Maksim Gorky

“ And in the cart stands a tall peasant in a white shirt, a black lambskin cap, from beneath which, intersecting his brow, hangs a lock of bright-red hair; in one hand he grasps the reins, in the other a whip, and methodically bestows one lash upon the back of the nag, and one upon the body of the little woman, already beaten until it has lost the semblance of a human being. The eyes of the red-headed man are suffused with blood, and gleam with evil triumph. His hair blends with their greenish hue. ”

“ As a man of lofty culture, he outwardly bore himself toward women as beings who were mentally his equals, but in the depths of his own soul, like all men, he thought of women sceptically and with irony. In the heart of man there is much space for faith, but very little for conviction.
They strolled slowly across the broad, almost perfectly circular glade. The road cut across it, in two dark lines of wheel-ruts, and disappeared again in the forest. In the centre of the glade, stood a small clump of graceful young birch-trees, casting lace-like shadows on the blades of the mown grass. ”

“ Whom does it annoy? People, not you: you have even begun to live better because it made its appearance."
Orlóff suddenly burst out laughing.
"Why, that's so, certainly!—I am better off, that's true, isn't it? Akh, you shrewd creature,—make the most of it! People die, and I live better in consequence, hey?—That's what life is like! Pshaw!"
He rose, and went away, laughing, to his duty. As he was walking along the corridor, he suddenly felt regret that no one except himself had heard Matréna's speech. "She spoke cleverly! A woman, a woman, and yet she understands something, too." ”

“ A cloud, magnificent and dark, was slowly floating across the sky above it. Some one of the men with pasts was snoring, the rest, still not sufficiently intoxicated, were either eating and drinking in silence, or chatting in an undertone, broken with prolonged pauses. None of them were accustomed to this dejected mood at a banquet, which was rare as to the abundance of vódka and of viands. For some reason or other, the boisterous animation characteristic of the lodging-house's inhabitants over a bottle did not flare up for a long time. ”

“ She was a wet-nurse, who "had seen better days," a tall, plump country woman, with a pock-marked face, and very handsome, though always drunken, eyes.
"You don't say so, you old devil!"—swore The Gnawed Bone, as he gazed at Símtzoff, who was smiling conceitedly.
"And why do they love me? Because I know what their souls delight in...."
"We-ell?"—exclaimed Kuválda, interrogatively.
"I know how to make them feel sorry for me.... And when a woman feels compassion—she'll even go so far as to cut a throat out of compassion. ”

“ Petúnnikoff smiled the smile of the conqueror, and went into the night lodging-house, but suddenly halted, shuddering. In the door, facing him, with a stick in his hand and a huge sack on his shoulder, stood a terrible old man, bristling like a hedgehog with the rags which covered his long body, bent beneath the weight of his burden, and with his head bowed upon his breast exactly as though he were about to hurl himself at the merchant. ”

“ How I detest the time before something is coming ... before a thunderstorm, before holidays. The thunderstorm or the holiday is all well enough in itself, but it is tiresome to wait for it. If everything could only be done at once ... you could lie down and sleep—it is winter, and cold; you wake—and it is spring, with flowers and sun ... or, the sun is shining, and, all at once, there is darkness, thunder, a downpour...."
"Perhaps you would like to have a man also change as suddenly and unexpectedly?" inquired Ippolít Sergyéevitch, with a laugh.
"A man should always be interesting...." ”

“ Wouldn't the man suddenly spring up and shout? And he remembered that he seemed to have heard someone tell: that one day, somewhere or other, people who had died of the cholera leaped out of their coffins and ran away.
[Pg 52]
As Orlóff ran to and fro in the barracks, now rubbing one patient, now placing another in the bath-tub, he felt exactly as though gruel were boiling in his brain. He recalled his wife: how was she getting on yonder? Sometimes with this recollection mingled a transitory desire to steal a minute to have a look at Matréna. ”

“ Gríshka was so strong, ardent, handsome, and Matréna was white, plump, with a spark of fire in her gray eyes,—"a buxom woman," as they called her in the court-yard. They loved each other, but their life was so tiresome, they had hardly any interests and impressions which could, occasionally, afford them the possibility of getting a rest from each other, and might have satisfied the natural demand of the human soul—to feel excitement, to think, to glow—in short, to live. ”

“ I want to know the aim of existence—that aspiration of my spirit is also ridiculed. But I am living, life is not easy, and it gives me a right to demand a categorical answer from the monopolists of wisdom—why do I live?"
Ippolít Sergyéevitch cast a sidelong glance at the face of Benkóvsky, which was glowing with emotion, and recognized the fact that that young man must be answered with words which should correspond with his own words, in the matter of the strength of stormy feeling injected into them. But, while he recognized this fact, he felt within himself a desire to retort. ”

“ Konováloff stretched himself out on the floor of the bakery, and soon fell asleep. I lay on the sacks of flour, and looked down from above upon his powerful, bearded figure, stretched out, in the fashion of an epic hero, on a mat which had been thrown down near the bin. There was an odor of hot bread, of fermented dough, of carbonic acid gas.... The day dawned, and the gray sky peeped through the panes of the windows, which were draped in shrouds of flour-dust. A peasant's cart rumbled past, and the shepherd blew his horn to assemble his flock. ”

“ How am I to live? it's not life—only convulsions ... isn't that enough to make a man angry? I understand everything, you see, only it's difficult for me to say that I can't live so ... but how I want to live ... I don't know! They heal those sick people yonder, and give them every attention—... but I'm healthy, and if my soul aches, am I any the less valuable than they? Just think of it—I'm worse off than a cholera patient.... I have convulsions in my heart—that's what the trouble is!... And you shriek at me! Do you think I'm a wild beast? A drunkard, and—that's the end of it? ”

