ Sometimes I thought the stoker a fool, but more often I thought that he purposely pretended to be stupid. I asked him straight out about his youth and his wanderings around the world. The result was not what I meant it to be. Throwing his head back, almost closing his dark, copper-colored eyes, he stroked his mossy face with his hand and drawled:
"People everywhere, Brother,—everywhere,—are simple as ants! And where there are people, there is always trouble, I tell you! The greater number, of course, are peasants. The earth is absolutely strewn with muzhiks,—like autumn leaves, as we say. ”

“ I used to run about the field with the soldiers, almost to the end of the drill, and after it was finished, I used to escort them across the town to the barracks, listening to their loud songs, looking into their kind faces, all as new as five-ruble pieces just coined. The close-packed mass of happy men passing up the streets in one united body aroused a feeling of friendliness in me, a desire to throw myself in among them as into a river, to enter into them as into a forest. ”

“ The cold morning air blew against my cheeks and into my eyes. I wrapped myself in my blanket. Let come what would!
Grandmother awoke me. Standing beside me and pulling off the blanket, she said:
"Get up! Aren't you chilled? Well, were you frightened?"
"I was frightened, but don't tell any one; don't tell the other boys."
"But why not?" she asked in amazement. "If you were not afraid, you have nothing to be proud about."
As he went home she said to me gently:
"You have to experience things for yourself in this world, dear heart. If you can't teach yourself, no one else can teach you." ”

“ As Yaakov, the stoker, had done in his time, so now Osip grew and grew in my eyes, until he hid all other people from me. There was some resemblance to the stoker in him, but at the same time he reminded me of grandfather, the valuer, Petr Vassiliev, Smouri, and the cook. When I think of all the people who are firmly fixed in my memory, he has left behind a deeper impression than any of them, an impression which has eaten into it, as oxide eats into a brass bell. ”

“ The mind of man wanders in the forest of its own thoughts. Like a fierce wolf it wanders, the devil's assistant, putting the soul of man, the gift of God, on the rack! What have they imagined, these servants of the devil? The Bogomuili, [2] through whom Protestantism came, taught thus: Satan, they say, is the son of God, the elder brother of Jesus Christ, That is what they have come to! They taught people also not to obey their superiors, not to work, to abandon wife and children; a man needs nothing, no property whatever in his life; let him live as he chooses, and the devil shows him how. ”

“ The day before the feast of the Trinity my bandages were taken off, and I walked about once more, feeling as if I had come back from a grave in which I had been laid alive. Nothing can be more terrible than to lose one's sight. It is an unspeakable injury which takes away a hundred worlds from a man.
The joyful day of the Holy Trinity arrived, and, as an invalid, I was off duty from noon and went to the kitchen to pay a visit to the orderlies. All of them, even the strict Tuphyaev, were drunk, and toward evening Ermokhin struck Sidorov on the head with a block of wood. ”

“ If a song is nothing but a diversion, it comes from the devil!"
"All right! You'd better sing again."
"I can always sing, even in my sleep," agreed Kleshtchkov, and carefully clearing his throat he began to sing.
And all nonsense, trashy talk, and ambitions vanished into smoke as by a miracle; the refreshing streams of a different life, reflective, pure, full of love and sadness, flowed over us all. ”

“ Having drunk the bottle, he sucked his mustache and said:
"If you were older, my bird, I could teach you a lot. I have something to say to a man. I am no fool. But you must read books. In them you will find all you need. They are not rubbish—books. Would you like some beer?"
"I don't care for it."
"Good boy! And you do well not to drink it. Drunkenness is a misfortune. Vodka is the devil's own business. If I were rich, I would spur you on to study. An uninstructed man is an ox, fit for nothing but the yoke or to serve as meat. All he can do is to wave his tail." ”

“ Gregory Shishl in, pressing his luxuriant beard to his breast with his hands, said in a sing-song voice: "Brothers, let us do our business without cheating. If we will only live honestly, how happy and peaceful we shall be, eh? Shall we not, dear people?"
His blue eyes darkened, grew moist; at that moment he looked wonderfully handsome. His question seemed to have upset them all; they all turned away from him in confusion.
"A peasant does not cheat much," grumbled good-looking Osip with a sigh, as if he pitied the peasant. ”