Stories of the steppe

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Stories of the
Steppe

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by Maxim Gorki

I

THE LIBRARY

OF

THE UNIVERSITY

OF CALIFORNIA

RIVERSIDE

STRATFORD UNIVERSAL LIBRARY

STORIES
OF THE STEPPE

by

Maxim Gorki

v

translated by
Henry T. Schnittkind ; ; Isaac Goldberg

BOSTON

The Stratford Company, Publishers

1918

Copyright 1918

The STRATFORD CO., Publishers

Boston, Mass.

The Alpine Press, Boston, Mass., U. S. A.

Introduction

MAXIM GORKI, the Bitter Voice of Russia, can tell fairy-
tales whose coloring has all the richness of oriental twi-
lights and whose cadences are garlands woven of sea-spray and
wind-blossoms. His stories of the steppe are not propagandistic,
and with the exception of the powerful tale Because of Monotony,
they are not sordid pictures of realistic misery, but they are
sweet fairy lullabies that the gods must sing to the baby angels
when they are sad and weary with their contemplation of human
sorrows. These tales are filled with longing, and throughout
that longing there is a thread of red fire that at times bursts
forth into a flaming prophecy of hope. Perhaps Gorki, in writ-
ing those strange, wonderfully magical fairy tales, was un-
consciously rehearsing that strangest and most wonderful fairy
tale of them all, — the great Russian Revolution.

He who has no love for music had better leave these stories
alone, as they will have no charm for him. He who prefers so-
ciety to sunsets will find these stories dull and colorless, — as
colorless as the clouds at the close of the day are to a blind man.
But those who have the capacity for enjoying the silent music
of the night, the barely audible purling of sea-waves in the dis-
tance, the soft pit-a-pat of the wind-dance on the prairie, will be
charmed by these stories as they have rarely been charmed in
tlieir waking hours. For these stories of the steppe have all
the magic of dreams; their atmospliere enveloi)es you and per-
meates your every pore, sinking deep into your lieart through
every one of your five senses, and tlirougli a sixth sense, too,— a
sense whose very indefinable vagueness makes if the most vivid
of them all. For it is that sense, — or shall i cnli it religious
experience, — which enables you to realize eternity in the single

V

INTRODUCTION

tick of a clock and infinity in a drop of water. It is that sense
which sometimes catches you unawares, as you pass on your
prosaic road of jagged experiences between a dream and a
dream, when suddenly turning your head, you see God nodding
and smiling to you as he pauses for an instant in this labor of
creating new worlds.

The Russians, we are told, are dreamers. Fortunate Rus-
sians ! The greatest and finest and most enduring things in the
world are the handiwork of dreamers. Men of action who are
unable to dream are the destroyers of the world; they are the
Hindenburgs, the Hohenzollerns, those brute forces that can-
not leave their imprint on the sands of time unless the sand is
soaked in human blood. It is the dreamers, men like Gorki and
Tolstoi, who out of the elements of sea and land can build a
fairy tale and out of the chaos of tyranny and suffering can
create a nation of free men and women,

Maxim Gorki is one of the supreme dreamer-revolutionists
of the present day, and the stories of the steppe are among his
most wonderful visions. The translators have been rather free
in their rendering, for it has required the utmost care to re-
produce the tang and the perfume of the Russian steppe on
American soil. A dream of such fine coloring and melody can
be totally shattered by the introduction of the slightest jarring
note, and the translators hope that at least a fraction of the
beauty of the original has been preserved in this version,

H. T, S.

VI

CONTENTS

PAGE

Makar Chudra 9

Because of Monotony 27

The Man Who Could Not Die ... 49

vu

Makar Chudra

A MOIST and chilly wind carried over the steppe the mel-
ancholy murmur of the waves that splashed against the
shore, and of the shrubbery which covered the water's edge.
Now and then the Avind drove before it a multitude of withered
yellow leaves, whirling them into the camp-fire and fanning its
flames, whereupon a shudder crept over the darkness that en-
veloped us, piercing the autumn night and revealing to the left —
the limitless steppe, and to the right — the infinite ocean against
the background of which crouched the figure of Makar Chudra,
an old gypsy who had been set to watch over the horses of the
camp which was situated about fifty paces from us.

He seemed utterly unconscious of the cold blasts of the
wind that whipped open his gypsy cloak, exposing and lashing
unmercifully his hairy bronze-colored chest. Turning toward
me his free, vStrong and handsome face from his recumbent post-
ure, he thouglitfully puffed away at his big pipe, blowing thick
clouds of smoke from his mouth and nostrils. His motionless
eyes were fixed beyond me upon the darkness that stretched
endlessly over the death-like silence of the steppe. He talked
to me without interruption, making no motion whatsoever to
shield himself against the pitiless buffeting of the storm.

"And so you are joining us? That's fine ! You have chosen
a splendid course. Falcon. We all have to meet our fate. Go
about and see the world, and wticn you liave seen enougli, lie
down and die — and that's all !

9

10 STORIES OF THE STEPPE

< < ■

Life? Other people?" he continued — " H 'm ! What
business is it of yours? Are you not yourself a slice of life?
And as for other people, they have been living without you and
they will continue to live without you. Do you think anybody
needs you? You're neither bread nor a staff; why then should
people have need of you ?

' ' To learn and to teach, you say ? Can you ever learn how to
make people happy ? No, you can 't. You will only become gray
and then you will say that you must teach others. But what are
you going to teach them? Everybody knows what he needs.
The wise take everything, the fools get nothing, and everybody
learns for himself . . .

"Human beings are ridiculous, crowding themselves to-
gether into a single heap and stifling the life out of one an-
other, when there is so much room in the world, " — he extended
his hand toward the wide steppe. — "And they are forevermore
working. For what? For whom? Nobody knows. You behold
a man at the plough, and you think : First he wastes away his
strength tilling the earth by the sweat of his brow, and then he
stretches his own corpse in it and rots away. Nothing remains
of him, he does not even reap his own sowing, but dies just as
he was born, a blockhead.

' ' Can it be that he is bom for this, — to dig about in the earth
and then to die even before he has succeeded in preparing his
own grave? Has he known freedom? Does he understand the
wide expanse of the steppe ? The multitudinous murmur of the
sea, is his heart ever gladdened by that sound ? H 'm ! From the
moment of his birth he is a slave, and throughout all his life
he remains a slave, that 's all ! He can do nothing to help him-
self, except to put a noose around his head if ever he becomes a
little wiser.

' ' But as for me — just look at me, will you — I have seen
so much in my fifty odd years that if I were to write it all down
on paper, it would fill more than a thousand sacks like the one

MAXIM GORKI 11

you've got there. Yes, and then there would be some left over.
I'd like you to show me the country I haven't been to. Why,
you haven't even heard of all the countries I have visited.
That 's the way to live — wandering, wandering, — staying only
for a little while in each place. — Why not ? Just as the day
and the night are forever on the go, chasing each other around
the earth, I would advise you to be on the move, away from your
thoughts about life, if you don't want to get sick of them. For
the more you think of life the less you like it, that's how it al-
ways happens. I, too, have had the same experience. Yes,
Falcon, I've lived through it all myself.

"I have been in jail; it was in Galicia, and I had plenty of
time to philosophize there. What am I in this world for? I used
to ask myself. I would get these thoughts into my head just to
break the monotony, — for it certainly was monotonous there ! At
such moments my heart was oppressed with longing whenever
I looked at the fields through the prison bars. My heart was
pressed as in a vise ! . . , Yes, Falcon, we live in this world and
that is all. Who knows why? Nobody. And it's useless to ask.
Live and live fully ; keep wandering and look about you, and you
will never long for that which you haven't got, never! At that
time I could have strangled myself with my girdle. Yes, Falcon,
I've been through it all!

" H 'm ! Once I spoke to a man . . , He was a stern fellow,
— one of you, a Russian, lie said : ' You ought to live not as you
like, but as God ha.s ordained. Only throw yourself at God's
feet and lie will give you everything that you pray for.' And
yet this chap himself wore a ragged suit full of holes. I told him
to get a new suit of clothes with his prayers, whereupon he be-
came angry, cursed and drove me away from him. Up to that
time he had been preaching forgiveness and love. lie should
therefore have forgiven me when I ofTcnded his pride with my
words. There's a teacher for you ! They tench you to eat less,
and they themselves eat ten times a day ..."

12 STORIES OF THE STEPPE

He spat into the fire and became silent, filling his pipe once
more. The wind had died down to a soft, melancholy wail, the
horses neighed in the darkness, and from the camp floated the
tender, yet sorrowful tones of a dirge. The singer was the
beautiful Nonka, the daughter of Makar. I recognized the rich
and round quality of her voice which always sounded so pathetic,
so full of longing and discontent — whether she were singing a
song or merely saying ' ' good morning. ' ' In her brown lustreless
features you could see the smoldering hauteur of a queen and
in her dark-brown eyes that were always veiled with a shadow of
sadness flashed the conscious power of her charm and the ir-
resistible attractiveness of her beauty, as well as her contempt
for everything that was unlike herself.

Makar handed the pipe to me.

"Have a smoke! Doesn't the girl sing well? Don't you
think so, hey ? How would you like to be loved by a girl like her 1
You wouldn't? That's fine! You are quite right. Put no
trust in women, and keep away from them. To kiss a girl is
better and pleasanter than to smoke my pipe. . . But once you
have kissed a woman the freedom of your heart is dead. A
woman binds you to her with bonds that can neither be seen nor
torn asunder. You give your whole soul away and you get
nothing in return. Take my advice; beware of women. They
are always lying, the snakes. . . 'I love you more than anything
else in the world,' she says. And yet, if you but prick her acci-
dentally with a pin, she will tear your heart out. I know !
Ye gods, how well I know ! If you will listen to me. Falcon, I '11
tell you a story. But above all, be on your guard, and you will
remain a free bird all your life.

* ' There was one upon a time a young gypsy, and his name
was Zobar, Loyko Zobar. All Hungary and Bohemia and Sla-
vonia and all the country that borders on the sea knew him, for
he was a brave lad. There was not a village in the entire land in
which there were not at least a dozen people who had sworn an

MAXIM GORKI 13

oath to Heaven that they would kill Loyko. And yet he lived.
If he ever took a fancy to a horse, he would gallop away with
it even if an entire regiment had been set to watch over the
beast. H'm! He feared neither God nor man. And even if
Satan himself were to array his whole hellish army against him,
he would oppose them single-handed, and I haven't the slightest
doubt in the world that Satan's jaw would feel the taste of Zo-
bar's mighty fist.

