Creatures That Once Were Men
by Maxim Gorky
Hypertext Meanings and Commentaries
from the Encyclopedia of the Self
by Mark Zimmerman

By MAXIM GORKY

Translated from the Russian by J. M. SHIRAZI and Others
Introduction by G. K. CHESTERTON

THE MODERN LIBRARY
PUBLISHERSNEW YORK
1918, by
BONI & LIVERIGHT, INC.
Manufactured in the United States of America
for The Modern Library, Inc., by H. Wolff

CONTENTS
     
INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . V
Creatures That Once were Men . . . . 13
Twenty-Six Men and a Girl  . . . . .104
Chelkash . . . . . . . . . . . . . .125
My Fellow-Traveller  . . . . . . . .178
On a Raft  . . . . . . . . . . . . .229

INTRODUCTION

By G. K. CHESTERTON

It is certainly a curious fact that so many of the voices of
what is called our modern religion have come from countries
which are not only simple, but may even be called barbaric.
A nation like Norway has a great realistic drama without
having ever had either a great classical drama or a great
romantic drama. A nation like Russia makes us feel its modern
fiction when we have never felt its ancient fiction. It has
produced its Gissing without producing its Scott. Everything
that is most sad and scientific, everything that is most grim
and analytical, everything that can truly be called most
modern, everything that can without unreasonableness be
called most morbid, comes from these fresh and untried and
unexhausted nationalities. Out of these infant peoples come
the oldest voices of the earth.

This contradiction, like many other contradictions, is one
which ought first of all to be registered as a mere fact;
long before we attempt to explain why things contradict
themselves, we ought, if we are honest men and good critics,
to register the preliminary truth that things do contradict
themselves. In this case, as I say, there are many possible
and suggestive explanations. It may be, to take an example,
that our modern Europe is so exhausted that even the vigorous
expression of that exhaustion is difficult for every one
except the most robust.

vi  INTRODUCTION

It may be that all the nations are tired; and it may be that
only the boldest and breeziest are not too tired to say that
they are tired. It may be that a man like Ibsen in Norway or
a man like Gorky in Russia are the only people left who have
so much faith that they can really believe in scepticism. It
may be that they are the only people left who have so much
animal spirits that they can really feast high and drink
deep at the ancient banquet of pessimism. This is one of the
possible hypotheses or explanations in the matter: that all
Europe feels these things and that only have strength to
believe them also. Many other explanations might, however,
also be offered. It might be suggested that half-barbaric
countries, like Russia or Norway, which have always lain,
to say the least of it, on the extreme edge of the circle of
our European civilization, have a certain primal melancholy
which belongs to them through all the ages. It is highly
probable that this sadness, which to us is modern, is to
them eternal. It is highly probable that what we have
solemnly and suddenly discovered in scientific text-books
and philosophical magazines they absorbed and experienced
thousands of years ago, when they offered human sacrifice
in black and cruel forests and cried to their gods in the
dark. Their agnosticism is perhaps merely paganism; their
paganism, as in old times, is merely devil-worship. Certainly,
Schopenhauer could hardly have written his hideous essay on
women except in a country which had once been full of slavery
and the service of fiends. It may be that these moderns are
tricking us altogether, and are hiding in their current
scientific jargon things that they knew before science or
civilization were.

vii  INTRODUCTION

They say that they are determinists; but the truth is,
probably, that they are still worshipping the Norns. They
say that they describe scenes which are sickening and
dehumanizing in the name of art or in the name of truth; but
it may be that they do it in the name of some deity
indescribable, whom they propitiated with blood and terror
before the beginning of history.

This hypothesis, like the hypothesis mentioned before it,
is highly disputable, and is at best a suggestion. But there
is one broad truth in the matter which may in any case be
considered as established. A country like Russia has far
more inherent capacity for producing revolution in
revolutionists than any country of the type of England or
America. Communities highly civilized and largely urban tend
to a thing which is now called evolution, the most cautious
and the most conservative of all social influences. The
loyal Russian obeys the Czar because he remembers the Czar
and the Czar's importance. The disloyal Russian frets
against the Czar because he also remembers the Czar, and
makes a note of the necessity of knifing him. But the loyal
Englishman obeys the upper classes because he has forgotten
that they are there. Their operation has become to him like
daylight, or gravitation, or any of the forces of nature.
And there are no disloyal Englishmen; there are no English
revolutionists, because the oligarchic management of England
is so complete as to be invisible. The thing which can once
get itself forgotten can make itself omnipotent.

viii  INTRODUCTION

Gorky is preeminently Russian, in that he is a revolutionist;
not because most Russians are revolutionists (for I imagine
that they are not), but because most Russians--indeed, nearly
all Russian--are in that attitude of mind which makes
revolution possible, and which makes religion possible, an
attitude of primary and dogmatic assertion. To be a
revolutionist it is first necessary to be a revelationist.
It is necessary to believe in the sufficiency of some theory
of the universe or the State. But in countries that have
come under the influence of what is called the evolutionary
idea, there has been no dramatic righting of wrongs, and
(unless the evolutionary idea loses its hold) there never
will be. These countries have no revolution, they have to
put up with an inferior and largely fictitious thing which
they call progress.

The interest of the Gorky tale, like the interest of so many
other Russian masterpieces, consists in this sharp contact
between a simplicity, which we in the West feel to be very
old, and a rebelliousness which we in the West feel to he
very new. We cannot in our graduated and polite civilization
quite make head or tail of the Russian anarch; we can only
feel in a vague way that his tale is the tale of the Missing
Link, and that his head is the head of the superman. We hear
his lonely cry of anger. But we cannot be quite certain
whether his protest is the protest of the first anarchist
against government, or whether it is the protest of the last
savage against civilization. The cruelty of ages and of
political cynicism or necessity has done much to burden the
race of which Gorky writes; but time has left them one thing
which it has not left to the people in Poplar or West Ham.

ix  INTRODUCTION

It has left them, apparently, the clear and childlike power
of seeing the cruelty which encompasses them. Gorky is a
tramp, a man of the people, and also a critic, and a bitter
one. In the West poor men, when they become articulate in
literature, are always sentimentalists and nearly always
optimists.

It is no exaggeration to say that these people of whom Gorky
writes in such a story as "Creatures that once were Men"
are to the Western mind children. They have, indeed, been
tortured and broken by experience and sin. But this has only
sufficed to make them sad children or naughty children or
bewildered children. They have absolutely no trace of that
quality upon which secure government rests so largely in
Western Europe, the quality of being soothed by long words
as if by an incantation. They do not call hunger "economic
pressure"; they call it hunger. They do not call rich men
"examples of capitalistic concentration," they call them
rich men. And this note of plainness and of something nobly
prosaic is as characteristic of Gorky, in some ways the most
modern, and sophisticated of Russian authors, as it is of
Tolstoy or any of the Tolstoyan type of mind. The very
title of this story strike the note of this sudden and simple
vision. The philanthropist writing long letters to the Daily
Telegraph says, of men living in a slum, that "their
degeneration is of such a kind as almost to pass the limits
of the semblance of humanity," and we read the whole thing
with a tepid assent as we should read phrases about the
virtues of Queen Victoria or the dignity of the House of
Commons.

x  INTRODUCTION

The Russian novelist, when he describes a dosshouse, says,
"Creatures that once were Men."  And we are arrested, and
regard the facts as a kind of terrible fairy tale. This story
is a test case of the Russian manner, for it is in itself a
study of decay, a study of failure, and a study of old age.
And yet the author is forced to write even of staleness
freshly; and though he is treating of the world as seen
by eyes darkened or blood-shot with evil experience, his
own eyes look out upon the scene with a clarity that is almost
babyish. Through all runs that curious Russian sense that
every man is only a man, which, if the Russians ever are a
democracy, will make them the most democratic democracy that
the world has ever seen. Take this passage, for instance,
from the austere conclusion of "Creatures that once were Men":

Petunikoff smiled the smile of the conqueror and went back
into the dosshouse, but suddenly he stopped and trembled.
At the door facing him stood an old man with a stick in his
hand and a large bag on his back, a horrible old man in rags
and tatters, which covered his bony figure. He bent under
the weight of his burden, and lowered his head on his breast,
as if he wished to attack the merchant.

"What are you? Who are you?" shouted Petunikoff.

"A man . . ." he answered, In a hoarse voice. This hoarseness
pleased and tranquillized Petunikoff, he even smiled.

"A man! And are there really men like you?" Stepping aside,
he let the old man pass. He went, saying slowly:

"Men are of various kinds . . . as God wills . . . There are
worse than me . . . still worse. . .
Yes. . . ."

xi  INTRODUCTION

Here, in the very act of describing a kind of a fall from
humanity, Gorky expresses a sense of the strangeness and
essential value of the human being which is far too commonly
absent altogether from such complex civilizations as our own.
To no Westerner, I am afraid, would it occur, when asked
what he was, to say, "A man."  He would be a plasterer who
had walked from Reading, or an iron-puddler who had been
thrown out of work in Lancashire, or a University man who
would be really most grateful for the loan of five shillings,
or the son of a lieutenant-general living in Brighton, who
would not have made such an application if he had not known
that he was talking to another gentleman. With us it is not
a question of men being of various kinds; with us the kinds
are almost different animals. But in spite of all Gorky's
superficial scepticism and brutality, it is to him the fall
from humanity, or the apparent fall from humanity, which is
not merely great and lamentable, but essential and even
mystical. The line between man and the beasts is one of the
transcendental essentials of every religion; and it is, like
most of the transcendental things of religion, identical
with the main sentiments of the man of common sense. We feel
this gulf when theologies say that it cannot be crossed. But
we feel it quite as much (and that with a primal shudder)
when philosophers or fanciful writers suggest that it might
be crossed. And if any man wishes to discover whether or no
he has really learned to regard the line between man and
brute as merely relative and evolutionary, let him say again
to himself those frightful words, "Creatures that once were Men."

