Maksim Gorky

“ The blacksmith spoke to Yevsey cautiously, as if groping with his words for something unintelligible to him.
"You'll surely have it good with him. He's a quiet little old man. He has run his course and left all sorts of sins behind him. Now he lives in order to eat a little bite, and he grumbles and purrs like a satiated Tom-cat."
"But isn't he a sorcerer?" asked the boy.
"Why? I should think there are no sorcerers in the cities." After reflecting a few moments, the blacksmith went on. "Anyway it's all the same to you. A sorcerer is a man, too. But remember this, a city is a dangerous place. ”

“ Once, as usual unexpectedly to himself, he took courage to speak to the Smokestack.
"Kapiton Ivanovich."
"What is it?"
"I want to ask you, if you please—"
Without looking at him, the Smokestack said:
"Get up some spunk! Get up some spunk!"
"Why do people live so badly?" Yevsey brought out with a great effort.
The old man raised his heavy brows.
"What business is it of yours?" he rejoined, looking into Klimkov's face.
Yevsey was staggered. The old man's question was like a blow on the chest. It stood before him in all the power of its inexplicable simplicity. ”

“ But now every book wants to inspire you with hostility to life and to lay bare man, who ought always to be covered up both in the flesh and in the spirit in order to defend him from the devil, from curiosity, and from the imagination, which destroys faith. It's only in old age that books do no harm to a man, when he is guarded against their violence by his experience."
Though Yevsey did not understand these talks he remembered them well, and though they met with no response in him, they confirmed his sense of mystery—the mystery that invested all human life, as it were, in a hostile envelope. ”

“ Yevsey felt he had not succeeded in shoving away the unpleasant and dangerous theme.
"These leaflets are a precious matter. It's necessary for us to read them. All the slaves of labor ought to read them," Yakov began heartily, but in a modulated voice. "We, cousin, are slaves, chained to everlasting work. They have made us captives of capitalists, and we live poor in body and in soul. Isn't it so? Now the leaflets eat at our chains, the way rust eats iron, and they liberate our human minds."
Klimkov walked more quickly. He did not want to hear the smooth talk. ”

“ Viekov repeated, and looked out into the street, leaning his forehead against the glass.
Both men were silent, attentively watching the motley stream of people. With acute hearing they caught the loud splashings of different exclamations in the deep sea of the din.
Viekov shook his head.
"What a power, eh? The people lived each by himself and now suddenly they all move together—what a phenomenon!"
"They've grown wise, it means. They are becoming masters of life," said Yevsey with a smile. At that moment he actually believed so.
"And our Melnikov, did you see him?" ”

“ In the morning when he tidied his master's room, Yevsey put his head out of the window for several minutes, and looked down to the bottom of the deep, narrow street. Everywhere he saw the same people, and already knew what each of them would be doing in an hour or the next day. The cabmen drove in the same indolent fashion, and sat on the box each like the other; the shop boys, all of whom he knew, were unpleasant. Their insolence was a source of danger. Every man seemed chained to his business like a dog to his kennel. ”

“ What the devil of a spy are you, eh?" Maklakov suddenly demanded nudging Yevsey with his elbow. "I've been watching you a long time. Your face always looks as if you had just taken an emetic."
Yevsey grew glad at the possibility of speaking about himself openly.
"I am going away, Timofey Vasilyevich," he quickly mumbled. "Just as soon as everything is arranged, I am going away. I'll gradually settle myself in business, and I'm going to live quietly by myself—"
"As soon as what is arranged?"
"Why, all this about the new life. When the people start out all for themselves." ”

“ Yevsey exclaimed mentally, vexed and heated. "Begins the minute he comes in! Oh, Lord!"
He felt a painful ache in his chest, as if something inside him had been torn. Without thinking of what his question would lead to, he quickly asked the joiner:
"Are there any revolutionists in the factory?"
As if touched to the quick, Zimin quickly turned to him, and looked into his eyes. The cook frowned, and said in a voice dissatisfied but not loud:
"They say revolutionists are everywhere nowadays."
"From smartness or stupidity?" asked Liza. ”

“ Remember how many of your comrades have perished at their hands. I do not tell you to kill. No, of course not. I cannot advise such measures. To kill a man requires no cleverness. Every fool can kill. Yet the law is with you. You go against the lawless. It would be criminal to be merciful toward them. They must be rooted out like noxious weeds. I say, you must for yourselves find out what is the best way to stifle the rising revolution. It isn't I who demand this of you; it is the Czar and the country. ”

