The Orloff Couple
and
Malva
By
Maxim Gorky
(Alexei Maximovitch Peshkoff)
Authorized Translation from the Russian by
Emily Jakowleff and Dora B. Montefiore
_With a Portrait_
London
William Heinemann
1901
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
Alexei Maximovitch Peshkoff was born March 14, 1869, at Nijni Novgorod.
On both his father's and mother's side he belonged to the people; his
father followed the trade of a jobbing upholsterer, and his mother was
the daughter of a dyer. He was left an orphan when quite young, and he
passed then under the care of his grandfather, a cruel and tyrannical
old man, who had already so ill-treated young Alexei's father when a
lad, that he ran away from home.
Peshkoff attended school for about five months, but having caught
smallpox, his grandfather took him away from school, and sent him at
the age of nine as errand-boy to a shoemaker. Here the child scalded
his hand badly and was sent back to his home. His grandfather next
apprenticed him to a draughtsman, from whom young Peshkoff ran away.
In order to keep himself he went as galley-boy on a Volga steamer,
where he helped the ship's cook. This cook was a reader, and something
of a character; he possessed a small library which he allowed his
galley-boy to read, and it was here that the lad felt the first
awakening of literary instinct, though he had always, from the time
he left school at nine years old, read everything that fell into his
hands. The cook's library contained amongst other authors Nekrassoff;
translations of the works of Ann Radcliff; a volume of Sovrememick,
whose editor was Tchemishewsky, the translator and commentator of John
Stuart Mill; Iscra, and several works in Little Russian; the lives of
the saints, and works by some mystical writers; some odd volumes of
Dumas, and some Freemasons' literature. This curious collection of
miscellaneous writings gave young Peshkoff, now fifteen, a burning
desire to obtain some degree of culture, and awoke in him the wish to
write. He left the steamer, and wandered to Kazan, where he was told
free instruction could be obtained. Here, in order to keep himself,
he had to enter a bakery at three roubles, or six shillings, a month;
and he speaks of this work as being the hardest that he ever did, with
the exception of work in the salt mines, which he describes in one of
his essays. A story written later in life, called 'The Outcasts,' is a
truthful reflection of the people amongst whom he lived and worked at
this period of his life, and-it contains much that is autobiographical.
He lived amongst these outcasts of society, chopping wood and carrying
burdens, earning a living as best he could, and in the intervals of
manual work picking up what instruction fell in his way. On leaving
Kazan he tried his luck at Tzaritzine, where he worked as a signalman
on the railway.
At the age of twenty he had to return to Nijni Novgorod in order to
perform his years of military service, but he failed to pass the health
test, and was rejected as not strong enough to serve. For some time
after this he sold "kwass" in the streets, until he managed to get
a situation as clerk in a lawyer's office. This lawyer, whose name
was Lanine, eventually took a great interest in the young man, and
influenced him much in his reading and general culture. At this time
also, Peshkoff, being in better circumstances, was able to join a group
of young intellectuals amongst whom was Federoff, who, on seeing some
of Peshkoff's writings, declared the youth showed great literary talent
But a settled and sedentary life did not suit him, and he never really
felt himself at home among these young intellectuals; preferring his
wandering life, supporting himself from day to day by unskilled manual
labour, and sharing the society of tramps, day-labourers and outcasts.
So in 1890 we find him again wandering through Southern Russia, working
one month as a sawyer, the next as a stevedore lighterman, and in 1892
he was employed at Tiflis in the Caucasus in some railway engineering
shops. It was during this period that his first story, 'Markar
Tchoudra,' appeared in a local paper; but his first real literary
_début_ was made in 1893 when he published 'Tchelkache,' a short story
containing marvellous impressionist effects of water and of night.
The budding talent displayed in these and other stories being now
recognized, he returned to the Volga, where he had spent so much of
his youth, and began contributing short stories to the Volgeschky
Viesnick.' These were followed by a longer story, 'Emilia Pilai,' which
appeared in an important Moscow paper, the 'Russky Viedomoski'; and a
lucky chance having brought him across Korolenko, Peshkoff, who had
now taken for his _nom de plume_ the title of Gorki (the Russian for
bitter), through the influence of this leading man of letters was able
to place his writings in some of the most important periodicals of the
day, Korolenko did much for him also in the way of advice, and Gorki
wrote later of this period of his life: "If I learnt little, it was not
Korolenko's fault, but my own."
