“I was born March 14th, either in 1868 or 1869, in Nijni Novgorod, in the family of Vassili Vassilezewitsch Kaschirin, dyer, to his daughter Warwara, and Maxim Sawwatjev Pjeschkow, who, according to his sign, was an upholsterer. Thenceforth I have borne honorably and without a stain the title of a member of the guild of artists. I was baptized by the name of Alexei, but in choosing a pseudonym I preferred my father’s name, Maxim.
“My real name is therefore Alexei Maximowitsch Pjeschkow. My father died in Astrakhan when I was five years old. After the death of my mother my grandfather placed me in a shoe-store. I was then nine years old, and my grandfather had taught me to read in the Psalter and Prayer Book. I ran away from my studies and became a draughtsman’s apprentice; ran away from him and entered the workshop of a painter of saints’ images; then I served on a steamer as a cook’s boy; then I became a gardener’s assistant.
“Here I remained till my fifteenth year, spending all my time in zealously reading the productions of known authors, such as ‘Guak; or, Unshakable Fidelity,’ ‘Andreas Fearnaught,’ ‘Jacschka, the Cut-throat,’ etc.
“While I was serving as cook’s boy on the steamboat, the cook, Smury, gained a powerful influence over my development. He persuaded me to read the ‘Legends of the Saints,’ Eckartshausen, Gogol, Gljeb Uspenski, Dumas père, and various books on Freemasonry.
“Up to that time I had been a sworn enemy of all books and of all printed paper, even including my passport. After my fifteenth year I felt a passionate wish to learn, in pursuance of which I betook myself to Kasan, under the impression that knowledge would be imparted free to all who desired it. It turned out, however, that this was not the case; so I went to work in a pretzel bakery, at a salary of three rubles a month.
“Of all the kinds of work I have tried, this was the hardest. In Kasan I came into relations with the ‘Lost People’ and lived long with them. I worked in the villages on the Volga, now as a woodchopper, now as a porter, and during this time read every book I could lay my hands on, which various kind people supplied me with. I got along very badly, and in 1888 even tried to kill myself by shooting a bullet into my body.
“I lay a long time in the hospital, but finally recovered and went into the apple trade. I finally turned my back on inhospitable Kasan, to try my luck in Zarizyn, where I got a job as a railroad attendant. Then I returned to Nijni, where I had to go up for the army. But since they could not make use of fellows with holes in their bodies, I escaped the fate of becoming a soldier, and instead became a Munich beer seller. I soon exchanged this calling for that of a clerk in the office of Lanin, a lawyer of Nijni Novgorod.
“That was a turning point in my life. Lanin’s influence on my development was immeasurably great. I owe this cultivated and great-hearted man more than to any one else. But, however agreeable I found life with Lanin, where my soul could at last find room to breathe, I was again impelled to the life of a tramp. And I have tramped all over Russia. Where have I not been! What have I not seen and suffered! What kind of work have I not done!”
COMRADES
By Maxim Gorki