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THE SPY
The Story of a Superfluous Man
by
MAXIM GORKY
Authorized translation by Thomas Seltzer
New York
B. W. Huebsch
1908
Copyright, 1908
By B. W. Huebsch
THE SPY
CHAPTER I
When Yevsey Klimkov was four years old, his father was shot dead by the
forester; and when he was seven years old, his mother died. She died
suddenly in the field at harvest time. And so strange was this that
Yevsey was not even frightened by the sight of her dead body.
Uncle Piotr, a blacksmith, put his hand on the boy's head, and said:
"What are we going to do now?"
Yevsey took a sidelong glance at the corner where his mother lay upon a
bench, and answered in a low voice:
"I don't know."
The blacksmith wiped the sweat from his face with his shirtsleeve, and
after a long silence gently shoved his nephew aside.
"You're going to live with me," he said. "We'll send you to school, I
suppose, so that you won't be in our way. Ah, you old man!"
From that day the boy was called Old Man. The nickname suited him very
well. He was too small for his age, his movements were sluggish, and his
voice thin. A little bird-like nose stuck out sadly from a bony face,
his round colorless eyes blinked timorously, his hair was sparse and
grew in tufts. The impression he made was of a puny, shriveled-up little
old fellow. The children in school laughed at him and beat him, his dull
oldish look and his owl-like face somehow irritating the healthier and
livelier among them. He held himself aloof, and lived alone, silently,
always in the shade, or in some corner or hole. Without winking his
round eyes he looked forth upon the people from his retirement,
cautiously contracted like a snail in its shell. When his eyes grew
tired, he closed them, and for a long time sat sightless, gently swaying
his thin body.
Yevsey endeavored to escape observation even in his uncle's home; but
here it was difficult. He had to dine and sup in the company of the
whole family, and when he sat at the table, Yakov, the uncle's youngest
son, a lusty, red-faced youngster, tried every trick to tease him or
make him laugh. He made faces, stuck out his tongue, kicked Yevsey's
legs under the table, and pinched him. He never succeeded, however, in
making the Old Man laugh, though he did succeed in producing quite the
opposite result, for often Yevsey would start with pain, his yellow face
would turn grey, his eyes open wide, and his spoon tremble in his hand.
"What is it?" his uncle Piotr sometimes asked.
"It's Yashka," the boy explained in an even voice, in which there was no
note of complaint.
If Uncle Piotr gave Yashka a box on the ear, or pulled his hair, Aunt
Agafya puckered up her lips and muttered angrily:
"Ugh, you telltale!"
And then Yashka found him somewhere, and pummeled him long and
assiduously upon back, sides, and stomach. Yevsey endured the drubbing
as something inevitable. It would not have been profitable to complain
of Yashka, because if Uncle Piotr beat his son, Aunt Agafya repaid the
punishment with interest upon her nephew, and her blows were more
painful than Yashka's. So when Yevsey saw that Yashka wanted to attack
him, he merely ran away, though he was always overtaken. Then the Old
Man dropped to the ground, and pressed his body to the soil with all his
might, pulling up his knees to his stomach, covering his face and his
head with his hands, and silently yielding his sides and back to his
cousin's fists. The more patiently he bore the buffeting, the angrier
grew Yashka. Sometimes Yashka even cried and shouted, while he kicked
his cousin's body:
"You nasty louse, you, scream!"
Once Yevsey found a horseshoe and gave it to the little pugilist,
because he knew Yashka would take it from him at any rate. Mollified by
the present, Yashka asked:
"Did I hurt you very much when I beat you the last time?"
"Very much," answered Yevsey.
Yashka thought a while, scratched his head, and said in embarrassment:
"It's nothing. It will pass away."
He left Yevsey, but somehow his words settled deep in the Old Man's
heart, and he repeated hopefully in an undertone:
"It will pass away."
Once Yevsey saw some women pilgrims rubbing their tired feet with
nettles. He followed their example, and applied the nettles to his
bruised sides. It seemed to him his pain was greatly assuaged. From that
time he religiously rubbed his wounds with the down of the noxious and
despised weed.
