Maksim Gorky

“ Between some grey spikes on a wall I can just discern the boisterous current of the Kura, with sakli [warehouses] and houses glued to the opposite bank, and the figures of some workmen on the roof of a tanning shed. Below, with his cap pushed to the back of his head, a sentry is pacing backwards and forwards.
Wearily my mind recalls the many scores of Russian folk whom it has seen perish to no purpose. And as it does so it feels crushed, as in a vice, beneath the burden of great and inexorable sorrow with which all life is dowered. ”

“ Here an old soldier named Saniavin, a morose man, a tippler, and a sufferer from asthma and an inexplicable grudge against life in general, croaked out:
"How could your tench have wriggled across dry land if it was a fish?"
"Can, for that matter, a fish speak?" was Ossip's good-humoured retort.
All of which inspired Mokei Budirin, a grey-headed muzhik of a cast of countenance canine in the prominence of his jaws and the recession of his forehead, and taciturn withal, though not otherwise remarkable, to give slow, nasal utterance to his favourite formula.
"That is true enough," he said. ”

“ The air was hot and arid, yet still the sky was as dull as though coated throughout with the dust of summer, and, as yet, one could gaze at the sun's purple, rayless orb without blinking, and as easily as one could have gazed at the glowing embers of a wood fire.
Seated on the fence, a number of rooks were directing intelligent black eyes upon the heaps of mud which lay around the coping of the well. And from time to time they fluttered their wings impatiently, and cawed.
"I got you some work," Gubin continued in a grumbling tone, "and put heart into you with the prospect of employment. ”

“ Meanwhile the black, fringed boughs of the pine trees hung stretched over the flames of the Molokans' fire as though they would catch some of the fire's glow and warmth, or seize it altogether, and put it out. And when, at times, their red tongues projected beyond the corner of the barraque, they made the building look as though it had caught alight, and extended their glow even to the rivulet. Constantly the night was growing denser and more stifling; constantly it seemed to embrace the body more and more caressingly, until one bathed in it as in an ocean. ”

“ The figure was that of a watchman set by the carpenters to keep an eye upon ourselves, the appointed watchmen; though the fact in no way offended us.
Over the defile, in a ragged strip of sky, there were gleaming stars, while the rivulet was bubbling and purling, and from the obscurity of the forest there kept coming to our ears, now the cautious, rustling tread of some night animal, and now the mournful cry of an owl, until all nature seemed to be instinct with a secret vitality the sweet breath of which kept moving the heart to hunger insatiably for the beautiful. ”

“ The young fellow opens his mouth, and stares at Konev. Then he asks:
"To what province do I belong?"
"If you yourself have forgotten to what province you belong, you had better try and loosen your wits."
"Look here. If I were to hit you, I—"
The woman who has been sewing drops her work to shrug one rounded shoulder as though she were cold, and ask conciliatorily:
"Well, WHAT province do you belong to?"
"I?" the young fellow re-echoes as he subsides on to his heels. "I belong to Penza. Why do you ask?" ”

“ On such stormy days in autumn everything near a seashore looks particularly cheerful and vigorous, seeing that, despite the soughing of wind and wave, and the swift onrush of cloud, and the fact that the sun is only occasionally to be seen suspended in abysses of blue, and resembles a drooping flower, one feels that the apparent chaos has lurking in it a secret harmony of mundane, but imperishable, forces—so much so that in time even one's puny human heart comes to imbibe the prevalent spirit of revolt, and, catching fire, to cry to all the universe: "I love you!" ”

“ So greatly did these recollections move Gubin that he rose and transferred his position to the door of the hut, where, a dark blur against the square of blue, he lit a gurgling pipe, and puffed thereat until his long, conical nose glowed. Presently the surging stream of words began again:
"At twenty I married an orphan, and when she fell ill and died childless I found myself alone once more, and without an adviser or a friend. However, still I continued both to live and to look about me. And in time, I perceived that life is not lived wholly as it should be." ”

“ Indeed, as he sat there, sat mouthing with dark, bestreaked lips under a covering of hoary beard and moustache, I found that his bloodstained, disfigured, wrinkled, as it were "antique" face reminded me more than ever of those of great sinners of ancient times who abandoned this world for the forest and the desert.
"I have seen many proud folk," he continued with a shake of his hatless head and its sparse hairs. "A fire may burn up quickly, and continue to burn fiercely, yet, like these embers, become turned to ashes, and so lie smouldering till dawn. ”

“ How often does one see a man play with conscience, yes, even though he be a rogue! He erects that conscience as a screen to his knaveries and tricks and wiles, and masks the whole with a cloud of words. Yes, we know how it is done, even though folk may stare at him, and say to one another, 'How fervently his soul is glowing!' Aye, all the time that he is holding his hand to his heart he will be dipping the other hand into your pocket. ”

“ Yet in doing so she blushed to her shoulders, and, clapping plump hands to her bosom, and opening dark eyes to their fullest, said in a hasty and confused whisper as, again paling and shrinking in stature, she subsided like a piece of pastry that is turning heavy:
"Good Lord! WHAT did he see?... If the lame woman should call, you must not admit her. No, tell her that she will not be wanted, that I cannot, that I must not—But see here. Here is a rouble for you. Oh, good Lord!"
By this time even louder and more angry exclamations had begun to ascend from Gubin. ”

