Creatures That Once Were Men
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Maxim Gorky >> Creatures That Once Were Men
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"I? I was ruined by love of life . . . Fool that I was, I loved
life, but the merchant spoils it, and I cannot bear it, simply
for this reason, and not because I am a nobleman. But if you want
to know the truth, I was once a man, though I was not noble. I
care now for nothing and nobody . . . and all my life has been
tame--a sweetheart who has jilted me--therefore I despise life,
and am indifferent to it."
"You lie!" says Abyedok.
"I lie?" roars Aristid Kuvalda, almost crimson with anger.
"Why shout?" comes in the cold sad voice of Martyanoff.
"Why judge others? Merchants, noblemen . . . what have we to do
with them?"
"Seeing that we are " . . . puts in Deacon Taras.
"Be quiet, Abyedok," says the teacher, goodnaturedly.
"Why do you provoke him?" He does not love either discussion or
noise, and when they quarrel all around him his lips form into a
sickly grimace, and he endeavours quietly and reasonably to
reconcile each with the other, and if he does not succeed in this
he leaves the company. Knowing this, the Captain, if he is not
very drunk, controls himself, not wishing to lose, in the person
of the teacher, one of the best of his listeners.
"I repeat," he continues, in a quieter tone, "that I see life in
the hands of enemies, not only enemies of the noble but of
everything good, avaricious and incapable of adorning existence
in any way."
"But all the same," says the teacher, "merchants, so to speak,
created Genoa, Venice, Holland--and all these were merchants,
merchants from England, India, the Stroyanoff merchants . . ."
"I do not speak of these men, I am thinking of Judas Petunikoff,
who is one of them. . . ."
"And you say you have nothing to do with them?" asks the teacher,
quietly.
"But do you think that I do not live? Aha! I do live, but I
suppose I ought not to be angry at the fact that life is
desecrated and robbed of all freedom by these men."
"And they dare to laugh at the kindly anger of the Captain, a man
living in retirement?" says Abyedok, teasingly.
"Very well! I agree with you that I am foolish. Being a
creature who was once a man, I ought to blot out from my heart
all those feelings that once were mine. You may be right, but
then how could I or any of you defend ourselves if we did away
with all these feelings?"
"Now then, you are talking sense," says the teacher,
encouragingly.
"We want other feelings and other views on life. . . . We want
something new . . . because we ourselves are a novelty in this
life. . . ."
"Doubtless this is most important for us," remarks the teacher.
"Why?" asks Kanets. "Is it not all the same whatever we say or
think? We have not got long to live . . . I am forty, you are
fifty . . . there is no one among us younger than thirty, and
even at twenty one cannot live such a life long."
"And what kind of novelty are we?" asked Abyedok, mockingly.
"Since nakedness has always existed . . ."
"Yes, and it created Rome," said the teacher.
"Yes, of course," says the Captain, beaming with joy. "Romulus
and Remus, eh? We also shall create when our time comes . . ."
"Violation of public peace," interrupts Abyedok. He laughs in a
self-satisfied way. His laughter is impudent and insolent, and
is echoed by Simtsoff, the Deacon and Paltara Taras. The naive
eyes of young Meteor light up, and his cheeks flush crimson.
Kanets speaks, and it seems as if he were hammering their heads.
"All these are foolish illusions . . . fiddle-sticks!"
It was strange to see them reasoning in this manner, these
outcasts from life, tattered, drunken with vodki and wickedness,
filthy and forlorn. Such conversations rejoiced the Captain's
heart. They gave him an opportunity of speaking more, and
therefore he thought himself better than the rest. However low
he may fall, a man can never deny himself the delight of feeling
cleverer, more powerful, or even better fed than his companions.
Aristid Kuvalda abused this pleasure, and never could have enough
of it, much to the disgust of Abyedok, Kubar, and others of these
creatures that once were men, who were less interested in such
things.
Politics, however, were more to the popular taste. The
discussions as to the necessity of taking India or of subduing
England were lengthy and protracted. Nor did they speak with
less enthusiasm of the radical measure of clearing Jews off the
face of the earth. On this subject Abyedok was always the first
to propose dreadful plans to effect the desired end, but the
Captain, always first in every other argument, did not join in
this one. They also spoke much and impudently about women, but
the teacher always defended them, and sometimes was very angry
when they went so far as to pass the limits of decency. They
all, as a rule, gave in to him, because they did not look upon
him as a common person, and also because they wished to borrow
from him on Saturdays the money which he had earned during the
week. He had many privileges. They never beat him, for
instance, on these occasions when the conversation ended in a
free fight. He had the right to bring women into the dosshouse;
a privilege accorded to no one else, as the Captain had
previously warned them.