“ In the evening, all the men with pasts learned of the captain's discovery, and, as they hotly discussed the future actions of Petúnnikoff, they depicted, in vivid colors, his amazement and wrath on the day when the messenger of the court should hand him a copy of the complaint. The captain felt himself a hero. He was happy, and everyone around him was contented. The big throng of dark figures, clad in rags, lay in the courtyard, and buzzed, and exulted, being enlivened by the event. They all knew merchant Petúnnikoff, who had passed before them many a time. ”

“ The prisoner waved his hand, and began to laugh good-humoredly.
"I'm no longer a gentleman, brother Efímushka.... I've cured myself of that. Now you and I will begin to live! Won't we? Come, now! Gather your wits together."
"Why, I don't mind..." began Efímushka, in a suppressed voice,—"only, I'm ashamed. Here I've been saying all sorts of things to you ... nonsensical words, and, in general ... a peasant—everybody knows what he's like ... So we are to pass the night here, you say? I'll just build a fire...." ”

“ Ippolít Sergyéevitch withdrew a little apart from them, and stood near the steps which led down into the park. He passed his hand over his face, and then drew his fingers across his eyes, as though he were wiping the dust from his face and eyes. He was ashamed of himself for having yielded to a burst of emotion, and this shame soon gave way to irritation against the young girl. To himself, he characterized the scene with her as a Kazák attack on a prospective husband, and he felt like announcing himself to her as a man who was utterly indifferent to her challenging beauty. ”

“ But her delirium suddenly vanished, when a loud laugh was wafted to their ears, as it rang out somewhere in the immediate vicinity.
"Do you hear that? It is Másha ... We have arrived!"
She hastened her pace, and shouted:
"Másha, á-oo!"
"Why does she shout?" thought Ippolít Sergyéevitch compassionately.
They emerged upon the bank of the river; it sloped down to the water, and on it cheerful clumps of birch-trees and aspens were capriciously scattered. And on the opposite shore, at the very water's edge, stood the lofty, silent pines, filling the air with their heavy, resinous fragrance. ”

“ All that will remain of us on earth will be, perhaps, some faded photographs, and they can never tell anyone about the joys and torments of our existence, which has been swallowed up by the unknown. Is it not terrible to believe that all we thinking and suffering beings live only for the purpose of decaying?"
Ippolít Sergyéevitch listened attentively to his speech, and said to himself:
"If you were convinced of the truth of your belief, you would be at ease. But here you are, shouting. And it is not because you are an idealist that you shout, my good fellow, but because you have weak nerves." ”

“ Alhalla sighed.
"''Tis plain that the wise mullah told me the truth-a woman is always injurious to a man: when she is handsome, she arouses in others the desire to possess her, and she delivers her husband over to the pangs of jealousy; when she is ugly, her husband, envying others, suffers from envy; but if die is neither handsome nor ugly,—a man imagines her very handsome, and when he comes to understand that he has made a mistake, he suffers again through her, that woman.'
"'Wisdom is not medicine for an aching heart ...' said the Khan. ”

“ He, also, felt a desire to say something powerful, something confident, to the old man, something which would interest Tyápa in his favor, would make him talk not in that reproachfully-surly tone, but in a different,—a soft, paternally-affectionate one. And the teacher felt something gurgling in his breast, rising in his throat ... but he could find in himself no powerful words.
"What sort of a man are you?... your soul is torn to rags ... and you have said various words.... As though you knew.... You'd better have held your tongue...." ”

“ Thou art a magnificent hard-labor prison!"—whispered Gríshka, unable to express what he so painfully felt.—"It comes from this hole, Mótrya. What are we? Something as though we were buried in the earth before our death...."
"Let's move into another lodging,"—suggested Matréna, through sweet tears, understanding his words literally.
"E-ekh! No you don't, aunty! If you betake yourself to a garret, you'll still be in a hole,... it isn't the lodging that's the hole ... but life—that's the hole!" ”

“ The window-panes of the tiny houses, of a turbid-green hue through age, stare at each other with the glances of cowardly sharpers. Up-hill, through the middle of the street, crawls a winding cart-track, which tacks back and forth among deep gullies, washed out by the rains. Here and there lie heaps of broken bricks and other rubbish, overgrown with high grass—representing the remnants or the beginnings of the constructions, unsuccessfully undertaken by the inhabitants in their fight with the floods of rain-water, which flow like torrents from the town. ”

“ Everywhere around him men were at work, wood was cracking, stone was being laid, barrows were screeching dolefully, clouds of dust were rising, something fell with a roar, and men were shouting and swearing, sighing and singing as though they were groaning. Amid all this confusion of sounds and movements, the handsome figure of my friend, as it retreated from it with firm strides, constantly tacking from side to side, stood out very sharply, and seemed to present a hint of something which explained Konováloff. ”

“ Judging from the gleam in his eyes, he must often be in a fury, and Ippolít Sergyéevitch, as he imagined him in a state of exasperation, felt loathing for the old man. The rooms were not comfortable, the wall-paper was smoke-begrimed, and the tiles of the stoves were streaked with cracks, which, however, made them look like marble. The paint had been rubbed off of the floors by the wheels of the rolling-chair, the window-frames were awry, the panes were dull, everything breathed forth an odor of age, perishing with exhaustion. ”