"The Spy" is a study of the Russian police. The novel treats of the terrible Okhrana, whose mysterious affairs have become the laughing-stock of all the foreign papers.
The principal character, about whom circle the police spies and secret agents, is a poor orphan, weak and timid, called Evsey Klimkov, whom his uncle, the forger Piotr, has taken into his house and brought up with his son, the strong and brutal James. Beaten by his schoolmates and by his cousin, the child lives in a perpetual trance. Life seems formidable to him, like a jungle in which men are the pitiless beasts. Everywhere, brute force or hypocrisy triumph; everywhere, the weak are oppressed, downtrodden, conquered. And in his feverish imagination, daily excited by facts which his terror distorts, Evsey delights in conceiving another existence, all made of love and goodness, an existence that he unceasingly opposes against the hard realities of daily life, with the stubborn fervor of a mystic.
Having entered the service of the old bookseller Raspopov, the young man does his duty with the faithfulness of a beast of burden. His home no longer pleases him at all; there, things and people are still hostile to him; but his uncle Piotr seems enchanted with his new position. Evsey spends his days in arranging and classifying the books which his master has bought. A young woman, Raïssa Petrovna, keeps house for the book-dealer, and as every one knows, they live like man and wife. In this queer environment, the faculties of the young man become sharpened, and serve him well. It does not take long for him to find out what they are hiding from him. A few words addressed by Raspopov to a certain Dorimedonte Loukhine reveal to Evsey the part that is being played by his patron. Raspopov, who is an agent of the secret police, gives Dorimedonte—who, by the way, is deceiving him with Raïssa—the names of the buyers of the forbidden books in which he trades. And here it is that the tragedy suddenly breaks forth.
Raïssa, tired of being tormented by Raspopov, who accuses her of poisoning him, strangles the old man in a moment of cold anger, under the very eyes of Evsey. Thanks to Dorimedonte, this crime goes unpunished. Evsey, having become the lodger of the two lovers, now enters the Okhrana, at the advice of his new master. After a while, Raïssa, haunted by remorse, commits suicide, and Dorimedonte is killed by some revolutionists.
All the interest of the book, however, is centered in the picture of the police institutions. From the chief Philip Philipovich to the agent Solovyev, Gorky presents, with consummate art, the mass of corrupt and greedy agents who wearily accomplish their tasks.
Among them, young Evsey leads a miserable and ridiculous existence. Bruised by an invincible power, he sees himself compelled to arrest an old man who has confided his revolutionary ideas to him; then a young girl with whom he is in love; finally, his own cousin, a revolutionary suspect.
Gradually his eyes are opened. He realizes that he cannot extricate himself from the position in which he has placed himself. Tired of leading a life which his conscience disapproves of, he thinks of killing his superior, who has driven him to do so many infamous deeds. He will thus get justice. His project miscarries; maddened, he throws himself under a passing train.
These three remarkable works, riddled by the Russian censor, so that the complete version has appeared only abroad, have recently been followed by two important stories: "Among the People" and "Matvey Kozhemyakine."