on]

COMRADE.

By MAXIM GORKY.

Translated from the French translation by S. PERSKY, published in
"L'Aurore," Paris.

ALL in that city was strange, incomprehensible. Churches in great number
pointed their many-tinted steeples toward the sky, in gleaming colors;
but the walls and the chimneys of the factories rose still higher, and
the temples were crushed between the massive facades of commercial
houses, like marvelous flowers sprung up among the ruins, out of the
dust. And when the bells called the faithful to prayer, their brazen
sounds, sliding along the iron roofs, vanished, leaving no traces in the
narrow gaps which separated the houses.

They were always large, and sometimes beautiful, these dwellings.
Deformed people, ciphers, ran about like gray mice in the tortuous
streets from morning till evening; and their eyes, full of covetousness,
looked for bread or for some distraction; other men placed at the
crossways watched with a vigilant and ferocious air, that the weak
should, without murmuring, submit themselves to the strong. The strong
were the rich: everyone believed that money alone gives power and
liberty. All wanted power because all were slaves. The luxury of the
rich begot the envy and hate of the poor; no one knew any finer music
than the ring of gold; that is why each was the enemy of his neighbor,
and cruelty reigned mistress.

Sometimes the sun shone over the city, but life therein was always wan,
and the people like shadows. At night they lit a mass of joyous lights;
and then famishing women went out into the streets to sell their
caresses to the highest bidder. Everywhere floated an odor of victuals,
and the sullen and voracious look of the people grew. Over the city
hovered a groan of misery, stifled, without strength to make itself
heard.

Every one led an irksome, unquiet life; a general hostility was the
rule. A few citizens only considered themselves just, but these were the
most cruel, and their ferocity provoked that of the herd. All wanted to
live; and no one knew or could follow freely the pathway of his desires;
like an insatiable monster, the Present enveloped in its powerful and
vigorous arms the man who marched toward the future, and in that slimy
embrace sapped away his strength. Full of anguish and perplexity, the
man paused, powerless before the hideous aspect of this life: with its
thousands of eyes, infinitely sad in their expression, it looked into
his heart, as