G. K. CHESTERTON.

CREATURES THAT ONCE WERE MEN

PART I

In front of you is the main street, with two rows of
miserable-looking huts with shuttered windows and old walls
pressing on each other and leaning forward. The roofs of
these time-worn habitations are full of holes, and have been
patched here and there with laths; from underneath them
project mildewed beams, which are shaded by the dusty-leaved
elder-trees and crooked white willow--pitiable flora of
those suburbs inhabited by the poor.

The dull green time-stained panes of the windows look upon
each other with the cowardly glances of cheats. Through the
street and toward the adjacent mountain runs the sinuous
path, winding through the deep ditches filled with
rain-water. Here and there are piled heaps of dust and other
rubbish--either refuse or else put there purposely to keep
the rain-water from flooding the houses. On the top of the
mountain, among green gardens with dense foliage, beautiful
stone houses lie hidden; the belfries of the churches rise
proudly toward the sky, and their gilded crosses shine beneath
the rays of the sun. During the rainy weather the
neighboring town pours its water into this main road, which,
at other times, is full of its dust, and all these miserable
houses seem, as it were, thrown by some powerful hand into
that heap of dust, rubbish, and rainwater.

14  CREATURES THAT ONCE WERE MEN

They cling to the ground beneath the high mountain, exposed
to the sun, surrounded by decaying refuse, and their sodden
appearance impresses one with the same feeling as would the
half-rotten trunk of an old tree.

At the end of the main street, as if thrown out of the town,
stood a two-storied house, which had been rented from
Petunikoff, a merchant and resident of the town. It was in
comparatively good order, being farther from the mountain,
while near it were the open fields, and about half-a-mile
away the river ran its winding course.

This large old house had the most dismal aspect amid its
surroundings. The walls bent outward, and there was hardly
a pane of glass in any of the windows, except some of the
fragments, which looked like the water of the marshes--dull
green. The spaces of wall between the windows were covered
with spots, as if time were trying to write there in
hieroglyphics the history of the old house, and the tottering
roof added still more to its pitiable condition. It seemed as
if the whole building bent toward the ground, to await the
last stroke of that fate which should transform it into a
chaos of rotting remains, and finally into dust.

The gates were open, one-half of them displaced and lying on
the ground at the entrance, while between its bars had grown
the grass, which also covered the large and empty court-yard.
In the depths of this yard stood a low, iron-roofed,
smoke-begrimed building. The house itself was of course
unoccupied, but this shed, formerly a blacksmith's forge,
was now turned into a "dosshouse," kept by a retired captain
named Aristid Fomich Kuvalda.

15  CREATURES THAT ONCE WERE MEN

In the interior of the dosshouse was a long, wide and grimy
board, measuring some 28 by 70 feet. The room was lighted
on one side by four small square windows, and on the other
by a wide door. The unpainted brick walls were black with
smoke, and the ceiling, which was built of timber, was almost
black. In the middle stood a large stove, the furnace of which
served as its foundation, and around this stove and along the
walls were also long, wide boards, which served as beds for
the lodgers. The walls smelt of smoke, the earthen floor of
dampness, and the long, wide board of rotting rags.

The place of the proprietor was on the top of the stove,
while the boards surrounding it were intended for those who
were on good terms with the owner, and who were honored by
his friendship. During the day the captain passed most of his
time sitting on a kind of bench, made by himself by placing
bricks against the wall of the court-yard, or else in the
eating-house of Egor Yavilovitch, which was opposite the
house, where he took all his meals and where he also drank
vodki.

Before renting this house, Aristid Kuvalda had kept a registry
office for servants in the town. If we look further back into
his former life, we shall find that he once owned printing
works, and previous to this, in his own words, he "just lived!
And lived well too, Devil take it, and like one who knew how!"

He was a tall, broad-shouldered man of fifty, with a
raw-looking face, swollen with drunkenness, and with a
dirty yellowish beard.

16  CREATURES THAT ONCE WERE MEN

His eyes were large and gray, with an insolent expression of
happiness. He spoke in a bass voice and with a sort of
grumbling sound in his throat, and he almost always held
between his teeth a German china pipe with a long bowl. When
he was angry the nostrils of his big, crooked red nose swelled,
and his lips trembled, exposing to view two rows of large and
wolf-like yellow teeth. He had long arms, was lame, and always
dressed in an old officer's uniform, with a dirty, greasy cap
with a red band, a hat without a brim, and ragged felt boots
which reached almost to his knees. In the morning, as a rule,
he had a heavy drunken headache, and in the evening he caroused.
However much he drank, he was never drunk, and so was always
merry.

In the evenings he received lodgers, sitting on his brick-made
bench with his pipe in his mouth.

"Whom have we here?" he would ask the ragged and tattered object
approaching him, who had probably been chucked out of the town
for drunkenness, or perhaps for some other reason not quite so
simple. And after the man had answered him, he would say, "Let
me see legal papers in confirmation of your lies."  And if there
were such papers they were shown. The captain would then put
them in his bosom, seldom taking any interest in them, and would
say: "Everything is in order. Two kopecks for the night, ten
kopecks for the week, and thirty kopecks for the month. Go and
get a place for yourself, and see that it is not other people's,
or else they will blow you up. The people that live here are
particular."

17  CREATURES THAT ONCE WERE MEN  

"Don't you sell tea, bread, or anything to eat?"

"I trade only in walls and roofs, for which I pay to the
swindling proprietor of this hole--Judas Petunikoff, merchant
of the second guild--five roubles a month," explained Kuvalda
in a business-like tone. "Only those come to me who are not
accustomed to comfort and luxuries. . .but if you are
accustomed to eat every day, then there is the eating-house
opposite. But it would be better for you if you left off that
habit. You see you are not a gentleman. What do you eat? You
eat yourself!"

For such speeches, delivered in a strictly business-like manner,
and always with smiling eyes, and also for the attention he paid
to his lodgers, the captain was very popular among the poor of
the town. It very often happened that a former client of his
would appear, not in rags, but in something more respectable and
with a slightly happier face.

"Good-day, your honor, and how do you do?"

"Alive, in good health! Go on."

"Don't you know me?"

"I did not know you."

"Do you remember that I lived with you last winter for nearly a
month . . . when the fight with the police took place, and
three were taken away?"

"My brother, that is so. The police do come even under my
hospitable roof!"

"My God! You gave a piece of your mind to the police inspector
of this district!"

"Wouldn't you accept some small hospitality from me? When I
lived with you, you were. . . ."

18  CREATURES THAT ONCE WERE MEN

"Gratitude must be encouraged because it is seldom met with.
You seem to be a good man, and, though I don't remember you,
still I will go with you into the public-house and drink to
your success and future prospects with the greatest pleasure."

"You seem always the same . . . Are you always joking?"

"What else can one do, living among you unfortunate men?"

They went. Sometimes the Captain's former customer, uplifted
and unsettled by the entertainment, returned to the dosshouse,
and on the following morning they would again begin treating
each other till the Captain's companion would wake up to
realize that he had spent all his money in drink.

"Your honor, do you see that I have again fallen into your
hands? What shall we do now?"

"The position, no doubt, is not a very good one, but still
you need not trouble about it," reasoned the Captain. "You
must, my friend, treat everything indifferently, without
spoiling yourself by philosophy, and without asking yourself
any question. To philosophize is always foolish; to
philosophize with a drunken headache, ineffably so. Drunken
headaches require vodki, and not the remorse of conscience
or gnashing of teeth . . . save your teeth, or else you will
not be able to protect yourself. Here are twenty kopecks. Go
and buy a bottle of vodki for five kopecks, hot tripe or lungs,
one pound of bread and two cucumbers. When we have lived off
our drunken headache we will think of the condition of
affairs. . . ."

19  CREATURES THAT ONCE WERE MEN  

As a rule the consideration of the "condition of affairs"
lasted some two or three days, and only when the Captain had
not a farthing left of the three roubles or five roubles given
him by his grateful customer did he say: "You came! Do you
see? Now that we have drunk everything with you, you fool,
try again to regain the path of virtue and soberness. It has
been truly said that if you do not sin, you will not repent,
and, if you do not repent, you shall not be saved. We have done
the first, and to repent is useless. Let us make direct for
salvation. Go to the river and work, and if you think you
cannot control yourself, tell the contractor, your employer,
to keep your money, or else give it to me. When you get
sufficient capital, I will get you a pair of trousers and
other things necessary to make you seem a respectable and
hard-working man, persecuted by fate. With decent-looking
trousers you can go far. Now then, be off!"

