Читать книгу The Confession - Maksim Gorky - Страница 8

The people about me began to notice me, and I took notice of them, too.

On holidays when I walked through the streets I was stared at with much curiosity. Some greeted me earnestly while others mocked, but all looked after me.

"Here goes our prayer-book," was heard. "Say, Matvei, are you going to become a saint?"

"Don't laugh at him, friends; he is not a priest and he does not believe in God for the sake of the money."

"Have there not been peasants who became saints?"

"Oh, we have all kinds of men, but that does not help us much."

"Who said he is a peasant? He has got gentleman's blood in him—but that's a secret."

And thus they calked, and some praised and some jeered.

As for myself, I was then in a peculiar state of mind. I wished to be at peace with all and wanted all to love me. However, try as I would to live up to it, their insults prevented me.

Of all who persecuted me, Savelko Migun was the worst. He fell on his knees when he saw me and prostrated himself, declaiming aloud:

"Your Holiness, I bow to the ground before you. Pray for Savelko, I beg of you. God may do the right thing by him then. Teach me how to please the Lord God. Must I stop stealing, or must I steal more and burn him a wax candle?"

The crowds laughed at Savelko's jokes, but they made me feel queer and hurt me.

He would continue:

"Oh, ye Orthodox, prostrate yourself before the Righteous One. He fleeces the peasants in his office and then reads the gospel in church. And God cannot hear how the peasants howl."

I was sixteen and could easily have broken his face for his insults. But instead, I took to avoiding him. When he noticed this he gave me no leeway at all. He composed a song, which he sang in the streets on holidays, accompanying himself with his balalaika.

"Oh, the squires embrace the maidens,

And the maidens all grow big;

From these gentlemanly doings

Come out dirty cheats as children.

They are thrown upon the masters

Who refuse to feed them gratis;

And they put them in their office,

To the peasants' great misfortune."

It was a long song and everybody was mentioned in it, but Titoff and I had the biggest share of all. It got to such a point that when I caught sight of Savelko with his little thin beard, his cap on his ear and his bald head, I trembled all over. I felt like springing on him and breaking him into bits.

Though I was young, I could hold myself in with a strong hand. When he walked behind me, jingling, I did not move a muscle to show that it was hard to bear. I walked slowly and made believe I did not hear.

I began to pray more zealously, for I felt that I had no protection except prayers, which, however, were now filled with complaints and bitter words.

"Wherefore, O Lord, am I to blame that my father and mother abandoned me and threw me like a kitten into the brush?"

I could find no other sin in me. I saw men and women placed on this earth without rhyme or reason; saw each one so accustomed to his business that the custom became law. How was I to know right off why and against whom this strange force is directed?

However, I began to think things over, and I grew more and more troubled as things became insufferable to me.

Our landlord, Constantine Nicolaievitch Loseff, was rich and owned much land, and he hardly ever came to our estate, which was considered unlucky by the family. Somebody had strangled the landlord's mother, his father had fallen from a horse and been killed, and his wife had run away from him here.

I only saw the landlord twice. He was a stout man, tall, wore spectacles and had an officer's cape and cap, lined with red. They said he held a high position under the Czar and that he was very learned and wrote books. The two times he was on the estate he swore at Titoff very thoroughly and even shook his fist in his face.

Titoff was the one absolute power on the estate of Sokolie. There was not much land, and only so much grain was sown as was necessary for the household. The rest of the land was rented to the peasants. Later there came an order that no more land should be rented and that flax should be sown on the whole estate. A factory was being opened nearby.