There was a quiet growth of new feelings within me. I felt that each
man sent out to me a sharp, thin ray which touched me unseen and
imperceptibly reached my heart. And I accepted these hidden rays ever
more willingly.
At times the workingmen assembled in Mikhail's rooms, and then I felt
that a burning cloud formed from their thoughts, which surrounded me
and carried me strangely upward with itself.
Suddenly every one began to understand me more and more. I stood in
their circle, and they were my body and I was their soul and their
will, and my speech was their voice. And at times it was I that was a
part of the body, and I heard the cry of my own soul from other mouths,
and it sounded good when I heard it. But when time passed and there was
silence I again remained alone and for myself.
I remembered my former communion with God in my prayers. Then I had
been glad when I could wipe myself out from my memory and cease to
exist. In my relationship with people I did not lose myself; instead I
grew larger, taller, and the strength of my soul increased many-fold.
In this, too, lay self-forgetfulness, but it did not destroy me. It
quenched my bitter thoughts and the anguish of isolation.
I realized this mistily and vaguely. I felt that a new seed was growing
in my soul, but I could not understand it. I only knew that it pulled
me determinedly toward people.
In those days I worked in the factory for forty kopecks a day, carrying
on my shoulders heavy trays of iron, slag and brick. I hated this
hellish place, with its dirt and its noise and its hubbub, and its heat
which tortured the body.
The factory had fastened itself onto the earth and pressed itself into
her and sucked her insatiably night and day. It was out of breath from
greed and groaned and spit out of its red-hot jaws fiery blood drawn
from the earth. It cooled off, grew black, then again began to melt
iron and to boil and thunder, flattening out the red iron and squirting
up sparks and trembling in its whole frame, as it pulled out long
strips like nerves, from the body of the earth.
The wild labor seemed to me something terrible, something bordering on
the insane. This groaning monster, devastating the lap of the earth,
was digging an abyss under itself, and knowing that some day it would
fall into it, screeched eagerly, with a thousand voices: "Hurry! Hurry!
Hurry!"
In fire and noise, under a rain of burning sparks, blackened men
worked. It was no place for them. About them everything threatened to
burn them by fiery death or to crush them by heavy iron; everything
deafened and blinded. The unbearable heat dried up the blood, but they
did their work quietly, walking about with a masterly confidence, like
devils in hell, fearing nothing and knowing nothing.
They lifted small levers with strong hands, and all around and above
them hands and jaws of enormous machines moved quietly and terribly,
crumbling the iron. It was hard to know whose mind and whose will
reigned here. At times it was man who controlled and governed this
factory according to his wishes. But other times it seemed that all
the people and the whole factory were subject to the devil and that
he laughed aloud, triumphantly and horribly as he saw the mad and
difficult rush created by greed.
The workers said to one another: "It is time to go to work." Were the
men masters of their work, or did it drive and crush them? I did not
know. Work seemed difficult and masterful, but the human mind was sharp
and quick. Sometimes there would ring out amid this devilish noise of
whirring machines a victorious and care-free song. I would smile in my
heart, remembering the story of Ivan the Fool, who rode on a whale up
to heaven to catch the wonder-bird, Phoenix.
The people in the factory, though they were not friendly to me, were
all bold and proud. They were abusive, foul-mouthed and often drunk;
yet they were free and fearless people. They were different from the
pilgrims and the tillers of the soil, who offended me with their
servile, confused souls, their hopeless complainings and their petty
cheatings in their affairs with God and themselves. These people were
bold in thought, and although they were hurt by the slavery of their
labor, and grew angry with one another and even fought, yet if the
bosses ever acted unfairly, thereby rousing their sense of justice,
they would stand together against them as one man.
And those workingmen who followed Mikhail were always among the first,
spoke louder than the rest and seemed to fear nothing. Formerly, when
I did not think about the people, I did not notice men; but now as
I looked upon them I wished to detect differences, so that each one
might stand out separately before me. I succeeded in this and yet not
entirely. Their speech was different and each one had his own face,
but their faith-was the same and their plans were one. Without haste,
friendly and sincerely, they were building something new. Each one of
them, among his fellows, was like a pleasant light; like a meadow in
a thick wood for the wanderer who had lost his way. Each one drew to
himself the workingmen who were wider awake than the rest, and all
these followers of Mikhail were held together by one plan, and they
created a spiritual circle in the factory, a fire of brightly burning
thoughts.
At first the workingmen were not friendly to me. They shouted and made
fun of me.
"Oh, you red-haired fly! You cloister-bug! You foul one! Parasite!"
At times they struck me, but this I could not stand, and in such
cases I did not spare my fists. Though people admire strength, still
one cannot gain esteem and attention through his fists, and I would
have had to bear many beatings were it not that at one of my quarrels
a friend of Mikhail's, one Gavriel Kostin, interfered. He was a young
metal pourer, very handsome and respected by the whole factory. Six men
had come up to me and their looks boded ill for my back. But he stood
next to me and said:
"Why do you provoke a man, comrades? Is he not as much a worker as the
rest of us? You do wrong, and against yourselves. Our strength lies in
close friendship."
He said these few words, but he said them so well and so simply, as if
he were talking to children. The friends of Mikhail always made use of
every incident to spread their ideas.
Kostin embarrassed my opponents and the words touched my heart also. I
began to talk.
"I did not become a monk," I said, "to have much to eat, but because my
soul was starved. I have lived and I have seen that everywhere labor is
endless and hunger common; that everywhere there is swindle and fraud,
bitterness and tears, brutality and every kind of darkness of the soul.
By whom was this arranged? Where is our righteous and wise God? Does He
see the infinite and eternal martyrdom of the people?"
A crowd collected about me and listened earnestly to my words. I
finished and there was silence.
Finally, the head model-maker, Kriokof, said to Kostin:
"That monk there sees things deeper than you and your comrades. He has
taken hold of the root of the matter."
It pleased me to hear these words. Kriokof slapped me on my shoulder
and said:
"You have spoken well, brother, but all the same cut your hair by a
yard. Such a mane catches the dirt and looks funny."
And some one called out:
"And is in the way in a fight."
They were joking. Evidently their wrath had passed. Where there is
laughter, there is man; the animal is gone.
Kostin took me aside. "Be careful with such words, Matvei," he said.
"You can get into prison for them."
I was astonished. "What!"
"In prison," he laughed.
"Why?"
"For criticizing."
"Are you joking?"
"Ask Mikhail," he said. "I have to go to work now."
He went away.