Then the client would go to the river to work as a porter,
smiling the while over the Captain's long and wise speeches.
He did not distinctly understand them, but only saw in front
of him two merry eyes, felt their encouraging influence, and
knew that in the loquacious Captain he had an arm that would
assist him in time of need.

And really it happened very often that, for a month or so,
some ticket-of-leave client, under the strict surveillance of
the Captain, had the opportunity of raising himself to a
condition better than that to which, thanks to the Captain's
cooperation, he had fallen.

20  CREATURES THAT ONCE WERE MEN

"Now, then, my friend!" said the Captain, glancing critically
at the restored client, "we have a coat and jacket. When I had
respectable trousers I lived in town like a respectable man.
But when the trousers wore out, I, too, fell off in the opinion
of my fellow-men and had to come down here from the town. Men,
my fine mannikin, judge everything by the outward appearance,
while, owing to their foolishness, the actual reality of things
is incomprehensible to them. Make a note of this on your nose,
and pay me at least half your debt. Go in peace; seek, and you
may find."

"How much do I owe you, Aristid Fomich?" asks the client, in
confusion.

"One rouble and 70 kopecks . . . Now, give me only one rouble,
or, if you like, 70 kopecks, and as for the rest, I shall wait
until you have earned more than you have now by stealing or by
hard work, it does not matter to me."

"I thank you humbly for your kindness!" says the client, touched
to the heart. "Truly you are a kind man . . .; Life has
persecuted you in vain . . . What an eagle you would have been
in your own place!"

The Captain could not live without eloquent speeches.

"What does 'in my own place' mean? No one really knows his own
place in life, and every one of us crawls into his harness. The
place of the merchant Judas Petunikoff ought to be in penal
servitude, but he still walks through the streets in daylight,
and even intends to build a factory. The place of our teacher
ought to be beside a wife and half-a-dozen children, but he is
loitering in the public-house of Vaviloff.

21  CREATURES THAT ONCE WERE MEN  

"And then, there is yourself. You are going to seek a situation
as a hall porter or waiter, but I can see that you ought to be a
soldier in the army, because you are no fool, are patient and
understand discipline. Life shuffles us like cards, you see, and
it is only accidentally, and only for a time, that we fall into
our own places!"

Such farewell speeches often served as a preface to the
continuation of their acquaintance, which again began with
drinking and went so far that the client would spend his last
farthing. Then the Captain would stand him treat, and they
would drink all they had.

A repetition of similar doings did not affect in the least
the good relations of the parties.

The teacher mentioned by the Captain was another of those
customers who were thus reformed only in order that they
should sin again. Thanks to his intellect, he was the nearest
in rank to the Captain, and this was probably the cause of his
falling so low as dosshouse life, and of his inability to rise
again. It was only with him that Aristid Kuvalda could
philosophize with the certainty of being understood. He valued
this, and when the reformed teacher prepared to leave the
dosshouse in order to get a corner in town for himself, then
Aristid Kuvalda accompanied him so sorrowfully and sadly that
it ended, as a rule, in their both getting drunk and spending
all their money. Probably Kuvalda arranged the matter
intentionally so that the teacher could not leave the
dosshouse, though he desired to do so with all his heart. Was
it possible for Aristid Kuvalda, a nobleman (as was evident
from his speeches), one who was accustomed to think, though
the turn of fate may have changed his position, was it possible
for him not to desire to have close to him a man like himself?
We can pity our own faults in others.

22  CREATURES THAT ONCE WERE MEN

This teacher had once taught at an institution in one of the
towns on the Volga, but in consequence of some story was
dismissed. After this he was a clerk in a tannery, but again
had to leave. Then he became a librarian in some private
library, subsequently following other professions. Finally,
after passing examinations in law he became a lawyer, but
drink reduced him to the Captain's dosshouse. He was tall,
round-shouldered, with a long, sharp nose and bald head. In
his bony and yellow face, on which grew a wedge-shaped beard,
shone large, restless eyes, deeply sunk in their sockets, and
the corners of his mouth drooped sadly down. He earned his
bread, or rather his drink, by reporting for the local papers.
He sometimes earned as much as fifteen roubles. These he gave
to the Captain and said:

"It is enough. I am going back into the bosom of culture.
Another week's hard work and I shall dress respectably, and
then Addio, mio caro!"

"Very exemplary! As I heartily sympathize with your decision,
Philip, I shall not give you another glass all this week," the
Captain warned him sternly.

"I shall be thankful! . . . You will not give me one drop?"

The Captain beard in his voice a beseeching note to which he
turned a deaf ear.

"Even though you roar, I shall not give it you!"

"As you like, then," sighed the teacher, and went away to
continue his reporting.

23  CREATURES THAT ONCE WERE MEN  

But after a day or two he would return tired and thirsty, and
would look at the Captain with a beseeching glance out of the
corners of his eyes, hoping that his friend's heart would
soften.

The Captain in such cases put on a serious face and began
speaking with killing irony on the theme of weakness of
character, of the animal delight of intoxication, and on such
subjects as suited the occasion. One must do him justice: he
was captivated by his role of mentor and moralist, but the
lodgers dogged him, and, listening sceptically to his
exhortations to repentance, would whisper aside to each other:

"Cunning, skilful, shifty rogue! I told you so, but you would
not listen. It's your own fault!"

"His honor is really a good soldier. He goes first and examines
the road behind him!"

The teacher then hunted here and there till he found his friend
again in some corner, and grasping his dirty coat, trembling
and licking his dry lips, looked into his face with a deep,
tragic glance, without articulate words.

"Can't you?" asked the Captain sullenly.

The teacher answered by bowing his head and letting it fall on
his breast, his tall, thin body trembling the while.

"Wait another day . . . perhaps you will be all right then,"
proposed Kuvalda. The teacher sighed, and shook his head
hopelessly.

The Captain saw that his friend's thin body trembled with the
thirst for the poison, and took some money from his pocket.

"In the majority of cases it is impossible to fight against
fate," said he, as if trying to justify himself before someone.

24  CREATURES THAT ONCE WERE MEN

But if the teacher controlled himself for a whole week, then
there was a touching farewell scene between the two friends,
which ended as a rule in the eating-house of Vaviloff. The
teacher did not spend all his money, but spent at least half
on the children of the main street. The poor are always rich
in children, and in the dirt and ditches of this street there
were groups of them from morning to night, hungry, naked and
dirty. Children are the living flowers of the earth, but
these had the appearance of flowers that have faded
prematurely, because they grew in ground where there was no
healthy nourishment. Often the teacher would gather them round
him, would buy them bread, eggs, apples and nuts, and take
them into the fields by the river side. There they would sit
and greedily eat everything he offered them, after which they
would begin to play, filling the fields for a mile around with
careless noise and laughter. The tall, thin figure of the
drunkard towered above these small people, who treated him
familiarly, as if he were one of their own age. They called
him "Philip," and did not trouble to prefix "Uncle" to his
name. Playing around him, like little wild animals, they
pushed him, jumped upon his back, beat him upon his bald head,
and caught hold of his nose. All this must have pleased him,
as he did not protest against such liberties. He spoke very
little to them, and when he did so he did it cautiously as if
afraid that his words would hurt or contaminate them. He
passed many hours thus as their companion and plaything,
watching their lively faces with his gloomy eyes.

25  CREATURES THAT ONCE WERE MEN

Then he would thoughtfully and slowly direct his steps to the
eating-house of Vaviloff, where he would drink silently and
quickly till all his senses left him.

* * * * * * * * * *         

Almost every day after his reporting he would bring a
newspaper, and then gather round him all these creatures that
once were men. On seeing him, they would come forward from
all corners of the court-yard, drunk, or suffering from drunken
headache, dishevelled, tattered, miserable, and pitiable. Then
would come the barrel-like, stout Aleksei Maksimoviteh
Simtsoff, formerly Inspector of Woods and Forests, under the
Department of Appendages, but now trading in matches, ink,
blacking, and lemons. He was an old man of sixty, in a canvas
overcoat and a wide-brimmed hat, the greasy borders of which
hid his stout, fat, red face. He had a thick white beard, out
of which a small red nose turned gaily heavenward. He had
thick, crimson lips and watery, cynical eyes. They called him
"Kubar, a name which well described his round figure an
buzzing speech. After him, Kanets appeared from some
corner--a dark, sad-looking, silent drunkard: then the former
governor of the prison, Luka Antonovitch Martyanoff, a man who
existed on "remeshok," "trilistika" and "bankovka," * and many
such cunning games, not much appreciated by the police.

Note by translator.--Well-known games or chance, played by the
lower classes. The police specially endeavor to stop them,
but unsuccessfully.

26 CREATURES THAT ONCE WERE MEN

He would throw his hard and oft-scourged body on the grass
beside the teacher, and, turning his eyes round and scratching
his head, would ask in a hoarse, bass voice, "May I?"

Then appeared Pavel Solntseff, a man of thirty years of age,
suffering from consumption. The ribs of his left side had
been broken in a quarrel, and the sharp, yellow face,
like that of a fox, always wore a malicious smile. The thin
lips, when opened, exposed two rows of decayed black teeth,
and the rags on his shoulders swayed backward and forward as
if they were hung on a clothes pole. They called him
"Abyedok."  He hawked brushes and bath brooms of his own
manufacture, good, strong brushes made from a peculiar kind
of grass.

