Chelkash and Other Stories by Maxim Gorky

Author:Maxim Gorky
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9780486159126
Publisher: Dover Publications
Published: 2012-10-23T04:00:00+00:00

MAKAR CHUDRA

A COLD wet wind blew from the sea, wafting over the steppes the pensive melody of the splashing surf and the rustle of shrubbery on the beach. Now and then its gusts brought shrivelled yellow leaves and whirled them into the flickering flames of the campfire. The gloom of autumnal night around us quivered and receded apprehensively, disclosing for a brief moment the endless steppe on the left, the boundless sea on the right, and opposite me the figure of Makar Chudra, the old Gypsy, who was looking after the horses of his Gypsy camp pitched within fifty paces of where we sat.

Heedless of the cold blasts that blew open his Caucasian coat and mercilessly buffeted his bared hairy chest, he reclined in a graceful vigorous pose with his face towards me, drawing methodically at his huge pipe, emitting thick puffs of smoke through his mouth and nose, staring out over my head into the deathly hushed darkness of the steppes, talking incessantly and making not a single movement to shield himself from the cruel gusts of wind.

“So you’re on the tramp? That’s fine! You’ve made a splendid choice, my lad. That’s the way: trot around and see things, and when you’ve seen all you want, lie down and die—that’s all!

“Life? Other people?” he went on, having lent a sceptical ear to my protest about his “that’s all.” “H’m. Why should that worry you? Aren’t you Life? Other people live without you and’ll live their lives without you. Do you imagine anybody needs you? You’re neither bread nor a stick, and nobody wants you.

“To learn and teach, you say? But can you learn how to make people happy? No, you cannot. You get grey hairs first before talking about teaching. Teach what? Every one knows what he wants. Those that are cleverer take what there is to take, the sillier ones get nothing, but every man learns himself.

“They’re a curious lot, those people of yours. All herded together and treading on each other’s toes when there’s so much room in the world,” he waved a sweeping hand towards the steppes. “And toiling away all the time. What for? Whom for? Nobody knows. You see a fellow ploughing, and think—there he is sweating out his strength drop by drop on that land, then he’ll lie down in it and rot away. He leaves nothing after him, he sees nothing from that field of his and dies as he was born—a fool.

“D’you mean to say he was born to dig the earth and die without having managed to dig a grave for himself? Does he know what freedom is? Has he any idea of the vast and glorious steppe? Does the music of the steppe gladden his heart? He’s a slave, from the moment he is born, a slave all his life long, and that’s all! What can he do for himself? All he can do is to hang himself, if he learned a little sense.

“Now look at me; at fifty-eight

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