Максим Горький
The Man Who Was Afraid
“Papa, are you ill? tell me!”
Her caresses were extremely rare; they always softened the lonely old man, and though he did not respond to them for some reason or other he nevertheless could not help appreciating them. And now he shrugged his shoulders, thus throwing off her hands and said:
“Go, go to your place. How the itching curiosity of Eve gives you no rest.”
But Lubov did not go away; persistingly looking into his eyes, she asked, with an offended tone in her voice:
“Papa, why do you always speak to me in such a way as though I were a small child, or very stupid?”
“Because you are grown up and yet not very clever. Yes! That’s the whole story! Go, sit down and eat!”
She walked away and silently seated herself opposite her father, compressing her lips for affront. Contrary to his habits Mayakin ate slowly, stirring his spoon in his plate of cabbage-soup for a long time, and examining the soup closely.
“If your obstructed mind could but comprehend your father’s thoughts!” said he, suddenly, as he sighed with a sort of whistling sound.
Lubov threw her spoon aside and almost with tears in her voice, said:
“Why do you insult me, papa? You see that I am alone, always alone! You understand how difficult my life is, and you never say a single kind word to me. You never say anything to me! And you are also lonely; life is difficult for you too, I can see it. You find it very hard to live, but you alone are to blame for it! You alone!
“Now Balaam’s she-ass has also started to talk!” said the old man, laughing. “Well! what will be next?”
“You are very proud of your wisdom, papa.”
“And what else?”
“That isn’t good; and it pains me greatly. Why do you repulse me? You know that, save you, I have no one.”
Tears leaped to her eyes; her father noticed them, and his face quivered.
“If you were not a girl!” he exclaimed. “If you had as much brains as Marfa Poosadnitza, for instance. Eh, Lubov? Then I’d laugh at everybody, and at Foma. Come now, don’t cry!”
She wiped her eyes and asked:
“What about Foma?”
“He’s rebellious. Ha! ha! he says: ‘Take away my property, give me freedom!’ He wants to save his soul in the kabak. That’s what entered Foma’s head.”
“Well, what is this?” asked Lubov, irresolutely. She wanted to say that Foma’s desire was good, that it was a noble desire if it were earnest, but she feared to irritate her father with her words, and she only gazed at him questioningly.
“What is it?” said Mayakin, excitedly, trembling. “That either comes to him from excessive drinking, or else – Heaven forbid – from his mother, the orthodox spirit. And if this heathenish leaven is going to rise in him I’ll have to struggle hard with him! There will be a great conflict between us. He has come out, breast foremost, against me; he has at once displayed great audacity. He’s young – there’s not much cunning in him as yet. He says: ‘I’ll drink away everything, everything will go up in smoke! I’ll show you how to drink!’”
Mayakin lifted his hand over his head, and, clenching his fist, threatened furiously.
“How dare you? Who established the business? Who built it up? You? Your father. Forty years of labour were put into it, and you wish to destroy it? We must all go to our places here all together as one man, there cautiously, one by one. We merchants, tradesmen, have for centuries carried Russia on our shoulders, and we are still carrying it. Peter the Great was a Czar of divine wisdom, he knew our value. How he supported us! He had printed books for the express purpose of teaching us business. There I have a book which was printed at his order by Polidor Virgily Oorbansky, about inventory, printed in 1720. Yes, one must understand this. He understood it, and cleared the way for us. And now we stand on our own feet, and we feel our place. Clear the way for us! We have laid the foundation of life, instead of bricks we have laid ourselves in the earth. Now we must build the stories. Give us freedom of action! That’s where we must hold our course. That’s where the problem lies; but Foma does not comprehend this. But he must understand it, must resume the work. He has his father’s means. When I die mine will be added to his. Work, you puppy! And he is raving. No, wait! I’ll lift you up to the proper point!”
The old man was choking with agitation and with flashing eyes looked at his daughter so furiously as though Foma were sitting in her place. His agitation frightened Lubov, but she lacked the courage to interrupt her father, and she looked at his stern and gloomy face in silence.
“The road has been paved by our fathers, and you must walk on it. I have worked for fifty years to what purpose? That my children may resume it after I am gone. My children! Where are my children?”
