In the World

by Maksim Gorky

Sometimes these and similar thoughts increased the density of the dark fog around me. Life had become suffocating and oppressive; but how could I live a different life? Whither could I go? I had no one to talk to, even, except Osip, and I talked to him more and more often. He listened to my heated babbling with evident interest, asked me questions, drove home a point, and said calmly:

"The persistent woodpecker is not terrible; no one is afraid of him. But with all my heart I advise you to go into a monastery and live there till you are grown up. You will have edifying conversations with holy men to console you, you will be at peace, and you will be a source of revenue to the monks. That's my sincere advice to you. It is evident that you are not fit for worldly business."

I had no desire to enter a monastery, but I felt that I was being entangled and bewildered in the enchanted circle, of the incomprehensible. I was miserable. Life for me was like a forest in autumn. The mushrooms had come and gone, there was nothing to do in the empty forest, and I seemed to know all there was to know in it.

I did not drink vodka, and I had nothing to do with girls; books took the place of these two forms of intoxication for me. But the more I read, the harder it was for me to go on living the empty, unnecessary life that most people lived.

I had only just turned fifteen years of age, but sometimes I felt like an elderly man. I was, as it were, inwardly swollen and heavy with all I had lived through and read, or restlessly pondered. Looking into myself, I discovered that my receptacle for impressions was like a dark lumber-room closely packed with all kinds of things, of which I had neither the strength nor the wit to rid myself.

And although they were so numerous, all these cumbersome articles were not solidly packed, but floated about, and made me waver as water makes a piece of crockery waver which does not stand firm.

I had a fastidious dislike of unhappiness, illness, and grievances. When I saw cruelty, blood, fights even verbal baiting of a person, it aroused a physical repulsion in me which was swiftly transformed into a cold fury. This made me fight myself, like a wild beast, after which I would be painfully ashamed of myself.

Sometimes I was so passionately desirous of beating a bully that I threw myself blindly into a fight, and even now I remember those attacks of despair, born of my impotence, with shame and grief.

Within me dwelt two persons. One was cognizant of only too many abominations and obscenities, somewhat timid for that reason, was crushed by the knowledge of everyday horrors, and had begun to view life and people distrustfully, contemptuously, with a feeble pity for every one, including himself. This person dreamed of a quiet, solitary life with books, without people, of monasteries, of a forest-keeper's lodge, a railway signal box, of Persia, and the office of the night watchman somewhere on the outskirts of the town. Only to see fewer people, to be remote from human creatures!

The other person, baptized by the holy spirit of noble and wise books, observing the overwhelming strength of the daily horrors of life, felt how easily that strength might sap one's brain-power, trample the heart with dirty footprints, and, fighting against it with all his force, with clenched teeth and fists, was always ready for a quarrel or a fight. He loved and pitied actively, and, like the brave hero in French novels, drew his sword from his scabbard on the slightest provocation, and stood in a warlike position.