He was poor at his lessons, because he came to school full of dread of
beatings, and he left school swelling with a sense of insult. His
apparent apprehension of being wronged evoked in others the
unconquerable desire to ply the Old Man with blows.
It turned out that Yevsey had a counter-tenor, and the teacher took him
to the church choir. After this he had to be at home less, but to
compensate he met his schoolmates more frequently, at the rehearsals,
and they all fought no less than Yashka.
The old frame church pleased Yevsey. He was always strongly drawn to
peep into the snug warm quiet of its many dark corners, expecting to
find in one of them something uncommon and good, which would embrace
him, press him tenderly to itself, and speak to him the way his mother
used to. All the sacred images, black with many years of soot, with
their good yet stern expression, recalled the dark-bearded face of Uncle
Piotr.
At the church entrance was a picture, which depicted a saint who had
caught the devil and was beating him; the saint, a tall, dark, sinewy
fellow with long hands, the devil, a reddish, lean wizened creature of
stunted growth resembling a little goat. At first Yevsey did not look at
the devil; he had a desire to spit at him surreptitiously; but then he
began to pity the unfortunate little fiend, and when nobody was around
he tenderly stroked the goat-like little chin disfigured by dread and
pain. Thus, for the first time a sense of pity sprang up in the boy's
heart.
Yevsey liked the church for another reason: here all the people, even
the notorious ruffians, dropped their boisterousness, and conducted
themselves quietly and submissively. For loud talk frightened Yevsey. He
ran away from excited faces and shouts, and hid himself, owing to the
fact that once on a market-day he had seen a brawl between a number of
muzhiks, which began by their talking to one another in very loud
voices. Then they shouted and pushed; next someone seized a pole, waved
it about, and struck another man. A terrible howl ensued, many started
to run. They knocked the Old Man off his feet, and he fell face downward
in a puddle. When he jumped up he saw a huge muzhik coming toward him
waving his hands, with a quivering, gory blotch instead of a face. This
was so terrible that Yevsey yelled, and suddenly felt as if he were
being precipitated into a black pit. He had to be sprinkled with water
to bring him to his senses.
Yevsey was also afraid of drunken men. His mother had told him that a
demon takes up his abode in the body of a drunkard. The Old Man imagined
this demon prickly as a hedgehog and moist as a frog, with a reddish
body and green eyes, who settles in a man's stomach, stirs about there,
and turns the man into an evil fiend.
There were many other good things about the church. Besides the quiet
and tender twilight, Yevsey liked the singing. When he sang without
notes, he closed his eyes firmly, and letting his clear plaintive
soprano blend with the general chorus in order it should not be heard
above the others, he hid himself deliciously somewhere, as if overcome
by a sweet sleep. In this drowsy state it seemed to him he was drifting
away from life, approaching another gentle, peaceful existence.
A thought took shape in his mind, which he once expressed to his uncle
in these words:
"Can a person live so that he can go everywhere and see everything, but
be seen by nobody?"
"Invisibly?" asked the blacksmith, and thought a while. "I should
suppose it would be impossible." He turned his black face to his nephew,
and added seriously, "Yes, of course, it would be very nice if you could
do it, Orphan."
From the moment that all the villagers began to call Yevsey "Old Man,"
Uncle Piotr used "Orphan" instead. A peculiar man in every respect the
blacksmith was not terrible even when drunk. He would merely remove his
hat from his head and walk about the street waving it, singing in a high
doleful voice, smiling, and shaking his head. The tears would run down
his face even more copiously than when he was sober.
His uncle seemed to Yevsey the very wisest and best muzhik in the whole
village. He could talk with him about everything. Though he often smiled
he scarcely ever laughed; he spoke without haste, in a quiet, serious
tone. Either failing to notice his nephew, or forgetting about
him--which especially pleased Yevsey--he would talk to himself in his
shop, keeping up a constant dispute with some invisible opponent and
forever admonishing him.
