Mother by Maxim Gorky (bookstand for reading .TXT) 📖

come. ‘Even the Czar will die,’ as the saying goes. But the other way: she simply spent the night in your house, hired horses, and went away. And what of it? Somebody passing through the village sleeps with somebody in the village. There’s nothing in that.”

“Where did you learn to be afraid, Pyotr?” Tatyana scoffed.

“A man must know everything, friend!” Pyotr exclaimed, striking his knee—“know how to fear, know how to be brave. You remember how a policeman lashed Vaganov for that newspaper? Now you’ll not persuade Vaganov for any amount of money to take a book in his hand. Yes; you believe me, mother, I’m a sharp fellow for every sort of a trick —everybody knows it. I’m going to scatter these books and papers for you in the best shape and form, as much as you please. Of course, the people here are not educated; they’ve been intimidated. However, the times squeeze a man and wide open go his eyes, ‘What’s the matter?’ And the book answers him in a perfectly simple way: ‘That’s what’s the matter—Think! Unite! Nothing else is left for you to do!’ There are examples of men who can’t read or write and can understand more than the educated ones—especially if the educated ones have their stomachs full. I go about here everywhere; I see much. Well? It’s possible to live; but you want brains and a lot of cleverness in order not to sit down in the cesspool at once. The authorities, too, smell a rat, as though a cold wind were blowing on them from the peasants. They see the peasant smiles very little, and altogether is not very kindly disposed and wants to disaccustom himself to the authorities. The other day in Smolyakov, a village not far from here, they came to extort the taxes; and your peasants got stubborn and flew into a passion. The police commissioner said straight out: ‘Oh, you damned scoundrels! why, this is disobedience to the Czar!’ There was one little peasant there, Spivakin, and says he: ‘Off with you to the evil mother with your Czar! What kind of a Czar is he if he pulls the last shirt off your body?’ That’s how far it went, mother. Of course, they snatched Spivakin off to prison. But the word remained, and even the little boys know it. It lives! It shouts! And perhaps in our days the word is worth more than a man. People are stupefied and deadened by their absorption in breadwinning. Yes.”

Pyotr did not eat, but kept on talking in a quick whisper, his dark, roguish eyes gleaming merrily. He lavishly scattered before the mother innumerable little observations on the village life—they rolled from him like copper coins from a full purse.

Stepan several times reminded him: “Why don’t you eat?” Pyotr would then seize a piece of bread and a spoon and fall to talking and sputtering again like a goldfinch. Finally, after the meal, he jumped to his feet and announced:

“Well, it’s time for me to go home. Good-by, mother!” and he shook her hand and nodded his head. “Maybe we shall never see each other again. I must say to you that all this is very good—to meet you and hear your speeches—very good! Is there anything in your valise beside the printed matter? A shawl? Excellent! A shawl, remember, Stepan. He’ll bring you the valise at once. Come, Stepan. Good-by. I wish everything good to you.”

After he had gone the crawling sound of the roaches became audible in the hut, the blowing of the wind over the roof and its knocking against the door in the chimney. A fine rain dripped monotonously on the window. Tatyana prepared a bed for the mother on the bench with clothing brought from the oven and the storeroom.

“A lively man!” remarked the mother.

The hostess looked at her sidewise.

“A light fellow,” she answered. “He rattles on and rattles on; you can’t but hear the rattling at a great distance.”

“And how is your husband?” asked the mother.

“So so. A good peasant; he doesn’t drink; we live peacefully. So so. Only he has a weak character.” She straightened herself, and after a pause asked:

“Why, what is it that’s wanted nowadays? What’s wanted is that the people should be stirred up to revolt. Of course! Everybody thinks about it, but privately, for himself. And what’s necessary is that he should speak out aloud. Some one person must be the first to decide to do it.” She sat down on the bench and suddenly asked: “Tell me, do young ladies also occupy themselves with this? Do they go about with the workingmen and read? Aren’t they squeamish and afraid?” She listened attentively to the mother’s reply and fetched a deep sigh; then drooping her eyelids and inclining her head, she said: “In one book I read the words ‘senseless life.’ I understood them very well at once. I know such a life. Thoughts there are, but they’re not connected, and they stray like stupid sheep without a shepherd. They stray and stray, with no one to bring them together. There’s no understanding in people of what must be done. That’s what a senseless life is. I’d like to run away from it without even looking around—such a severe pang one suffers when one understands something!”

The mother perceived the pang in the dry gleam of the woman’s green eyes, in her wizened face, in her voice. She wanted to pet and soothe her.

“You understand, my dear, what to do–-”

Tatyana interrupted her softly:

“A person must be able— The bed’s ready for you. Lie down and sleep.”

She went over to the oven and remained standing there erect, in silence, sternly centered in herself. The mother lay down without undressing. She began to feel the weariness in her bones and groaned softly. Tatyana walked up to the table, extinguished the lamp, and when darkness descended on the hut she resumed speech in her low, even voice, which seemed to erase something from the flat face of the oppressive darkness.

“You do not pray? I, too, think there is no God, there are no miracles. All these things were contrived to frighten us, to make us stupid.”

The mother turned about on the bench uneasily; the dense darkness looked straight at her from the window, and the scarcely audible crawling of the roaches persistently disturbed the quiet. She began to speak almost in a whisper and fearfully:

“In regard to God, I don’t know; but I do believe in Christ, in the Little Father. I believe in his words, ‘Love thy neighbor as thyself.’ Yes, I believe in them.” And suddenly she asked in perplexity: “But if there is a God, why did He withdraw his good power from us? Why did He allow the division of people into two worlds? Why, if He is merciful, does He permit human torture—the mockery of one man by another, all kinds of evil and beastliness?”

Tatyana was silent. In the darkness the mother saw the faint outline of her straight figure—gray on the black background. She stood motionless. The mother closed her eyes in anguish. Then the groaning, cold voice sullenly broke in upon the stillness again:

“The death of my children I will never forgive, neither God nor man— I will never forgive—NEVER!”

Nilovna uneasily rose from her bed; her heart understood the mightiness of the pain that evoked such words.

“You are young; you will still have children,” she said kindly.

The woman did not answer immediately. Then she whispered:

“No, no. I’m spoiled. The doctor says I’ll never be able to have a child again.”

A mouse ran across the floor, something cracked—a flash of sound flaring up in the noiselessness. The autumn rain again rustled on the thatch like light thin fingers running over the roof. Large drops of water dismally fell to the ground, marking the slow course of the autumn night. Hollow steps on the street, then on the porch, awoke the mother from a heavy slumber. The door opened carefully.

“Tatyana!” came the low call. “Are you in bed already?”

“No.”

“Is she asleep?”

“It seems she is.”

A light flared up, trembled, and sank into the darkness.

The peasant walked over to the mother’s bed, adjusted the sheepskin over her, and wrapped up her feet. The attention touched the mother in its simplicity. She closed her eyes again and smiled. Stepan undressed in silence, crept up to the loft, and all became quiet.