Scenes from the Abysses; The new gospel; Gorki's defects; Truth or sentimentality; The new Russia; Future development.
The men of the "Doss-house" are again of this type. They live in the recesses of a horrible cellar, a derelict Baron, a former convict, a public prostitute, and more of the same "cattle." One man who lodges there with his wife is pilloried, because as a worker he stands apart from them:
"'I am a man who works!'—as if the rest of us were less than he! Work away if it makes you happier!—why be so cock-a-hoop about it? If men are to be valued for their work, a horse would count for more than a man—at least it draws the cart … and holds its tongue about it."
And as they speak, so they live. They are all destitute; but they content themselves with carrying on a sort of guerilla warfare against the householders.
And yet for some of them this life of brawls and vodka, of theft and mendicancy, is a very hell. Especially for the thief Pepel. He would gladly rise to a purer life. Alone, he is not strong enough. But—with Natasha.
This Natasha is the sister of the woman who keeps the shelter, and who herself has relations with Pepel, and does not intend to let him slip through her fingers. She even wishes him to make away with her husband in order that she may live undisturbed with the thief.
This is repulsive to Pepel.
At this crisis the wanderer Luka makes his appearance. He wants to help every one. He is the apostle of goodness and humanity. He finds a tender word for the dying wife of the locksmith. He talks to the drunken actor about a Reformatory, where he can be cured of his propensity for drinking. And he counsels Natasha to fly with Pepel from these depths of iniquity. The keeper of the refuge hears this. She torments her sister, and almost does her to death, with her husband's assistance. Pepel is off his head with rage, and actually fulfils the woman's wishes, by murdering her husband.
She is triumphant. And the wayfarer vanishes. In the last Act the other wastrels are collected together. They are trying to clear up their ideas of themselves, and of the world. One tells how the wanderer thought the world existed only for the fittest—as in the carpentering trade. All live—and work—and of a sudden comes one who pushes the whole business forward by ten years.