"Confound you," he would mumble, but without anger. "Greedy maw! Don't I
work? There, I have scorched my eyes. I'll soon get blind. What else do
you want? A curse on this life! Hard luck! No beauty--no joy."
His interjections sounded as if he were composing psalms; and Yevsey had
the impression that his uncle was actually facing the man he was
addressing.
Once Yevsey asked:
"Whom are you talking to?"
"Whom am I talking to?" repeated the blacksmith without looking at the
boy. Then he smiled and answered. "I'm talking to my stupidity."
But it was a rare thing for Yevsey to be able to speak with his
guardian, for he was seldom alone. Yashka, round as a top, often spun
about the place, drowning the blows of the hammer and the crackling of
the coals in the furnace with his piercing shouts. In his presence
Yevsey did not dare even to look at his uncle.
The smithy stood at the edge of the shallow ravine, at the bottom of
which among the osier bushes, Yevsey passed all his leisure time in
spring, summer, and autumn. Here it was as peaceful as in the church.
The birds warbled, the bees and drones hummed, and a fine quiet song
quivered in the air. The boy sat there swaying his body and brooding
with tightly shut eyes. Or he roamed amid the bushes, listening to the
noise in the blacksmith shop. When he perceived his uncle was alone, he
crept out and went up to him.
"What, you, Orphan?" was the blacksmith's greeting, as he scrutinized
the boy with his little eyes wet with tears.
Once Yevsey asked:
"Is the evil power in the church at night?"
The smith thought a while, and answered:
"Why shouldn't it be? It gets everywhere. That's easy for it."
The boy raised his shoulders, and with his round eyes searchingly
examined the dark corners of the shop.
"Don't be afraid of the devils," the uncle advised.
Yevsey sighed, and answered quietly:
"I'm not afraid."
"They won't hurt you," the blacksmith explained with assurance, wiping
his eyes with his black fingers. Then Yevsey asked:
"And how about God?"
"What about Him?"
"Why does God let devils get into the church?"
"What's that to him? God isn't the keeper of the church."
"Doesn't he live there?"
"Who? God? Why should He? His place, Orphan, is everywhere. The churches
are for the people."
"And the people, what are they for?"
"The people--it seems they are--in general--for everything. You can't
get along without people."
"Are they for God?"
The blacksmith looked askance at his nephew, and answered after a pause:
"Of course." Wiping his hands on his apron and staring at the fire in
the furnace, he added, "I don't know about this business, Orphan. Why
don't you ask the teacher or the priest?"
Yevsey wiped his nose on his shirtsleeve.
"I'm afraid of them."
"It would be better for you not to talk of such things," the uncle
advised gravely. "You are a little boy. You should play out in the open
air, and store up health. If you want to live you must be a healthy man.
If you are not strong, you can't work. Then you can't live at all.
That's all we know, and what God needs is unknown to us." He grew
silent, and meditated without removing his eyes from the fire. After a
time he continued in a serious tone, speaking choppily: "On the one hand
I know nothing, on the other hand I don't understand. They say all
wisdom comes from Him. Yet it's evident that the thicker one's candle
before God the more wolfish the heart." He looked around the shop, and
his eyes fell on the boy in the corner. "Why are you squeezing yourself
into that crack? I told you to go out and play." As Yevsey crept out
timidly, the smith added, "A spark will fall into your eye, and then
you'll be one-eyed. Who wants a one-eyed fellow?"
His mother had told Yevsey several stories on winter nights when the
snowstorm knocking against the walls of the hut ran along the roof,
touched everything as if groping for something in anguish, crept down
the chimney, and whined there mournfully in different keys. The mother
recited the tales quietly, drowsily. Her speech sometimes grew confused;
often she repeated the same words several times. It seemed to the boy
she saw everything about which she spoke, but obscurely, as in the dark.
