In The Steppes -- Maxim Gorky -- (1868-1936)

[Chris Moritz]

A short account, a study in the psychology and actions of very desperate and poor men, rather than combat; pretty recent, historically, 19th Century. Other translations are drab: this English translation of In The Steppes is by far the best-- excellent.

===================================

Maxim Gorky
(1868-1936)

In The Steppes

We had left Perekop in the worst of moods, hungry as wolves and hating the whole world. For twelve whole hours we had vainly employed all of our efforts and ingenuity to steal or to earn something, and when we were at last convinced that neither the one nor the other was possible, we decided to go on farther. Where? Just farther.

The decision was unanimous and communicated one to the other, but we were ready, too, in every respect, to travel farther along that path of life we had long followed; this decision was arrived at silently; it was not voiced by any of us, but was visibly reflected in the angry beam of our hungry eyes.

There were three of us. We had known one another for some time, having stumbled across each other in a public-house in Kherson on the banks of the Dniepr. One of us had been a soldier in a railway battalion and then a workman in one of the railways on the Vistula in Poland; he was a red-haired, sinewy man; he could speak German and possessed a detailed knowledge of prison life.

Men of our kind do not like to talk of their past, having always some more or less valid reason for not doing so, hence we believed what each said as a matter of course; that is, we believed outwardly, inwardly each had but a poor belief in himself.

When our comrade, a dry little man with thin sceptically compressed lips, informed us that he had been a student in the Moscow University, the soldier and I took it for granted that he had. At bottom, it was all the same to us whether he had been a student, a thief or a police-spy; the only thing that mattered was that when we met him he was our equal, in that he was hungry, enjoyed the special attention of the police, was suspiciously treated by the peasants in the villages, and hated the one and the other with the impotent hatred of a hunted, hungry animal, and dreamed of universal vengeance against everyone -- in a word, his position among the kings of nature and the lords of life, and his mood, made him a bird of our feather.

Misfortune is the best of cement for making the most opposite of characters stick together, and we all felt that we had a right to regard ourselves as unfortunate.

The third was myself. In my innate modesty, which I have evinced since my earliest days, I will say nothing about my virtues; and having no desire to appear naive, I will likewise be silent about my vices. Suffice it for a clue to my character to say that I have always regarded myself as better than others and continue to do so today.

Thus, we had left Perekop and went on farther. Our aim for that day was to reach one of the shepherds in the steppe; one could always beg a piece of bread from a shepherd; shepherds rarely refused to give to passing tramps.

I was walking beside the soldier, the "student" followed in the rear. On his shoulders hung something that had once resembled a jacket; on his head, which was sharp-pointed, angular and closely-cropped, rested the remains of a broad-brimmed hat; grey trousers with variegated patches encased his thin legs; tied to his feet with some string made out of the lining of his suit were the soles of some boots he had picked up on the road, which implements he called sandals. He walked in silence, raising much dust, his small green eyes shining brightly. The soldier wore a red fustian shirt, which, to use his own expression, he had "acquired with his own hands" in Kherson; over the shirt he wore a warm padded waistcoat; a military cap of an indefinite hue was "tilted over the right brow," according to army instruction; wide, rough trousers flapped about his legs; his feet were bare.

I, too, was barefoot.

We walked on. Around us on all sides in magnificent proportions stretched the steppe; canopied with the sultry blue dome of a cloudless summer sky, it lay round and black like a great dish. The grey dusty road cut across it in a broad line and burned our feet. Here and there were stubble tracts of cut corn, which bore a strange resemblance to the unshaven cheeks of the soldier.

The latter was singing as we walked, in a hoarse bass voice, "And Thy holy sabbath we praise and glorify. . . ."

When he was in the army he used to fulfill an office in the battalion church in the nature of chanter, and consequently he had an abundant knowledge of hymns and church music, a knowledge which he misused every time our conversation lagged.

