THE OUTCASTS
And other Stories
BY
MAXIM GORKY
SECOND IMPRESSION
LONDON
T. FISHER UNWIN
MCMV
CONTENTS
THE OUTCASTS
Translated by Dora B. Montefiore and Emily Jakowleff.
WAITING FOR THE FERRY
Translated by Dora B. Montefiori and Emily Jakowleff.
THE AFFAIR OF THE CLASPS
Translated by Vera Volkhovsky.
THE OUTCASTS
I
The High Street consists of two rows of one-storeyed hovels, squeezedclose one against another; old hovels with leaning walls and crookedwindows, with dilapidated roofs, disfigured by time, patched withshingles, and overgrown with moss; here and there above them rise tallpoles surmounted with starling houses, whilst the roofs are shaded bythe dusty green of pollard willows and elder bushes, the sole miserablevegetation of suburbs where dwell the poorest classes.
The windows of these hovels, their glass stained green with age, seemto watch each other with the shifty, cowardly glance of thieves. Upthe middle of the street crawls a winding channel passing betweendeep holes, washed out by the heavy rain; here and there lie heapsof old, broken bricks and stones overgrown with weeds, the remainsof the various attempts made from time to time by the inhabitants tobuild dwellings; but these attempts have been rendered useless bythe torrents of stormwater sweeping down from the town above. On thehill nestle, amongst the luxuriant green of gardens, magnificentstone-built houses; the steeples of churches rise proudly towards theblue heavens, their golden crosses glittering in the sun.
In wet weather the town pours into this outlying suburb all its surfacewater, and in the dry weather all its dust, and this miserable row ofhovels has the appearance of having been swept down at one of thesemoments by some powerful hand.
Crushed into the ground, these half-rotten human shelters seem to coverall the hill, whilst, stained by the sun, by the dust, and by therains, they take on them the dirty nondescript colour of old decayingwood.
At the end of this miserable street stood an old, long, two-storeyedhouse, which seemed to have been cast out in this way from the town,and which had been bought by the merchant Petounnikoff. This was thelast house in the row, standing just under the hill, and stretchingbeyond it were fields, ending at a distance of half a verst from thehouse in an abrupt fall towards the river. This large and very oldhouse had a more sinister aspect than its neighbours; all its wallswere crooked, and in its rows of windows there was not one that hadpreserved its regular form; whilst the remnants of the window paneswere of the dirty green colour of stagnant water.
The spaces between the windows were disfigured with discoloured patchesof fallen plaster, as if time had written the history of the house inthese hieroglyphics. Its roof, sagging forwards towards the street,increased its pathetic aspect; it seemed as if the house were bowingitself towards the ground, and were humbly waiting for the last strokeof fate to crumble it into dust, or into a deformed heap of half-rottenruins.
The front gates were ajar. O