“ Yevsey leaned his back against the enclosure, and gazed at the man, blinking his eyes. Zimin, too, looked at Yevsey, shaking his right hand.
"Why?" said Yevsey, in perplexity. "Didn't I tell you the truth? That you are being tracked?"
"Well?"
"And you are angry?"
Zimin bent toward him, and poured a wave of hissing words upon Klimkov.
"Yes, go to the devil! I know without you that they are tracking me. What's the matter? Is business going badly among you? Did you think you'd buy me? And betray people behind my back? Or did you want to throw a sop to your conscience? Go to hell! ”

“ When at last the fire was vanquished, the villagers grew even jolly. They sang songs, laughed, boasted of the work, and joked. The older people got whiskey to drink away their exhaustion, while the young folk remained in the streets amusing themselves almost until morning. And everything was as good as in a dream.
Yevsey heard not a single malicious shout, nor noticed a single angry face. During the entire time the fire was burning no one wept from pain or abuse, no one roared with the beastly roar of savage malice, ready for murder. ”

“ In the corner near Sasha about a dozen men had gathered. Yevsey quietly moved up to the group, and heard the enraptured voice of Piotr:
"That's the way to speak! Twice two are four, and all are aces."
"No, I'm not satisfied," said Solovyov sweetly with a prying note in his voice. "Think! What does it mean to think? Everyone may think in his own way. You should tell me what to do."
"You have been told!" put in Krasavin roughly and sharply.
"I don't understand," Maklakov declared calmly.
"You?" shouted Sasha. "You lie! You do understand!" ”

“ Evil is rampant in our country and horror prevails. People are oppressed by want. The heart has become perverted with envy. The patient and gentle Russian is perishing, and a heartless tribe ferocious with greed is being born, a race of wolves, cruel animals of prey. Faith is dissolved, and outside her fortress the people stand perturbed. Persons of depraved minds aim at the defenseless, take them captive with satanic shrewdness, and entice them onto the road of crime against all thy laws, Master of our lives.'"
"'Master?' That's for a bishop," grumbled the Smokestack. ”

“ Sasha sniffed without answering, as if in a delirium.
"All those liberals, generals, revolutionists, dissolute women—I'd make a large pyre of them and burn them. I would drench the earth with blood, manure it with the ashes of the corpses. There would be a rich crop. Satiated muzhiks would elect satiated officials. Man is an animal, and he needs rich pastures, fertile fields. The cities ought to be destroyed, and everything superficial, everything that hinders me and you from living simply as the sheep and roosters—to the devil with it all!" ”

“ Yevsey agitated and seized with a fine tremor, lost consciousness of his own personality crushed by the commanding words of Maklakov. He pushed the electric button, and felt ready to crawl through the door in the desire to hide himself from the spy as quickly as possible. He struck it with his knee, and it opened. A dark figure loomed in the light, a voice asked testily:
"What do you want?"
"The writer, Mr. Mironov—him personally. I have been told to deliver a package into his own hands. Please, quick!" said Yevsey, involuntarily imitating the rapid and incoherent talk of Maklakov. ”

“ It was a young but stern face, with a large forehead, a sharp nose, and stubbornly compressed lips. The lamp shook in the old man's hands, the shade knocked against the chimney, filling the room with a gentle whining sound.
"John," he repeated, setting the lamp back on the table. "A man's name means a great deal."
He thrust his head through the window, breathed in the cold air noisily, and without turning to Yevsey asked him to prepare the samovar.
When Yevsey was busying himself around the oven, a hunch-backed man entered, removed his straw hat in silence, and fanned his face with it. ”

“ Everyone sought for mastery over his fellow, though over himself he was not master. Yevsey saw no man who was not in constant fear of something. The whole of life was filled with terror, and terror divided the people into fragments. ”

“ The days passed as in a delirium, filled with terrible tales of the fierce destruction of people. For Yevsey these days crawled slowly over the earth like black eyeless monsters, swollen with the blood they had devoured. They crawled with their huge jaws wide open, poisoning the air with their stifling, salty odor. People ran and fell, shouted and wept, mingling their tears with their blood. And the blind monster destroyed them, crushed old and young, women and children. ”

“ He observed with amazement that there were other people, cheerful, simple, and trusting, who were able to walk into the future, carelessly stepping over every obstacle and snare in their way, everyone of whom was good in his own fashion, and everyone of whom clearly hinted at the possibility of something better than himself. Yevsey compared them with the spies, who, unwillingly with clandestine tread, crept along the streets and into houses, and secretly spirited away these people at night, in order to seclude them in prisons. ”

“ Honest people want liberty, not in order to crush one another, but in order for each to be protected against the prevailing violence of our lawless life. Liberty is the goddess of reason. They have drunk enough of our blood. I protest. Long live liberty!"
The public raised a cheer, and sprang to their feet.
Melnikov looked at the curly-headed orator, and muttered:
"What a fool!"
"He speaks truly," rejoined Yevsey, angrily.
"How do you know?" asked the spy indifferently, and began to drink the beer in slow gulps. ”