"No bringing of women to my house," he had said. "Women,
merchants and philosophers, these are the three causes of my
ruin. I will horsewhip anyone bringing in women. I will
horsewhip the woman also. . . . And as to the philosopher I'll
knock his head off for him." And notwithstanding his age he
could have knocked anyone's head off, for he possessed wonderful
strength. Besides that, whenever he fought or quarrelled, he was
assisted by Martyanoff, who was accustomed during a general fight
to stand silently and sadly back to back with Kuvalda, when he
became an all-destroying and impregnable engine of war. Once
when Simtsoff was drunk, he rushed at the teacher for no reason
whatever, and getting hold of his head tore out a bunch of hair.
Kuvalda, with one stroke of his fist in the other's chest sent
him spinning, and he fell to the ground. He was unconscious for
almost half-an-hour, and when he came to himself, Kuvalda
compelled him to eat the hair he had torn from the teacher's
head. He ate it, preferring this to being beaten to death.
Besides reading newspapers, fighting and indulging in general
conversation, they amused themselves by playing cards. They
played without Martyanoff because he could not play honestly.
After cheating several times, he openly confessed:
"I cannot play without cheating . . . it is a habit of mine."
"Habits do get the better of you," assented Deacon Taras. "I
always used to beat my wife every Sunday after Mass, and when she
died I cannot describe how extremely dull I felt every Sunday. I
lived through one Sunday--it was dreadful, the second I still
controlled myself, the third Sunday I struck my Asok. . . . She
was angry and threatened to summon me. Just imagine if she had
done so! On the fourth Sunday, I beat her just as if she were my
own wife! After that I gave her ten roubles, and beat her
according to my own rules till I married again!" . . .
"You are lying, Deacon! How could you marry a second time?"
interrupted Abyedok.
"Ay, just so. . . She looked after my house. . . ."
"Did you have any children?" asked the teacher.
"Five of them. . . . One was drowned . . . the oldest . . . he
was an amusing boy! Two died of diphtheria . . . One of the
daughters married a student and went with him to Siberia. The
other went to the University of St. Petersburg and died there . .
. of consumption they say. Ye--es, there were five of them. . . .
Ecclesiastics are prolific, you know." He began explaining why
this was so, and they laughed till they nearly burst at his
tales. When the laughter stopped, Aleksei Maksimovitch Simtsoff
remembered that he too had once had a daughter.
"Her name was Lidka . . . she was very stout . . ." More than
this he did not seem to remember, for he looked at them all, was
silent and smiled . . . in a guilty way. Those men spoke very
little to each other about their past, and they recalled it very
seldom and then only its general outlines. When they did mention
it, it was in a cynical tone. Probably, this was just as well,
since, in many people, remembrance of the past kills all present
energy and deadens all hope for the future.
* * * * *
On rainy, cold, or dull days in the late autumn, these "creatures
that once were men" gathered in the eatinghouse of Vaviloff.
They were well known there, where some feared them as thieves and
rogues, and some looked upon them contemptuously as hard
drinkers, although they respected them, thinking that they were
clever.
The eating-house of Vaviloff was the club of the main street, and
the "creatures that once were men" were its most intellectual
members. On Saturday evenings or Sunday mornings, when the
eating-house was packed, the "creatures that once were men" were
only too welcome guests. They brought with them, besides the
forgotten and poverty-stricken inhabitants of the street, their
own spirit, in which there was something that brightened the
lives of men exhausted and worn out in the struggle for
existence, as great drunkards as the inhabitants of Kuvalda's
shelter, and, like them, outcasts from the town. Their ability
to speak on all subjects, their freedom of opinion, skill in
repartee, courage in the presence of those of whom the whole
street was in terror, together with their daring demeanour, could
not but be pleasing to their companions. Then, too, they were
well versed in law, and could advise, write petitions, and help
to swindle without incurring the risk of punishment. For all
this they were paid with vodki and flattering admiration of their
talents.