Against the horizon in front of us forms of gentle line towered up, soft of hue, blending from purple to pale pink. "Those must be the Crimean mountains," said the "student" hoarsely.

"Mountains?" exclaimed the soldier. "Too soon to be seeing them, my friend! That's a cloud. . . . Simply a cloud. And what a cloud! Like cranberry-jelly and milk."

I observed that it would be agreeable if the cloud were really of jelly, which instantly aroused our hunger, the scourge of our days.

[Chris Moritz]

"Hell!" cursed the soldier, as he spat. Not a living soul to be met. No one. . . . There's nothing to do but to suck your paws like the bears in winter."

"I told you that we ought to have made for the inhabited parts," said the "student," with a desire to improve the occasion.

"You told us!" the soldier rejoined. "It's your place to tell us, as you're educated. But where are the inhabited parts? The devil knows!"

The student said nothing, but compressed his lips. The sun sank and the clouds on the horizon danced in a myriad indescribable hues. There was a smell of earth and of salt, and this dry and savoury smell made our appetites the keener. The pain gnawed at our stomachs, a strange, unpleasant sensation; the sap seemed to be oozing slowly from all the muscles of the body; they were drying up and losing their living suppleness. A parched, stinging sensation filled the cavity of the mouth and the throat, the brain was muddled and small dark objects danced before the eyes; sometimes these took the form of steaming chunks of meat, or of hunks of milkbread; memory supplied these "ghosts of the past, dumb ghosts," with their natural odours, and then it seemed as if a knife were veritably turned in the stomach.

Still, we walked on, discussing our sensations and keeping a sharp look out on all sides for signs of sheep, or listening for the loud squeaking of a Tartar cart carrying fruit to the Armenian market.

But the steppe was solitary and silent.

On the eve of this hard day the three of us had eaten four pounds of rye bread and five melons, and had walked some forty versts -- expenditure not commensurate with income -- and having fallen asleep in the market-place of Perekop we had been awakened by our hunger.

The "student," in justice be it said, had advised us not to go to sleep, but to work during the night. . . . As projects for the outrage of private property are not mentioned in polite society, I will say no more about it. My desire was to be just, it is against my interest to be vulgar. I know that in our highly civilised days people are becoming more and more tender-hearted, and that when one seizes a neighbour by the throat with the object of strangling him, it is done with every possible kindness and the decorum appropriate to the occasion. The experience of my own throat has made me notice this progress in morality, so that I am able with a pleasant feeling of confidence to assert that everything in this world is developing and progressing. The progress may particularly be seen in the annual increase in the number of prisons, public-houses, and brothels. . . .

And so, swallowing our hungry saliva, and endeavouring by friendly conversation to still the pain in our stomachs, we walked across the deserted and silent steppe, walked towards the red glow of the sunset, filled with a vague kind of hope. In front of us the sun was sinking gently into the soft clouds, profusely painted with its rays, and behind us, on either side, the blue darkness which rose from the steppe to the sky narrowed the unfriendly horizon around us.

[Chris Moritz]

"Collect some stuff for a fire, brothers," said the soldier, picking up a piece of wood. "We've got to spend the night in the steppe, and there's a dew on. Anything will do, dried dung, twigs."

We separated to both sides of the road, and commenced to collect dry grass and any combustible material. Every time it became necessary to bend to the ground, the whole body was filled with a desire to fall on it, to lie still and to eat it, black and rich, to eat and eat, until one could eat no more, and then to sleep. What mattered it if it meant to sleep for ever, so long as one could eat and feel the warm, thick mess slowly descending from the mouths down the parched gullet to the hungry, gnawing stomach, hot with desire for something to digest.

"If only we could find a root or something," the soldier sighed. "There are roots you can eat. . . ."

But the black ploughed earth contained no roots. The southern night descended swiftly; the last rays of the sun were barely extinguished when the stars were shining in the dark blue sky and the shadows around us merged closer and closer together, shutting out the infinite flatness of the steppe. "Brother," the "student" whispered, "there's a man lying to the left of us."

