Have you ever thought about what fiction is? Probably, such a question may seem surprising: and so everything is clear. Every person throughout his life has to repeatedly create the works he needs for specific purposes - statements, autobiographies, dictations - using not gypsum or clay, not musical notes, not paints, but just a word. At the same time, almost every person will be very surprised if he is told that he thereby created a work of fiction, which is very different from visual art, music and sculpture making. However, everyone understands that a student's essay or dictation is fundamentally different from novels, short stories, news that are created by professional writers. In the works of professionals there is the most important difference - excogitation. But, oddly enough, in a school literature course, you don’t realize the full power of fiction. So using our website in your free time discover fiction for yourself. Mother by Maxim Gorky (bookstand for reading .TXT) 📖
- Author: Maxim Gorky
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Book online «Mother by Maxim Gorky (bookstand for reading .TXT) 📖». Author Maxim Gorky
“The dogs take them!” she answered calmly.
In the evening Dr. Ivan Danilovich came.
“What’s gotten into the authorities all of a sudden?” he said, running about the room. “There were seven searches last night. Where’s the patient?”
“He left yesterday. To-day, you see, Saturday, he reads to working people. He couldn’t bring it over himself to omit the reading.”
“That’s stupid—to sit at readings with a fractured skull!”
“I tried to prove it to him, but unsuccessfully.”
“He wanted to do a bit of boasting before the comrades,” observed the mother. “Look! I’ve already shed my blood!”
The physician looked at her, made a fierce face, and said with set teeth:
“Ugh! ugh! you bloodthirsty person!”
“Well, Ivan, you’ve nothing to do here, and we’re expecting guests. Go away! Nilovna, give him the paper.”
“Another paper?”
“There, take it and give it to the printer.”
“I’ve taken it; I’ll deliver it. Is that all?”
“That’s all. There’s a spy at the gate.”
“I noticed. At my door, too. Good-by! Good-by, you fierce woman! And do you know, friends, a squabble in a cemetery is a fine thing after all! The whole city’s talking about it. It stirs the people up and compels them to think. Your article on that subject was excellent, and it came in time. I always said that a good fight is better than a bad peace.”
“All right. Go away now!”
“You’re polite! Let’s shake hands, Nilovna. And that fellow— he certainly behaved stupidly. Do you know where he lives?”
Nikolay gave him the address.
“I must go to him to-morrow. He’s a fine fellow, eh?”
“Very!”
“We must keep him alive; he has good brains. It’s from just such fellows that the real proletarian intellectuals ought to grow up— men to take our places when we leave for the region where evidently there are no class antagonisms. But, after all, who knows?”
“You’ve taken to chattering, Ivan.”
“I feel happy, that’s why. Well, I’m going! So you’re expecting prison? I hope you get a good rest there!”
“Thank you, I’m not tired!”
The mother listened to their conversation. Their solicitude in regard to the workingmen was pleasant to her; and, as always, the calm activity of these people which did not forsake them even before the gates of the prison, astonished her.
After the physician left, Nikolay and the mother conversed quietly while awaiting their evening visitors. Then Nikolay told her at length of his comrades living in exile; of those who had already escaped and continued their work under assumed names. The bare walls of the room echoed the low sounds of his voice, as if listening in incredulous amazement to the stories of modest heroes who disinterestedly devoted all their powers to the great cause of liberty.
A shadow kindly enveloped the woman, warming her heart with love for the unseen people, who in her imagination united into one huge person, full of inexhaustible, manly force. This giant slowly but incessantly strides over the earth, cleansing it, laying bare before the eyes of the people the simple and clear truth of life—the great truth that raises humanity from the dead, welcomes all equally, and promises all alike freedom from greed, from wickedness, and falsehood, the three monsters which enslaved and intimidated the whole world. The image evoked in the mother’s soul a feeling similar to that with which she used to stand before an ikon. After she had offered her joyful, grateful prayer, the day had then seemed lighter than the other days of her life. Now she forgot those days. But the feeling left by them had broadened, had become brighter and better, had grown more deeply into her soul. It was more keenly alive and burned more luminously.
“But the gendarmes aren’t coming!” Nikolay exclaimed suddenly, interrupting his story.
The mother looked at him, and after a pause answered in vexation:
“Oh, well, let them go to the dogs!”
“Of course! But it’s time for you to go to bed, Nilovna. You must be desperately tired. You’re wonderfully strong, I must say. So much commotion and disturbance, and you live through it all so lightly. Only your hair is turning gray very quickly. Now go and rest.”
They pressed each other’s hand and parted.
The mother fell quickly into a calm sleep, and rose early in the morning, awakened by a subdued tap at the kitchen door. The knock was incessant and patiently persistent. It was still dark and quiet, and the rapping broke in alarmingly on the stillness. Dressing herself rapidly, she walked out into the kitchen, and standing at the door asked:
“Who’s there?”
“I,” answered an unfamiliar voice.
“Who?”
“Open.” The quiet word was spoken in entreaty.
The mother lifted the hook, pushed the door with her foot, and Ignaty entered, saying cheerfully:
“Well, so I’m not mistaken. I’m at the right place.”
He was spattered with mud up to his belt. His face was gray, his eyes fallen.
“We’ve gotten into trouble in our place,” he whispered, locking the door behind him.
“I know it.”
The reply astonished the young man. He blinked and asked:
“How? Where from?”
She explained in a few rapid words, and asked:
“Did they take the other comrades, too?”
“They weren’t there. They had gone off to be recruited. Five were captured, including Rybin.”
He snuffled and said, smiling:
“And I was left over. I guess they’re looking for me. Let them look. I’m not going back there again, not for anything. There are other people there yet, some seven young men and a girl. Never mind! They’re all reliable.”