The inhabitants of the street were divided into two parties
according to their sympathies. One was in favour of Kuvalda, who
was thought "a good soldier, clever, and courageous," the other
was convinced of the fact that the teacher was "superior" to
Kuvalda. The latter's admirers were those who were known to be
drunkards, thieves, and murderers, for whom the road from beggary
to prison was inevitable. But those who respected the teacher
were men who still had expectations, still hoped for better
things, who were eternally occupied with nothing, and who were
nearly always hungry.
The nature of the teacher's and Kuvalda's relations towards the
street may be gathered from the following:
Once in the eating-house they were discussing the resolution
passed by the Corporation regarding the main street, viz., that
the inhabitants were to fill up the pits and ditches in the
street, and that neither manure nor the dead bodies of domestic
animals should be used for the purpose, but only broken tiles,
etc., from the ruins of other houses.
"Where am I going to get these same broken tiles and bricks? I
could not get sufficient bricks together to build a hen-house,"
plaintively said Mokei Anisimoff, a man who hawked kalaches (a
sort of white bread) which were baked by his wife.
"Where can you get broken bricks and lime rubbish? Take bags
with you, and go and remove them from the Corporation buildings.
They are so old that they are of no use to anyone, and you will
thus be doing two good deeds; firstly, by repairing the main
street; and secondly, by adorning the city with a new Corporation
building."
"If you want horses get them from the Lord Mayor, and take his
three daughters, who seem quite fit for harness. Then destroy the
house of Judas Petunikoff and pave the street with its timbers.
By the way, Mokei, I know out of what your wife baked to-day's
kalaches; out of the frames of the third window and the two steps
from the roof of Judas' house."
When those present had laughed and joked sufficiently over the
Captain's proposal, the sober market gardener, Pavlyugus asked:
"But seriously, what are we to do, your honour? . . . Eh? What
do you think?"
"I? I shall neither move hand nor foot. If they wish to clean
the street let them do it."
"Some of the houses are almost coming down. . . ."
"Let them fall; don't interfere; and when they fall ask help from
the city. If they don't give it you, then bring a suit in court
against them! Where does the water come from? From the city!
Therefore let the city be responsible for the destruction of the
houses."
"They will say it is rain-water."
"Does it destroy the houses in the city? Eh? They take taxes
from you but they do not permit you to speak! They destroy your
property and at the same time compel you to repair it!" And half
the radicals in the street, convinced by the words of Kuvalda,
decided to wait till the rain-water came down in huge streams and
swept away their houses. The others, more sensible, found in the
teacher a man who composed for them an excellent and convincing
report for the Corporation. In this report the refusal of the
street's inhabitants to comply with the resolution of the
Corporation was so well explained that the Corporation actually
entertained it. It was decided that the rubbish left after some
repairs had been done to the barracks should be used for mending
and filling up the ditches in their street, and for the transport
of this five horses were given by the fire brigade. Still more,
they even saw the necessity of laying a drain-pipe through the
street. This and many other things vastly increased the
popularity of the teacher. He wrote petitions for them and
published various remarks in the newspapers. For instance, on
one occasion Vaviloff's customers noticed that the herrings and
other provisions of the eating-house were not what they should
be, and after a day or two they saw Vaviloff standing at the bar
with the newspaper in his hand making a public apology.
"It is true, I must acknowledge, that I bought old and not very
good herrings, and the cabbage . . . also . . . was old. It is
only too well known that anyone can put many a five-kopeck piece
in his pocket in this way. And what is the result? It has not
been a success; I was greedy, I own, but the cleverer man has
exposed me, so we are quits . . ."
This confession made a very good impression on the people, and it
also gave Vaviloff the opportunity of still feeding them with
herrings and cabbages which were not good, though they failed to
notice it, so much were they impressed.
This incident was very significant, because it increased not only
the teacher's popularity, but also the effect of press opinion.
It often happened, too, that the teacher read lectures on
practical morality in the eating-house.
"I saw you," he said to the painter Yashka Tyarin, "I saw you,
Yakov, beating your wife . . ."
Yashka was "touched with paint" after two glasses of vodki, and
was in a slightly uplifted condition.
The people looked at him, expecting him to make a row, and all
were silent.
"Did you see me? And how did it please you?" asks Yashka.
The people control their laughter.
"No; it did not please me," replies the teacher. His tone is so
serious that the people are silent.
"You see I was just trying it," said Yashka, with bravado,
fearing that the teacher would rebuke him. "The wife is
satisfied. . . . She has not got up yet to-day. . . ."