"And every gypsy camp knew him either by sight or by
hearsay. He loved only horses, nothing else, and even these he
loved only for a while. One gallop and he was done with them.
And the money that he got for selling them anybody could have
for the asking. He had nothing that he was unwilling to share
with others. If you were to ask for his very heart, he would tear
it out of his breast and give it to you for the mere pleasure of
doing you a favor. That's the kind of a man he was, Falcon!

' ' Our band was at that time wandering through Bukowina —
it was about ten years ago — . Once, in the springtime — I re-
member it as though it happened yesterday — we were resting ;
myself, Danila, the soldier who had fought with Kossuth, old
Nur and all the others. Radda, Danila 's daughter, was with us,
too.

"You know my Nonka, don't you? Isn't she a queen of a
girl! But Radda must not be compared with her, for that wo\i1d
be too much honor for Nonka! Words cannot describe this
Radda. One might, perhaps, express her loveliness by means
of the violin, but he alone could do it who knows the violin as
he knows his own soul.

"Many a brave young heart did she ruin, ye gods, how many !
Once a rich old man behfld her. When his glance fell upon her,
he stopped as if paralyzed. He sat upon his mount and gazed
at her, trembling as in a fever. He was as handsome as the
devil on a holifiay, his mantle was embroidered with gold, and
whenever the horse stamped with his hoofs, the sabre flashed

14 STORIES OF THE STEPPE

like lightning at his side . . . The entire sabre was inlaid with
precious stones, and the bright blue velvet on his cap was like
a piece of sky ... A mighty nobleman was he ! He gazed and
gazed upon Radda, and then he said to her: 'Give me a kiss
and I will give you a purse full of money in return ! ' She merely
turned away, and that was all. 'Pardon me! Even if I have
offended you, you will at least favor me with your smile, won't
you ? ' Thus did he humble his pride, throwing a purse of money
at her feet — a great, big purse, brother ! But Radda merely
kicked it with her foot into the dusty road, and that was all.

' ' ' Aha ! Is that the kind of a girl you are ? ' muttered the
rich man, whipping his horse. Only a cloud of dust remained be-
hind.

"And the next day he came again. — 'Who is her father?'
he cried in a loud voice that resounded throughout the camp.
Danila came. 'Sell me your daughter, and set your own price!'
But Danila replied : ' This is the custom only among gentlemen ;
they sell everything, from their pigs to their conscience. But I
have fought under Kossuth, and I will not sell anything ! ' The
nobleman flew into a rage and grasped the hilt of his sabre, but
just at that moment one of us stuck a burning match into the ear
of his horse and drove him away together with the rider. . . We
broke up our camp and wandered on. We wandered for two
days, and yet he overtook us! 'Hey, you folks,' he said, 'be-
fore you and before God my conscience is clear. Give me this girl
for my wife, and I will share everything with you. I am very
rich ! ' — He was burning with excitement and just as a blade of
grass quivers in the tempest, just so did he sway in the saddle.

" 'Well, my daughter, speak!' grumbled Danila into his
beard.

" 'If the daughter of an eagle were to go of her own free
wiU into the nest of a raven, what would she become then?'
asked Radda.

"Danila laughed and we laughed with him.

MAXIM GORKI 15

** 'Well spoken, little daughter! Have you heard, your
Honor ? It can 't be done ! You had better look for a little dove
— they are more submissive.'

"And we went on. The nobleman took his cap, threw it
upon the ground and galloped away, — he galloped so fast tnat
the earth quaked. That's the kind of a girl she was. Falcon!

* * Yes, and one evening we were sitting and listening. Music
floated over the steppe. It was a wonderful music ! It set the
blood in our veins afire and seemed to call us somewhere. And
we, every one of us, felt as though that music awoke in us a
vague longing, either to die or else to live as the ruler of the
entire world. That's the kind of music it was, Falcon!

"And it came nearer and ever nearer. And suddenly a
horse steps out of the darkness, and upon this horse sits a man
playing on a fiddle as he approaches us. At the campfire he
halts, stops playing and greets us with a smile.

" 'Ah, Zobar, it is you!' cried Danila joyously.

"That, then, was Loyko Zobar! The ends of his mustache
hung way down over his shoulders, mingling together with his
steel-brown locks; his eyes glittered as the bright-stars, and the
very sun was mirrored in his laughter, so help me God! He
looked as though chiselled out, chiselled out of one piece together
with his horse. He sat as though wholly suffused with blood in
the light of the glowing logs, and his teeth flashed when he
laughed. May I be cursed if I did not fall in love with him im-
mediately, even before he spoke a single word or even noticed
that I, too, lived on the face of the earth!

"Yes, Falcon, that's the kind of people we sometimes find
in the world! He looks into your eyes and he captures your
whole soul. And yon are not even asliamed of it; on the con-
trary, you foci proud of it. Tti your dealings with such a man
you become better yourself. My friend, the world has not many
people like him! And it is only right that this sliould be so.
If there were much good in the world, people would no longer

16 STORIES OF THE STEPPE

consider it good. That's how it is! But hear what happened
after that.

"Radda spoke up: 'You play beautifully, Loyko. Who
made you this fiddle with such rich full tones?'

"Loyko laughed. * I myself have made it ! Not out of wood
have I made it, but out of the breast of a young girl whom I
have loved ardently, and the strings have I fashioned by inter-
twining her heart-strings. It is still somewhat false, this fiddle,
but I know how to master it with the bow in my hand. Do you
see?'

"We gypsies, as you know, try from the very outset to be-
cloud the eyes of women in order that they may not set our
hearts aflame, but that they should themselves instead be filled
with longing for us. Loyko acted likewise. But he struck the
wrong party. Radda turned away and said, yawning: 'H'm!
And yet people have told me that Loyko is wise and clever. The
people have lied to me ! ' Saying this, she went off.

" 'Aha, my beauty! You have sharp teeth!' exclaimed
Loyko w ith flashing eyes as he jumped off his horse. ' Hail, com-
rades ! Here I am ! '

" 'Be our welcome guest, 0 eagle!' replied Danila. After
our mutual embraces we conversed for a while and then we all
w'ent to sleep . . . We slept soundly . . . The next morning we no-
ticed that Zobar had tied a bandage around his head. What was
the matter ? Why, his temple had been wounded by the horse 's
hoof, he said.

"H'm! We knew what sort of a horse it was and we all
snickered into our beards. Danila also smiled. What? Wasn't
Loyko worthy of Radda? Surely not that! A girl may be as
beautiful as the day, and yet her soul remains mean and
cramped, and even if you hang a sackful of gold around her neck,
she can never become better than she was in the first place. Yes,
siree !

' ' Thus we lived on and on in that place. Business was good,

MAXIM GORKI 17

and Zobar remained with us. That was a comrade for you, Fal-
con ! Wise as an old man, and skilled in everything ; he even un-
derstood how to read and WTite Russian and Hungarian. When-
ever he began to speak, you felt as though you would like to
banish sleep forever just so you might listen to him! And he
could play — may a thunderbolt strike me down this very mo-
ment if this world has ever seen another man who could play
like Zobar. When he first drew his bow across the strings your
heart began to go pit-a-pat, at the second chord your heart
stopped beating. But he would play on and smile at us. We
wanted to laugh and cry at the same time when we listened to
his tunes. Now you could hear a long-drawn-out prayer for help
that would cut your heart like a knife, with its pathos. And now
the instrument reechoed with the melody of the steppe telling
fairy tales, oh such melancholy fairy-tales, to heaven. Then re-
sounded a maiden's tearful syllables, as she was bidding fare-
well to her heart's beloved. And then rippled forth the cheerful
laughter of her brave lover, calling her into the steppe. And
suddenly, heigho! A free and lively tune leapt from his bow
like a cataract, and it seemed as if the very sun would begin to
dance in the heavens to the rhythm of that tune! That's the
kind of music it was. Falcon !

"Every nerve in your body tingled at the sound of that mu-
sic and you became its utter .slave. And if Loyko had exclaimed
at such a moment, ' To arms, comrades ! ' we would all have
plunged our knives into the heart of him who might be indicated
by Loyko. He could do everything with us, and we loved him, we
loved him ardently. Only Radda paid no attention to liim. That
wouldn't have been so bad, but she even made sport of him. As
in a vi.se .she held Zobar 's heart imprisoned. Loyko gnashed his
teeth and twirled his long niustaclie. His eyes wore blacker
than an abyss, and yet now and tlu^n they flashed .so fiercely that
our hearts were filled with trembling. At night he went far
into the steppe, did this fearless Loyko, and he let his fiddle wail

18 STORIES OF THE STEPPE

till the dawning of the day. The fiddle wailed because his free-
dom w-as dead. And we lay awake in our camp, thinking,
'What's to be done?' We knew very well that when two rocks
roll upon each other it is death to stand between them. That's
how it was, Falcon !

"One day we were all sitting together and speaking about
our business. Our talk was becoming monotonous and so Danila
spoke up: 'Sing us a song, Zobar! Gladden our hearts with a
tune ! ' The latter cast a glance toward Radda, who lay upon
her back not far from us, her face upturned toward the sky,
and then he began to draw his bow. Hereupon the fiddle started
to talk, as though it really were the heart of a young girl ! And
Loyko sang :

' Ho ! My heart is aflame as I ride,
Through the wastes of the steppe so wide.
Like an arrow flies my steed
Shod with the whirlwind 's speed. *

"Radda turned her head, raised herself on her elbow and
smiled into Loyko 's eyes. His face flamed up like the sunrise.

'Heigho! Let us gallop away

From the night to the gates of the day!

Let us scatter the mantle of mist

Where the hills by the sunrise are kissed.

We will ride with the sun till the night
And spatter the sky with her light ;
We will leap into midnight from noon
And rest on the tip of the moon. '

"That's the way he sang! Nobody can sing like that now-
adays! Radda, however, merely remarked as though she were

JVIAXIM GORKI 19

spilling water through a sieve: 'I wouldn't fly so high if I were
you, Loyko. You're liable to fall down and stick your nose into
a puddle, and then your mustache will get dirty. You had better
look out ! ' Loyko glared at her for a moment, but said nothing.
Controlling his rage, he continued his song:

' Heigho ! And to-morrow will peep
And will find us fast asleep.
And then we will both pass away,
In the flaming sun's red spray.'

" 'That's what I call a song!' said Danila. — 'Never in my life
have I heard such a song. May Satan make a pipe out of me
this very minute if I 'm not telling the truth ! ' Old Nur stroked
his mustache and shrugged his shoulders. This song of Zobar's
had touched the hearts of us all. But Radda was not pleased
with it.

" 'A fly once buzzed just like this when he tried to imitate
the cry of the eagle,' she said. We all felt as though she had
just showered us with snow.