"A man?" the soldier asked doubtfully. "Why should he be lying there?"

"Go and ask. He's probably got some bread if he can spread himself out in the steppe," the "student" ventured. The soldier looked in the direction indicated and spitting resolutely, said, "Let us go to him."

Only the sharp green eyes of the "student" could have seen a man in the black heap some fifty sajens to the left of the road. We walked towards him, stepping quickly over the clods of ploughed earth, our newly awakened hope for food quickening the pangs of our hunger. We were quite close to him, but the man did not move.

"Perhaps it isn't a man." The soldier gloomily expressed the thought of all.

But our doubt was scattered that very instant. The heap on the ground suddenly moved, rose up, and we could see that it was a real, living man, kneeling, his hand outstreched towards us.

"Stop, or I'll shoot!" he said in a hoarse, trembling voice.

A sharp click rent the turbid air.

We stopped as at a word of command, and for some seconds we were silent, overcome by the pleasant greeting.

"The villain!" the soldier muttered expressively.

"Um! Traveling with a revolver," the "student" said thoughtfully, "must be a fish rich in caviare."

"Hi!" shouted the soldier; he had evidently decided on some course.

The man did not change his posture, and did not speak.

"Hi, you! We won't harm you. . . . Give us some bread. . . . We are starving. Give us bread, brother, for Christ's sake! Be damned!"

The last words were uttered under his breath.

The man was silent.

[Chris Moritz]

"Can't you hear?" the solder asked, trembling with rage and despair. "Give us some bread. We won't come near you. Throw it to us."

"All right," said the main abruptly.

Had he said "my dear brothers," and put into those words the most sacred and purest of feeling, they would not have roused us more or made us more human than that hoarsely spoken and abrupt "All right."

"Don't be afraid of us, good man," said the soldier kindly, with an ingratiating smile on his lips, though the man could not see the smile, being at a distance from us of at least twenty paces."

"We are peaceful folk. We are on our way from Russia to Kuban. We've lost our money and eaten everything we've got. It's two days since we've had a meal."

"Wait," said the man, flourishing his arm in the air. A black lump flew out and dropped near us on the ploughed earth. The "student," fell upon it.

"Wait, here's more and more. That's all. I haven't any more."

When the "student" had collected these original gifts, they were found to consist of about four pounds of stale black bread, covered with earth. The latter circumstance did not trouble us in the least, the former pleased us greatly, for stale bread is much more satisfying than new, containing less moisture. "There . . . and there . . . and there," the soldier gave us each our portions. "They are not equal. I must take a pinch more of yours, scholar, or there won't be enough for him."

The "student" obediently submitted to the loss of a fraction of an ounce of bread. I took the morsel and put it into my mouth, and commenced to chew it. I chewed it slowly, scarcely able to restrain the convulsive movement of my jaws, which were ready to chew stone. I had a keen sense of pleasure to feel the spasm in my gullet and satisfy it gradually, bit by bit. Warm, inexpressibly and indescribably sweet the bread penetrated mouthful by mouthful into the burning stomach and seemed instantly to be turned to blood and brain. Joy, a strange, peaceful, vivifying joy glowed in the heart in the measure in which the stomach was filled; the general condition was one of somnolence. I forgot the chronic hunger of these cursed days, I forgot my comrades, who were immersed in the enjoyment of sensations similar to my own. But when I threw the last crumbs into my mouth with the palm of my hand, I began to feel a deadly hunger.

"The devil's probably got some more, and I dare say he's got some meat, too," mumbled the soldier, sitting on the ground and rubbing his stomach.

"To be sure he has. The bread smelt of meat. I'm certain he's got more bread," the "student" added under his breath. "If it weren't for that revolver. . . ."

"Who is he, eh?"

"Our brother Isaac, evidently."

