A Rolling Stone

By Maxim Gorky

A Rolling Stone was retrieved from Tales from Gorky, third edition published in 1902.

Alexei Maximovich Peshkov (1868 – 18 June 1936), primarily known as Maxim Gorky was a Russian and Soviet writer, a founder of the socialist realism literary method, and a political activist. He was also a five-time nominee for the Nobel Prize in Literature. Prior to his renown as an author, he frequently changed jobs and roamed across the Russian Empire; these experiences would later influence his writing. Gorky's most famous works were The Lower Depths (1902), Twenty-six Men and a Girl (1899), The Song of the Stormy Petrel (1901), My Childhood (1913–1914), Mother (1906), Summerfolk (1904) and Children of the Sun (1905). He had associations with fellow Russian writers Leo Tolstoy and Anton Chekhov; Gorky would later mention them in his memoirs.
Gorky was active in the emerging Marxist communist movement. He publicly opposed the Tsarist regime, and for a time closely associated himself with Vladimir Lenin and Alexander Bogdanov's Bolshevik wing of the party. For a significant part of his life, he was exiled from Russia and later the Soviet Union. In 1932, he returned to the USSR on Joseph Stalin's personal invitation and lived there until his death in June 1936.
 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Passerino
• Release date: Sep 11, 2020
• ISBN: 9788835893028

Book preview

Life

I. I Meet Him

Stumbling in the dark upon the hurdle fence I valiantly strided over puddles of mud from window to window, tapped, not very loudly, on the window-panes with my fingers, and cried:

Give a traveller a night's lodging!

In reply they sent me to the neighbours or to the Devil; from one window they promised to let the dog loose upon me, from another they threatened me silently but eloquently with their fists—and big fists too. A woman screamed at me.

Go away, be off while you are still whole! My husband is at home.

I understood her: she only took in lodgers during the absence of her husband.... Regretting that he was at home I went on to the next window.

Good people, give a traveller a night's lodging!

They answered me politely:

In God's name go—further on!

The weather was wretched—a fine, cold rain was falling, and the muddy earth was thickly enveloped in darkness. From time to time a gust of wind blew from some quarter or other; it moaned softly in the branches of the trees, rustled the wet straw on the roofs, and gave birth to many other cheerless noises, breaking in upon the gloomy silence of the night with its miserable music of sighs and groans: Listening to this dolorous prelude to the grim poem which they call Autumn, the people under the roofs were no doubt in a bad humour, and therefore would not give me a night's lodging. For a long time I had fought against this resolution of theirs, they as doggedly opposed me and, at last, had annihilated my hopes of a night's lodging beneath any roof whatsoever. So I left the village and went forth into the fields, thinking that there, perhaps, I might find a haycock or a rick of straw ... though naught but chance could direct me to them in this thick and heavy darkness.

But lo and behold! I saw, three paces in front of me, something big rising up—something even darker than the darkness. I went thither, and discovered that it was a corn magazine. Corn magazines, you know, are built not right upon the earth but upon piles or stones; between the floor of the magazine and the ground is a space where an ordinary man can easily settle down ... all he has to do is to lie upon his belly and wriggle into it.

Clearly, Destiny desired that I should pass that night not only under a roof but under a floor. Content therewith, I wriggled along the dry ground, feeling with my breast and sides for a somewhat more level place for my night's lodging. And suddenly in the darkness resounded a calmly-anticipatory voice:

A little more to the left, if you please!

This was not alarming, but unexpected it certainly was.

Who's there? I inquired.

A man ... with a stick....

I have a stick too.

And matches?

Yes, I have matches also.

That's good.

I didn't see anything at all good in this, for, according to my view of the matter, it would only have been good if I had had bread and tobacco and not merely matches.

I suppose they wouldn't let you have a night's lodging in the village? inquired the invisible voice.

No, they wouldn't, I said.

Me also they would not admit.

This was clear—if only he had asked for a night's lodging. But he might not have asked, he might simply have crept in here to await a favourable opportunity for executing some sort of risky operation absolutely desiderating the protection of the night. Every sort of labour is praiseworthy, I know, but for all that I resolved to clutch my stick firmly.

They wouldn't let me in, the Devils! resumed the voice. Blockheads! In fine weather they let you in, while in weather like this ... may they howl for it!

And whither are you going? I asked.

To ... Nikolaiev. And you?

I told him.

Fellow-travellers that means. And now strike a match. I'm going to smoke.

The matches had got damp>—impatiently, it took me a long time, I struck them against the boards above my head. At last a tiny little light spluttered forth, and from out of the darkness stared a pale face with a thick black beard.

The big, sensible eyes looked at me with a smile, presently some white teeth gleamed from beneath the moustaches, and the man said to me: Like a smoke?

The match burnt out. We lit another, and by the light of it we stared once more at each other, after which my fellow lodger observed confidentially:

Well, it seems to me we shan't clash ... take a cigarette.

Another cigarette