" 'Perhaps you would like to taste the whip, Radda,' said
her father. But Zobar threw his cap on the ground and with
flashing eyes exclaimed: 'Stop, Danila! A fiery horse needs a
bit of steel ! I want your consent to marry your daughter!'

" 'Well spoken!' smiled Danila. 'Take her, if only you are
willing and able !'

" 'Very well,' replied Loyko, and turned to Radda: 'Well,
my pretty lass, listen to me and don't be so haughty! I have
known many of your sisters, yes, many of them. But not one of
them has so fired my heart as you. Ah, Radda, you have im-
prisoned my soul... Well, then, what am I to do about it?
Whatever must happen will happen. . . Yes, there isn't a horse
in the world who can carry you away from yourself! I ask you
to marry me before God, my honor, your father and all these

20 STORIES OF THE STEPPE

people. But beware of interfering with my freedom — for I am
a free man and I want to live as I choose!' Hereupon, compress-
ing his lips, he approached her. With flashing eyes he stepped
forward to take her... 'Aha,' we said to ourselves, 'at last
Radda has put the bit into the mouth of the steed of the steppe.
But suddenly we saw him throw his hands into the air and fall
down flat on his back ! . . .

"He fell as though struck with a bullet. How had it hap-
pened ? It was Radda. She had coiled the whip around his legs
drawing it sharply toward herself, whereupon Loyk'o fell to the
ground.

"And then she lay down again and looked smilingly at the
sky. We waited to see what Loyko would do. The latter, how-
ever, sat on the ground pressing his temples with his hands, as
though fearful that his head would burst. Then he rose quietly
and went off into the steppe without casting a single glance in
our direction. Nur whispered to me, 'Watch him!' And I crept
after Zobar into the steppe, into the darkness of the night. That 's
the way it was. Falcon ! . . . "

Makar shook the ashes out of his pipe and filled it anew.

I cuddled up in my cloak and looked into Makar 's old face
that was blackened by the wind and sun. Sternly and thought-
fully he shook his head, murmuring something I could not hear ;
his thick gray mustache trembled in the wind which played
through his dishevelled hair. He resembled an old oak which,
though struck by lightning, still stands tall and mighty in its
invincible pride. The sea and the shore whispered interminably
together, and the wind carried their whisperings over the steppe.
Nonka was no longer singing and the clouds that now covered the
sky made the autumn night even more dark and terrible.

"Loyko walked slowly, step by step, with bowed head and
hands hanging limp and lifeless. Commg to the ravine near the
river, he sat down on a rock and moaned. So piteously did he
moan that my heart bled in sympathy. And yet I did not come

MAXIM GORKI 21

near him. Words cannot console a man's sufferings, can they?. .
Yes, he sat thus for one hour, two hours, three hours — he sat mo-
tionless near the river.

"I lay on the ground at no great distance. The night was
bright, the moon threw a silvery glitter over the whole steppe,
so that it was possible to see everything.

"Suddenly I see Radda walking quickly from the gypsy
camp toward Loyko. I was happy, oh, so happy ! After all, Radda
was a most wonderful girl ! She approached him, but he did not
hear her. She put her hand on his shoulder. Loyko started, took
his hands away from his face and raised his head. And you
should have seen how he sprang to his feet and grasped the
hilt of his knife ! ' He will kill the girl ! ' I said to myself. I was
just on the point of running to the camp in order to summon
help when I heard these words: 'Throw it away, or else I will
blow your brains out! Do you see this?' And Radda pointed a
pistol at Zobar's head. That's the devil of a girl she was. Falcon !
'Now,' thought I, 'they are equally matclied. What will happen
next, I wonder?'

" 'Listen to me !' Radda put the pistol into her belt and con-
tinued : 'I have come not to kill you but to make peace. Throw
away that knife!' He threw it away and looked at her darkly.
It was wonderful, brother! Here stood two creatures looking at
each other like beasts of prey, and yet they were both such brave
and splendid people. Only the bright moon beheld them, and
I . . . Nobody else.

"'Now listen to me, Loyko. I love you!' He merely
shrugged his shoulders, as though he were tied hand and foot.

" 'I have seen many a lad, but you are braver and hand-
somer than all the rest. The others would all shave off their
mustache at a single glance from my eye, they would all fall at
my feet, if I should only a-sk it. But of what use would it be?
With all that they could not please me, and I would only make
women out of them. There arc very few bravo gyi)sios iti the
world, very few, Loyko. None of thcrn have I ever loved Ix-fore,

22 STORIES OF THE STEPPE

but now I love you. And yet I love my freedom, and this, Loyko,
I love more than you. But without you I cannot live, even as you
cannot live without me. And therefore I want you to be mine,
with your whole heart and soul. Do you hear?'

"He smiled. * I hear! My heart is glad to hear your words.
Speak on ! '

" 'I have this much to say yet, Loyko: Whatever you do,
I will compel you to become mine. And therefore I would advise
you to lose no time, for my kisses and embraces are awaiting you
— and most ardent will they be, these kisses and embraces of
mine, Loyko! In the warmth of my arms you will forget your
courageous life, and your beautiful songs that give so much joy
to the gypsy folk will no longer reecho in the steppe. . . You will
sing only tender love songs to me, your Radda . . . Lose no time,
therefore, but do as I say. To-morrow you must submit to me as
to a superior officer. You will bow down at my feet, in the pres-
ence of the whole camp, and you will kiss my right hand — and
then I will become your wife ! '

"So that's what the devilish girl wanted. It was amazing.
Such things had happened only in olden times, among Montene-
grins, but among the gypsies, never. Submission to a woman!
Tell me. Falcon, can you imagine anything more ridiculous?
Why, you won't be able to do so in a hundred years. No, siree!

"Loyko sprang to his feet and uttered a cry that rang
through the whole steppe, as though a bullet had just passed
through his breast. Radda trembled, but did not lose her nerve.

" 'Farewell till to-morrow, and to-morrow you will do what
I have commanded. Do you hear, Loyko?'

" 'I hear! I will do it!' groaned Zobar, holding his arms
out to her. But she turned away from him. He swayed like a
tree uprooted by the tempest, and fell to the ground, weeping
and laughing hysterically.

"That's the way the beautiful vixen tortured the poor fel-
low. It was with great difficulty that I brought him to his senses.

JMAXIM GORKI 23

"I wonder what good it does to Satan or Beelzebub or any
other devil when human beings are plunged in such grief? What
pleasure can it give to the Evil One to listen to the heartrending
groans of men and women ? I wonder whether the philosophers
know anything about it ? . . .

"I returned to the camp and told everything to the old
men. They deliberated for some time and at last decided to wait
and see how all this would turn out. And this is what happened :
As we were all sitting around the camp-fire the next evening,
Loyko came to us. He looked thoughtful, his features were ter-
ribly emaciated and there were black rings under his eyes which
he kept fixed on the ground. Without looking at us he said:
'Listen to me, comrades. This night I have searched my heart
and I no longer find in it any place for my old freedom. Radda
alone now lives in it, and nothing else. Here she is, the ex-
quisitely beautiful Radda, smiling like a queen ! She loves her
freedom more than she loves me, but I, I love her more than I
love my freedom, and I have therefore determined to fall at her
feet. Thus has she commanded me to do, in order that you might
all see how her loveliness has enslaved the dauntless Loyko Zobar
who, before he knew Radda, used to play with women as the
vulture plays with ducks. After that, however, she will become
my wifo, fondling me with her kisses and embraces, so that I
shall no longer have any desire to sing to you, or any regrets
over the loss of my freedom! Am I right, Radda?' — Raising
his eyes, he looked at her sadly. She said nothing in reply, but
nodded her head vigorously and pointed at her feet. And we
looked on in sorrow and amazement, not understanding it at all.
We felt as though wc wanted to go far away, so that we might
not see Loyko Zobar falling at a woman's foot, even though this
woman was Radda herself. Wc were overcome with a feeling of
shame, [)ity and sorrow ;if this siid spectacle.

" 'Well?' said Radda to Zobar.

" 'Ah, do not be so hasty! Tliero's plenty of time for that

24 STORIES OF THE STEPPE

yet. You will have glory enough to-day!' laughed Loyko. Like
the clashing of steel — that's how his laughter sounded.

" 'Well, then, comrades, this is the whole story. "What else
is there left for me to do? This much. It is necessary for me
to find out whether my Radda's heart is really so hard as she
has shown it to be. And that's what I am going to fimd out
now . . . Pardon me, my dear comrades ! '

"And before we could realize what Zobar was about, Radda
was already lying on the ground, and in her breast stuck Loyko 's
crooked knife up to its very hilt. "We all stood as if paralyzed.

But Radda drew the knife out of her heart, threw it aside,
pressed a lock of her black hair to the open wound, smiled and
spoke up loudly and clearly: 'Farewell Loyko! I knew that
you would act like this ! ' . . . And with these words on her lips
she died.

"Do you understand now what kind of a girl she was,
Falcon? What a woman ! May I be forever cursed if she wasn't
the daughter of the very devil himself ! Yes, siree !

" 'And now, my proud queen, I M^ill fall at your feet!' he
cried aloud, did this Loyko, and the whole steppe reechoed veith
his words. He threw himself on the ground, pressed his lips to
the feet of the dead Radda, and remained as though lifeless him-
self. We removed our caps and surrounded the two in silence.

"What do you think of such a story. Falcon?...

"At last Nur wanted to say: 'We ought to bind him !' But
not a hand would have been raised to bind Loyko Zobar, and
Nur knew it. Danila, however, picked up the knife that Radda
had cast aside and looked at it for a long time. His lips quiv-
ered. Radda's blood was still warm upon this knife, and it was
so sharp and crooked! Then Danila approached Zobar and
plunged the knife into his back, just over the heart. For he was
after all the father of Radda, was this old soldier, Danila.

" 'Well done!' said Loyko in a ringing voice, turning to-

MAXIM GORKI 25

ward Danila. And then he sank down at Radda's side and his
soul followed hers out of the world.

"And there before our eyes lay Radda, her hand with its
black lock of hair pressed to her bosom, her wide open eyes turned
toward the skj% and at her feet lay the handsome form of Loyko
Zobar. His hair had fallen over his face, and so we could not
see his features.

"We stood lost in deep thought. Old Danila's gray mus-
tache trembled and terrible was the look in his dark eyes. He
gazed toward the sky, but said not a word. But the old and
feeble Nur threw himself face downward on the ground and wept
like a child.

"And there was good cause for weeping. Falcon! Yes,
siree!. . .

"Well, then, God be with you, my friend. Keep going
straight ahead and do not turn aside. You will only rot away
if you stay in one place. That's all. Falcon!"

