Maxim Gorki | Page 5

he was to be clothed and fed during his student life he betook himself to Kasan to study. His rash hopes soon foundered. He had, as he expressed it, no money to buy knowledge. And instead of attending the Schools he went into a biscuit-factory. The three roubles (then 5s.), which was his monthly salary, earned him a scanty living by an eighteen-hour day. Gorki soon gave up this task, which was too exhausting for him. He lived about on the river and in the harbour, working at casual jobs as a sawyer or porter. At this time he had no roof, and was forced to live in the society of the derelicts. What Gorki must have suffered in this company, during his struggle for the bare means of subsistence, may be imagined--he sounded the lowest depths of human life, and fell into the blackest abysses.
With the best will, and with all his energies, he was unable to attain any prospect of brighter days, and sank deeper and deeper into the existence of the castaway.
In his twentieth year he gave up the struggle. Life seemed to him devoid of value, and he attempted suicide. The ball from the revolver entered his lung without killing him, and the surgeon managed to extract it. Gorki was ill for some time after this event, and when he recovered set about finding new work.
He became a fruit-vendor, as before reading all kinds of scientific and literary works with avidity. But this profession brought him no farther than the rest. He then went to Karazin as signalman and operative in the railway works.
However, he made no long stay on the railway. In 1890 he was obliged to present himself at Nijni Novgorod, his native place, for the military conscription. He was not, however, enrolled on account of the wound that remained from his attempt at suicide.
In Nijni Novgorod he became acquainted with certain members of the educated classes. At first he wandered up and down selling beer and kvass--filling the cups of all who wished to drink. . . . But he was driven to fare forth again, and again took up the life of a vagrant and a toper. In Odessa he found occupation in the harbour and the salt-works. Then he wandered through Besserabia, the Crimea, the Kuban, and eventually reached the Caucasus. At Tiflis he worked in the railway sheds. Here he once more foregathered with educated people, particularly with some young Armenians. His personality and already remarkable mental equipment secured him their friendship. A derelict student, whom he afterwards described under the name of Alexander Kaluschny, taught him to write and cypher. He gave keen attention to the physical states of an insane friend, who was full of the Regeneration of Mankind, and entered his observations in his note-book. Gorki possesses a vast number of these note-books, in which he has written down his impressions. At this period he was also studying the great poets, Shakespeare, Goethe, Byron. Most of all he admired Manfred, who dominated the Elements and Ahriman. Everything out of the common inspired him.
[Illustration: Tramps--the seated figure is the original of Luka (After a sketch by Gorki)]
It was at this time that he began to do literary work, in the utmost secrecy. His story, "Makar Chudra," appeared in 1893 in the Caucasian journal Kavkas, but he was as yet unable to make his living by intellectual pursuits, and was still compelled to be Jack-of-all-trades. It occurred to him to muster a travelling company. He strapped up a small bundle and sallied forth. By April he had enlisted others of like mind. A woman and five men presented themselves. The troup increased on the way . . . but Gorki had to dree his weird alone, and returned to Nijni Novgorod.
A fortunate accident brought him into relation with the lawyer Lanin, a true friend to modern literature, who was not slow to appreciate the talent that had found its way to his bureau, and occupied himself most generously with the education of the young writer.
Gorki now wrote his first long story. Various friends of literature soon began to take notice of him. They sent him to the famous Vladimir Korolenko, who was then living in Nijni Novgorod, and editing the paper, Russkoe Bogatstvo. Korolenko was much interested in Gorki, but was unable at that time to offer the young writer any remunerative work. Gorki was obliged to eke out his living by contributing to small provincial papers. He shared the same fate as so many of his fellow journalists. None of the editors offered any sort of honorarium, but simply returned his contributions, when, as happened with one of the Odessa journals, he asked three kopecks a line from it. This same paper, however, commissioned him to write a