The old man drooped his head mournfully, his voice broke down, and he said sadly, as if he were speaking unto himself:
“One is a convict, utterly ruined; the other, a drunkard. I have little hope in him. My daughter, to whom, then, shall I leave my labour before my death? If I had but a son-in-law. I thought Foma would become a man and would be sharpened up, then I would give you unto him, and with you all I have – there! But Foma is good for nothing, and I see no one else in his stead. What sort of people we have now! In former days the people were as of iron, while now they are of india-rubber. They are all bending now. And nothing – they have no firmness in them. What is it? Why is it so?”
Mayakin looked at his daughter with alarm. She was silent.
“Tell me,” he asked her, “what do you need? How, in your opinion, is it proper to live? What do you want? You have studied, read, tell me what is it that you need?”
The questions fell on Lubov’s head quite unexpectedly to her, and she was embarrassed. She was pleased that her father asked her about this matter, and was at the same time afraid to reply, lest she should be lowered in his estimation. And then, gathering courage, as though preparing to jump across the table, she said irresolutely and in a trembling voice:
“That all the people should be happy and contented; that all the people should be equal, all the people have an equal right to life, to the bliss of life, all must have freedom, even as they have air. And equality in everything!”
At the beginning of her agitated speech her father looked at her face with anxious curiosity in his eyes, but as she went on hastily hurling her words at him his eyes assumed an altogether different expression, and finally he said to her with calm contempt:
“I knew it before – you are a gilded fool!”
She lowered her head, but immediately raised it and exclaimed sadly:
“You have said so yourself – freedom.”
“You had better hold your tongue!” the old man shouted at her rudely. “You cannot see even that which is visibly forced outside of each man. How can all the people be happy and equal, since each one wants to be above the other? Even the beggar has his pride and always boasts of something or other before other people. A small child, even he wants to be first among his playmates. And one man will never yield to another; only fools believe in it. Each man has his own soul, and his own face; only those who love not their souls and care not for their faces can be planed down to the same size. Eh, you! You’ve read much trash, and you’ve devoured it!”
Bitter reproach and biting contempt were expressed on the old man’s face. He noisily pushed his chair away from the table, jumped up, and folding his hands behind his back, began to dart about in the room with short steps, shaking his head and saying something to himself in an angry, hissing whisper. Lubov, pale with emotion and anger, feeling herself stupid and powerless before him, listening to his whisper, and her heart palpitated wildly.
“I am left alone, alone, like Job. Oh Lord! What shall I do? Oh, alone! Am I not wise? Am I not clever? But life has outwitted me also. What does it love? Whom does it fondle? It beats the good, and suffers not the bad to go unpunished, and no one understands life’s justice.”
The girl began to feel painfully sorry for the old man; she was seized with an intense yearning to help him; she longed to be of use to him.
Following him with burning eyes, she suddenly said in a low voice:
“Papa, dear! do not grieve. Taras is still alive. Perhaps he – ”
Mayakin stopped suddenly as though nailed to the spot, and he slowly lifted his head.
“The tree that grew crooked in its youth and could not hold out will certainly break when it’s old. But nevertheless, even Taras is a straw to me now. Though I doubt whether he is better than Foma. Gordyeeff has a character, he has his father’s daring. He can take a great deal on himself. But Taraska, you recalled him just in time. Yes!”
And the old man, who a moment ago had lost his courage to the point of complaining, and, grief-stricken had run about the room like a mouse in a trap, now calmly and firmly walked up with a careworn face to the table, carefully adjusted his chair, and seated himself, saying:
“We’ll have to sound Taraska. He lives in Usolye at some factory. I was told by some merchants – they’re making soda there, I believe. I’ll find out the particulars. I’ll write to him.”
“Allow me to write to him, papa!” begged Lubov, softly, flushing, trembling with joy.
“You?” asked Mayakin, casting a brief glance at her; he then became silent, thought awhile and said:
“That’s all right. That’s even better! Write to him. Ask him whether he isn’t married, how he lives, what he thinks. But then I’ll tell you what to write when the time has come.”
“Do it at once, papa,” said the girl.
“It is necessary to marry you off the sooner. I am keeping an eye on a certain red-haired fellow. He doesn’t seem to be stupid. He’s been polished abroad, by the way.
“Is it Smolin, papa?” asked Lubov, inquisitively and anxiously.
“And supposing it is he, what of it?” inquired Yakov Tarasovich in a business-like tone.