“ The bell of the monastery struck two hasty beats—then became silent, so that only the sad echo of its voice remained reverberating over the cemetery. Once more my interlocutor drew out his cigarette-case, silently offered it to myself, and lighted and puffed industriously at another cigarette. As he did so his hands, as small and brown as the claws of a bird, shook a little, and his head, bent down, looked like an Easter egg in plush.
Still smoking, he looked me in the eyes with a self-diffident frown, and muttered:
"Only through the labour of man does the earth attain development. ”

“ And though at the moment I could not have told whether I really liked Ossip, I would still have followed his lead in any direction—yes, even across the river again, though the ice had been giving way beneath me.
And as we proceeded, and the bells echoed and re-echoed, I thought to myself with a spasm of joy:
"Ah, many times may I thus walk to greet the spring!"
While Ossip said with a sigh:
"The human soul is a winged thing. Even in sleep it flies." ”

“ And it seems to me that the wind, the seraph of many pinions which has spent three days in harrying the land, must now have whirled the earth into a blackness, a denseness, in which, exhausted, and panting, and scarcely moving, it is helplessly striving to remain within the encompassing, all-pervading obscurity where, helpless and weary in like degree, the wind has sloughed its thousands of wing-feathers—feathers white and blue and golden of tint, but also broken, and smeared with dust and blood. ”

“ Hence is it that whenever I chance upon a person whose soul I can probe and explore for thoughts unfamiliar to me and words not hitherto heard I congratulate myself, seeing that though it is my desire to see life grow more fair and exalted, and I yearn to bring about that end, there constantly reveals itself to me merely a vista of sharp angles and dark spaces and poor crushed, defrauded people. Yes, never do I seek to project a spark of my own fire into the darkness of my neighbour's soul but I see that spark disappear, become lost, in a chaos of dumb vacuity. ”

“ My house is near here, and as for work, I will find you a job tomorrow. In fact, as it happens, I am needing a man to help me clean out a well at the Birkins' place. Will the job suit you? Very well, then. Always I like to settle things overnight, as it is at night that I can best see through people."
The "house" turned out to be nothing more than an old one-eyed, hunchbacked washhouse or shanty which, bulging of wall, stood wedged against the clayey slope of a ravine as though it would fain bury itself amid the boughs of the neighbouring arbutus trees and elders. ”

“ Sheltered from the wind by the churchyard wall, there may be seen also, as they sprawl on the dry, faded herbage, a score of "strollers for work" that is to say, of folk who, a community apart, consist of "nowhere people," of dreamers who live constantly in expectation of some stroke of luck, some kindly smile from fortune, and of wastrels who, intoxicated with the abundant bounty of the opulent region, have fallen passive victims to the Russian craze for vagrancy. ”

“ Meanwhile clouds shaped like snow-white swans are traversing the roseate heavens and disappearing into space, while below them, on earth, the ravine can be seen spread out like the pelt of a bear which the broad shoulders of some fabulous giant have sloughed before taking refuge in the marshes and forest. In fact the landscape reminds me of sundry ancient tales of marvels, as also does Antipa Vologonov, the man who is so strangely conversant with the shortcomings of human life, and so passionately addicted to discussing them. ”

“ Each time that the boy whimpers more loudly than usual the Cossack halts, awaits the lad's coming in silence, cuffs him over the head with the peak of the cap, and, resuming his way with the gait of a drunken man, leaves the boy and the dog standing where they are—the boy lamenting, and the dog wagging its tail as its old black muzzle sniffs the air. Somehow I discern in the dog's mien of holding itself prepared for anything that may turn up, a certain resemblance to Konev's bearing, save that the dog is older in appearance than is the vagabond. ”

“ Gradually, the dew cleared the trees of the night darkness, and caused the damp, grey foliage to smile once more with aniseed and red raspberry, and to sparkle with the gold of their mildew. Also, there came hovering about us goldfinches with their little red-hooded crests, and fussy tomtits in their cravats of yellow, while a nimble, dark, blue woodpecker scaled the stem of an apple tree. And everywhere, yellow leaves fluttered to earth, and, in doing so, so closely resembled birds as to make it not always easy to distinguish whether a leaf or a tomtit had glimmered for a moment in the air. ”

“ Presently the tall man strides towards the fair-headed peasant, deals him a single blow which knocks him from the back of the young fellow, and, turning to the crowd, says with an informing air:
"THAT'S how we do it in Tambov!"
"Brutes! Villains!" screams the woman from Riazan, as she bends over the young fellow. Her cheeks are livid, and as she wipes the flushed face of the beaten youth with the hem of her gown, her dark eyes are flashing with dry wrath, and her lips quivering so painfully as to disclose a set of fine, level teeth. ”

“ The o's uttered by this peasant are uniformly round and firm—they roll forward as a cartwheel trundles along a hot, dusty country road.
The youth with the high cheek-bones fixes the whites of his porcine eyes (eyes the pupils of which are as indeterminate as the eyes of a blind man) upon the woman in the green scarf. Then, having, like a calf, plucked and chewed some stalks of the withered grass, he rolls up the sleeves of his shirt, bends one fist into the crook of the elbow, and says to Konev with a glance at the well-developed muscle:
"Should you care to hit me?" ”

“ So now it was Gubin's turn to stand at the bottom of the well. And soon, in addition to the odour of decay, and a subdued sound of splashing, and the rumblings and bumpings of the iron bucket against its chain, there began to come up from the damp, black cavity a perfect stream of curses.
"The infernal skinflints!" I heard my companion exclaim.
"Hullo, here is something! A dog or a baby, eh? The damned old barbarians!"
And the bucket ascended with, among its contents, a sodden and most ancient hat. With the passage of time Gubin's temper grew worse and worse. ”