Then followed a lean and bony man of whom no one knew anything,
with a frightened expression in his eyes, the left one of
which had a squint. He was silent and timid, and had been
imprisoned three times for theft by the High Court of Justice
and the Magisterial Courts. His family name was Kiselnikoff,
but they called him Paltara Taras, because he was a head and
shoulders taller than his friend, Deacon Taras, who had been
degraded from his office for drunkenness and immorality. The
Deacon was a short, thick-set person, with the chest of an
athlete and a round, strong head. He danced skilfully, and
was still more skilful at swearing. He and Paltara Taras
worked in the wood on the banks of the river, and in free
hours he told his friend or any one who would listen, "Tales
of my own composition," as he used to say. On hearing these
stories, the heroes of which always seemed to be saints, kings,
priests, or generals, even the inmates of the dosshouse spat
and rubbed their eyes in astonishment at the imagination of the
Deacon, who told them shameless tales of lewd, fantastic
adventures, with blinking eyes and a passionless expression of
countenance.

27  CREATURES THAT ONCE WERE MEN

The imagination of this man was powerful and inexhaustible; he
could go on relating and composing all day, from morning to
night, without once repeating what he had said before. In his
expression you sometimes saw the poet gone astray, sometimes
the romancer, and he always succeeded in making his tales
realistic by the effective and powerful words in which he told
them.

There was also a foolish young man called Kuvalda Meteor. One
night he came to sleep in the dosshouse, and had remained ever
since among these men, much to their astonishment. At first
they did not take much notice of him. In the daytime, like all
the others, he went away to find something to eat, but at
nights he always loitered around this friendly company till at
last the Captain took notice of him.
     
"Boy! What business have you here on this earth?"

The boy answered boldly and stoutly:

"I am a barefooted tramp. . . ."

The Captain looked critically at him. This youngster had long
hair and a weak face, with prominent cheekbones and a turned-up
nose. He was dressed in a blue blouse without a waistband, and
on his head he wore the remains of a straw hat, while his feet
were bare.

"You are a fool!" decided Aristid Kuvalda. "what are you
knocking about here for? You are of absolutely no use to us . . .
Do you drink vodki? . . . No? . . . Well, then, can you steal?"
Again, "No." "Go away, learn, and come back again when you know
something, and are a man. . . ."

28  CREATURES THAT ONCE WERE MEN

The youngster smiled. "No. I shall live with you."

"Why?"

"Just because. . . ."

"Oh, you . . . Meteor!" said the Captain.

"I will break his teeth for him," said Martyanoff.

"And why?" asked the youngster.

"Just because. . . ."

"And I will take a stone and hit you on the head," the young
man answered respectfully.

Martyanoff would have broken his bones, had not Kuvalda
interrupted with: "Leave him alone. . .Is this a home to
you or even to us? You have no sufficient reason to break his
teeth for him. You have no better reason than he for living
with us."

"Well, then, Devil take him! . . . We all live in the world
without sufficient reason . . . We live, and why? Because!
He also because . . . let him alone. . . ."

"But it is better for you, young man, to go away from us,"
the teacher advised him, looking him up and down with his sad
eyes. He made no answer, but remained. And they soon became
accustomed to his presence, and ceased to take any notice of
him. But he lived among them, and observed everything.

The above were the chief members of the Captain's company, and
he called them with kind-hearted sarcasm "Creatures that once
were Men."  For though there were men who had experienced as
much of the bitter irony of fate as these men; yet they were
not fallen so low.

29  CREATURES THAT ONCE WERE MEN

Not infrequently, respectable men belonging to the cultured
classes are inferior to those belonging to the peasantry, and
it is always a fact that the depraved man from the city is
immeasurably worse than the depraved man from the village.
This fact was strikingly illustrated by the contrast between
the formerly well-educated men and the mujiks who were living
in Kuvalda's shelter.
     
The representative of the latter class was an old mujik
called Tyapa. Tall and angular, he kept his head in such a
position that his chin touched his breast. He was the
Captain's first lodger, and it was said of him that he had a
great deal of money hidden somewhere, and for its sake had
nearly had his throat cut some two years ago: ever since then
he carried his head thus. Over his eyes hung grayish eyebrows,
and, looked at in profile, only his crooked nose was to be
seen. His shadow reminded one of a poker. He denied that he
had money, and said that they "only tried to cut his throat
out of malice," and from that day he took to collecting rags,
and that is why his head was always bent as if incessantly
looking on the ground. When he went about shaking his head,
and minus a walking-stick in his hand, and a bag on his
back--the signs of his profession--he seemed to be thinking
almost to madness, and, at such times, Kuvalda spoke thus,
pointing to him with his finger:

"Look, there is the conscience of Merchant Judas Petunikoff.
See how disorderly, dirty, and low is the escaped conscience."

30  CREATURES THAT ONCE WERE MEN

Tyapa, as a rule, spoke in a hoarse and hardly audible voice,
and that is why he spoke very little, and loved to be alone.
But whenever a stranger, compelled to leave the village,
appeared in the dosshouse, Tyapa seemed sadder and angrier,
and followed the unfortunate about with biting jeers and a
wicked chuckling in his throat. He either put some beggar
against him, or himself threatened to rob and beat him, till
the frightened mujik would disappear from the dosshouse and
never more be seen. Then Tyapa was quiet again, and would
sit in some corner mending his rags, or else reading his Bible,
which was as dirty, worn, and old as himself. Only when the
teacher brought a newspaper and began reading did he come from
his corner once more. As a rule, Tyapa listened to what was
read silently and sighed often, without asking anything of
anyone. But once when the teacher, having read the paper,
wanted to put it away, Tyapa stretched out his bony hand, and
said, "Give it to me. . . ."

"What do you want it for?"

"Give it to me . . . Perhaps there is something in it about
us. . . ."

"About whom?"

"About the village."

They laughed at him, and threw him the paper. He took it, and
read in it how in the village the hail had destroyed the
cornfields, how in another village fire destroyed thirty houses,
and that in a third a woman had poisoned her family--in fact,
everything that it is customary to write of--everything, that
is to say, which is bad, and which depicts only the worst side
of the unfortunate village.

31  CREATURES THAT ONCE WERE. MEN

Tyapa read all this silently and roared, perhaps from sympathy,
perhaps from delight at the sad news.

He passed the whole Sunday in reading his Bible, and never went
out collecting rags on that day. While reading, he groaned and
sighed continually. He kept the book close to his breast, and
was angry with any one who interrupted him or who touched his
Bible.

"Oh, you drunken blackguard," said Kuvalda to him, "what do you
understand of it?"

"Nothing, wizard! I don't understand anything, and I do not
read any books . . . But I read. . . ."

"Therefore you are a fool . . ." said the Captain, decidedly.
"When there are insects in your head, you know it is
uncomfortable, but if some thoughts enter there too, how will
you live then, you old toad?"

"I have not long to live," said Tyapa, quietly.

Once the teacher asked how he had learned to read.

"In prison," answered Tyapa shortly.

"Have you been there?"

"I was there.   "

"For what?"

"Just so . . . It was a mistake . . . But I brought the Bible
out with me from there. A lady gave it to me . . . It is good
in prison, brother."

"Is that so? And why?"

"It teaches one . . . I learned to read there . . . I also got
this book . . . And all these you see, free. . . ."

When the teacher appeared in the dosshouse, Tyapa had already
lived there for some time. He looked long into the teacher's
face, as if to discover what kind of a man he was.

32  CREATURES THAT ONCE WERE MEN

Tyapa often listened to his conversation, and once,
sitting down beside him, said:

"I see you are very learned . . . Have you read the Bible?"

"I have read it. . . ."

"I see; I see . . . Can you remember it?"

"Yes . . . I remember it. . . ."

Then the old man leaned to one side and gazed at the other
with a serious, suspicious glance.

"There were the Amalekites, do you remember?"

"Well?"

"Where are they now?"

"Disappeared . . . Tyapa . . . died out. . . ."

The old man was silent, then asked again: "And where are
the Philistines?"

"These also. . . ."

"Have all these died out?"

"Yes . . . all. . . ."

"And so . . . we also will die out?"

"There will come a time when we also will die," said the
teacher indifferently.

"And to what tribe of Israel do we belong?"

The teacher looked at him, and began telling him about
Scythians and Slavs. . . .

The old man became all the more frightened, and glanced at
his face.

"You are lying!" he said scornfully, when the teacher had
finished.

"What lie have I told?" asked the teacher.

33  CREATURES THAT ONCE WERE MEN

"You mentioned tribes that are not mentioned in the Bible."

He got up and walked away, angry and deeply insulted.

"You will go mad, Tyapa," called the teacher after him with
conviction.

Then the old man came back again, and stretching out his hand,
threatened him with his crooked and dirty finger.

"God made Adam--from Adam were descended the Jews, that means
that all people are descended from Jews . . . and we also. . . ."

"Well?"

"Tartars are descended from Ishmael, but he also came of the
Jews. . . ."

"What do you want to tell me all this for?"

"Nothing! Only why do you tell lies?"  Then he walked away,
leaving his companion in perplexity. But after two days he came
again and sat by him.