The neighbors reminded Yevsey of his mother's tales. The blacksmith,
too, it seemed, saw in the furnace-fire both devils and God, and all the
terrors of human life. That was why he continually wept. While Yevsey
listened to his talk, which set his heart aquiver with a dreadful tremor
of expectation, the hope insensibly formulated itself that some day he
would see something remarkable, not resembling the life in the village,
the drunken muzhiks, the cantankerous women, the boisterous
children--something quite different, without noise and confusion,
without malice and quarreling, something lovable and serious, like the
church service.
One of the neighbors was a blind girl, with whom Yevsey became intimate.
He took her to walk in the village; carefully helped her down the
ravine, and spoke to her in a low voice, opening wide his watery eyes in
fear. This friendship did not escape the notice of the villagers, all of
whom it pleased. But once the mother of the blind girl came to Uncle
Piotr with a complaint. She declared Yevsey had frightened Tanya with
his talk, and now she could not leave her daughter alone, because the
girl cried and slept poorly, had disturbed dreams, and started out of
her sleep screaming. What Yevsey had said to her it was impossible to
make out. She kept babbling about devils, about the sky being black and
having holes in it, about fires visible through the holes, and about
devils who made sport in there, and teased people. What does it mean?
How can anyone tell a little girl such stuff?
"Come here," said Uncle Piotr to his nephew.
When Yevsey quietly left his corner, the smith put his rough heavy hand
on his head and asked:
"Did you tell her all that?"
"I did."
"Why?"
"I don't know."
The blacksmith, without removing his hand, shoved back the boy's head,
and looking into his eyes asked gravely:
"Why, is the sky black?"
"What else is it if she can't see?" Yevsey muttered.
"Who?"
"Tanya."
"Yes," said the blacksmith. After a moment's reflection he asked, "And
how about the fire being black? Why did you invent that?"
The boy dropped his eyes and was silent.
"Well, speak. Nobody is beating you. Why did you tell her all that
nonsense, eh?"
"I was sorry for her," whispered Yevsey.
The blacksmith pushed him aside lightly.
"You shan't talk to her any more, do you hear? Never! Don't worry, Aunt
Praskovya, we'll put an end to this friendship."
"You ought to give him a whipping," said the mother. "My little girl
lived quietly, she wasn't a bit of a bother to anybody, and now someone
has to be with her all the time."
After Praskovya had left, the smith without saying anything led Yevsey
by the hand into the yard.
"Now talk sensibly. Why did you frighten the little girl?"
The uncle's voice was not loud, but it was stern. Yevsey became
frightened, and quickly began to justify himself, stuttering over his
words.
"I didn't frighten her--I did it just--just--she kept complaining--she
said I see only black, but for you everything--so I began to tell her
everything is black to keep her from being envious. I didn't mean to
frighten her at all."
Yevsey broke into sobs, feeling himself wronged. Uncle Piotr smiled.
"You fool! You should have remembered that she's been blind only three
years. She wasn't born blind. She lost her sight after she had the
smallpox. So she recollects what things are really bright. Oh, what a
stupid fellow!"
"I'm not stupid. She believed me," Yevsey retorted, wiping his eyes.
"Well, all right. Only don't go with her any more. Do you hear?"
"I won't."
"As to your crying; it's nothing. Let them think I gave you a beating."
The blacksmith tapped Yevsey on the shoulder, and continued with a
smile, "You and I, we're cheats, both of us."
The little fellow buried his head in his uncle's side, and asked
tremulously:
"Why is everybody down on me?"
"I don't know, Orphan," answered the uncle after a moment's reflection.
The wrongs to which he was subjected now began to yield the boy a sort
of bitter satisfaction. A dim conviction settled upon him that he was
not like everybody else, and this was why all were down on him. He
observed that all the people were malicious and worn out with ill-will.
They lived, each deceiving his neighbor, abusing one another, and
drinking. Everyone sought for mastery over his fellow, though over
himself he was not master. Yevsey saw no man who was not in constant
fear of something. The whole of life was filled with terror, and terror
divided the people into fragments.