Broad sympathy with, and understanding of every expression of human
nature, seems to be the prevailing characteristic of Gorki's writings;
whilst his realism has a special quality, in that it is never forced,
never _voulu,_ as is too often the case with writers of another class
who make literary studies of the lives of the people. Gorki, having
lived the life of the tramp, of the out-of-work loafer, of the slum
inhabitant, is saturated with the detail of that life, and possesses
the true artistic faculty necessary for reproducing it. Many of his
so-called "stories" are rather studies and sketches, so slight is
the plot, so impressionist is the form under which he reproduces the
"bits of life" with which he has come in contact He seems to succeed
in the art of "viewing life as a whole, and viewing it sanely"; but
his pictures are of necessity tinged with pessimism, for he is the
mouthpiece of the unprivileged, the sweated, the "lapsed and lost"
This vein of pessimism is, however, relieved by a spirituality, a
sensitiveness to the consolations of music, of light, and cloud, and
water effects, of nature's healing inspiration, which wholly redeem
his work from the reproach of empty, crushing pessimistic teaching. He
is essentially the prophet of revolt,--revolt against the dreariness,
the monotony, the inhumanity of drudgery, which keeps men and women
working at high pressure like machines, in order that they may be able
to earn--just daily bread.... As the shoemaker Grischka says in one of
the stories published in this volume: "And why do we need daily bread?
In order to be able to work I And why do we work, but to obtain daily
bread? What's the sense of that?"
He has certainly made very real for us a large class of our fellow
human beings whom before we scarcely recognized in any other way than
in their outward form of baker, shoemaker, dock-labourer, or vagrant
Gorki makes them live in his pages, unfolds their psychology, makes
us joy with their joys and sorrow with their sorrows, and introduces
them--as fellow-sufferers from the all-pervading disease of modern
life, _ennui_ and dissatisfaction with existing social conditions--into
the great human brotherhood.
Gorki acknowledges the four literary influences of his life to have
been those of the cook on the steamer, of Lanine, of Kaligny and of
Korolenko. Of late years he has been forbidden, because of political
writings, to enter St Petersburg or Moscow. Three volumes of his works
have already been published, and his stories have found their way
through translations into many leading French and German Reviews.
D. B. M.
THE ORLOFF COUPLE
CHAPTER I
Almost every Saturday, just before supper-time, the dirty old house
of the merchant Petounukoff was the scene of a violent and murderous
attack. From the two cellar windows there rang forth into the narrow
courtyard, surrounded by old tumble-down hovels, and filled with all
sorts of rubbish, the horrible screams of a woman.
"Let me alone! Let me alone! you devil!" she shrieked in a high treble
voice.
"Leave go of me then!" answered the tenor voice of a man.
"I won't let go of you, you wretch! you monster!"
"Shut up, and leave go of me!"
"Not if you kill me--I won't let you go!"
"What, you won't? Then take that, you heretic!"
"Help! He is killing me! Help!"
"Will you let go of me then?"
"You may go on beating me, you dog, till you have killed me!"
"I can't do that in a hurry--you take more killing than that!"
At the first words of such a dialogue, the painter Soutchkoff's
apprentice, Senka Tschischik, who from one day's end to the other
was busy in one of the sheds in the yard rubbing and mixing colours,
used to rush out in hot haste, and whilst his little black mouse eyes
flashed, he would shout with all his might, so that his voice rang
right across the court--
"There's another row up at Orloff's the cobbler."
The little Tschischik was an ardent lover of every sort of adventure
and story. As soon as there appeared to be trouble at the Orloffs he
would run quickly to the window of their dwelling, lie down on his
stomach, poke his mischievous shock head of hair and his thin face,
smeared with ochre and vermilion, as far as he could into the gloom
of the cellar, and watch with curiosity all that went on in the dark,
damp hole, from which arose a smell of musty cobbler's wax and of sour
batter. There, on the floor of this hole were to be seen two figures,
rolling over each other on the ground, groaning and cursing.
"You want to kill me, then?" gasped at this moment, in a warning,
breathless voice, the woman.
"Don't be afraid!" the man mockingly reassured her in a tone of
suppressed violence.
Heavy dull blows were then heard, falling on something soft; then sobs
and sighs, and the panting of a man, who seemed to be making efforts to
move a heavy object.
"Blast it all! Now he has given her a good one!--with the boot-last,"
cried Tschischik, watching what was going on in the cellar, whilst
the public who had gathered round--the porter, Lewtschenko, the
accordion-player Kisljakoff, a couple of tailor's apprentices, and
other amateurs of gratuitous amusement,--were all impatient to get
news from Senka, and pulled him, now by his legs and now by his
many-coloured trousers.
"Well, what's going on now? what's he doing to her this time?" they
would ask.
"Now he is sitting astride of her, and is banging her nose into the
ground," explained Senka, who with true enjoyment was taking in every
action of the play.
The public pushed nearer to the windows of the Orloffs' dwelling. They
burned with curiosity to see with their own eyes all the developments
of the struggle, and although they knew well of old every point in the
attack and defence in the war which Grischka Orloff waged against his
wife, they always appeared equally surprised and astonished.
"No, but what a devil he is! He has beaten her again, has he not, till
she is bleeding?" asked one of them.
