E-text prepared by Al Haines
TWENTY-SIX AND ONE and OTHER STORIES
by
MAXIME GORKY
From the Vagabond Series
Translated from the Russian
Preface by Ivan Strannik
New York
J. F. Taylor & Company
1902
PREFACE
MAXIME GORKY
Russian literature, which for half a century has abounded in happysurprises, has again made manifest its wonderful power of innovation.A tramp, Maxime Gorky, lacking in all systematic training, has suddenlyforced his way into its sacred domain, and brought thither the freshspontaneity of his thoughts and character. Nothing as individual or asnew has been produced since the first novels of Tolstoy. His work owesnothing to its predecessors; it stands apart and alone. It, therefore,obtains more than an artistic success, it causes a real revolution.
Gorky was born of humble people, at Nizhni-Novgorod, in 1868 or1869,—he does not know which—and was early left an orphan. He wasapprenticed to a shoemaker, but ran away, a sedentary life not being tohis taste. He left an engraver's in the same manner, and then went towork with a painter of ikoni, or holy pictures. He is next found tobe a cook's boy, then an assistant to a gardener. He tried life inthese diverse ways, and not one of them pleased him. Until hisfifteenth year, he had only had the time to learn to read a little; hisgrandfather taught him to read a prayer-book in the old Slav dialect.He retained from his first studies only a distaste for anything printeduntil the time when, cook's boy on board a steam-boat, he was initiatedby the chief cook into more attractive reading matter. Gogol, GlebeOuspenski, Dumas pere were revelations to him. His imagination tookfire; he was seized with a "fierce desire" for instruction. He set outfor Kazan, "as though a poor child could receive instructiongratuitously," but he soon perceived that "it was contrary to custom."Discouraged, he became a baker's boy with the wages of three rubles(about $1.50) a month. In the midst of worse fatigue and ruderprivations, he always recalls the bakery of Kazan with peculiarbitterness; later, in his story, "Twenty-Six and One," he utilized thispainful remembrance: "There were twenty-six of us—twenty-six livingmachines, locked up in a damp cellar, where we patted dough frommorning till night, making biscuits and cakes. The windows of ourcellar looked out into a ditch, which was covered with bricks growngreen from dampness, the window frames were obstructed from the outsideby a dense iron netting, and the light of the sun could not peep inthrough the panes, which were covered with flour dust. . . ."
Gorky dreamed of the free air. He abandoned the bakery. Alwaysreading, studying feverishly, drinking with vagrants, expending hisstrength in every possible manner, he is one day at work in a saw-mill,another, 'longshoreman on the quays. . . . In 1888, seized withdespair, he attempted to kill himself. "I was," said he, "as ill as Icould be, and I continued to live to sell apples. . . ." He afterwardbecame a gate-keeper and later retailed kvass in the streets. Ahappy chance brought him to the notice of a lawyer, who interestedhimself in him, directed his reading and organized his instruction.But his restless disposition drew him back to his wandering life; hetraveled over Russia in every direction and tried his hand at everytrade, including, henceforth, that of man of letters.
He began by writing a short story, "Makar Tchoudra," which waspublished by a provincial newspaper.