The teacher, who was drawing absently with his fingers on the
table, said, "Do you see, Yakov, why this did not please me? . .
. Let us go into the matter thoroughly, and understand what you
are really doing, and what the result may be. Your wife is
pregnant. You struck her last night on her sides and breast.
That means that you beat not only her but the child too. You may
have killed him, and your wife might have died or else have
become seriously ill. To have the trouble of looking after a
sick woman is not pleasant. It is wearing, and would cost you
dear, because illness requires medicine, and medicine money. If
you have not killed the child, you may have crippled him, and he
will be born deformed, lop-sided, or hunch-backed. That means
that he will not be able to work, and it is only too important to
you that he should be a good workman. Even if he be born ill, it
will be bad enough, because he will keep his mother from work,
and will require medicine. Do you see what you are doing to
yourself? Men who live by hard work must be strong and healthy,
and they should have strong and healthy children. . . . Do I
speak truly?"
"Yes," assented the listeners.
"But all this will never happen," says Yashka, becoming rather
frightened at the prospect held out to him by the teacher. "She
is healthy, and I cannot have reached the child . . . She is a
devil--a hag!" he shouts angrily. "I would . . . She will eat
me away as rust eats iron."
"I understand, Yakov, that you cannot help beating your wife,"
the teacher's sad and thoughtful voice again breaks in. "You
have many reasons for doing so . . . It is your wife's character
that causes you to beat her so incautiously . . . But your own
dark and sad life . . ."
"You are right!" shouts Yakov. "We live in darkness, like the
chimney-sweep when he is in the chimney!"
"You are angry with your life, but your wife is patient; the
closest relation to you--your wife, and you make her suffer for
this, simply because you are stronger than she. She is always
with you, and cannot get away. Don't you see how absurd you
are?"
"That is so. . . . Devil take it! But what shall I do? Am I
not a man?"
"Just so! You are a man. . . . I only wish to tell you that if
you cannot help beating her, then beat her carefully and always
remember that you may injure her health or that of the child. It
is not good to beat pregnant women . . . on their belly or on
their sides and chests. . . . Beat her, say, on the neck . . .
or else take a rope and beat her on some soft place . . ."
The orator finished his speech and looked upon his hearers with
his dark, pathetic eyes, seeming to apologise to them for some
unknown crime.
The public understands it. They understand the morale of the
creature who was once a man, the morale of the public-house and
much misfortune.
"Well, brother Yashka, did you understand? See how true it is!"
Yakov understood that to beat her incautiously might be injurious
to his wife. He is silent, replying to his companions' jokes
with confused smiles.
"Then again, what is a wife?" philosophises the baker, Mokei
Anisimoff. "A wife . . . is a friend . . . if we look at the
matter in that way. She is like a chain, chained to you for life
. . . and you are both just like galley slaves. And if you try
to get away from her, you cannot, you feel the chain . . ."
"Wait," says Yakovleff; "but you beat your wife too."
"Did I say that I did not? I beat her. . . There is nothing
else handy. . . Do you expect me to beat the wall with my fist
when my patience is exhausted?"
"I feel just like that too. . ." says Yakov.
"How hard and difficult our life is, my brothers! There is no
real rest for us anywhere!"
"And even you beat your wife by mistake," some one remarks
humorously. And thus they speak till far on in the night or till
they have quarrelled, the usual result of drink or of passions
engendered by such discussions.
The rain beats on the windows, and outside the cold wind is
blowing. The eating-house is close with tobacco smoke, but it is
warm, while the street is cold and wet. Now and then, the wind
beats threateningly on the windows of the eating-house, as if
bidding these men to come out and be scattered like dust over the
face of the earth. Sometimes a stifled and hopeless groan is
heard in its howling which again is drowned by cold, cruel
laughter. This music fills one with dark, sad thoughts of the
approaching winter, with its accursed short, sunless days and
long nights, of the necessity of possessing warm garments and
plenty to eat. It is hard to sleep through the long winter
nights on an empty stomach. Winter is approaching. Yes, it is
approaching. . . How to live?
These gloomy forebodings created a strong thirst among the
inhabitants of the main street, and the sighs of the "creatures
that once were men" increased with the wrinkles on their brows,
their voices became thick and their behaviour to each other more
blunt. And brutal crimes were committed among them, and the
roughness of these poor unfortunate outcasts was apt to increase
at the approach of that inexorable enemy, who transformed all
their lives into one cruel farce. But this enemy could not be
captured because it was invisible.
