Tales from Gorky

by Maksim Gorky

You should understand that in a vagabond life there is something that draws you on and on, something that quite swallows you up. It is pleasant to feel yourself free from obligations, free from the various little fetters tying down your existence when you live among men; free from all those bagatelles obstructing your life to such an extent that it ceases to be a satisfaction, and becomes a weary burden—a heavy basket-like burden in the nature of an obligation to dress becomingly, to speak becomingly, and do everything according to an accepted form and not as you would have it On meeting an acquaintance, for instance, you must use the accepted formula and say: How do you do?—instead of: Be d——d! as you would sometimes like to say.

In general—if I may speak the truth freely—these foolishly-ceremonious usages are such as to turn the mutual relations of respectable citizens into a wearisome comedy. Nay, even into a base comedy, for nobody ever calls anybody a fool or a villain to his face—or if it be done sometimes it is only in an access of that sincerity which we call anger.

Now the vagabond position is clean outside all these tinsel trappings. The very circumstance that you renounce all the earlier conveniences of life without regret, and can exist without them, gives you a pleasant sense of elevation in your own eyes. You take up an unreservedly indulgent attitude towards yourself—though for the matter of that I for one have never been severe towards myself. T have never taken myself to task, the teeth of my conscience have never gnawed me, nor have I ever been scratched by the claws of my reason. You must know that very early, and as if insensibly, I appropriated the most simple and sensible of philosophies: however you may live you must die all the same. Why then come to loggerheads with yourself—why drag yourself by the tail to the left when your nature with all her might pricks you on to the right? Pah! I cannot endure people who are always rending themselves in twain. Why do they strive and strive? Supposing I were to talk to some of these monstrosities, this is what I should ask them: "Why do you go on like this? Why do you make such a fuss?" "I am striving after self-perfection," he would say. "But what for?—what on earth for?" "Because human perfection is the sense of life." "Well, I don't understand that at all. Now if you talk about the perfection of a tree, the sense of your words would be quite clear to me. Its perfection is to be measured by its utility; you may use it for making cart shafts or coffins, or anything else useful to man. Very well! But your striving after perfection is entirely your own affair. But tell me, why do you come to me and try to convert me to your faith?" "Because," he would say, "you are a beast, and don't seek out the sense of life." "But I have found it if I am a brute, and the consciousness of my brutality does not overwhelm me." "You lie," he would say; "if you are conscious of it you ought to try to improve." "Improve? How? Here I am, you see, living my own life in the world; my mind and my feelings are at one with each other, and word and deed are in perfect harmony." "That," he would say, "is vileness and cynicism." And so the whole lot of them would argue of course. I feel that they are liars and fools—I feel that, I say, and I cannot but despise them. For indeed—I know what people are—if everything which is mean, dirty, and evil to-day, were to be declared by you to-morrow upright, pure, and good—all these snouts, without any effort of their own, would to-morrow be upright, pure, and good. One thing only would be necessary—the cowardice to annihilate self within themselves. That's how it is.

That's putting it strong, you'll say. Bosh! It is so. Let it be strongly put, it's none the less right for all that Look now! I'll put it like this: Serve God or the Devil, but don't serve God and the Devil. A good rascal is always better than a shoddy honest man. There's black and there's white, but mix them and you only get a dirty smudge. In all my life I have only met with shoddy honest folks—the sort you know whose honesty is piecemeal, as it were, just as if they had picked it up beneath windows as beggars gather crumbs. This sort of honesty is parti-coloured, badly stuck together, as if with pegs; it is the bookish honesty, which is learnt by repetition, and serves men in much the same way as their best trousers, which are trotted out on state occasions. And, in general, the best part of good people is made up for Sunday use; they keep it not in them but by them, for show, to take a rise out of each other.... I have met with people naturally good, but they are rarely to be met with, and only among simple folks outside the walls of towns. You feel at once that these really are good. And you see that they are born good. Yes.

But be that as it may. Deuce take the whole lot of them, good or bad. What's Hecuba to me, or I to Hecuba!

I am well aware that I am relating to you the facts of my life briefly and superficially, and that it will be difficult for you to understand the why and the wherefore, but that's my affair. It's not the facts but the inclinations that are of importance. Facts are rot and rubbish. I can make all sorts of facts if I like. For instance, I can take this knife and stick it in your throat. That would be a fact of the first order. Or if I were to stick myself with it that also would be a fact, and in general you may make all sorts of facts according to inclination. Inclinations—there you have the whole thing. Inclinations produce facts, and they create ideas—and ideals. And you know what ideals are—eh? Ideals are simply crutches, expressly invented for the period when man has become a wretched brute, obliged to walk on his hind paws only. On raising his head from the grey earth he sees above him the blue sky, and is dazzled by the splendour of its brightness. Then, in his stupidity, he says to himself: I will reach it. And thenceforth he hobbles about the earth on these crutches, holding himself upright on his hind paws with their assistance to this very day.

Pray don't imagine that I also am climbing up to Heaven—I have never experienced any such desire—I only say it because it sounds well.

But I have let my story get knotted and tangled again. However, it doesn't matter. It is only in romances that the skein of events revolves regularly; but our life is an irregular, clueless jumble. Why do they pay money for romances while I grow old in vain? The Devil only knows.

Well, let's get on.... This wandering life pleased me—pleased me all the more because I soon discovered a means of subsistence. Once, as I was on the trot, I perceived coming towards me—a Manor House stood forth picturesquely in the distance—three highly genteel figures, a man and two ladies. The man already had some grey in his beard, and looked very genteel about the eyes; the faces of the ladies were somewhat pinched, but they also were highly genteel. I put on the mug of a martyr, drew up level with them, and begged for a night's lodging at the Manor House. They looked at one another, and deliberated a long time among themselves as if it were a matter of great importance. I bowed politely, thanked them, and went on without making too much haste. But they turned back and came after me. We entered into conversation. Who was I, whence did I come, what was I about? They were of a human temperament—liberal views, and their very questions suggested such answers to me that by the time we had reached the Manor House I had lied to them—the Devil only knows how much! I had been a student, I had taught the people, my soul was held captive to all manner of ideas, etc., etc. And all this simply because they themselves would have it so. All I did was not to stand in the way of their taking me for what they wanted to take me for. When I began to reflect how hard the part would be that they wanted me to play, I was not a little out of conceit with myself, I can tell you. But after dinner I quite understood that it was for my own interest to play this part, for they ate with a truly divine taste. They ate with feeling, ate like civilised people. After the meal they conducted me to a little apartment, the man provided me with trousers and other requisites—and, speaking generally, they treated me humanely. Well, and I, in return, loosed the reins of my imagination for their behoof.

Queen of Heaven, how I lied! Talk of Khlestakov![3] Khlestakov was an idiot! I lied without ever losing the consciousness that I was lying, although it was my delight to lie my utmost. I lied to such an extent that even the Black Sea would have turned red if it could have heard my lying. These good people listened to me with delight—listened to me and fed me, and looked after me as if I had been a sick child of their own family. And I in return made up all sorts of things for them. Now it was that I profited by all the good little books I had ever read, and by the learned disputations of my wife's Scribes and Pharisees.