“Nothing, I don’t know him,” replied Lubov, indefinitely.
“We’ll make you acquainted. It’s time, Lubov, it’s time. Our hopes for Foma are poor, although I do not give him up.”
“I did not reckon on Foma – what is he to me?”
“That’s wrong. If you had been cleverer perhaps he wouldn’t have gone astray! Whenever I used to see you together, I thought: ‘My girl will attract the fellow to herself! That will be a fine affair!’ But I was wrong. I thought that you would know what is to your advantage without being told of it. That’s the way, my girl!” said the father, instructively.
She became thoughtful as she listened to his impressive speech. Robust and strong, Lubov was thinking of marriage more and more frequently of late, for she saw no other way out of her loneliness. The desire to forsake her father and go away somewhere in order to study something, to do something. This desire she had long since overcome, even as she conquered in herself many another longing just as keen, but shallow and indefinite. From the various books she had read a thick sediment remained within her, and though it was something live it had the life of a protoplasm. This sediment developed in the girl a feeling of dis-satisfaction with her life, a yearning toward personal independence, a longing to be freed from the heavy guardianship of her father, but she had neither the power to realize these desires, nor the clear conception of their realization. But nature had its influence on her, and at the sight of young mothers with children in their arms Lubov often felt a sad and mournful languor within her. At times stopping before the mirror she sadly scrutinized in it her plump, fresh face with dark circles around her eyes, and she felt sorry for herself. She felt that life was going past her, forgetting her somewhere on the side. Now listening to her father’s words she pictured to herself what sort of man Smolin might be. She had met him when he was yet a Gymnasium student, his face was covered with freckles, he was snub-nosed, always clean, sedate and tiresome. He danced heavily, awkwardly, he talked uninterestingly. A long time had passed since then, he had been abroad, had studied something there, how was he now? From Smolin her thoughts darted to her brother, and with a sinking heart she thought: what would he say in reply to her letter? What sort of a man was he? The image of her brother as she had pictured it to herself prevented her from seeing both her father and Smolin, and she had already made up her mind not to consent to marry before meeting Taras, when suddenly her father shouted to her:
“Eh, Lubovka! Why are you thoughtful? What are you thinking of mostly?”
“So, everything goes so swiftly,” replied Luba, with a smile.
“What goes swiftly?”
“Everything. A week ago it was impossible to speak with you about Taras, while now – ”
“‘Tis need, my girl! Need is a power, it bends a steel rod into a spring. And steel is stubborn. Taras, we’ll see what he is! Man is to be appreciated by his resistance to the power of life; if it isn’t life that wrings him, but he that wrings life to suit himself, my respects to that man! Allow me to shake your hand, let’s run our business together. Eh, I am old. And how very brisk life has become now! With each succeeding year there is more and more interest in it, more and more relish to it! I wish I could live forever, I wish I could act all the time!” The old man smacked his lips, rubbed his hands, and his small eyes gleamed greedily.
“But you are a thin-blooded lot! Ere you have grown up you are already overgrown and withered. You live like an old radish. And the fact that life is growing fairer and fairer is incomprehensible to you. I have lived sixty-seven years on this earth, and though I am now standing close to my grave I can see that in former years, when I was young, there were fewer flowers on earth, and the flowers were not quite as beautiful as they are now. Everything is growing more beautiful! What buildings we have now! What different trade implements. What huge steamers! A world of brains has been put into everything! You look and think; what clever fellows you are – Oh people! You merit reward and respect! You’ve arranged life cleverly. Everything is good, everything is pleasant. Only you, our successors, you are devoid of all live feelings! Any little charlatan from among the commoners is cleverer than you! Take that Yozhov, for instance, what is he? And yet he represents himself as judge over us, and even over life itself – he has courage. But you, pshaw! You live like beggars! In your joy you are beasts, in your misfortune vermin! You are rotten! They ought to inject fire into your veins, they ought to take your skin off and strew salt upon your raw flesh, then you would have jumped!”
Yakov Tarasovich, small-sized, wrinkled and bony, with black, broken teeth in his mouth, bald-headed and dark, as though burned by the heat of life and smoked in it, trembled in vehement agitation, showering jarring words of contempt upon his daughter, who was young, well-grown and plump. She looked at him with a guilty expression in her eyes, smiled confusedly, and in her heart grew a greater and greater respect for the live old man who was so steadfast in his desires.
