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This is the course adopted by the valiant Englishmen of the Independent Labour Party and of the Union of Democratic Control, and by those fine men of untrammelled mind Bertrand Russell, E. D. Morel, Norman Angell, Bernard Shaw; this is the path taken by certain persecuted Germans, too few in number; this is the path taken by the Italian socialists, by the Russian socialists, by Gorki, the master of Sorrow and of Pity; and this is the path taken by certain free Frenchmen.
This happened on a steamer on the great river, where Gorki was employed as an assistant in the galley. The cook was a rough giant, who spent all his spare moments reading, having an old trunk full of books. It was a miscellaneous assortment, containing Lives of Saints, stories by Dumas pere, and fortunately some works by Gogol.
Gorki speaks poetically in his article of the "fantastic city all of fire" that one sees at night. But as he mingles with the throng, disgust fills his lonely heart. "The public looks at them silently. It breathes in the moist air, and feeds its soul with dismal ennui, which extinguishes thought as a wet, dirty cloth extinguishes the fire of a smouldering coal."
What did matter was that they should say amusing things, things as flattering as possible to national vanity. Foreigners had to put up with a good deal with the exception of the idol of the hour: for there was always a fashionable idol: Grieg, or Wagner, or Nietzsche, or Gorki, or D'Annunzio. It never lasted long, and the idol was certain one fine morning to be thrown on to the rubbish-heap.
He chose to write under the name Gorki, which means "bitter," a happy appellation for this modern Ishmaelite. He was born in 1869, at Nizhni Novgorod, in a dyer's shop. He lost both father and mother when he was a child, but his real mother was the river Volga, on whose banks he was born, and on whose broad breast he has found the only repose he understands.
And it doesn't do for man to taste of the tree of knowledge of good and evil.... Ah, well, it's not for long!" he added. "However, you're sleepy, and it's time for me to sleep. Go back to Gorki!" said Prince Andrew suddenly. "Oh no!" Pierre replied, looking at Prince Andrew with frightened, compassionate eyes. "Go, go! Before a battle one must have one's sleep out," repeated Prince Andrew.
The smile of Gorki was broader and not so dry as the smile of Mark, but both smiles were distinctly those of fellow-humorists who understood each other. Gorki made a little speech which was translated by a Russian who knew English.
Being a lady of courage and resource, she filled her new rôle with perfect success, and completely outwitted her envious rivals. The victory was snatched, by the actress's own energy, from the very jaws of Liberty. Far more unfortunate was the fate of M. Gorki, who visited America to preach the gospel of Freedom, as he thought, in willing ears.
I can hear that actor now, as with stupid fascination he continually repeats the diagnosis a physician once made of his case: "Mein Organismus ist durch und durch mit Alcool vergiftet!" Gorki, in spite of his zeal for the revolutionary cause, has no remedy for the disease he calls Life. He is eaten up with rage at the world in general, and tries to make us all share his disgust with it.
Artsybashev, in his terrible novel, "Sanin," has given an admirable analysis of this great Russian type in the character of Jurii, who finally commits suicide simply because he cannot find a working theory of life. Writers so different as Tolstoi and Gorki have given plenty of good examples.
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