"You are learned . . . Tell me, then, whose descendants are we?
Are we Babylonians, or who are we?"

"We are Slavs, Tyapa," said the teacher, and attentively awaited
his answer, wishing to understand him.

"Speak to me from the Bible. There are no such men there."

Then the teacher began criticizing the Bible. The old man
listened, and interrupted him after a long while.

"Stop . . . Wait! That means that among people known to God
there are no Russians? We are not known to God? Is it so?
God knew all those who are mentioned in the Bible . . . He
destroyed them by sword and fire, He destroyed their cities;
but He also sent prophets to teach them.

34  CREATURES THAT ONCE WERE MEN

That means that He also pitied them. He scattered the Jews
and the Tartars . . . But what about us? Why have we prophets
no longer?"
     
"Well, I don't know!" replied the teacher, trying to understand
the old man. But the latter put his hand on the teacher's
shoulder, and slowly pushed him backward and forward, and his
throat made a noise as if he were swallowing something. . . .

"Tell me! You speak so much . . . as if you knew everything.
It makes me sick to listen to you . . . you darken my soul . . .
I should be better pleased if you were silent. Who are we, eh?
Why have we no prophets? Ha, ha! . . . Where were we when Christ
walked on this earth? Do you see? And you too, you are
lying . . . Do you think that all die out? The Russian people
will never disappear . . . You are lying. It has been written
in the Bible, only it is not known what name the Russians are
given. Do you see what kind of people they are? They are
numberless . . . How many villages are there on the earth?
Think of all the people who live on it, so strong, go numerous I
And you say that they will die out; men shall die, but God wants
the people, God the Creator of the earth! The Amalekites did
not die out. They are either German or French . . . But you,
eh, you! Now then, tell me why we are abandoned by God? Have
we no punishments nor prophets from the Lord? Who then will
teach us?"  Tyapa spoke strongly and plainly, and there was
faith in his words.

35  CREATURES THAT ONCE WERE MEN

He had been speaking a long time, and the teacher, who was
generally drunk and in a speechless condition, could not stand
it any longer. He looked at the dry, wrinkled old man, felt
the great force of these words, and suddenly began to pity
himself. He wished to say something so strong and convincing
to the old man that Tyapa would be disposed in his favor; he
did not wish to speak in such a serious, earnest way, but in
a soft and fatherly tone. And the teacher felt as if something
were rising from his breast into his throat . . . But he could
not find any powerful words.

"What kind of a man are you? . . . Your soul seems to be torn
away--and you still continue speaking . . . as if you knew
something . . . It would be better if you were silent."

"Ah, Tyapa, what you say is true," replied the teacher sadly.
"The people . . . you are right . . . they are numberless . . .
but I am a stranger to them . . . and they are strangers to me
. . . Do you see where the tragedy of my life is hidden? . . .
But let me alone! I shall suffer . . . and there are no
prophets also . . . No. You are right, I speak a great deal
. . . But it is no good to anyone. I shall be always silent
. . . Only don't speak with me like this . . . Ah, old man,
you do not know . . . You do not know . . . And you cannot
understand."
     
And in the end the teacher cried. He cried so easily and so
freely, with such torrents of flowing tears, that he soon
found relief.

36  CREATURES THAT ONCE WERE MEN

"You ought to go into a village . . . become a clerk or a
teacher . . . You would be well fed there. What are you crying
for?" asked Tyapa sadly.

But the teacher was crying as if the tears quieted and comforted
him.

From this day they became friends, and the "creatures that once
were men," seeing them together, said: "The teacher is friendly
with Tyapa . . . He wishes his money. Kuvalda must have put
this into his head . . . To look about to see where the old
man's fortune is. . . ."

Probably they did not believe what they said. There was one
strange thing about these men, namely, that they painted
themselves to others worse than they actually were. A man who
has good in him does not mind sometimes showing his worse nature.

* * * * * * * * * *         

When all these people were gathered round the teacher, then the
reading of the newspaper would begin.

"Well, what does the newspaper discuss to-day? Is there any feuilleton?"

"No," the teacher informs him.

"Your publisher seems greedy . . . but is there any leader?"

"There is one to-day . . . It appears to be by Gulyaeff."

"Aha! Come, out with it I He writes cleverly, the rascal."

"'The taxation of immovable property,'" reads the teacher, "It
was introduced some fifteen years ago, and up to the present  it
has served as the basis for collecting these taxes in aid of the
city revenue. . . .'"

37  CREATURES THAT ONCE WERE MEN

"That is simple," comments Captain Kuvalda. "It continues to
serve. That is ridiculous. To the merchant who is moving
about in the city, it is profitable that it should continue
to serve. Therefore it does continue."

"The article, in fact, is written on the subject," says the
teacher.

"Is it? That is strange, it is more a subject for a
feuilleton."

"Such a subject must be treated with plenty of pepper. . . ."

Then a short discussion begins. The people listen attentively,
as only one bottle of vodki has been drunk.

After the leader, they read the local events, then the court
proceedings, and, if in the police court it reports that the
defendant or plaintiff is a merchant, then Aristid Kuvalda
sincerely rejoices. If someone has robbed the merchant, "That
is good," says he. "Only it is a pity they robbed him of so
little."  If his horses have broken down, "It is sad that he
is still alive."  If the merchant has lost his suit in court,
"It is a pity that the costs were not double the amount."

"That would have been illegal," remarks the teacher.

"Illegal! But is the merchant himself legal?" inquires Kuvalda
bitterly. "What is the merchant? Let us investigate this rough
and uncouth phenomenon. First of all, every merchant is a
mujik. He comes from a village, and in course of time becomes
a merchant. In order to be a merchant, one must have money.

38  CREATURES THAT ONCE WERE MEN

Where can the mujik get the money from? It is well known that
he does not get it by honest hard work, and that means that the
mujik, somehow or other, has been swindling. That is to say,
a merchant is simply a dishonest mujik."

"Splendid!" cry the people, approving the orator's deduction,
and Tyapa bellows all the time, scratching his breast. He
always bellows like this as he drinks his first glass of vodki,
when he has a drunken headache. The Captain beams with joy.
They next read the correspondence. This is, for the Captain,
"an abundance of drinks," as he himself calls it. He always
notices how the merchants make this life abominable, and how
cleverly they spoil everything. His speeches thunder at and
annihilate merchants. His audience listens to him with the
greatest pleasure, because he swears atrociously. "If I wrote
for the papers," he shouts, "I would show up the merchant in
his true colors . . . I would show that he is a beast, playing
for a time the role of a man. I understand him!  He is a rough
boor, does not know the meaning of the words 'good taste,' has
no notion of patriotism, and his knowledge is not worth five
kopecks."
     
Abyedok, knowing the Captain's weak point, and fond of making
other people angry, cunningly adds:

"Yes, since the nobility began to make acquaintance with hunger,
men have disappeared from the world. . . ."

"You are right, you son of a spider and a toad. Yes, from the
time that the noblemen fell, there have been no men. There are
only merchants, and I hate them."

39  CREATURES THAT ONCE WERE MEN

"That is easy to understand, brother, because you too, have
been brought down by them. . . ."

"I? I was ruined by love of life . . . Fool that I was, I loved
life, but the merchant spoils it, and I cannot bear it, simply
for this reason, and not because I am a nobleman. But if you
want to know the truth, I was once a man, though I was not noble.
I care now for nothing and nobody . . . and all my life has been
tame--a sweetheart who has jilted me--therefore I despise life,
and am indifferent to it."

"You lie!" says Abyedok.

"I lie?" roars Aristid Kuvalda, almost crimson with anger.

"Why shout?" comes in the cold sad voice of Martyanoff.

"Why judge others? Merchants, noblemen. . .what have we to
do with them?"

"Seeing what we are" . . . puts in Deacon Taras.

"Be quiet, Abyedok," says the teacher good-naturedly.

"Why do you provoke him?"  He does not love either discussion
or noise, and when they quarrel all around him his lips form
into a sickly grimace, and he endeavors quietly and reasonably
to reconcile each with the other, and if he does not succeed
in this he leaves the company. Knowing this, the Captain, if
he is not very drunk, controls himself, not wishing to lose,
in the person of the teacher, one of the best of his listeners.

"I repeat," he continues, in a quieter tone, "that I see life
in the hands of enemies, not only enemies of the noble but of
everything good, avaricious and incapable of adorning existence
in any way."

40  CREATURES THAT ONCE WERE MEN

"But all the same, says the teacher, "merchants, so to speak,
created Genoa, Venice, Holland--and all these were merchants,
merchants from England, India, the Stroyanoff merchants. . . ."

"I do not speak of these men, I am thinking of Judas Petunikoff,
who is one of them. . . ."

"And you say you have nothing to do with them?" asks the teacher
quietly.

"But do you think that I do not live? Aha! I do live, but I
suppose I ought not to be angry at the fact that life is
desecrated and robbed of all freedom by these men."

"And they dare to laugh at the kindly anger of the Captain, a
man living in retirement?" says Abyedok teasingly.

"Very well! I agree with you that I am foolish. Being a
creature who was once a man, I ought to blot out from my heart
all those feelings that once were mine. You may be right, but
then how could I or any of you defend ourselves if we did away
with all these feelings?"

"Now then, you are talking sense," says the teacher encouragingly.