"The dog!" the soldier concluded.

We were sitting close together, looking askance in the direction where our benefactor sat with the revolver. No sound of life escaped him.

The night gathered its dark forces around us. A dead silence reigned in the steppe; we could hear each others' breathing. Now and again came the melancholy cry of a marmot. The stars, the living flowers of heaven, were shining above us. . . . We were hungry.

I will say with pride that I was no better and no worse than my casual comrades of that rather strange night. I suggested that we should go over to the man. We need do him no harm, but we could eat up all his food. If he shoots, let him. Out of the three only one of us might possibly be hit, and that very unlikely, and if any one were hit the wound might not be fatal.

[Chris Moritz]

"Come," said the soldier, jumping to his feet.

And we went, almost at a run, the "student" keeping behind us.

"Comrade!" the soldier called reproachfully.

A hoarse mumbling met us, the click of a catch, a flash, and a sharp report rang out.

"Missed!" the soldier exclaimed joyously, reaching the man at a bound. "Now, you devil, now you'll get it."

The "student" threw himself on the man's wallet. The "devil" rolled over on his back and began to moan, shielding himself with his hands.

"What the deuce!" exclaimed the soldier in his bewilderment. He had already raised his foot to kick the man. "He must have hit himself. Hi! you! Have you shot yourself?"

"Here's meat, pasties, and bread, lots of it, brothers," said the "student" exultantly.

"Oh, die and be damned. . . . Come and eat, friends!" the soldier cried.

I took the revolver from the man's hand. He had ceased to moan, and was lying quite still. The chamber contained one more bullet.

Again we were eating, eating in silence. The man, too, lay silent, without so much as moving a limb. We paid not the slightest heed to him.

"Have you really done this all for the bread, brothers?" a trembling, hoarse voice asked suddenly.

We all started. The "student" even choked and coughed, bending down to the ground.

The soldier cursed as he chewed a mouthful of food.

"You soul of a dog, may you burst like a rotten log! Did you think we wanted to skin you? What good would your skin be to us? You damned silly mug! Arms himself and shoots at people, the devil!"

As he was eating during all this, the invective was robbed of its force.

"Wait till we've done eating, we'll settle with you!" the "student" said threateningly.

At this the stillness of the night was broken by a wailing and sobbing that frightened us.

"Brothers . . . how was I to know? I fired because I was frightened. I'm on my way from New Athens . . . to the Smolensk province. . . . Oh, Lord! The fever's got hold of me. . . . It was because of the feaver that I left Athens. . . . I did carpentering there. . . . I am a carpenter by trade. . . . I've got a wife at home and two little girls. I haven't seen them for four years . . . Brothers . . . eat everything."

"We'll do that without your asking," the "student" said.

"Oh, God, had I only known that you were kind-hearted, quiet folk. . . . You don't think I'd have fired? But what would you have, brothers, in the steppe at night. . . . Am I to blame?

He was crying as he spoke, or more corretly, emitting a trembling, frightened, wailing sound.

"There he goes whining now," the soldier said contemptuously.

"He's probably got some money on him," suggested the "student."

The soldier half closed his eye, looking at him, and laughed.

"You're a good one a guessing. . . . Come, let us light a fire and go to sleep."

"And what about him?" the "student" inquired.

"Let him go to the devil. You don't want to roast him, eh?"

"He deserves it." The "student" shook his sharp-pointed head.

We went to fetch the materials we had collected, which we had dropped when the carpenter had stopped us by his menacing cry. We broght them over, and were soon sitting by a fire. It burned gently in the still night, lighting up the small space in which we sat. We felt sleepy, but could have supped all over again.

"Brothers!" called the carpenter. He was lying about three paces from us, and now and then it seemed to me that I could hear him whispering.

"Well?" asked the soldier.

"Can I come to you . . . to the fire? I am dying. . . . My bones are all aching. . . . Oh, God, I shall never get home."

