Maxim Gorki | Page 9

yet unable to transform the
conditions of life--and he is therefore stigmatised by a little of the
Russian bluster.
"The House of the Bezemenovs" ("The Tradespeople"), Gorki's first
dramatic work, describes the eternal conflict between sons and fathers.
The narrow limitations of Russian commercial life, its borné arrogance,
its weakness and pettiness, are painted in grim, grey touches. The
children of the tradesman Bezemenov may pine for other shores, where
more kindly flowers bloom and scent the air. But they are not strong
enough to emancipate themselves. The daughter tries to poison herself
because her foster brother, the engine-driver Nil, has jilted her. But
when the poison begins to work she cries out pitifully for help. The son
is a student, and has been expelled from the university. He hangs about
at home, and cannot find energy to plot out a new career for himself.
The weariness of a whole generation is expressed in his faint-hearted,
listless words, as also in the blustering but ineffective rhodomontades
of the tipsy choir-singer Teterev. All cordial relations between parents

and children are lacking in this house.
It is refreshing to come upon the other characters, who are of a different
breed to these shop-keepers. The vodka-loving, jolly father of Polja
(Bezemenov's niece, who is exploited and maltreated in this house), is,
in his contented yet sentimental egoism, a true representative of the
ordinary Russian, the common man. And Polja! And Nil! . . . Here is
the fresh blood of the future. How sure they both are in their love. "Ah!
what a beautiful world it is, isn't it? Wondrously beautiful . . . dear
friend. . . . What a glorious man you are. . . ."
Albeit this work is far from being a finished drama, it none the less has
its special qualities. These men often talk as glibly as if they were
essayists, they often seem to be mere vehicles for programmatic
manifestoes. But as a whole they are the typical quintessence of the
Russian people.
Other wild and intrepid figures are to be found in the larger works that
precede "The Tradespeople"--the novels "Foma Gordeyev" and "Three
Men." But Gorki's new conception of life is less clearly and broadly
formulated in these than in Nil, and other subsequent characters. These
people rather collapse from the superabundance of their vigour and the
meanness of their surroundings.
In "Foma Gordeyev" Gorki flagellates the unscrupulous Russian
wholesale dealer, who knows of nought beyond profit and the grossest
sensual indulgence, and lets his own flesh and blood perish if they
require of him to budge a hand-breadth from his egoistic standpoint.
Foma, who is not built for a merchant, and who, while ambitious of
command, is too magnanimous for the sordid business of a tradesman,
has to give in. And the children of his triumphant guardian can only
escape poverty by accepting their surroundings.
[Illustration: Gambling scene (Act II. of "The Doss-house")]
Despite its agonies and martyrdoms, however, there is one
marvellously inspiring feature about this novel,--its gorgeous
descriptions of Nature, rich in life and colour. "Foma Gordeyev" is the

romance of life on the Volga.
With what intimacy, familiarity, and heart-felt emotion Gorki here
describes and sees! The great River, with its diversified characteristics,
its ominous events, mingles with the life of Man, and flows on past
us. . . .
It is this characteristic union of the Human-All-Too-Human with his
impressions of Nature in so many of Gorki's works, that makes them at
the outset desirable and readable to a large proportion of his public.
Much of his description of life beyond the social pale would be
repulsive if it were not for this interpretative nature-painting. Especially
would this be the case in "Malva." This robust, free-loving, and
free-living maiden attracts us by her vigorous participation in Nature,
when, for instance, she leaps into the water, and sports in the element
like a fish.
Gorki's countless wanderings through the Russian Steppes, his sojourns
by the southern shores of the Russian Seas, are intimately interwoven
with the course of Nature, and have given him poetic insight and
motives which are ignored by other authors, who have grown up in the
University, the Bureau, or the Coffee-houses of large towns. His life of
poverty has made him rich. He has evolved some significant
prose-poems from the life of Nature, and the contest of her forces.
While the sketch, "Spring Voices," is a satire, bristling with tangible
darts and stings, "The Bursting of the Dam" expresses the full force that
rages and battles in a stormy sea. The unemancipated workers construct
steep, rocky dams that jut out into the free, unbridled sea. The waves
that so long rolled on merrily, without fell intent, are now confined, and
beat against the hard, cold, sullen rocks. The