Then they began beating each other brutally, and drank till they
had drunk everything which they could pawn to the indulgent
Vaviloff. And thus they passed the autumn days in open
wickedness, in suffering which was eating their hearts out,
unable to rise out of this vicious life and in dread of the still
crueller days of winter.
Kuvalda in such cases came to their assistance with his
philosophy.
"Don't lose your temper, brothers, everything has an end, this is
the chief characteristic of life. The winter will pass, summer
will follow . . . a glorious time, when the very sparrows are
filled with rejoicing." But his speeches did not have any
effect--a mouthful of even the freshest and purest water will not
satisfy a hungry man.
Deacon Taras also tried to amuse the people by singing his songs
and relating his tales. He was more successful, and sometimes
his endeavours ended in a wild and glorious orgy at the
eating-house. They sang, laughed and danced, and for hours
behaved like madmen. After this they again fell into a
despairing mood, sitting at the tables of the eating-house, in
the black smoke of the lamp and the tobacco; sad and tattered,
speaking lazily to each other, listening to the wild howling of
the wind, and thinking how they could get enough vodki to deaden
their senses.
And their hand was against every man, and every man's hand
against them.
PART II.
All things are relative in this world, and a man cannot sink into
any condition so bad that it could not be worse. One day, towards
the end of September, Captain Aristid Kuvalda was sitting, as was
his custom, on the bench near the door of the dosshouse, looking
at the stone building built by the merchant Petunikoff close to
Vaviloff's eatinghouse, and thinking deeply. This building,
which was partly surrounded by woods, served the purpose of a
candle factory.
Painted red, as if with blood, it looked like a cruel machine
which, though not working, opened a row of deep, hungry, gaping
jaws, as if ready to devour and swallow anything. The grey
wooden eating-house of Vaviloff, with its bent roof covered with
patches, leaned against one of the brick walls of the factory,
and seemed as if it were some large form of parasite clinging to
it. The Captain was thinking that they would very soon be making
new houses to replace the old building. "They will destroy the
dosshouse even," he reflected. "It will be necessary to look out
for another, but such a cheap one is not to be found. It seems a
great pity to have to leave a place to which one is accustomed,
though it will be necessary to go, simply because some merchant
or other thinks of manufacturing candles and soap." And the
Captain felt that if he could only make the life of such an enemy
miserable, even temporarily, oh! with what pleasure he would do
it!
Yesterday, Ivan Andreyevitch Petunikoff was in the dosshouse yard
with his son and an architect. They measured the yard and put
small wooden sticks in various places, which, after the exit of
Petunikoff and at the order of the Captain, Meteor took out and
threw away. To the eyes of the Captain this merchant appeared
small and thin. He wore a long garment like a frock-coat, a
velvet cap, and high, well-cleaned boots. He had a thin face
with prominent cheekbones, a wedge-shaped greyish beard, and a
high forehead seamed with wrinkles from beneath which shone two
narrow, blinking, and observant grey eyes . . . a sharp, gristly
nose, a small mouth with thin lips . . . altogether his
appearance was pious, rapacious, and respectably wicked.
"Cursed cross-bred fox and pig!" swore the Captain under his
breath, recalling his first meeting with Petunikoff. The merchant
came with one of the town councillors to buy the house, and
seeing the Captain asked his companion:
"Is this your lodger?"
And from that day, a year and a half ago, there has been keen
competition among the inhabitants of the dosshouse as to which
can swear the hardest at the merchant. And last night there was
a "slight skirmish with hot words," as the Captain called it,
between Petunikoff and himself. Having dismissed the architect
the merchant approached the Captain.
"What are you hatching?" asked he, putting his hand to his cap,
perhaps to adjust it, perhaps as a salutation.
"What are you plotting?" answered the Captain in the same tone.
He moved his chin so that his beard trembled a little; a
non-exacting person might have taken it for a bow; otherwise it
only expressed the desire of the Captain to move his pipe from
one corner of his mouth to the other. "You see, having plenty of
money, I can afford to sit hatching it. Money is a good thing,
and I possess it," the Captain chaffed the merchant, casting
cunning glances at him. "It means that you serve money, and not
money you," went on Kuvalda, desiring at the same time to punch
the merchant's belly.
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