Makar stopped, put his pipe into his tobacco pouch and
threw the folds of his cloak over his breast. The rain was drizz-
ling, the storm increased and the surf pounded against the
shore with a loud and hollow growl. One after another the
horses came near the dying fire, looked at us with their big, in-
telligent eyes and stood around us in a big circle.

"Hop, hop, ehoi!" Makar called out to them in a friendly
voice; and as he was stroking the neck of his favorite animal
with the palm of his hand, he said turning to me: "It is time
to sleep!" Covering his head with his cloak he stretched out
on the ground and soon fell asleep. Rut I had no desire to sleep.
I gazed through the darkness of the stepf)e at the roaring ocean,
and I could see before me the queenly figure of the proud and
lovely Radda. She held her hand with the lock of her black
hair tightly pressed against her wound and through her slender
brown fingers trickled the blood from her breast, drop by drop,
and they fell upon the earth like ruddy stars of fire.

26 STORIES OF THE STEPPE

And behind her, close upon her heels, hovered the brave
Loyko Zobar. His face was veiled by his thick black hair behind
which his cold big tears flowed in a steady stream . . .

The rain fell faster and the wind sang a sad and solemn
dirge to the proud pair — Loyko Zobar and Radda, the daughter
of old Danila. And the two shadows whirled silently around
each other in the darkness of the night, yet never was the singer,
Loyko, able to overtake his proud, beloved Radda. . .

Because of Monotony

I

~|3UFFING voluminous volleys of thick gray smoke, the pas-
I senger-train, like an enormous reptile, disappeared in the
distance of the steppe, engulfed in the yellow sea of growing
corn. The rumbling of the train seemed to merge with the smoke
in the hot atmosphere, and for several moments interrupted the
indifferent silence of the vast, deserted plain, in the midst of
which the little railroad station, because of its isolation, aroused
an impression of sadness.

And when the muffled, but insistent noise of the train had
grown fainter and died away under the clear dome of the cloud-
less sky, silence once more resumed its oppressive reign, adding
to the desolate monotony of the steppe.

The steppe looked now a golden yellow; the vault of the
heavens was a luminous blue; two colors of incommensurable
vastness. The dark walls of the station planted in their midst
produced the effect of an accidental stroke of the brush, which
marred the centre of that melancholy picture, patiently painted
by some artist devoid of imagination and inspiration.

Every day, at noon and at four o'clock in the afternoon
there arrived at the station, on their way across the stoppe,
trains that stopped for four minutes. These precious minutes
provided the only distraction at the station: they brought
impressions to the station employees.

Each train has a multitude of distinct ])orsons, dressed in
various manners. They appear for a moment; behind the little
windows of the coaches they pass rai)i(lly by, with weary face,
impatient, indifferent; the signal is given, the whistle blows, and
with a nerve-wracking noise t)u-y fly off across the steppe, far

27

28 STORIES OF THE STEPPE

away, toward the city, where men and women throng in throb-
bing life.

To the station employees, who are sorely bored in their soli-
tude, it is most interesting to behold these faces; after the de-
parture of the train they exchange impressions that have been
hastily gathered. About them extends the silent steppe, above
them floats the indifferent sky, and within their hearts they har-
bor obscure envy toward the men who every day ride by, speed-
ing on to some unknown place, while they remain there, pris-
oners of the desert, as if living apart from life and in the impos-
sibility of seeing any human countenance, except during the
two hundred and forty seconds each day.

And after the train has gone they remain rooted to the
platform, their eyes following the black thread that disappears
in the golden sea of the prairies, silent before the manifestation
of life flying past them.

Thc}^ are almost all there: the chief, a corpulent red-faced
personage with the mustache of a Cossack ; his aide, a young fel-
low with reddish hair and a pointed little beard ; the watchman
Luka, short, inquisitive and wily, and one of the switchmen,
Gomozov, a taciturn peasant, robust, with black hair, serious and
full face.

Near the door of the station, seated on a bench, is the chief's
wife, a fat little woman who suffers much from the heat ; in her
lap slumbers an infant with cheeks as bulging and as red as
his mother's.

The locomotive and the coaches disappear behind a slope,
as if the train had been swallowed by the earth.

Then the chief turns to his wife and says:

' ' Well Sofia ! Is the samovar ready ? ' '

' ' It certainly is, ' ' she replies sweetly, with a languid voice.

"Luka! Hey there! Sweep the road. Can't you see
they've filled it with all kinds of filth?"

"Yes, I know, Matvei Yegorovitch. "

MAXIM GORKI 29

"Very well. Shall we have tea, Nikolai Petrovitch?"

"So as not to break the custom, ' ' replies the aide.

And when the four o'clock train has left, Matvei Yegoro-
vitch says to his wife :

"Well Sofia! Is dinner ready?"

Then he gives the order to Luka, — always the same order,
and invites his aide who dines with them.

"Good. . . . Shall we eat?"

And his aide replies, properly:

"As always."

They walk from the platform to the dining-room, where
there are many flowers and few pieces of furniture, — where the
odor of the kitchen is perceptible, as well as that of the infant's
swaddling-clothes, and there, seated around the table, they speak
of what speeds by the station.

"Did you notice, Nikolai Petrovitch, a brunette dressed in
yellow who was in one of the second-class coaches ? There was a
stunning beauty for you!"

"Not at all bad, but dressed without taste," answered the
aide.

lie always spoke in a curt, sententious manner, for he be-
lieved himself to be an educated man, conversant with life. He
had been to college. In a little note-book bound in black cloth
he was wont to inscribe sayings of famous men, pli rases culled
from the feuilletons of newspapers and from the books that came
by accident into his hands. The chief never contradicted him;
in all matters tliat did not concern the service he listened atten-
tively to his adjutant. Tiie wise aphorisms from Nikolai Petro-
vitch's notf'-book pleased him especially, and he was frank in
his admiration of them. The aide's "but" in regard to the
brunette evoked a query from Matvei Yegorovitch.

"Then you don't think that yellow becomes brunettes?"

"I refer to her manner, not the color," explained Nikolai

30 STORIES OF THE STEPPE

Petrovitch, carefully taking some preserves which he brought
forth from a crystal jar to place in the dessert plate.

"Manner is a thing by itself," admitted the chief.

His wife joined in the discussion, for such a subject was
within her scope and of direct concern to her.

But since the minds of such persons are very little exercised
the conversation proceeds slowly, rarely penetrating to their
feelings.

And through the window the silent steppe gazes in upon
them, and the sky, majestic in its proud serenity.

At every moment freight trains arrive, but the personnel of
these trains has been known to them for a long time. They are
all half-asleep fellows, oppressed by the monotony of the jour-
neys across the steppe. Of course sometimes they relate an
accident that occurred on the line. But news of this character
arouses no reflection: it is devoured just as epicures swallow a
rare and savory dish.

And the sun slowly descends in the heavens, until it reaches
the edge of the steppe, and when it has almost touched the earth
it turns purple. A red tint covers the plain, which awakes an
apprehensive mood of insufficiency, a vague aspiration towards
something far away, beyond that emptiness. The rim of the
sun then touches the earth. For a long time after its disappear-
ance there sounds in the sky the music of the sunset's resplen-
dent colors, and twilight arrives, warm and silent. The stars
light up and tremble in the heavens, as if terrified by the mono-
tony that reigns on earth.

"With the coming of twilight the steppe grows smaller; the
darknesses of dusk arise from all directions and make for the
station, and night falls, black and lugubrious.

The station lamps are lighted ; brighter and higher than
the others is the light of the signal-desk. Around it, darkness
and silence.

At each instant there is the sound of a bell : a signal that

MAXIM GORKI 31

a train is approaching ; the funeral tolling of the bell crosses the
steppe, where it is quickly extinguished.

A short while after the ringing, a vivid light draws nearer,
and the silence of the steppe trembles with the muffled noise of
the train, which rolls toward the solitary station, surrounded by
darkness.

II

The lower stratum of the society of the station maintains a
life somewhat distinct from that of the aristocracy. The watch-
man Luka struggles perpetually with his desire to run off to his
wife and his brother, who live in the town, seven versts away.
That's where his home is, as he says to Gomozov when he orders
the taciturn, leisurely switchman to lend a helping hand in the
station.

At the word "home" Gomozov always sighs heavily and
says to Luka :

"Yes, you're right. . . One's home requires care. . . .

And the other switchman, Afanassi Yagodka, an old soldier
with a round, ruddy face encircled by gray hairs, and of jest-
ing, malicious propensities, refuses to believe Luka.

"Home!" he exclaims mockingly. "Ilis wife! I know very
well what that means. ... Is your wife a widow? Or perhaps
some soldier's spouse?"

"Shut up, you king of the fowl!" retorts Luka, scornfully.

He dubs Yagodka king of the fowl because the old soldier
professes a deep affection for birds. Ills entire house is covered,
inside as well as outside, with cages and dove-cotes; within and
without, all day long is heard the ceaseless trilling and cooing of
the birds. Imprisoned by the soldier the quails sing their mono-
tonous "pay your debts," the starlings ninnuur long discourses,
many-colored birds whisper tirelessly, whistle or trill, enlivening
the soldier's sombre existence. Taking care of them during the
time left free to him by his work, he treats them with the ut-

32 STORIES OF THE STEPPE

most tenderness and solicitude, not interesting himself at all in
his companions.

Luka he calls a snake, — Gomozov a katsap,* and openly
terms them "women chasers," saying that they should be
whipped for it.

Luka gives little heed to his words; but if the soldier suc-
ceeds in rousing his anger, for a long time he grumbles in most
offensive manner.

"Gray barracks beast! Garrison rat! What can you un-
derstand? You spent your whole life chasing the frogs behind
the cannons. Who's telling you to say anything? Back to
your partridges, — command them, order your fowl about ! ' '

Yagodka, after having heard the watchman 's insults, calmly
went to lodge complaint with the chief, who shouted that he
didn't want people coming to him and pestering him with non-
sense, and dismissed the soldier unceremoniously. Whereupon
the soldier betook himself to Luka and in his turn insulted him
without getting excited about it, calmly, with execrable words
full of meaning, until Luka dashed off, leaving him alone.

' ' What can you do ? There 's no getting along with that fel-
low! No doubt it's all silly; just the same, 'Judge not that ye
be not judged. . . .' "

On a certain occasion the soldier answered him with a
loud guffaw.

"Poll-parrot! 'Judge not, judge not. . . .' why, if people
didn't judge one another they'd have nothing to talk about."