“How did you find this place?” The mother smiled.
The door from the room opened quietly.
“I?” Seating himself on a bench and looking around, Ignaty exclaimed: “They crawled up at night, straight to the tar works. Well, a minute before they came the forester ran up to us and knocked on the window. ‘Look out, boys,’ says he, ‘they’re coming on you.’”
He laughed softly, wiped his face with the flap of his coat, and continued:
“Well, they can’t stun Uncle Mikhail even with a hammer. At once he says to me, ‘Ignaty, run away to the city, quick! You remember the elderly woman.’ And he himself writes a note. ‘There, go! Good-by, brother.’ He pushed me in the back. I flung out of the hut. I scrambled along on all fours through the bushes, and I hear them coming. There must have been a lot of them. You could hear the rustling on all sides, the devils—like a moose around the tar works. I lay in the bushes. They passed by me. Then I rose and off I went; and for two nights and a whole day I walked without stopping. My feet’ll ache for a week.”
He was evidently satisfied with himself. A smile shone in his hazel eyes. His full red lips quivered.
“I’ll set you up with some tea soon. You wash yourself while I get the samovar ready.”
“I’ll give you the note.” He raised his leg with difficulty, and frowning and groaning put his foot on the bench and began to untie the leg wrappings.
“I got frightened. ‘Well,’ thinks I, ‘I’m a goner.’”
Nikolay appeared at the door. Ignaty in embarrassment dropped his foot to the floor and wanted to rise, but staggered and fell heavily on the bench, catching himself with his hands.
“You sit still!” exclaimed the mother.
“How do you do, comrade?” said Nikolay, screwing up his eyes good-naturedly and nodding his head. “Allow me, I’ll help you.”
Kneeling on the floor in front of the peasant, he quickly unwound the dirty, damp wrappings.
“Well!” the fellow exclaimed quietly, pulling back his foot and blinking in astonishment. He regarded the mother, who said, without paying attention to his look:
“His legs ought to be rubbed down with alcohol.”
“Of course!” said Nikolay.
Ignaty snorted in embarrassment. Nikolay found the note, straightened it out, looked at it, and handed the gray, crumpled piece of paper to the mother.
“For you.”
“Read it.”
“‘Mother, don’t let the affair go without your attention. Tell the tall lady not to forget to have them write more for our cause, I beg of you. Good-by. Rybin.’”
“My darling!” said the mother sadly. “They’ve already seized him by the throat, and he–-”
Nikolay slowly dropped his hand holding the note.
“That’s magnificent!” he said slowly and respectfully. “It both touches and teaches.”
Ignaty looked at them, and quietly shook his bared feet with his dirty hands. The mother, covering her tearful face, walked up to him with a basin of water, sat down on the floor, and stretched out her hands to his feet. But he quickly thrust them under the bench, exclaiming in fright:
“What are you going to do?”
“Give me your foot, quick!”
“I’ll bring the alcohol at once,” said Nikolay.
The young man shoved his foot still farther under the bench and mumbled:
“What ARE you going to do? It’s not proper.”
Then the mother silently unbared his other foot. Ignaty’s round face lengthened in amazement. He looked around helplessly with his wide-open eyes.
“Why, it’s going to tickle me!”
“You’ll be able to bear it,” answered the mother, beginning to wash his feet.
Ignaty snorted aloud, and moving his neck awkwardly looked down at her, comically drooping his under lip.
“And do you know,” she said tremulously, “that they beat Mikhail Ivanovich?”
“What?” the peasant exclaimed in fright.
“Yes; he had been beaten when they led him to the village, and in Nikolsk the sergeant beat him, the police commissioner beat him in the face and kicked him till he bled.” The mother became silent, overwhelmed by her recollections.
“They can do it,” said the peasant, lowering his brows sullenly. His shoulders shook. “That is, I fear them like the devils. And the peasants—didn’t the peasants beat him?”
“One beat him. The police commissioner ordered him to. All the others were so so—they even took his part. ‘You mustn’t beat him!’ they said.”
“Um! Yes, yes! The peasants are beginning to realize where a man stands, and for what he stands.”
“There are sensible people there, too.”
“Where can’t you find sensible people? Necessity! They’re everywhere; but it’s hard to get at them. They hide themselves in chinks and crevices, and suck their hearts out each one for himself. Their resolution isn’t strong enough to make them gather into a group.”
Nikolay brought a bottle of alcohol, put coals in the samovar, and walked away silently. Ignaty accompanied him with a curious look.
“A gentleman?”
“In this business there are no masters; they’re all comrades!”
“It’s strange to me,” said Ignaty with a skeptical but embarrassed smile.
“What’s strange?”
“This: at one end they beat you in the face; at the other they wash your feet. Is there a middle of any kind?”
The door of the room was flung open and Nikolay, standing on the threshold, said:
“And in the middle stand the people who lick the hands of those who beat you in the face and suck the blood of those whose faces are beaten. That’s the middle!”
Ignaty looked at him respectfully, and after a pause said: “That’s it!”
The mother sighed. “Mikhail Ivanovich also always used to say, ‘That’s it!’ like an ax blow.”
“Nilovna, you’re evidently tired. Permit me—I–-”
The peasant pulled his feet uneasily.
“That’ll do;” said the mother, rising. “Well, Ignaty, now wash yourself.”
The young man arose, shifted his feet about, and stepped firmly on the floor.
“They seem like new feet. Thank you! Many, many thanks!”
He drew a wry face, his lips trembled, and his eyes reddened. After a pause, during which he regarded the basin of black water, he whispered softly:
“I don’t even know how to thank
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