.......
And Foma went on straying and raving, passing his days and nights in taverns and dens, and mastering more and more firmly his contemptuously-hateful bearing toward the people that surrounded him. At times they awakened in him a sad yearning to find among them some sort of resistance to his wicked feeling, to meet a worthy and courageous man who would cause him to blush with shame by his burning reproach. This yearning became clearer – each time it sprang up in him it was a longing for assistance on the part of a man who felt that he had lost his way and was perishing.
“Brethren!” he cried one day, sitting by the table in a tavern, half-intoxicated, and surrounded by certain obscure and greedy people, who ate and drank as though they had not had a piece of bread in their mouths for many a long day before.
“Brethren! I feel disgusted. I am tired of you! Beat me unmercifully, drive me away! You are rascals, but you are nearer to one another than to me. Why? Am I not a drunkard and a rascal as well? And yet I am a stranger to you! I can see I am a stranger. You drink out of me and secretly you spit upon me. I can feel it! Why do you do it?”
To be sure, they could treat him in a different way. In the depth of his soul perhaps not one of them considered himself lower than Foma, but he was rich, and this hindered them from treating him more as a companion, and then he always spoke certain comically wrathful, conscience-rending words, and this embarrassed them. Moreover, he was strong and ready to fight, and they dared not say a word against him. And that was just what he wanted. He wished more and more intensely that one of these people he despised would stand up against him, face to face, and would tell him something strong, which, like a lever, would turn him aside from the sloping road, whose danger he felt, and whose filth he saw, being filled with helpless aversion for it.
And Foma found what he needed.
One day, irritated by the lack of attention for him, he cried to his drinking-companions:
“You boys, keep quiet, every one of you! Who gives you to drink and to eat? Have you forgotten it? I’ll bring you in order! I’ll show you how to respect me! Convicts! When I speak you must all keep quiet!”
And, indeed, all became silent; either for fear lest they might lose his good will, or, perhaps, afraid that he, that healthy and strong beast, might beat them. They sat in silence about a minute, concealing their anger at him, bending over the plates and attempting to hide from him their fright and embarrassment. Foma measured them with a self-satisfied look, and gratified by their slavish submissiveness, said boastfully:
“Ah! You’ve grown dumb now, that’s the way! I am strict! I – ”
“You sluggard!” came some one’s calm, loud exclamation.
“Wha-at?” roared Foma, jumping up from his chair. “Who said that?”
Then a certain, strange, shabby-looking man arose at the end of the table; he was tall, in a long frock-coat, with a heap of grayish hair on his large head. His hair was stiff, standing out in all directions in thick locks, his face was yellow, unshaven, with a long, crooked nose. To Foma it seemed that he resembled a swab with which the steamer decks are washed, and this amused the half-intoxicated fellow.
“How fine!” said he, sarcastically. “What are you snarling at, eh? Do you know who I am?”
With the gesture of a tragic actor the man stretched out to Foma his hand, with its long, pliant fingers like those of a juggler, and he said in a deep hoarse basso:
“You are the rotten disease of your father, who, though he was a plunderer, was nevertheless a worthy man in comparison with you.”
Because of the unexpectedness of this, and because of his wrath, Foma’s heart shrank. He fiercely opened his eyes wide and kept silent, finding no words to reply to this insolence. And the man, standing before him, went on hoarsely, with animation, beastlike rolling his large, but dim and swollen, eyes:
“You demand of us respect for you, you fool! How have you merited it? Who are you? A drunkard, drinking away the fortune of your father. You savage! You ought to be proud that I, a renowned artist, a disinterested and faithful worshipper at the shrine of art, drink from the same bottle with you! This bottle contains sandal and molasses, infused with snuff-tobacco, while you think it is port wine. It is your license for the name of savage and ass.”
“Eh, you jailbird!” roared Foma, rushing toward the artist. But he was seized and held back. Struggling in the arms of those that seized him, he was compelled to listen without replying, to the thundering, deep and heavy bass of the man who resembled a swab.