Besides the chief's wife there was another woman in the
station, — the cook. Her name was Arina ; she was almost forty,
and very ugly: obese, with hanging breasts, always dirty and
ragged. She waddled like a duck, and in her freckled face
beamed two little darting eyes surrounded by a network of
wrinkles. There was something submissive, oppressed, about
her ill-formed person, and her fleshy lips curled out constantly,

* Name given by inhabitants of Qreat Russia to those of Little Russia.

MAXIM GORKI 33

as if she wanted to implore pardon of all men, throw herself at
their feet, yet not daring to cry. Gomozov spent eight months
in the station without paying any special heed to the cook ; when-
ever he met her he would simply wish her "good day!" She
would reply in like manner, they would exchange two or three
sentences and would continue on their way. But one day Gomo-
zov came to the chief's kitchen to ask Arina to mend a few of
his shirts. The cook consented, and after they were mended,
for some reason or other, she brought them to Gomozov in
person.

"Ah! A thousand thanks!" he said. "Three shirts at ten
kopeks apiece makes thirty kopeks I owe you, — correct?"

"Correct," replied Arina.

Gomozov sank into a revery and was silent for some time.

"What district do you come from?" he finally asked the
woman, who, while he was mediating had scrutinized his beard.

"From Riazan," she answered.

"That's very far! And how do you come here?"

"Why, to tell the truth, .... I'm alone .... all alone—"

"That can carry one farther still," sighed Gomozov.

There followed a long silence.

"What a coincidence! I, too, am alone, I come from the
district of Sergatch," Gomozov began to say. "I, too am alone
.... all alone. I once had a wife. ... a child, two children. . . .
My wife died during an epi(h'mic of cholera, and the children. . .
from something or otiicr, j^erhaps because their last hour had
come. . . . died, too. And I, . . . . how shall I say? I was left
without a compass to guide me. . . . Misfortune. . . . Yes, after
that I tried witiiout success to establish myself once more. But
the machine had fallen apart; it no longer worked and I began
to go, as one would say, out of my path. . . . And here it is three
years that I've dragged along in my wretchedness."

"It's bad not to have a husband !" murmured Arina sweetly.
'I should think so. You arc a widow, perhaps?"

( <

34 STORIES OF THE STEPPE

"Unmarried."

' ' You don 't say ! ' ' exclaimed Gomozov incredulously.

' ' Upon my word ! ' ' affirmed Arina.

"How is it you never married?"

"Who was going to take me? I've nothing .... how
could I tempt anyone ? If I 'd have been good-looking at least ! ' '

' ' Yes, ' ' slowly uttered Gomozov, who had remained meditat-
ing.

And stroking his beard he began to examine her with pene-
trating glance. . . . Then he inquired what wages she received.

"Two fifty."

"Good. There are thirty kopeks coming to you? Listen
to what I say to you. Come for them tonight. . . . around ten
o'clock. What do you say? I'll give them to you then, we'll
have tea, and we '11 dance to drive away the monotony. . . . We 're
both so lonesome. . . . Come, won't you?"

"I'll come," she promised, impatiently.

And she left.

Later, having returned to the house punctually at ten
o'clock, she departed from Gomozov at dawn.

He did not repeat his invitation, nor did he give her the
thirty kopeks.

Arina came again of her own accord, meek and submissive,
and silently planted herself before him. He, stretched out
upon the bed, gazed at her and rolling toward the wall, said,
"Sit down."

When she had sat down he admonished her:

"Hear what I tell you. . . . Keep this secret. Let nobody
know! .... Understand? Otherwise things would be very un-
pleasant. ... I'm no youngster, nor are you, either. . . . Under-
stand?"

She nodded affirmatively.

When they parted he gave her some clothes that needed
mending and warned her again:

MAXIM GORKI 35

"Nobody! Not a soul!"

And thus they lived, hiding their relations from everybody.

Arina came to his house in spite of all, almost dragging
herself. He received her with great condescension, affecting
lordly airs, and at times he would say to her, frankly :

"How ugly you are!"

She would smile in silence, — an insipid, guilty smile, and
when she left him she would take along something to repair.

They did not meet often. But on various occasions, en-
countering her at the station, he would say to her in a low
voice :

"Come tonight."

And Arina would go meekly, with a serious expression on
her freckled face, as if she were intent upon fulfilling an impor-
tant duty.

And when she returned to the station her countenance would
wear its habitual lugubrious expression of guilt and fright.

At times she would stop at some nook sheltered by a tree of
the steppe. Here reigned night, and in the austere silence her
heart would compress with fear.

Ill

On a certain occasion, after having seen the four o'clock
train leave, the higher employees of the station organized a tea-
party in the garden, before the windows of Matvei Yegorovitch 's
rooms, in the leafy shade of the poplars.

It was a hot-weather castom that introduced a touch of
variety into the monotony of their existence.

They would sip tea and look at each other in silence after
having exhausted all the subjects suggested by the train.

"It's even hotter today than yesterday," commented Matvei
Yegorovitch, handing his wife the jar and with the other hand
wiping the perspiration that bedewed his forehead.

The woman took tho jar and observed:

36 STORIES OF THE STEPPE

"It simply seems hotter because of the monotony."

"H'm! . . . . Perhaps. . . . Really How tedious exis-
tence is ! Now cards, for example, are good in cases like this. . . .
But we are only three. ..."

Nikolai Petrovitch shrugged his shoulders, blinked, and
announced, in a clear voice:

"Cards, according to Schopenhauer, are the bankruptcy of

intellect."

"Well expressed!" enthused Matvei Yegorovitch. "Very
well. 'The bankruptcy of intellect'. . . . Yes. And who said
that?"

"Schopenhauer, a German philosopher. ..."

' ' A philosopher ! So-o ! ' '

"And tell me. These philosophers. . . .Are they, maybe,
employees of the Universities?" asked Sofia Ivanovna.

"It is. . . . how shall I explain it? .... it's not a position
but so to say, a natural gift Everybody can be a philo-
sopher Everyone who's born with the habit of thinking

about the beginning and the end of things. Of course, there are
philosophers in the universities, but you can be one anywhere
at all. . . . even if you happen to be an employee at a railroad
station."

"And do those in the universities see very much?"

"That depends on their. . . . intelligence."

"But if there were only one more we could have started a
fine game!" sighed Matvei Yegorovitch.

And the conversation languished.

The larks sing in the blue heavens, the linnets flit from
branch to branch of the poplars, chirping sweetly. Inside a
child is crying.

"Is Arina there?" asked Matvei Yegorovitch.

"Certainly," replied his wife in a low voice.

"A queer creature," observed Nikolai Petrovitch.

"Eccentricity is the first manifestation of triviality," re-

MAXIM GORKI 37

marked Nikolai Petrovitch sententiously, with a dreamy, medi-
tative air.

"How's that?" asked the chief, interested.

And Nikolai Petrovitch, repeating the aphorism with a pro-
fessorial air, rolls his eyes in a voluptuous manner, while Sofia
Ivanovna says, in a languid little voice :

"How well you remember what you've read! And here I
can't recall what I read yesterday!"

"Habit," replied Nikolai Petrovitch curtly.

"No, that other fellow is better. What do you call him?
Schopenhauer?" said Matvei Yegorovitch with a smile. "So
that whatever is young will become old."

"And vice versa, for a poet has written: 'All that is new
comes from what has been left by the old.' "

"The devil! How can you remember all that? It gushes
from you like water from a fountain!"

Matvei Yegorovitch laughed contentedly; his wife smiled
with a kindly air, and Nikolai Petrovitch tried in vain to hide
his pleasure at the compliment.

"And who said that about triviality?"

"Bariatinsky, a poet."

"And that other quotation?"

"Fofanov, another poet."

"There's a couple of smart fellows for you !" enthused Mat-
vei Yegorovitch.

"And with a musical voice, laughing with contentment, he
repeated the two citations.

It seems that monotony ])liiys witli them. For u moment it
frees them from its clutches, then once more grasps them in its
power. Then they become silent, suffering from the heat, which
is increased by the tea.

In the station, only .silence; on the steppe, only the sun.

"Oh, yes! I was about to Hpeak of Arina!" recalls Matvei
Yegorovitch. "There's a strange woman for you! I watch her

38 STORIES OF THE STEPPE

with wonder. As if she were crushed by something. She
doesn't laugh, or sing, and speaks very little. . . . You'd think
she was a piece of wood! And yet she's a wonderful worker,
and she's so careful with Lelia, so devoted to the child. ..."

He speaks in a low voice, but wishes nevertheless that Arina
will hear him through the window. He knows that servants
swell with pride upon hearing themselves praised. His wife
interrupts him with a meaningful rebuke.

"None of that. You don't know much about her."

Whereupon Nikolai Petrovitch, beating time with a spoon
on the table, began to murmur sweetly, as if declaiming:
A slave am I of love,
And deep is my despair,
When in the lists I enter,
'Gainst you, my demon fair!

He smiled.

"How now? What's that you're saying? She. . . . Ah,
you've got something between you!"

And Matvei Yegorovitch laughed heartily. His cheeks
shook and beads of perspiration rolled down his forehead.

"There's nothing so wonderful about her," said his wife.
"In the first place, she doesn't take good care of the child. In
the second, have you noticed the kind of bread she makes ? Bit-
ter, burned. And why?"

"Yes, indeed. There is something the matter with the
bread. . . . We '11 have to speak to her about it. But, the deuce !
I didn't expect anything like this! So she's a regular heart-
breaker? Devil take me! And who's the man? Lukachka?
I'll tease the life out of the old devil! Yagodka? The tooth-
less dandy!"

"Gomozov," said Nikolai Petrovitch curtly.

"So grave a fellow as that! 0-oh ! But you're. . . . You're
not fooling, are you?"

Such a shocking bit of gossip amused Matvei Yegorovitch

MAXIM GORKI 39

immensely. He was soon laughing in loud outbursts, tears com-
ing to his eyes; first he spoke of the necessity of giving the
lovers a severe reprimand ; then he began to imagine the tender
conversations that passed between them, and exploded anew in a
deafening roar.

At last he became petulant. Nikolai Petrovitch assumed
a serious face, while Sofia Ivanovna brusquely interrupted her
husband's talk.

''The devil! I don't have to pay his debts, do I? This is
interesting!" continued Matvei Yegorovitch, unable to control
himself.

At this juncture Luka appeared, saying, not very correctly,
"The telegraph is calling."

"I'm going. Give the signal to 42."

In another moment he was beside the aide at the station,
where Luka replied to the telegraph call. Nikolai Petrovitch
went to the apparatus and asked the next station, "Can I send
train 42?"

The chief passed through the office, smiled and said, "We've
got to play those devils a trick. Just to kill time and conquer
this deadly monotony. . . . "We may well be permitted to laugh
for once."

"Certainly, that's permissible," agreed Nikolai Petrovitch,
without leaving the apparatus.

