energetic, defiant man--as a rule, one who is outside the pale of
society. In one of his sketches, Chelkash is a smuggler, a reckless
fellow, who induces a poor peasant to serve as his accomplice in a
nocturnal burglary. This rustic is a contemptible creature. His
avarice prompts him to fall on the smuggler and murder him for the sake
of his gold pieces. The wounded Chelkash flings the money at him
contemptuously. Gorki portrays the much-belauded moujik as a pitiable
money-grubber, a detestable associate, who loses all higher motives in
his struggle for the means of existence.

[Illustration: Vasilissa (_Keeper of the "Doss-house"_)]

This, at any rate, is Gorki's belief: it is neither the householders
nor the peasants who are the custodians and promoters of what is human
and noble. For Gorki, magnanimity and honour are found almost
exclusively among the degenerates and outlaws. This clear vision and
imaginative insight that forces Gorki into the arms of the men who are
outcasts from the life of the community must not be misinterpreted.
All great writers put their trust in kings, or rogues, or
revolutionaries. Vigour and energetic enterprise flourish only where
daily anxieties have had to be outworn. The poet needs men who stand
erect, and live apart from the opinions of universal orthodoxy.

Scenes from the Abysses; The new gospel; Gorki's defects; Truth or
sentimentality; The new Russia; Future development.

The men of the "Doss-house" are again of this type. They live in the
recesses of a horrible cellar, a derelict Baron, a former convict, a
public prostitute, and more of the same "cattle." One man who lodges
there with his wife is pilloried, because as a worker he stands apart
from them:

"'I am a man who works!'--as if the rest of us were less than he! Work
away if it makes you happier!--why be so cock-a-hoop about it? If men
are to be valued for their work, a horse would count for more than a
man--at least it draws the cart . . . and holds its tongue about it."

And as they speak, so they live. They are all destitute; but they
content themselves with carrying on a sort of guerilla warfare against
the householders.

And yet for some of them this life of brawls and vodka, of theft and
mendicancy, is a very hell. Especially for the thief Pepel. He would
gladly rise to a purer life. Alone, he is not strong enough.
But--with Natasha.

This Natasha is the sister of the woman who keep