"Her nose is all over blood.... It is running down," Senka informed
them.
"Ah! good heavens! What a terror, what a wretch he is!" cried some
women, full of sympathy.
The men regarded the matter from a more abstract and philosophic point
of view.
"He will certainly end by killing her," they said.
The accordion-player remarked in a prophetic voice--
"He'll stick a knife into her some day; you take my word for it He'll
get tired of always knocking her about, and some day will put an end to
the whole business in a hurry."
"Now he has let go of her," said Senka in a whisper, springing up
from the ground, and bounding on one side like an india-rubber ball.
Immediately afterwards he took up another post of observation in a
corner of the court, for he knew that Grischka Orloff would now appear
above ground.
Most of the spectators went off rapidly, for they had no desire to come
face to face with the enraged cobbler. Now that the fight was over
Grischka had lost all interest in their eyes, and besides it was not
without danger to come across him under these circumstances.
So it happened that when Orloff emerged from his cellar, there was
generally, with the exception of Senka, no living soul to be seen in
the courtyard. Breathing heavily, his shirt torn, his hair tumbled,
with fresh scratches on his still excited and perspiring face, Grischka
Orloff, with bloodshot eyes would glance suspiciously round the court.
With his hands behind his back, he would walk slowly towards an old
sledge which was leaning against the wall of a dilapidated wool-shed.
Sometimes he would whistle and throw threatening glances around, as if
he were challenging all the dwellers in Petounukoff's house to battle.
Then he would sit down on the sledge, and with the sleeve of his shirt
wipe the blood away from his face. He would remain for a long time
motionless, glowering darkly at the wall of the opposite house, where
the plaster was crumbling away, and where a variety of colours had been
smeared on by the house-painter Soutchkoff's apprentices, who had the
habit, when they left off work, of cleaning their brushes on this part
of the wall.
The cobbler Orloff was about thirty years old. His dark, nervous,
finely-cut face was adorned with a black moustache, under which showed
full red lips. Above a prominent nose thick black eyebrows were drawn
close together; dark restless flashing eyes looked out from under them.
The curly hair that hung forward on his forehead fell behind over his
brown strong neck in thick ringlets. Orloff was of middle height, a
little bent with a slight stoop--the result of his special work,--
muscular and full-blooded; but now he sat on the sledge as if in a dull
state of stupor, and gazed blankly at the variegated wall, his breath
coming in heavy gasps and throbs.
The sun had already gone off the courtyard, in which there still
reigned a dull twilight; a mingled smell of oil-paint, of tar, of
sauerkraut and of rotting vegetable matter hung heavy on the sultry
evening air. From the windows of the two-storied dwelling there came
a sound of song and of oaths, which rang through the court, whilst a
drunken man thrust an inquiring head out of a window from behind a
corner, looked across at Orloff, and then disappeared with a mocking
laugh.
The time came for the painters to leave their work; they passed by
Orloff, throwing mocking glances at him, winking meaningly at one
another, and filled the courtyard with the sounds of their Kostroma
dialect Then they separated--each going his own way, the one to the
bath, the other to the vodka-shop.
Later on, the tailors came down from the second storey into the
courtyard; half-dressed, bow-legged fellows who were making merry over
the dialect of their painter comrades. The whole court was once more
filled with noise, jovial laughter and jokes. Orloff sat silent in his
corner, taking no notice of any one. No one went near him, no one dared
to joke with him, for all knew that at these moments he was like a
raging animal.
Completely swayed by his dark desperate mood, which seemed to weigh
on his breast and oppress his breathing, he sat there as if rooted to
the spot.
From time to time his nostrils swelled and his lips parted,
showing two rows of big yellow teeth. A dark indescribable feeling
of anguish seemed to hold him inexorably; red spots swam before his
eyes. A sense of utter melancholy took possession of him, and to this
was added a burning thirst for vodka. He knew that he would feel more
lighthearted when he had had something to drink, but he was ashamed
while it was still light to show his torn and ragged condition in the
street, where every one knew him personally as Grigori Orloff the
cobbler. He had a feeling of his own dignity, and would not expose
himself as a butt for general mirth. But neither could he go home to
wash and dress himself,--for there, lying bleeding on the ground, was
his wife whom he had greviously ill-used, and whom, at any price, he
must not look on at present.
There, no doubt, she is lying groaning, and he feels that she is a
martyr, and that he has been a thousand times guilty towards her. All
this he realizes quite clearly and distinctly. He knows well that where
she is concerned he has much to blame himself, and this consideration
increases even more the hatred which he feels towards her. A vague but
dominating feeling of anger gnaws his soul, prevailing over every other
feeling, whilst an inconsolable melancholy overwhelms his inmost being,
and he gives way consciously to the dull heavy misery which has taken
possession of him, but against which he knows no other remedy than--a
pint of vodka....