"We want other feelings and other views on life . . . We want
something new. . .because we ourselves are a novelty in this
life. . . ."

"Doubtless this is most important for us," remarks the teacher.

"Why?" asks Kanets. "Is it not all the same whatever we say or
think? We have not got long to live I am forty, you are fifty
. . . there is no one among us younger than thirty, and even
at twenty one cannot live such a life long."

41  CREATURES THAT ONCE WERE MEN

"And what kind of novelty are we?" asked Abyedok mockingly.

"Since nakedness has always existed "

"Yes, and it created Rome," said the teacher.

"Yes, of course," says the Captain, beaming with joy.

"Romulus and Remus, eh? We also shall create when our time
comes. . . ."

"Violation of public peace," interrupts Abyedok. He laughs
in a self-satisfied way. His laughter is impudent and insolent,
and is echoed by Simtsoff, the Deacon and Paltara Taras. The
naive eyes of young Meteor light up, and his cheeks flush
crimson.

Kanets speaks, and it seems as if he were hammering their heads.

"All these are foolish illusions . . . fiddlesticks!"

It was strange to see them reasoning in this manner, these
outcasts from life, tattered, drunken with vodki and wickedness,
filthy and forlorn. Such conversations rejoiced the Captain's
heart. They gave him an opportunity of speaking more, and
therefore he thought himself better than the rest. However low
he may fall, a man can never deny himself the delight of feeling
cleverer, more powerful, or even better fed than his companions.
Aristid Kuvalda abused this pleasure, and never could have
enough of it, much to the disgust of Abyedok, Kubar, and others
of these creatures that once were men, who were less interested
in such things.

Politics, however, were more to the popular taste. The
discussions as to the necessity of taking India or of subduing
England were lengthy and protracted.

42  CREATURES THAT ONCE WERE MEN

Nor did they speak with less enthusiasm of the radical measure
of clearing Jews off the face of the earth. On this subject
Abyedok was always the first to propose dreadful plans to effect
the desired end, but the Captain, always first in every other
argument, did not join in this one. They also spoke much and
impudently about women, but the teacher always defended them,
and sometimes was very angry when they went so far as to pass
the limits of decency. They all, as a rule, gave in to him,
because they did not look upon him as a common person, and also
because they wished to borrow from him on Saturdays the money
which he had earned during the week. He had many privileges.
They never beat him, for instance, on these occasions when the
conversation ended in a free fight. He had the right to bring
women into the dosshouse; a privilege accorded to no one else,
as the Captain had previously warned them.

"No bringing of women to my house," he had said. "Women,
merchants and philosophers, these are the three causes of my
ruin. I will horsewhip anyone bringing in women. I will
horsewhip the woman also . . . And as to the philosopher,
I'll knock his head off for him."  And notwithstanding his age
he could have knocked anyone's head off, for he possessed
wonderful strength. Besides that, whenever he fought or
quarrelled, he was assisted by Martyanoff, who was accustomed
during a general fight to stand silently and sadly back to back
with Kuvalda, when he became an all destroying and impregnable
engine of war. Once when Simtsoff was drunk, he rushed at the
teacher for no reason whatever, and getting hold of his head
tore out a bunch of hair.

43 CREATURES THAT ONCE WERE MEN

Kuvalda, with one stroke of his fist in the other's chest, sent
him spinning, and he fell to the ground. He was unconscious
for almost half-an-hour, and when he came to himself Kuvalda
compelled him to eat the hair he had torn from the teacher's
head. He ate it, preferring this to being beaten to death.

Besides reading newspapers, fighting and indulging in general
conversation, they amused themselves by playing cards. They
played without Martyanoff because he could not play honestly.
After cheating several times, he openly confessed:

"I cannot play without cheating . . . it is a habit of mine."

"Habits do get the better of you," assented Deacon Taras. "I
always used to beat my wife every Sunday after Mass, and when
she died I cannot describe how extremely dull I felt every
Sunday. I lived through one Sunday--it was dreadful, the second
I still controlled myself, the third Sunday I struck my Asok.
. . . She was angry and threatened to summon me. Just imagine
if she had done so! On the fourth Sunday, I beat her just as
if she were my own wife! After that I gave her ten roubles,
and beat her according to my own rules till I married again!"

"You are lying, Deacon! How could you marry a second time?"
interrupted Abyedok.

"Ay, just so . . . She looked after my house . . ."

"Did you have any children?" asked the teacher.

"Five of them . . . One was drowned . . . the oldest . . .
he was an amusing boy! Two died of diphtheria . . . One of
the daughters married a student and went with him to Siberia.

44  CREATURES THAT ONCE WERE MEN

The other went to the University of St. Petersburg and died
there . . . of consumption they say. Ye--es, there were five
of them . . . Ecclesiastics are prolific, you know."  He began
explaining why this was so, and they laughed till they nearly
burst at his tales. When the laughter stopped, Aleksei
Maksimovitch Simtsoff remembered that he too had once had a
daughter.

"Her name was Lidka . . . she was very stout. . . ."

More than this he did not seem to remember, for he looked at
them all, was silent and smiled . . . in a guilty way. Those
men spoke very little to each other about their past, and they
recalled it very seldom, and then only its general outlines.
When they did mention it, it was in a cynical tone. Probably,
this was just as well, since, in many people, remembrance of
the past kills all present energy and deadens all hope for the
future.

* * * * * * * * * *

On rainy, cold, or dull days in the late autumn, these
"creatures that once were men" gathered in the eating-house of
Vaviloff. They were well known there, where some feared them
as thieves and rogues, and some looked upon them contemptuously
as hard drinkers, although they respected them, thinking that
they were clever.

The eating-house of Vaviloff was the club of the main street,
and the "creatures that once were men" were its most intellectual
members.

45  CREATURES THAT ONCE WERE MEN

On Saturday evenings or Sunday mornings, when the eating-house
was packed, the "creatures that once were men" were only too
welcome guests. They brought with them, besides the forgotten
and poverty-stricken inhabitants of the street, their own spirit,
in which there was something that brightened the lives of men
exhausted and worn out in the struggle for existence, as great
drunkards as the inhabitants of Kuvalda's shelter, and, like
them, outcasts from the town. Their ability to speak on all
subjects, their freedom of opinion, skill in repartee, courage
in the presence of those of whom the whole street was in terror,
together with their daring demeanor, could not but be pleasing
to their companions. Then, too, they were well versed in law,
and could advise, write petitions, and help to swindle without
incurring the risk of punishment. For all this they were paid
with vodki and flattering admiration of their talents.

The inhabitants of the street were divided into two parties
according to their sympathies. One was in favor of Kuvalda,
who was thought "a good soldier, clever, and courageous"; the
other was convinced of the fact that the teacher was "superior"
to Kuvalda. The latter's admirers were those who were known to
be drunkards, thieves, and murderers, for whom the road from
beggary to prison was inevitable. But those who respected the
teacher were men who still had expectations, still hoped for
better things, who were eternally occupied with nothing, and
who were nearly always hungry.

The nature of the teacher's and Kuvalda's relations toward the
street may be gathered from the following:

46  CREATURES THAT ONCE WERE MEN

Once in the eating-house they were discussing the resolution
passed by the Corporation regarding the main street, viz., that
the inhabitants were to fill up the pits and ditches in the
street, and that neither manure nor the dead bodies of domestic
animals should be used for the purpose, but only broken tiles,
etc., from the ruins of other houses.

"Where am I going to get these same broken tiles and bricks?
I could not get sufficient bricks together to build a
hen-house," plaintively said Mokei Anisimoff, a man who hawked
kalaches (a sort of white bread) which were baked by his wife.

"Where can you get broken bricks and lime rubbish? Take bags
with you, and go and remove them from the Corporation buildings.
They are so old that they are of no use to anyone, and you will
thus be doing two good deeds; firstly, by repairing the main
street; and secondly, by adorning the city with a new Corporation
building."

"If you want horses, get them from the Lord Mayor, and take his
three daughters, who seem quite fit for harness. Then destroy
the house of Judas Petunikoff and pave the street with its
timbers. By the way, Mokei, I know out of what your wife baked
to-day's kalaches; out of the frames of the third window and the
two steps from the roof of Judas' house."

When those present had laughed and joked sufficiently over the
Captain's proposal, the sober market gardener, Pavlyugus asked:

"But seriously, what are we to do, your honor? . . . Eh? What
do you think?"

47  CREATURES THAT ONCE WERE MEN

"I? I shall neither move hand nor foot. If they wish to clean
the street, let them do it."

"Some of the houses are almost coming down. . . ."

"Let them fall; don't interfere; and when they fall ask help
from the city. If they don't give it you, then bring a suit
in court against them! Where does the water come from? From
the city! Therefore let the city be responsible for the
destruction of the houses."

"They will say it is rain-water."

"Does it destroy the houses in the city? Eh? They take taxes
from you, but they do not permit you to speak! They destroy
your property and at the same time compel you to repair it!"
And half the radicals in the street, convinced by the words
of Kuvalda, decided to wait till the rain-water came down in
huge streams and swept away their houses. The others, more
sensible, found in the teacher a man who composed for them an
excellent and convincing report for the Corporation. In this
report the refusal of the street's inhabitants to comply with
the resolution of the Corporation was well explained that the
Corporation actually entertained it. It was decided that the
rubbish left after some repairs had been done to the barracks
should be used for mending and filling up the ditches in their
street, and for the transport of this five horses were given
by the fire brigade. Still more, they even saw the necessity
of laying a drain-pipe through the street. This and many
other things vastly increased the popularity of the teacher.
He wrote petitions for them and published various remarks in
the newspapers.