The village stood upon a low hill. On the other side of the river
stretched a marsh. In the summer after a hot day it exhaled a stifling
lilac-colored mist, which breathed a putrid breath upon the village, and
sent upon the people a swarm of mosquitoes. The people, angry and
pitiful, scratched themselves until blood came. From behind the thin
woods in the distance climbed a lowering reddish moon. Huge and round it
looked through the haze like a dull sinister eye. Yevsey thought it was
threatening him with all kinds of misery and dread. He feared its dirty
reddish face. When he saw it over the marsh, he hid himself, and in his
sleep he was tormented by heavy dreams. At night bluish, trembling
lights strayed over the marsh, said to be the homeless spirits of
sinners. The villagers sighed over them sorrowfully, pitying them. But
for one another they had no pity.
It was possible for them, however, to have lived differently, in
friendship and joy. An incident Yevsey once witnessed proved this to
him.
One night the granary of the rich muzhik Veretennikov caught fire. The
little boy ran into the garden, and climbed up a willow tree to look at
the conflagration.
It seemed to him that the many-winged, supple body of a horrible
smoke-begrimed bird with a fiery jaw was circling in the sky. It
inclined its red blazing head to the ground, greedily tore the straw
with its sharp fiery teeth, gnawed at the wood, and licked it with its
hundred yellow tongues. Its smoky body playfully coiled in the black
sky, fell upon the village, crept along the roofs of the houses, and
again raised itself aloft majestically and lightly, without removing its
flaming red head from the ground. It snorted, scattering sheaves of
sparks, whistling with joy in its evil work, singing, puffing, and
spreading its raging jaw wider and wider, embracing the wood more and
more greedily with its red ribbons of flame.
In the presence of the fire the people turned small and black. They
sprinkled water into its jaws, thrust long poles at it, and tore flaming
sheaves from between its teeth. Then they trampled the sheaves. The
people, too, coughed, sniffed, and sneezed, gasping for breath in the
greasy smoke. They shouted and roared, their voices blending with the
crackling and roaring of the fire. They approached nearer and nearer to
the great bird, surrounding its red head with a black living ring, as if
tightening a noose about its body. Here and there the noose broke, but
they tied it again, and crowded about more firmly. The noose strangled
the fire, which lay there savagely. It jumped up, and its body swelled,
writhing like a snake, striving to free its head; but the people held it
fast to the ground. Finally, enfeebled, exhausted, and sullen it fell
upon the neighboring granaries, crept along the gardens, and dwindled
away, shattered and faint.
"All together!" shouted the villagers, encouraging one another.
"Water!" rang out the women's voices.
The women formed a chain from the fire to the river, strangers and
kinsmen, friends and enemies all in a row. And the buckets of water were
rapidly passed from hand to hand.
"Quick, women! Quick, good women!"
It was pleasant and cheerful to look upon this good, friendly life in
conflict with the fire. The people emboldened one another. They spoke
words of praise for displays of dexterity and disputed in kindly jest.
The shouts were free from malice. In the presence of the fire everybody
seemed to see his neighbor as good, and each grew pleasant to the other.
When at last the fire was vanquished, the villagers grew even jolly.
They sang songs, laughed, boasted of the work, and joked. The older
people got whiskey to drink away their exhaustion, while the young folk
remained in the streets amusing themselves almost until morning. And
everything was as good as in a dream.
Yevsey heard not a single malicious shout, nor noticed a single angry
face. During the entire time the fire was burning no one wept from pain
or abuse, no one roared with the beastly roar of savage malice, ready
for murder.
The next day Yevsey said to his uncle:
"How nice it was last night!"
"Yes, Orphan, it was nice. A little more, and the fire would have burned
away half the village."
"I mean about the people," explained the boy. "How they joined together
in a friendly way. If they would live like that all the time, if there
were a fire all the time!"
The blacksmith reflected for an instant, then asked in surprise:
"You mean there should be fires all the time?" He looked at Yevsey
sternly, and shook his finger. "You wiseacre, you, look out! Don't think
such sinful thoughts. Just see him! He finds pleasure in fires!"