The accordion-player Kisljakoff crosses the yard. He is wearing a
velvet tunic without sleeves; a red silk shirt and wide trousers tucked
into his stockings; on his feet are smartly-polished shoes. Under his
arm he carries in a green bundle his accordion; he has twisted up his
black moustache, his cap is worn jauntily on one side, and his whole
countenance beams with the joy of living. Orloff liked his brisk
liveliness, his cordial ways, and his playing, and he envied him his
bright, happy-go-lucky life, free from all care.
"I greet thee, Grischka, proud conqueror, returning blood-stained from
the fray!" cried jokingly the accordion-player.
Orloff did not feel angry with Kisljakoff's joke, though he had heard
it already for the fiftieth time. He knew that the accordion-player
meant no harm, but only wanted to have a little innocent fun with him.
"Well, brother; so you have been acting Plevna again?" Kisljakoff asked
the cobbler, as he remained for a moment standing before him.
"Ah! Grischka, you are indeed a melancholy-looking swain!... Come along
with me to the only place which is of any good to such as you and me
... we will go and have a drop together!"
"It's too early yet," objected Orloff, without moving his head.
"I shall await thee then with silent longing!..." said Kisljakoff,
turning away.
After a time Orloff followed him. As soon as he had left, there issues
from the cellar a short, plump woman's form. A handkerchief is bound
tightly round her head, allowing only one eye and a piece of her
cheek to be seen; she walks with tottering steps, leaning for support
against the wall, crosses the courtyard, going straight to the place
where a short time before her husband had sat, and sits down precisely
in the same spot No one is surprised at her appearance, they are all
accustomed to it, and they know she will sit there till Grischka, drunk
and repentant, returns from the dram-shop. She has come up into the
courtyard, because the air is too heavy in the cellar, and because she
will have to guide the drunken steps of Grischka on his return.
The steps are very steep and half broken away; once before, when
Grischka returned from the dram-shop he fell down, and sprained his
arm, so that he could not work for a fortnight, and she, in order that
they might live, had been obliged to pawn everything they possessed.
From that time Matrona had taken good care of him. Sometimes one of
the inhabitants of the house would come and speak to her; generally
it was Lewtschenko, a retired, bearded non-commissioned officer, a
very sensible worthy "Little Russian," with a smooth shaven head and a
purple nose.
He would sit down, with a yawn and a stretch, and remark--"Well, have
you been catching it again?"
"What's that to you?" Matrona would reply in an unfriendly tone.
"Nothing in the world!" said the "Little Russian," and then they both
remained silent for a while.
Matrona would gasp; something seemed to be choking her breath.
"What a pity it is to think that you are always at loggerheads with
one another! Can't you alter things?" the "Little Russian" would begin
again.
"That's our business," replied Orloff's wife shortly.
"Of course it is! Of course it's your business..." agreed Lewtschenko,
nodding his head to show that he was entirely at one with her on this
point.
"What are you driving at?" continued Matrona in an angry voice.
"La! la! la! What a bad temper you are in! You won't let one say a
word to you! Whenever I see you and Grischka, I say to myself, what
a pair they are! They worry each other like two dogs! You ought both
to be beaten twice a day, morning and evening--then perhaps the desire
for quarrelling would be knocked out of you." And he went away angrily
and Matrona was glad; for several times there had been whisperings
and gossipings in die court, caused by Lewtschenko's attempts to be
friendly; so she was vexed with him, as she was with everybody who
mixed themselves up with her affairs.
Lewtschenko, in spite of his forty years, walked with a soldierly
stride to a corner of the yard, when suddenly Tschischik, the painter's
apprentice, ran like a ball between his legs.
"That was a nasty one she gave you, little uncle!" he whispered with a
precocious air to the non-commissioned officer, winking cunningly in
the direction of Matrona.
"You'll get something nasty from me, if you don't look out! do you
understand!" the "Little Russian" threatened him, though he was really
laughing behind his moustache. He liked the lively little lad, who knew
all the secrets of the court, and he really enjoyed having a gossip
with him.
"There is nothing to be done with her," continued Senka, without
paying any attention to Lewtschenko's threat, and going on with his
revelations. "Maximka, the painter, has also tried--but what did he
get for his pains?... a box on the ear!... I saw it myself...."
The, but half grown, lively little lad of twelve absorbed greedily all
the filth and evil with which his life was surrounded, just as a sponge
absorbs the water in which it lies; and the delicate wrinkles on his
forehead showed that Senka Tschischik had already begun to think.
In the courtyard it grew dark. Overhead was stretched a square patch of
dark blue sky on which twinkled the shimmering glory of the stars. The
courtyard itself with its steep walled sides looked like a deep pit, at
the bottom of which sat, huddled up in a corner, the form of Matrona,
resting after the beating she had received, and awaiting the return of
her drunken husband....