48  CREATURES THAT ONCE WERE MEN

For instance, on one occasion Vaviloff's customers noticed that
the herrings and other provisions of the eating-house were not
what they should be, and after a day or two they saw Vaviloff
standing at the bar with the newspaper in his hand making a
public apology.

"It is true, I must acknowledge, that I bought old and not very
good herrings, and the cabbage . . . also . . . was old. It is
only too well known that anyone can put many a five-kopeck piece
in his pocket in this way. And what is the result? It has not
been a success; I was greedy, I own, but the cleverer man has
exposed me, so we are quits. . . ."

This confession made a very good impression on the people, and
it also gave Vaviloff the opportunity of still feeding them with
herrings and cabbages which were not good, though they failed
to notice it, so much were they impressed.

This incident was very significant, because it increased not only
the teacher's popularity, but also the effect of press opinion.

It often happened, too, that the teacher read lectures on
practical morality in the eating-house.

"I saw you," he said to the painter, Yashka Tyarin; "I saw you,
Yakov, beating your wife. . . ."

Yashka was "touched with paint" after having two glasses of
vodki, and was in a slightly uplifted condition.

The people looked at him, expecting him to make a row, and all
were silent.

"Did you see me? And how did it please you?" asks Yashka.

The people control their laughter.

49  CREATURES THAT ONCE WERE MEN

"No; it did not please me," replies the teacher. His tone is
so serious that the people are silent.

"You see I was just trying it," said Yashka, with bravado,
fearing that the teacher would rebuke him. "The wife is
satisfied. . . She has not got up yet today. . . ."

The teacher, who was drawing absently with his fingers on the
table, said, "Do you see, Yakov, why this did not please me?
. . . Let us go into the matter thoroughly, and understand what
you are really doing, and what the result may be. Your wife is
pregnant. You struck her last night on her sides and breast.
That means that you beat not only her but the child too. You
may have killed him, and your wife might have died or else have
become seriously ill. To have the trouble of looking after a
sick woman is not pleasant. It is wearing, and would cost you
dear, because illness requires medicine, and medicine money.
If you have not killed the child, you may have crippled him, and
he will he born deformed, lop-sided, or hunch-backed. That
means that he will not be able to work, and it is only too
important to you that he should be a good workman. Even if he
be born ill, it will be bad enough, because he will keep his
mother from work, and will require medicine. Do you see what
you are doing to yourself? Men who live by hard work must be
strong and healthy, and they should have strong and healthy
children . . . Do I speak truly?"

"Yes," assented the listeners.

"But all this will never happen," says Yashka, becoming rather
frightened at the prospect held out to him by the teacher.

50  CREATURES THAT ONCE WERE MEN

"She is healthy, and I cannot have reached the child . . .
She is a devil--a hag!" he shouts angrily. "I would . . . She
will eat me away as rust eats iron."

"I understand, Yakov, that you cannot help beating your wife,"
the teacher's sad and thoughtful voice again breaks in. "You
have many reasons for doing so . . . It is your wife's character
that causes you to beat her so incautiously . . . But your own
dark and sad life. . . ."

"You are right!" shouts Yakov. "We live in darkness, like the
chimney-sweep when he is in the chimney!"

"You are angry with your life, but your wife is patient; the
closest relation to you--your wife, and you make her suffer
for this, simply because you are stronger than she. She is
always with you, and cannot get away. Don't you see how absurd
you are?"

"That is so . . . Devil take it! But what shall I do? Am I
not a man?"

"Just so! You are a man. . . . I only wish to tell you that if
you cannot help beating her, then beat her carefully and always
remember that you may injure her health or that of the child.
It is not good to beat pregnant women . . . on their belly or
on their sides and chests . . . Beat her, say, on the neck
. . . or else take a rope and beat her on some soft place. . . ."

The orator finished his speech and looked upon his hearers with
his dark, pathetic eyes, seeming to apologize to them for some
unknown crime.

51  CREATURES THAT ONCE WERE MEN

The public understands it. They understand the morale of the
creature who was once a man, the morale of the public-house and
much misfortune.

"Well, brother Yashka, did you understand? See how true it
is!"

Yakov understood that to beat her incautiously might be
injurious to his wife. He is silent, replying to his
companions' jokes with confused smiles.

"Then again, what is a wife?"  philosophizes the baker,
Mokei Anisimoff. "A wife . . . is a friend if we look at the
matter in that way. She is like a chain, chained to you for
life . . . and you are both just like galley slaves. And if
you try to get away from her, you cannot, you feel the chain."

"Wait," says Yakovleff; "but you beat your wife too."

"Did I say that I did not? I beat her . . There is nothing
else handy . . . Do you expect me to beat the wall with my
fist when my patience is exhausted?"

"I feel just like that too . . ." says Yakov.

"How hard and difficult our life is, my brothers! There is no
real rest for us anywhere!"

"And even you beat your wife by mistake," some one remarks
humorously. And thus they speak till far on in the night or
till they have quarrelled, the usual result of drink or of
passions engendered by such discussions.

The rain beats on the windows, and outside the cold wind is
blowing. The eating-house is close with tobacco smoke, but
it is warm, while the street is cold and wet. Now and then,
the wind beats threateningly on the windows of the eating-house,
as if bidding these men to come out and be scattered like dust
over the face of the earth.

52  CREATURES THAT ONCE WERE MEN

Sometimes a stifled and hopeless groan is heard in its howling
which again is drowned by cold, cruel laughter. This music
fills one with dark, sad thoughts of the approaching winter,
with its accursed short, sunless days and long nights, of the
necessity of possessing warm garments and plenty to eat. It is
hard to sleep through the long winter nights on an empty
stomach. Winter is approaching. Yes, it is approaching . . .
How to live?

These gloomy forebodings created a strong thirst among the
inhabitants of the main street, and the sighs of the "creatures
that once were men increased with the wrinkles on their brows,
their voices became thick and their behavior to each other more
blunt. And brutal crimes were committed among them, and the
roughness of these poor unfortunate outcasts was apt to increase
at the approach of that inexorable enemy, who transformed all
their lives into one cruel farce. But this enemy could not be
captured because it was invisible.

Then they began beating each other brutally, and drank till they
had drunk everything which they could pawn to the indulgent
Vaviloff. And thus they passed the autumn days in open wickedness,
in suffering which was eating their hearts out, unable to rise out
of this vicious life and in dread of the still crueller days of
winter.

Kuvalda in such cases came to their assistance with his philosophy.

"Don't lose your temper, brothers, everything has an end, this is
the chief characteristic of life.

53 CREATURES THAT ONCE WERE MEN

The winter will pass, summer will follow . . . a glorious time,
when the very sparrows are filled with rejoicing."  But his
speeches did not have any effect--a mouthful of even the freshest
and purest water will not satisfy a hungry man.

Deacon Taras also tried to amuse the people by singing his songs
and relating his tales. He was more successful, and sometimes
his endeavors ended in a wild and glorious orgy at the
eating-house. They sang, laughed and danced, and for hours
behaved like madmen. After this they again fell into a
despairing mood, sitting at the tables of the eating-house, in
the black smoke of the lamp and the tobacco; sad and tattered,
speaking lazily to each other, listening to the wild howling
of the wind, and thinking how they could get enough vodki to
deaden their senses.

And their hand was against every man, and every man's hand
against them.

PART II

All things are relative in this world, and a man cannot sink
into any condition so bad that it could not be worse. One
day, toward the end of September, Captain Aristid Kuvalda was
sitting, as was his custom, on the bench near the door of the
dosshouse, looking at the stone building built by the merchant
Petunikoff close to Vaviloff's eating-house, and thinking
deeply. This building, which was partly surrounded by woods,
served the purpose of a candle factory.

54  CREATURES THAT ONCE WERE MEN

Painted red, as if with blood, it looked like a cruel machine
which, though not working, opened a row of deep, hungry,
gaping jaws, as if ready to devour and swallow anything. The
gray wooden eating-house of Vaviloff, with its bent roof
covered with patches, leaned against one of the brick walls
of the factory, and seemed as if it were some large form of
parasite clinging to it. The Captain was thinking that they
would very soon be making new houses to replace the old
building. "They will destroy the dosshouse even," he
reflected. "It will be necessary to look out for another,
but such a cheap one is not to be found. It seems a great
pity to have to leave a place to which one is accustomed,
though it will be necessary to go, simply because some
merchant or other thinks of manufacturing candles and soap."
And the Captain felt that if he could only make the life of
such an enemy miserable, even temporarily, oh! with what
pleasure he would do it!