"Crawl over here," the "student" said.

Slowly, as though fearing to lose a hand or a leg, the carpenter moved over the ground to the fire. He was a tall man, terribly emaciated. His clothing hung about him with a horrible looseness, and his large, troubled eyes reflected the pain that he suffered. His distorted face was haggard, and, even by the light of the fire, the colour of it was yellowish, earthy, and dead. He was trembling all over; we felt a scornful pity for him. Stretching out his long, thin arms to the fire, he rubbed his bony fingers, the joints bending slowly and feebly. When all is said and done he was a disgusting sight to look at.

"Why do you travel in this condition and on foot? Mean eh?" the soldier asked sullenly.

[Chris Moritz]

"They advised me not to go . . . they said . . . by the water . . . but to come through Crimea . . . because of the air . . . they said. . . . And now, brothers . . . I can't go on. . . . I'm dying! I shall die alone in the steppe. . . . The birds will peck at me and no one will recognise me. . . . My wife . . . my little girls, are expecting me. . . . I wrote to them. . . . And my bones will be washed by the rains of the steppe. . . . Lord, Lord!"

He howled like a wounded wolf.

"Oh, hell!" exclaimed the soldier, enraged, and jumping to his feet. "Stop your whining! Leave us in peace! Dying are you? Well, get on with it, and don't make so much row about it! You won't be missed."

"Give him a knock on the head," the "student suggested.

"Let us go to sleep," I said. "And as for you, if you want to stop by the fire, you mustn't whine."

"Do you hear?" the soldier said angrily. "Mind you do what he says. You think we're going to pity you and nurse you because you threw us a piece of bread and fired at us! To hell with you! Others would. . . . Phu!"

The soldier ceased, and stretched himself out on the ground. The "student" was already lying down. I, too, lay down. The terrified carpenter, shrinking into a heap, moved over to the fire and stared into it silently. I was lying to the right of him and could hear the chattering of his teeth. The "student" was lying to the left, curled up and apparently asleep. The soldier was lying face upwards, his hands under his head, looking up at the sky.

"What a night, to be sure! What a lot of stars! It looks like heat." After a time he turned to me. "What a sky! Looks more like a blanket than a sky. I do like this wandering life, friend. . . . It may be a cold and hungry life, but it's free. . . . No one to lord it over you. . . . You are your own master. . . . If you want to bite your own head off, no one can say you nay. . . . How good! The hunger of these days made me vicious . . . but here I am now, looking up at the sky. . . . The stars are winking at me. They seem to say, 'Never mind, Lakatin, go over the earth, learn, but don't give in to anyone.' . . . Ha! . . . How comfortable the heart feels! And how are you, carpenter? You mustn't be angry with me, and there's no need to fear anything. . . . If we have eaten up your bread, what does it matter? You had bread and we hadn't, so we ate yours. . . . And you go and shoot bullets at us like a savage. You made me very angry, and if you hadn't fallen down, I'd have given it to you for your impudence. And as for the bread, you'll be getting to Perekop tomorrow, you can buy some there. . . . You've got money, I know. . . . How long have you had the fever?"

For a long time I could hear the droning of the soldier's deep voice and the trmbling voice of the carpenter. The dark, almost black night descended lower and lower over the earth; the chest was filled with fragrant, juicy air. The fire emitted an even light and a vivifying warmth. The eyes closed, and through the drowsiness a soothing, purefying influence was borne.

[Chris Moritz]

"Get up! Quick! Let us go!"

With a feeling of apprehension I jumped to my feet, assisted by the soldier, who was tugging me up from the ground by my sleeve.

"Come, quick march!"

His face was grave and troubled. I looked about me. The sun was rising and its rosy rays fell on the still, blue face of the carpenter. His mouth was open; the eyes were bulging out of their sockets and stared with a glassy stare, expressive of horror. The clothing at his chest was torn; his posture was unnatural and convulsed.