“You have thrown to men a few copecks out of the stolen roubles, and you consider yourself a hero! You are twice a thief. You have stolen the roubles and now you are stealing gratitude for your few copecks! But I shall not give it to you! I, who have devoted all my life to the condemnation of vice, I stand before you and say openly: ‘You are a fool and a beggar because you are too rich! Here lies the wisdom: all the rich are beggars.’ That’s how the famous coupletist, Rimsky-Kannibalsky, serves Truth!”
Foma was now standing meekly among the people that had closely surrounded him, and he eagerly listened to the coupletist’s thundering words, which now aroused in him a sensation as though somebody was scratching a sore spot, and thus soothing the acute itching of the pain. The people were excited; some attempted to check the coupletist’s flow of eloquence, others wanted to lead Foma away somewhere. Without saying a word he pushed them aside and listened, more and more absorbed by the intense pleasure of humiliation which he felt in the presence of these people. The pain irritated by the words of the coupletist, caressed Foma’s soul more and more passionately, and the coupletist went on thundering, intoxicated with the impurity of his accusation:
“You think that you are the master of life? You are the low slave of the rouble.”
Someone in the crowd hiccoughed, and, evidently displeased with himself for this, cursed each time he hiccoughed:
“Oh devil.”
And a certain, unshaven, fat-faced man took pity on Foma, or, perhaps, became tired of witnessing that scene, and, waving his hands, he drawled out plaintively:
“Gentlemen, drop that! It isn’t good! For we are all sinners! Decidedly all, believe me!”
“Well, speak on!” muttered Foma. “Say everything! I won’t touch you.”
The mirrors on the walls reflected this drunken confusion, and the people, as reflected in the mirrors, seemed more disgusting and hideous than they were in reality.
“I do not want to speak!” exclaimed the coupletist, “I do not want to cast the pearls of truth and of my wrath before you.”
He rushed forward, and raising his head majestically, turned toward the door with tragic footsteps.
“You lie!” said Foma, attempting to follow him. “Hold on! you have made me agitated, now calm me.”
They seized him, surrounded him and shouted something to him while he was rushing forward, overturning everybody. When he met tactile obstacles on his way the struggle with them gave him ease, uniting all his riotous feelings into one yearning to overthrow that which hindered him. And now, after he had jostled them all aside and rushed out into the street, he was already less agitated. Standing on the sidewalk he looked about the street and thought with shame:
“How could I permit that swab to mock me and abuse my father as a thief?”
It was dark and quiet about him, the moon was shining brightly, and a light refreshing breeze was blowing. Foma held his face to the cool breeze as he walked against the wind with rapid strides, timidly looking about on all sides, and wishing that none of the company from the tavern would follow him. He understood that he had lowered himself in the eyes of all these people. As he walked he thought of what he had come to: a sharper had publicly abused him in disgraceful terms, while he, the son of a well-known merchant, had not been able to repay him for his mocking.
“It serves me right!” thought Foma, sadly and bitterly. “That serves me right! Don’t lose your head, understand. And then again, I wanted it myself. I interfered with everybody, so now, take your share!” These thoughts made him feel painfully sorry for himself. Seized and sobered by them he kept on strolling along the streets, and searching for something strong and firm in himself. But everything within him was confused; it merely oppressed his heart, without assuming any definite forms. As in a painful dream he reached the river, seated himself on the beams by the shore, and began to look at the calm dark water, which was covered with tiny ripples. Calmly and almost noiselessly flowed on the broad, mighty river, carrying enormous weights upon its bosom. The river was all covered with black vessels, the signal lights and the stars were reflected in its water; the tiny ripples, murmuring softly, were gently breaking against the shore at the very feet of Foma. Sadness was breathed down from the sky, the feeling of loneliness oppressed Foma.
“Oh Lord Jesus Christ!” thought he, sadly gazing at the sky. “What a failure I am. There is nothing in me. God has put nothing into me. Of what use am I? Oh Lord Jesus!”
At the recollection of Christ Foma felt somewhat better – his loneliness seemed alleviated, and heaving a deep sigh, he began to address God in silence:
“Oh Lord Jesus Christ! Other people do not understand anything either, but they think that all is known to them, and therefore it is easier for them to live. While I – I have no justification. Here it is night, and I am alone, I have no place to go, I am unable to say anything to anybody. I love no one – only my godfather, and he is soulless. If Thou hadst but punished him somehow! He thinks there is none cleverer and better on earth than himself. While Thou sufferest it. And the same with me. If some misfortune were but sent to me. If some illness were to overtake me. But here I am as strong as iron. I am drinking, leading a gay life. I live in filth, but the body does not even rust, and only my soul aches. Oh Lord! To what purpose is such a life?”