Yesterday, Ivan Andreyevitch Petunikoff was in the dosshouse
yard with his son and an architect. They measured the yard
and put small wooden sticks in various places, which, after
the exit of Petunikoff and at the order of the Captain,
Meteor took out and threw away. To the eyes of the Captain
this merchant appeared small and thin. He wore a long
garment like a frock-coat, a velvet cap, and high,
well-cleaned boots. He had a thin face with prominent
cheek-bones, a wedge-shaped grayish beard, and a high forehead
seamed with wrinkles from beneath which shone two narrow,
blinking, and observant gray eyes . . . a sharp, gristly nose,
a small mouth with thin lips . . . altogether his appearance
was pious, rapacious, and respectably wicked.

55  CREATURES THAT ONCE WERE MEN

"Cursed cross-bred fox and pig!" swore the Captain under his
breath, recalling his first meeting with Petunikoff. The
merchant came with one of the town councillors to buy the
house, and seeing the Captain asked his companion:

"Is this your lodger?"

And from that day, a year and a half ago, there has been keen
competition among the inhabitants of the dosshouse as to which
can swear the hardest at the merchant. And last night there
was a "slight skirmish with hot words," as the Captain called
it, between Petunikoff and himself. Having dismissed the
architect the merchant approached the Captain.
     
"What are you hatching?" asked he, putting his hand to his cap,
perhaps to adjust it, perhaps as a salutation.

"What are you plotting?" answered the Captain in the same tone.
He moved his chin so that his beard trembled a little; a
non-exacting person might have taken it for a bow; otherwise it
only expressed the desire of the Captain to move his pipe from
one corner of his mouth to the other. "You see, having plenty
of money, I can afford to sit hatching it. Money is a good
thing, and I possess it," the Captain chaffed the merchant,
casting cunning glances at him. "It means that you serve money,
and not money you," went on Kuvalda, desiring at the same time
to punch the merchant's belly.

"Isn't it all the same? Money makes life comfortable, but no
money," . . . and the merchant looked at the Captain with a
feigned expression of suffering. The other's upper lip curled,
and exposed large, wolf-like teeth.

56  CREATURES THAT ONCE WERE MEN

"With brains and a conscience, it is possible to live without
it. Men only acquire riches when they cease to listen to their
conscience . . . the less conscience the more money!"

"Just so; but then there are men who have neither money nor
conscience."

"Were you just like what you are now when you were young?"
asked Kuvalda simply. The other's nostrils twitched. Ivan
Andreyevitch sighed, passed his hand over his eyes and said:

"Oh! When I was young I had to undergo a great many difficulties
. . . Work! Oh! I did work!"

"And you cheated, too, I suppose?"

"People like you? Nobles? I should just think so!
They used to grovel at my feet!"

"You only went in for robbing, not murder, I suppose?" asked the
Captain. Petunikoff turned pale, and hastily changed the
subject.

"You are a bad host. You sit while your guest stands."

"Let him sit, too," said Kuvalda.

"But what am I to sit on?"

"On the earth . . . it will take any rubbish . . ."

"You are the proof of that," said Petunikoff quietly, while
his eyes shot forth poisonous glances.

And he went away, leaving Kuvalda under the pleasant impression
that the merchant was afraid of him. If he were not afraid of
him he would long ago have evicted him from the dosshouse.

57  CREATURES THAT ONCE WERE MEN

But then he would think twice before turning him out, because of
the five roubles a month. And the Captain gazed with pleasure
at Petunikoff's back as he slowly retreated from the court-yard.
Following him with his eyes, he noticed how the merchant passed
the factory and disappeared into the wood, and he wished very
much that he might fall and break all his bones. He sat
imagining many horrible forms of disaster while watching
Petunikoff, who was descending the hill into the wood like a
spider going into its web. Last night he even imagined that the
wood gave way before the merchant and he fell . . . but
afterward he found that he had only been dreaming.

And to-day, as always, the red building stands out before the
eyes of Aristid Kuvalda, so plain, so massive, and clinging so
strongly to the earth, that it seems to be sucking away all its
life. It appears to be laughing coldly at the Captain with its
gaping walls. The sun pours its rays on them as generously as
it does on the miserable hovels of the main street.

"Devil take the thing!" exclaimed the Captain, thoughtfully
measuring the walls of the factory with his eyes. "If only
. . . ."  Trembling with excitement at the thought that had just
entered his mind Aristid Kuvalda jumped up and ran to Vaviloff's
eating-house muttering to himself all the time.

Vaviloff met him at the bar and gave him a friendly welcome.

"I wish your honor good health!"  He was of middle height and
had a bald head, gray hair, and straight mustaches like
tooth-brushes. Upright and neat in his clean jacket, he showed
by every movement that he was an old soldier.

58  CREATURES THAT ONCE WERE MEN

"Egorka, show me the lease and plan of your house,"
demanded Kuvalda impatiently.

"I have shown it you before." Vaviloff looked up suspiciously
and closely scanned the Captain's face.

"Show it me!" shouted the Captain, striking the bar with his
fist and sitting down on a stool close by.

"But why?" asked Vaviloff, knowing that it was better to keep
his wits about him when Kuvalda got excited.

"You fool! Bring it at once."

Vaviloff rubbed his forehead, and turned his eyes to the
ceiling in a tired way.

"Where are those papers of yours?"

There was no answer to this on the ceiling, so the old sergeant
looked down at the floor, and began drumming with his fingers
on the bar in a worried and thoughtful manner.

"It's no good your making wry faces!" shouted the Captain, for
he had no great affection for him, thinking that a former
soldier should rather have become a thief than an eating-house
keeper.

"Oh! Yes! Aristid Fomich, I remember now. They were left at
the High Court of Justice at the time when I came into
possession."

"Get along, Egorka! It is to your own interest to show me the
plan, the title-deeds, and everything you have immediately. You
will probably clear at least a hundred roubles over this, do
you understand?"

Vaviloff did not understand at all; but the Captain spoke in
such a serious and convincing tone that the sergeant's eyes
burned with curiosity, and, telling him that he would see if
the papers were in his desk, he went through the door behind
the bar.

59  CREATURES THAT ONCE WERE MEN

Two minutes later he returned with the papers in his hand,
and an expression of extreme astonishment on his face.

"Here they are; the deeds about the damned houses!"

"Ah! You . . . vagabond! And you pretend to have been a
soldier, too!"  And Kuvalda did not cease to belabor him with
his tongue, as he snatched the blue parchment from his hands.
Then, spreading the papers out in front of him, and excited
all the more by Vaviloff's inquisitiveness, the Captain began
reading and bellowing at the same time. At last he got up
resolutely, and went to the door, leaving all the papers on
the bar, and saying to Vaviloff:

"Wait! Don't lift them!"

Vaviloff gathered them lip, put them into the cashbox, and
locked it, then felt the lock with his hand, to see if it were
secure. After that, he scratched his bald head, thoughtfully,
and went up on the roof of the eating-house. There he saw the
Captain measuring the front of the house, and watched him
anxiously, as he snapped his fingers, and began measuring the
same line over again. Vaviloff's face lit up suddenly, and he
smiled happily.

"Aristid, Fomich, is it possible?"  he shouted, when the Captain
came opposite to him.

"Of course it is possible. There is more than one short in the
front alone, and as to the depth I shall see immediately."

"The depth . . . seventy-three feet."

60  CREATURES THAT ONCE WERE MEN

"What? Have you guessed, you shaved, ugly face?"

"Of course, Aristid Fomich! If you have eyes you can see a
thing or two," shouted Vaviloff joyfully.

A few minutes afterward they sat side by side in Vaviloff's
parlor, and the Captain was engaged in drinking large
quantities of beer.

"And so all the walls of the factory stand on your ground,"
said he to the eating-house keeper. "Now, mind you show no
mercy! The teacher will be here presently, and we will get
him to draw up a petition to the court. As to the amount of
the damages you will name a very moderate sum in order not to
waste money in deed stamps, but we will ask to have the factory
knocked down. This, you see, donkey, is the result of
trespassing on other people's property. It is a splendid
piece of luck for you. We will force him to have the place
smashed, and I can tell you it will be an expensive job for
him. Off with you to the court. Bring pressure to bear on
Judas. We will calculate how much it will take to break the
factory down to its very foundations. We will make an estimate
of it all, counting the time it will take too, and we will make
honest Judas pay two thousand roubles besides."
     
"He will never give it!" cried Vaviloff, but his eyes shone
with a greedy light.

"You lie! He will give it . . . Use your brains . . . What else
can he do? But look here, Egorka, mind you, don't go in for
doing it on the cheap. They are sure to fry to buy you off.
Don't sell yourself cheap. They will probably use threats, but
rely upon us. . . ."

61  CREATURES THAT ONCE WERE MEN

The Captain's eyes were alight with happiness, and his face
with excitement. He worked upon Vaviloff's greed, and urging
upon him the importance of immediate action in the matter,
went away in a very joyful and happy frame of mind.

* * * * * * * * * *

In the evening everyone was told of the Captain's discovery,
and they all began to discuss Petunikoff's future predicament,
painting in vivid colors his excitement and astonishment on the
day the court messenger handed him the copy of the summons.
The Captain felt himself quite a hero. He was happy and all
his friends highly pleased. The heap of dark and tattered
figures that lay in the courtyard made noisy demonstrations of
pleasure. They all knew the merchant, Petunikoff, who passed
them very often, contemptuously turning up his eyes and giving
them no more attention than he bestowed on the other heaps of
rubbish lying on the ground. He was well fed, and that
exasperated th