P''or ho knew that jtliilosophy must be expressed in a laconic
manner.

IV

The opportunity for indulging in a little laughter was not
slow in presenting itself.

On a certain night Oomozov went to the shack where Arina,
by his orrlor and with permi.ssion of her master had arranged n
bed amid all the old furniture. The place was exposed and
damp, and the broken boxes, the casks, the tables and all the

40 STORIES OF THE STEPPE

other objects assumed in the darkness the most terrifying shapes.
When Arina was alone in the midst of all this she was so afraid
that she could scarcely sleep, and she recited all the prayers she
had ever learned, in a subdued voice.

Gomozov came, and for a long time silently took her to him,
and after he had become tired he fell asleep. But he was soon
awakened by the uneasy whispering of Arina.

"Timofei Petrovitch. Tiraofei Petrovitch!"

''What's the matter?" asked Gomozov, not yet thoroughly
awake.

"We've been locked in!"

"What do you mean?" he exclaimed, sitting up with a
start.

"Somebody came here and with some chains. ..."

"Are you crazy?" he grumbled, angrily and in terror,
thrusting her from him.

Gomozov arose, and stumbling against several objects made
his way to the door, pushed it, and after a silence said, ill-
humoredly, "The soldier!"

Someone on the other side of the door laughed gleefully.

"Open!" begged Gomozov aloud.

"What's that?"

It was the soldier's voice.

' ' I tell you to open ! ' '

"Tomorrow morning," replied the soldier.

And he went off.

"I've got to get to work!" cried Gomozov, in tones of
mingled anger and entreaty.

"I'll attend to your duties. Don't worry."

"You dog, you!" murmured the switchman,- in anxiety.
"Wait a while! You haven't any right to lock me up. ... He
has the key. . . . What '11 you tell him? He'll ask, 'Where is
Gomozov?' And. . . . Ha?. . . . Answer him!"

MAXIM GORKI 41

' ' But, you must know that the order for this came from the
chief himself," said Arina in a low, despairing voice.

"The chief?" stammered Gomozov, horrified. "Why?"

And then, after a moment's silence.

"You lie!" he exclaimed.

She replied with a deep sigh.

"What will this lead to?" wondered the switchman, sitting
down upon something near the door. What a disgrace for me I
And all on account of you, you ugly old witch ! ' '

With his fists doubled up Gomozov made a threatening ges-
ture toward the direction whence came the breathing. She, on
her side, was careful not to say a word.

A dark dampness surrounded them, a darkness impregnated
with the odor of limestone, mould, and something acrid that
seemed to pierce the nostrils. Strips of moonlight came through
the cracks of the door. Behind, a freight train leaving the sta-
tion rumbled off noisily.

"What good is this silence?" asked Gomozov, in a rage.
"What am I to do now? First you commit follies and then
you're silent? Think, devil take you! What are we to do?
Where can T hide to conceal this shame? Oh, good Lord in
heaven! Why did I ever fall in with such a. . . ."

"I'll implon; pardon," said Arina, in a low voice.

"And then?"

"Perhaps they'll forgive. ..."

"What good will that do mo? If Ihoy pardon you! Well,
what then? On whom will the disgrace fall? It's me that
they'll laugh at!"

After another pause he began to curse her anew. And the
time i)ass('d with cruel slowness. At last the woman, in a
trembling voice, said to him, entreatingly, "Timofci Petrovitch,
forgive me !"

"Yon ought to be forgiven with a good rap on the head!"
he snarled.

42 STORIES OF THE STEPPE

Again a long silence, lugubrious, unnerving, full of suffering
and suppressed anger for the two persons imprisoned in the
darkness. '

"Good heavens! If only day would come more quickly!"
wailed Arina in her perplexity.

"Shut up, or I'll knock daylight into you!" scowled Gomo-
zov, returning to his bitter reproaches.

And once again the torture of silence fell over them. And
the cruelty of time increased with the approach of day, as if
each minute retarded its progress, maliciously enjoying the ludi-
crous, yet grievous situation of the two persons.

At last Gomozov fell asleep, but the song of a rooster, crow-
ing near the cabin, awoke him.

"Hey there, witch! Are you sleeping?" he asked, in a
muffled voice.

"No," answered Arina, with a deep sigh.

"Wouldn't you like a nice little nap?" proposed the switch-
man, ironically. "Come. ..."

"Timofei Petrovitch!" implored Arina with a shrill cry.
' ' Don 't torment me ! Have pity on me ! In the name of Christ,
son of God, have pity on me! I'm alone, all alone! And you,
my beloved. ..."

"None of your howling, and don't make yourself ridicu-
lous," interjected Gomozov seriously, quieting the hysteric mut-
tering of the woman, who had moved him somewhat. "Hush!
When the Lord begins to punish. ..."

And anew they waited in silence for the passing of each
minute. But the moments went by without bringing anything.
At last, through the cracks of the door could be seen the gleam
of the sun's rays, which illuminated the darkness of the cabin.
Somebody came to the door, listened for a moment and then
went away.

' ' Hangman ! ' ' growled Gomozov.

And he spat out.

MAXIM GORKI 43

Another period of waiting, silent and tyrannical.

* ' Good Lord, I beg You ! ' ' murmured Arina.

It seemed that someone was slowly coming near. The chain
rattled, and the voice of the chief was heard.

"Gomozov! Take Arina by the hand and come out! At
once ! ' '

"Come," said Gomozov to her, in a low voice.

Arina, with bowed head, came over to his side.

The door was opened ; the chief appeared. He saluted and
said, "My congratulations to the young couple! Forward!
Strike up the band!"

Gomozov passed the threshold and came to a sudden halt,
stupefied by a wild, confused tumult. Behind the door were
Luka, Yagodka and Nikolai Petrovitch.

Luka was beating his fist against a pail, howling something
in a quivering tenor voice ; the soldier was blowing his bagpipe,
and Matvei Yegoroviteh was making wild gestures, his cheeks
puffed out, and making a trumpet-like sound through his lips.

Pum, pum! Pum-pum-pum!

The pail thumped, the bagpipe wheezed and groaned, and
Matvei Yegoroviteh laughed madly. His aide, too, exploded
with laughter when he beheld Gomozov in utter confusion, with
a sinister face and silly laugh upon his treinbliiig lips. Behind
him was Arina, half petrified, her head bowed low upon her
breast.

"Arina, to her lover.
Spoke very tender words."

Luka sang, making terrible gestures in Gomozov 's direction.

And the soldier approached. Placing his bagpipe next to
the switchman's ear he played on and on.

"Excellent. Now proceed, proceed. Ann in arm!" cried
the chief.

His wife was seated in the vestibule, and she swayed from
side to side, uttering penetrating shrieks.

44 STORIES OF THE STEPPE

"Motria, enough. Oh, I'll die of laughing!"
Who, for a taste of the beauty's lips.
Wouldn't brave the stoutest whips?

It was the aide who sang, almost into Gomozov's ear.

"Long live the young couple!" shouted Matvei Yegorovitch
as Gomozov took a step forward.

And from the throats of all rose a unanimous hurrah, the
soldier shouting with a roaring bass,

Arina walked behind Gomozov with raised head, her mouth
open, her arms hanging at her side. Her eyes peered vaguely
forward, but it is doubtful whether they saw anything.

"Motria, order them to embrace. . . . Ha, ha, ha!"

"Bride and bridegroom, this is bitter!" shouted Nikolai
Petrovitch, using the phrase employed at the embracing of a
newly-wed pair.

And Matvei Yegorovitch leaned against a tree, for he was so
weak from laughing that his feet shook beneath him.

And the pail kept dinning away, while the bagpipe wheezed
and groaned, and Luka danced as he sang:
"Oh, lovely cook Arina,
You've made us a pretty thick soup."

And Nikolai Petrovitch began once more to trumpet through
his lips, "Pum, pum, pum! Tra, ta, ta! Pum, pum! Tra, ta,
ta!"

Gomozov went as far as the door of a certain shanty and
suddenly made his escape through it. Arina was left in the
yard .surrounded by her almost delirious persecutors. They
shouted, laughed, whistled into her ears and jumped about her
in a paroxysm of crazy joy.

Arina stood before them with impassive countenance, dirty,
pitiful, ridiculous.

"The young bridegroom has gone off, and she. . . . remains
here, ' ' shouted Matvei Yegorovitch to his wife, pointing to Arina
and bursting anew into loud guffaws.

MAXIM GORKI 45

Arina turned her head toward him, walked by the cabin,
and suddenly fled to the steppe. She was followed by a din of
whistling, shouts and laughter.

* ' Enough ! Let her alone ! ' ' shouted Sofia Ivanovna. * ' Let
her get back her courage. She has to make dinner for us soon."

Arina went further and further into the steppe, yonder
where, behind the land used for the railroad there arose the
bristling fringes of the corn. She walked slowly, like one ab-
sorbed in her thoughts.

"What's that you say?" asked Matvei Yegorovitch of the
various actors in the farce, who were recounting to each other
the most trivial details of the event.

And everybody laughed. Even Nikolai Petrovitch found an
aphorism for the occasion.

''In truth it is no sin
To laugh at the ridiculous."
he said to Sofia Ivanovna.

And then he added, with an air of importance, "But to
laugh excessively is unhealthy."

Despite this, there was a great deal of laughter in the sta-
tion that day; but it didn't go so well with the eating, for, since
Arina had not returned, the chief's wife had to do the cooking.
Yet even the tasteless meal wa.s not enongli to extinguish the
good humor of the group. Gomozov did not fare forth from the
cabin until his duties called him, and when he came out he was
summoned to the chief's office, whore Nikolai Petrovitch, much
to Matvei Yegorovitch 's delight, asked jnin how he had suc-
ceeded in seducing his beauty.

"F'or its originality it is a sin of the first class," said
Nikolai Petrovitch to the chief.

"It certainly is," assented the composed switchman with a
forced laugh.

For he had suddenly begun to understand that by telling

46 STORIES OF THE STEPPE

the story in a manner to cast ridicule upon Arina he himself
would be less laughed at.

And he began:

"At first we made eyes at each other. ..."

"Made eyes at each other? Ha, ha, ha! Just imagine,
Nikolai Petrovitch, how an ugly thing like that would make
eyes! This is delicious!"

' * Well, but she did make them at me. And when I saw that,
I said to myself, ' You can have a little amusement ! ' Then she
asked me, *Do you want me to sew your shirts?' "

"But the subtlety of the phrase was not in the sewing,"
observed Nikolai Petrovitch.

And he explained to the chief.

"That, you know, is from Nekrassov. Continue, Timofei."