Vague thoughts of protest flashed one after another through the mind of the lonely, straying man, while the silence about him was growing deeper, and night ever darker and darker. Not far from the shore lay a boat at anchor; it rocked from side to side, and something was creaking in it as though moaning.
“How am I to free myself from such a life as this?” reflected Foma, staring at the boat. “And what occupation is destined to be mine? Everybody is working.”
And suddenly he was struck by a thought which appeared great to him:
“And hard work is cheaper than easy work! Some man will give himself up entire to his work for a rouble, while another takes a thousand with one finger.”
He was pleasantly roused by this thought. It seemed to him that he discovered another falsehood in the life of man, another fraud which they conceal. He recalled one of his stokers, the old man Ilya, who, for ten copecks, used to be on watch at the fireplace out of his turn, working for a comrade eight hours in succession, amid suffocating heat. One day, when he had fallen sick on account of overwork, he was lying on the bow of the steamer, and when Foma asked him why he was thus ruining himself, Ilya replied roughly and sternly:
“Because every copeck is more necessary to me than a hundred roubles to you. That’s why!”
And, saying this, the old man turned his body, which was burning with pain, with its back to Foma.
Reflecting on the stoker his thoughts suddenly and without any effort, embraced all those petty people that were doing hard work. He wondered, Why do they live? What pleasure is it for them to live on earth? They constantly do but their dirty, hard work, they eat poorly, are poorly clad, they drink. One man is sixty years old, and yet he keeps on toiling side by side with the young fellows. And they all appeared to Foma as a huge pile of worms, which battled about on earth just to get something to eat. In his memory sprang up his meetings with these people, one after another – their remarks about life – now sarcastic and mournful, now hopelessly gloomy remarks – their wailing songs. And now he also recalled how one day in the office Yefim had said to the clerk who hired the sailors:
“Some Lopukhin peasants have come here to hire themselves out, so don’t give them more than ten roubles a month. Their place was burned down to ashes last summer, and they are now in dire need – they’ll work for ten roubles.”
Sitting on the beams, Foma rocked his whole body to and fro, and out of the darkness, from the river, various human figures appeared silently before him – sailors, stokers, clerks, waiters, half-intoxicated painted women, and tavern-loungers. They floated in the air like shadows; something damp and brackish came from them, and the dark, dense throng moved on slowly, noiselessly and swiftly, like clouds in an autumn sky. The soft splashing of the waves poured into his soul like sadly sighing music. Far away, somewhere on the other bank of the river, burned a wood-pile; embraced by the darkness on all sides, it was at times almost absorbed by it, and in the darkness it trembled, a reddish spot scarcely visible to the eye. But now the fire flamed up again, the darkness receded, and it was evident that the flame was striving upward. And then it sank again.
“Oh Lord, Oh Lord!” thought Foma, painfully and bitterly, feeling that grief was oppressing his heart with ever greater power. “Here I am, alone, even as that fire. Only no light comes from me, nothing but fumes and smoke. If I could only meet a wise man! Someone to speak to. It is utterly impossible for me to live alone. I cannot do anything. I wish I might meet a man.”
Far away, on the river, two large purple fires appeared, and high above them was a third. A dull noise resounded in the distance, something black was moving toward Foma.
“A steamer going up stream,” he thought. “There may be more than a hundred people aboard, and none of them give a single thought to me. They all know whither they are sailing. Every one of them has something that is his own. Every one, I believe, understands what he wants. But what do I want? And who will tell it to me? Where is such a man?”
The lights of the steamer were reflected in the river, quivering in it; the illumined water rushed away from it with a dull murmur, and the steamer looked like a huge black fish with fins of fire.
A few days elapsed after this painful night, and Foma caroused again. It came about by accident and against his will. He had made up his mind to restrain himself from drinking, and so went to dinner in one of the most expensive hotels in town, hoping to find there none of his familiar drinking-companions, who always selected the cheaper and less respectable places for their drinking bouts. But his calculation proved to be wrong; he at once came into the friendly joyous embrace of the brandy-distiller’s son, who had taken Sasha as mistress.