"Seen enough? Come on, I say." The soldier tugged at my arm.

"Is he dead?" I asked, shuddering with the keenness of the morning air.

"I should say so. If I were to strangle you, you'd be dead, would't you?" the soldier explained.

"Did . . . the 'student'?" I cried.

"Who else? You, perhaps? Or I? There's a scholar for you . . . Did him in nicely and left his comrades in the lurch. If I'd only known this yesterday, I'd have killed that 'student' myself. I'd have killed him with a blow. One punch on the temple and one blackguard less in the world. Do you realise what he's done? We must be gone from here so that not a human eye sees us in the steppe. Understand? They'll discover the carpenter today, strangled and robbed. They'll be one the look out for the like of us. They'll ask where we've come from . . . where we've slept. And they'll catch us. . . . Although we've got nothing on us. . . . But here's that revolver of his in my bosom! What a kettle of fish!"

"Throw is away," I cautioned him.

"Why?" he said thoughtfully. "It's a thing of value. . . . They mightn't catch us, after all. . . . No, I shan't throw it away. It's worth three roubles. And it's got another bullet in it. I wonder how much money he robbed him of, the dirty devil!"

"So much for the carpenter's little daughters," I said.

"Daughters?" What daughters? Oh, his. . . . Well, they'll grow up, and as it isn't us they'll marry, we needn't bother about them. . . . Come on, brother, quick. . . . Where shall we go?"

"I don't know. It makes no difference."

"And I don't know, and I know that it makes no difference. Let's go to the right. The sea must be there."

I turned back. A long way from us in the steppe a black hill towered up, and above it the sun was shining.

"Looking to see if he's come to life? Don't you fear, they won't catch us. A clever chap that scholar of ours was. Managed the thing well. A nice comrade, to be sure. . . . Left us well in the soup. Eh, brother, folk are getting more vicious. Year after year they get more and more vicious." The soldier spoke sadly.

The steppe, silent and solitary and bathed in the bright morning sunshine, unfolded before us, merging at the horizon with the sky. It was light with a gentle, kindly light; all dark and unjust deeds seemed impossible in that great expanse of uninterrupted plain with a blue dome for a sky.

"I'm hungry, brother," observed my comrade, rolling a cigarette from cheap tobacco.

"What shall we eat and where?"

"It's a problem."

[Chris Moritz]

With this the teller of the story, a man lying in the bed next to mine in a hospital, concluded, saying, "That is all. The soldier and I became great friends. We walked together as far as the Kara region. He was a kndly fellow, experienced, and a typical tramp. I had a great respect for him. We were together as far as Asia Minor and then we lost sight of each other. . . ."

"Do you ever remember the carpenter?" I asked.

"As you have seen, or rather as you have heard."

"No more?"

He laughed.

"What do you expect me to feel about him? I wasn't to blame for what happened to him, any more than you are to blame for what happened to me. . . . No one is to blame for anything, because we are all alike -- beasts."



END (I originally typed this in from a tattered paperback from the 60s)

[Gene Tausk]

With this the teller of the story, a man lying in the bed next to mine in a hospital, concluded, saying, "That is all. The soldier and I became great friends. We walked together as far as the Kara region. He was a kndly fellow, experienced, and a typical tramp. I had a great respect for him. We were together as far as Asia Minor and then we lost sight of each other. . . ."

"Do you ever remember the carpenter?" I asked.

"As you have seen, or rather as you have heard."

"No more?"

He laughed.

"What do you expect me to feel about him? I wasn't to blame for what happened to him, any more than you are to blame for what happened to me. . . . No one is to blame for anything, because we are all alike -- beasts."



END (I originally typed this in from a tattered paperback from the 60s)

Look, Chris, while no one is a bigger fan of Russian literature than me and I especially like the works of Gorkij, this really is off-topic. So, from one Russophile to another, thank you for posting this, but please, no more.