ORLÓFF AND HIS WIFE
TALES OF THE BAREFOOT BRIGADE
BY
MAXIM GORKY
BY
ISABEL F. HAPGOOD
NEW YORK
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
1901
CONTENTS
Orlóff and His Wife (1897)[*] 3
Konováloff (1896) 95
The Khan and His Son (1896) 177
The Exorcism (1896) 189
Men with Pasts (1897) 195
The Insolent Man (1897) 293
Várenka Ólesoff (1897) 323
Comrades (1897) 465
[*] Date of first publication.
ORLÓFF AND HIS WIFE
Almost every Saturday, just before the All-Night Vigil Service,[1]from two windows in the cellar of merchant Petúnnikoff's old andfilthy house, opening on the narrow court-yard encumbered with variousutensils, and built up with wooden servants'-quarters ricketty withage, broke forth the vehement shrieks of a woman:
[1] The evening service, composed of Vespers and Matins, whichis used on Saturdays, and on the Eves of most other Feast-days. Sundaybegins with sunset on Saturday, in the Holy Catholic Orthodox Church ofthe East, and the appointed evening service is obligatory before theLiturgy can be celebrated on Sunday morning.—Translator.
"Stop! Stop, you drunken devil!" the woman cried in a low contraltovoice.
"Let go!" replied a man's tenor voice.
"I won't, I won't. I'll give it to you, you monster!"
"You li-ie! You will let me go!"
"You may kill me—but I won't!"
"You? You li-ie, you heretic!"
"Heavens! He has murdered me ... he-eavens!"
"Will you let go?!"
"Beat away, you wild beast, beat me to death!"
"You can wait.... I won't do it all at once!"
At the first words of this dialogue, Sénka Tchízhik, the apprentice ofhouse-painter Sutchkóff, who ground paint whole days together in one ofthe small sheds in the court-yard,[Pg 4] flew headlong thence, his littleeyes, black as those of a mouse, sparkling, yelling at the top of hisvoice:
"Shoemaker Orlóff and his wife are fighting! My eye! what a lively timethey're having!"
Tchízhik, who was passionately fond of all possible sorts of events,rushed to the windows of the Orlóffs' lodgings, flung himself on theground on his stomach, and hanging down his shaggy, saucy head, withits bold, thin face streaked with ochre and reddish-bro