And Timofei continued his explanations; at first he forced
himself, then gradually he began to believe his own lie, for he
saw that his lie was useful.

And meanwhile, she of whom he spoke was stretched out in
the steppe. She had made her way into the depths of the sea of
corn, and had dropped upon the earth, where she remained for
a long time motionless. "When the hot sun began to burn her
shoulder until she could stand it no longer, she turned over
with her mouth facing the sky, covering her face with her
hands, so that her eyes should not see the heavens, which were
too clear, nor the sun, which was too bright.

Under the breath of the wind the corn produced a weak
noise about that woman crushed with shame, and the countless
crickets chirped tirelessly, as if intent upon very important
business. And it was hot. The woman tried to recall her pray-
ers, but she could not. Before her eyes there swayed in a wild
dance faces contracted with laughter, while in her ears boomed
the tenor voice of Luka and the mocking, querelous notes of the

MAXIM GORKI 47

bagpipe, and the resounding shouts. Either this, or the heat,
oppressed her bosom; she tore open her chemise, exposed her
skin to the rays of the sun, hoping, perhaps, that in this way
she might breathe more comfortably. And while the sun toasted
her skin, a strange sensation burrowed about within her breast.
With deep sighs, from time to time she murmured, "Good God,
I entreat You!"

But the only response that came to her ears was the dry
rustling of the com and the chirping of the crickets. When she
raised her head above the waves of the corn she beheld its gol-
den reflection, the black chimney of the water-house that rose
behind the station in the little valley, and the roof of the house
in which they were all laughing at her plight. There was noth-
ing else in the boundless yellow plain, covered by the blue dome
of heaven, and to Arina it seemed that she was all alone in the
world, — that she was stretched out exactly in its centre, and
that there was none who would offer to share with her the bur-
den of solitude.

At night she heard cries.

* ' Arina ! Arina, — the devil ! ' '

One of the voices she recognized as Luka's, — the other was
the soldier. She would have liked to hear a certain other voice,
but that one was not heard; then she began to weep copiously.
The tears ran down her cheeks and on to her bosom. She wept,
and as she wept she rubbed her naked skin against the earth, so
as not to feel the inner burning that tormented her more and
more. She cried, then tried to stop, stifling her groans, as if
afraid that someone would hear her and forbid her to cry.

Afterward, when night had come, she arose and walked
slowly toward the station.

Arrived there she leaned against the wall of the shack, and
there she remained a long time, her gaze fixed upon the steppe.
She could make out a freight trjiin and she heard the soldier

48 . STORIES OF THE STEPPE

relating the story of her shame, and heard the laughter of the
conductors.

The night was peaceful, a moonlit night. . . . The loud guf-
faws echoed afar, across the desolate steppe, where the sound of
the locomotive's whistle died away.

"Good Lord, I beg You!" sighed the woman, leaning more
heavily against the wall.

But her sighs did not lighten the burden that she felt upon
her heart.

The next morning she made her way into the attic of the
station and hanged herself, using a rope that formerly had
served for putting out clothes to dry.

Two days later, on account of the odor of the body, the
corpse was discovered. At first they were afraid, then they be-
gan to inquire as to who was to blame. Nikolai Petrovitch
demonstrated conclusively that it was Gomozov's fault. The
chief then struck Gomozov with his closed fist and ordered the
switchman to shut up.

The authorities began to investigate. As a result they found
that Arina used to suifer from attacks of melancholy. . . . The
laborers about the station were ordered to bury the corpse in the
steppe. And when this had been carried out, order and quiet
returned to the station.

And its inhabitants began to live their four minutes per
day, dying of monotony and solitude, of idleness and the heat.
With envious glances they followed the trains that sped past
them.

And in winter, when the tempests, in a wild charge, loosen
their fury upon the steppe, and boom their wailings, and
envelop the station in snow and wild shrieks, the life of its
denizens becomes more monotonous than ever.

The Man Who Could Not Die

(From ''Old Isergil")

IT was in Dobrudja, at the mouth of the Danube, that oUl
Isergil told me the story which I am relating here.

One evening, when the grape-gathering was over for the
day, the Maldavians employed in the vineyard went to the sea-
shore, but I remained alone with old Isergil. We lay on the
ground in the thick shade of the vines, observing silently the
gradually disappearing outlines of the people as they seemed
more and more to melt into the gathering darkness.

They were laughing and singing as they strolled along: the
men — sunburnt and sturdy, with long black mustache and
thick shocks of hair that fell over their shoulders, their stalwart
forms dressed in short jackets and wide trousers; the women
and the girls — gay, pretty and supple as willow twigs, with
dark blue eyes and tanned faces whose black and silk-soft luiir
fastened with garlands of coins, played loosely in the warm aiul
wanton breeze. The bells tinkled softly as the wind swept over
the wide ste[)pe. Now and then, when a sudden puff rushed
through the darkness as though in combat with an invisible
force, their hair was blown high over their heatls in fanta.stic
shapes. Seen from a distance, these shapes gave to th(! gradually
vanishing women a wdinlti lul, fairy-like appearance. Farther
they went and t";iil(irf, uml llir magic of the darkness threw
about them a mantle that seemed more iiinl more wonderfully
fanta.stic.

Now arose the sound of a violin, a girl sang in a velvety alto

49

50 STORIES OF THE STEPPE

voice, and laughter came to our ears. And the imagination,
having burst the bonds of reality in the bewitching twilight,
wove all these sounds into a wreath of gaily-colored ribbons and
flowers of melody which hovered gracefully over the dim out-
lines of the toilers.

The evening air was becoming permeated with the sharp
salty tang of the sea, mingled with the warm, pungent odor of
the rain-soaked earth. A few clouds that seemed to have been
torn away from the recent rain-storm, still straggled in the air,
curling softly and tinting with luxurious colors the western sky,
— now white and feathery, now steel-gray, now, towering like
sun-drenched cliffs, golden and rosy and red, and now black and
threatening. And through these clouds, fragments of blue sky,
already glittering with innumerable stars, peeped tenderly over
the steppe. All this, — the perfume, the clouds, the stars and
the people — shone with a bewitching beauty in the fragrant
golden twilight; and yet an atmosphere of indescribable sadness
hovered over everything, as at the beginning of a fairy tale.
Everything was alive, harmoniously and beautifully alive, and
yet the hand of death seemed to be over all, as though their
luxuriant growth were suddenly arrested. This life lacked the
nervous action of real life; it lacked those sounds which have
the power of latent growth. The sounds that reached the ear
at this time, however, were faint and broken, and as they were
dying away they seemed to be transformed into soft sighs, —
sighs of regret and of longing. Longing for what ? Happiness,
perhaps, — that elusive, unrecognizable will-o '-the-wisp, human
happiness? ....

As these tones floated through the air I was filled with fan-
ciful desires. I wished that I might be tranformed into dust
and that I might be blown by the wind in every direction. I
longed to flow like a warm stream through the steppe, to sweep
into the sea and to rise in soft vapor amongst the beautiful
clouds. I wished that I, and I alone, could permeate that en-

]VIAXIM GORKI 51

tire sorrowful, magical night. And I became melancholy with-
out myself knowing the reason why.

* ' Why haven 't you gone with the others ? ' ' asked old Isergil
as she nodded toward the sea.

She was bent with old age, almost doubled like a half-
closed jack-knife. Her once dark blue eyes were sad and tearful.
Her voice sounded dry and thin, without the slightest vibration.
Her words seemed to issue from her creaking bones. It was a
miracle that she could still speak at all !

"I didn't care to," I replied.

"Well, well, well! You are born old, you people of the
North. You are as sullen as the very devil. Our girls are afraid
of you, and yet you are so young and strong. ' '

The moon had risen. Its orb was big and blood-red. It
seemed to have been born out of the womb of the steppe which
had grown fat and fertile through the centuries with the flesh
and the blood of numberless human victims swallowed therein.
The shadows of the vine leaves wove delicate lace patterns
around us, covering us as with a net whose meshes danced and
trembled without end. And to the left of us quivered the
shadows of the clouds, bright and transparent in the shimmer-
ing moonbeams. We coukl just barely hear the murmur of the
sea in the distance, the soft weeping of the violin, the cheerful
laughter of a young girl, the vibrant baritone of her companion,
— all harmonizing with the regular lilt and ripple of the waves
against the shore.

"Look! There comes Larra!"

I followed with my eyes the crooked linger of old isrrgil
and I saw quivering shadows, many shadows, — and one of Ukmii,
darker and thifker, hovered lower and faster than the rest. It
was the shadow of a layer of clfjuds that moved over the sky
faster and lower than the clouds directly overhead.

"I sec nobody there," I .said.

Why, you are blinder than I, old woman though I am. Look,

52 STORIES OF THE STEPPE

there — don't you see? That black thing that flies so fast over
the steppe."

I looked again, and once more I saw nothing but shadows,

"That is nothing but a shadow," I said. "Why do you call
it Larra?"

* * Because it is Larra ! He has turned into a mere shadow.
And it is time he did ! He has been living for thousands of years
already, and the sun has sucked out all his blood and marrow
and the wind has shrivelled up his body. Thus does God punish
human beings for their overweening pride ! ' '

"Tell me about it," I begged of the old gipsy, already pic-
turing to myself one of those exquisite fairy tales the like of
which you can hear only in the steppe.

And old Isergil began her story:

"It happened many thousands of years ago. Far over the
sea, toward the rising of the sun lies the land of the Great
Stream, and in that land every leaf on every tree and every
blade of grass gives out just as much shade as a man needs in
order to shield himself against the sun, which shines there with
a terrible blaze. So generous is the earth in that country !

"Once upon a time there lived in that land a race of mighty
men who tended their herds and spent their days in hunting
wild beasts. At the end of every hunt they regaled themselves
with merry feasts, singing songs and making love to the girls
who were flame-bright in their loveliness in that land.

"Once, in the midst of their banquet, an eagle swooped
down from the sky and carried off one of their maidens. Dark
was her hair and her body was tender and fragrant as the night.
The arrows which the men shot after the eagle fell back to earth.
They looked for the maiden everywhere, but they could not find
her. And in time she was forgotten, just as everything else
is forgotten."

The old gipsy sighed and then became silent. Her creaking

MAXIM GORKI 53

voice sounded like the jarring of the forgotten centuries stirred
into life again and awaking within her breast the shadow of a
memory. And the sea accompanied harmoniously the beginning
of this old, old legend, one of the many that had their birth in
the gray dawn of the world where the wind of the land and the
waves of the ocean whispered together.

"Twenty years later the maiden returned, shattered and
weary, and with her came a youth, strong and handsome as she
herself had once been. And when they asked her where she had
lived all this time she told them how the eagle had carried her
off to his nest among the mountains where she dwelt as his wife.
The youth was his son, but the father was no longer alive; for
that mighty eagle, when he felt that he was growing feeble and
old and that his end was approaching, raised himself with a final
effort on high toward the sun, folded his wings and allowed
himself to be dashed to pieces on the jagged rocks below.

"Everybody looked in amazement at the eagle's son and
they noticed that he was in no way different from them except
that his eye was proud and cold and invincible as the eye of the
monarch of the air. When they spoke to him, he replied or kept
silent, just as he pleased ; and when the elders addressed liim, he
answered them as though he were their equal. This disj)lease(l
them, and they called him un inifiiiished arrow whose barb had
been left uiisharpcncd, and they exj)laiiied that many thousands
of people like himself and even much older than himself honored
and obeyed them. But he looked at them with his eold haughty
eyes, remarking that there was not another man in tiie world
like himself. If others honored and obeyed llic elders, it w^as
their affair; but as for him, it was his intention not to abide by
the elders' wishes.

"lI(!reupon they became enraged and cried out that there
was no place for him in their midst! 'Let him go wherever he
wishes!' they said, lie laughed ami went wherever he wished, —
namely, to a beautiful young girl who had h(;(;n looking at him

54 STORIES OF THE STEPPE

long and steadily. He approached her and took her in his
arms. This girl, however, was the daughter of one of the elders
who had just rebuked him. And although he was handsome, she
spurned his embrace, for she feared the wrath of her father.
She pushed him away from her and was about to leave, but he
followed her; and as she fell down, he placed his foot upon her
breast. He crushed it so fiercely that the blood began to spurt
out of her mouth and her life rushed forth from her writhing
heart.

"All those who had witnessed this were overwhelmed with
terror, for never had they beheld a human being slain in such a
manner. And for a long time they were silent, gazing at the
dead maiden as she lay there with her terrified, distended eyes
and bleeding mouth that even in death seemed dumbly crying
for revenge. And they gazed at him as he stood there alone,
cold and defiant, with his head raised high, inviting the punish-
ment that he knew would fall upon his head. Finally, recover-
ing their senses, they seized and bound him, and then left him
there ; for they thought it too merciful a punishment to put him
to death at once for such a horrible and unheard-of crime as he
had committed."

The darkness of the night was spreading, its meshes inter-
woven with the soft threads of melody still heard in the distance,
its tints becoming more and more fantastic. The crickets chir-
rupped among the trembling vine leaves, the winds sighed and
whispered to one another, and the full moon, blood-red hitherto,
gradually grew more silvery, scattering its shimmer lavishly
over the wide steppe.

"And they gathered together to determine upon the pen-
alty that might be worthy of his crime. One of them proposed
to have him torn asunder by two horses pulling in opposite di-
rections. This, however, did not satisfy them. Another one sug-
gested that they should all shoot their arrows at him. But this,
too, did not seem punishment enough. Some recommended that

MAXIM GORKI 55

they should burn him at the stake; but in that case the smoke
would hide his suffering from their eyes. They discussed this
thing and that thing, but they found no torture that satisfied
them all. And his mother knelt before the elders, but found
neither words nor tears to soften their hearts with pity toward
her son. For a long time they deliberated, until finally a wise
man said : 'Let us ask him why he did it !'

"They asked him and he replied: 'First remove my chains.
Unless I am freed I refuse to talk to you ! '

"And when they had removed his chains he said: 'What
do you want ? ' And he asked this in the tone of a master speak-
ing to his slaves.

" 'You have already heard what we want,' replied the
wise man.

" 'Why should I explain my actions to you?'

" 'In order that we may understand you, 0 terrible eagle!
Now listen to us. Your life is forfeited anyhow, so that you had
better tell us why you have killed her. We are going to live on
and it is necessary that we should learn more than we already
know.' n B|, •.|--^^'3<i

" 'Very well, I will tell you, although I myself do not know
just what has happened. It seems to me that I killed her be-
cause she spurned me when I desired to embrace her.'

" 'But she was not yours!'

" 'Do you use only that which is yours? I think that each
man brings with him nothing but his speech, his hands and his
feet. Tlicsc alone are his by right of birth. And yet do not all
of you possess wives, boasts of burden, tracts of land and many
other things besides?'

"To this they replied that whatever people possess they
have purchased at the cost of their strength, their soul, their
freedom, their very life But he insisted that he wanted to pos-
sess whatever seemed to liini beautiful and desirable, and to keep
all this as his very own without sharing it with others.

56 STORIES OF THE STEPPE

"For a long time they argued with him and then realized
from his words that in his own eyes he appeared to be the first
and only creature on God's earth, neither recognizing nor in-
deed being able to recognize any rights outside of himself. They
shuddered when they saw how he was deliberately condemning
himself to everlasting loneliness among men. He knew neither
race, nor mother, no heroic deeds, and no peaceful occupation.
He had neither herd nor home, nor mate, and he did not even
feel the want thereof ! ' '

In the distance, on the seashore, arose the merry ripple of
a girl's laughter intermingled with the melting tenor of a gipsy
song. The others regularly filled the rests in his rhythmical
singing. The tender sheaves of melody rose and fell in the air,
disappearing suddenly, as though someone had caught them in
their flight and carried off this aerial booty to distant lands.

"When the elders saw that they could do nothing else with
him, they deliberated again to determine the proper punishment.
But this time their deliberation did not last so long, for that
same wise elder who up to this time had said nothing about the
penalty, now spoke up : * Wait ! The punishment already exists.
And a most fearful punishment it is, the like of which has not
been seen for many thousands of years. His punishment is
within himself, inexorable and unescapable. Let him go free
that he may live on — this is his punishment!' ^

"And thereupon a miracle took place. Out of a clear and
cloudless sky there suddenly crashed a peal of thunder. The
heavenly powers had confirmed the wise elder's judgment. The
bystanders bowed their heads and each went to his home. But
he, the eagle's son, whose name was henceforth Larra (which
means abandoned, exiled), laughed loudly and boisterously at
his judges and went forth a free man. — Lonely and free was
he, just as his father had been. Yet his father was not a human
being! And Larra began to live his wondrous life — free as
an eagle. Often he appeared in the settlement of the race of

MAXIM GORKI 57

giants, robbing them of their cattle and beautiful maidens; —
whatever he desired for his pleasure was his pitiful victim.
People shot their arrows at him, yet his body could not be pierced,
for it was shielded against death by an invisible armor of retri-
bution. He was quick, rapacious, strong and terrible. Rarely
did anybody come face to face with him. He was seen for the
most part from a distance. And whoever caught sight of him
shot as many arrows as he possessed or was able to spare. And for
many long years he roamed alone and companionless through the
haunts of men. . . . Yet we mortals cannot endure unending joy ;
we cannot be happy in constant and unalloyed pleasure, for such
pleasure loses all its value in the end, and then we begin to long
for pain. . . . And so it once happened that he came close to the
people, and when they were about to attack him he remained
motionless, making no effort whatsoever to defend himself.
Thereupon one of the people realized what he desired and he
cried, 'Do not touch him! He wants to die!'

"And they all restrained themselves, for there was not one
among them who wished to set him free from his evil lot of
eternal life. They refrained from hiying hands on him, but
stood around and mocked him. Larra, however, trembled at
their laughter and fumbled for something that was hidden in
his bosom. Grasping it convulsively he rushed upon the men —
with a stone in his uplifted hand. They avoided his attack but
refu.sod to strike back, Thereujjon he fell upon the ground,
weeping and weary, and they stood about gn/.ing at his prostrate
form. .Seeing this he snatched a knife that liiid \':\]\v\\ upon the
ground from one of the ni'-n during the struggle, and plung(>d
It into his breast. But the knife sruipi)ed at the hilt as though
it had .struck against a stone; and once more he fell upon the
earth, and in desf)air beat his head violently against it. The earth
merely yielded, leaving a hollf)W where his liciid had struck
ngaijist it.

" 'lie cannot die!' joyfully cried those who had witnessed

58 STORIES OF THE STEPPE

all this. And they went away leaving him all alone. He lay
upon his back and this is what he saw : High against the heavens
like two black dots flew two mighty eagles. And he, a human
being, lay there helpless upon the ground; and in his human
eyes there was such deep longing, such endless, overwhelming
sorrow that they could drown out the happiness of the entire
race of mortals. And from that time on unto this very day he
has been seeking for death — always alone, always in vain. And
everywhere you can see him, seeking everywhere. . . . You saw
him but a little while ago. ... He is nothing but a shadow now,
and a shadow he will remain forever. Now he understands
neither the speech nor the actions of men. ... He no longer
knows what it is to live and the secret of death will forever re-
main locked against him. He merely wanders and seeks, seeks
and wanders. His life is no life and the hope of death no longer
smiles upon him, and no rest nor welcome can he find among
men. Thus has God punished man's overweening pride!"

Old Isergil sighed and then became silent, while her head
sank down on her breast.

I looked at her. Sleep was overpowering the old gipsy,
and I pitied her. The latter part of her story had burst forth in
loud, almost threatening tones, and yet her words rang with a
timid and slavishly humble undertone.

A song arose in the darkness on the seashore. A most won-
derful song it was ! First an alto rang through the night, — a
young girl's voice, singing the first measures of the melody.
Then a second voice took up the same song from the very start
while the first voice continued the melody, a few measures in
advance of the second singer. Then a third, a fourth, and a
fifth voice took up the same song, and each new voice began like
the second, a few measures after the one previous to it, and
continued the song through to the end. And suddenly a chorus
of men 's voices rang out, singing the self-same melody from the
beginning, harmonizing and supporting the other singers, yet not

MAXIM GORKI 59

in the least drowning out their voices, A fugue in the steppe ! —
Born among the common folk and sung by the common folk !

The melody was wonderful. Each female voice rang sweetly
and distinctly out of the interweaving strands of music. It was
as if many-colored rills were chasing and tumbling out of the
air over a steep precipice and then swinging and melting together
into a stream of exquisite melody. The voices rushed into this
stream, submerging themselves within its depths and then with
a ripple of laughter bubbling up on the surface again. One
after another they tumbled pure and bright as crystal, and then
rose once more into the heights. And the harmony, too, was
wonderful. The male voices sang in a different and mpre sim-
ple rhythm, without any ornament or vibration, — somewhat
heavy and melancholy, as though they were telling a tale of
sorrow, — while the female voices, overtaking each other con-
tinually, seemed to be forevermore hastening to tell the same
tale to their companions, — yet a tale that was no longer sor-
rowful but filled with the merry ringing of silvery fairy bells.

And this melody rose higher and higher until it over-
\rhelmed the moaning of the sea.

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