TALES FROM GORKY

TRANSLATED FROM THE RUSSIAN

WITH

A BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE OF THE AUTHOR

BY

R. NISBET BAIN

THIRD EDITION

NEW YORK

FUNK AND WAGNALL'S COMPANY, 30, LAFAYETTE PLACE

1902

CONTENTS.

	I.	IN THE STEPPE
	II.	TWENTY-SIX OF US AND ONE OTHER
	III.	ONE AUTUMN NIGHT
	IV.	A ROLLING STONE
	V.	THE GREEN KITTEN
	VI.	COMRADES
	VII.	HER LOVER
	VIII.	CHELKASH
	IX.	CHUMS

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.

We should not give very much for the chances of a poor friendless ladof feeble constitution, vagrant disposition, and an overpowering tastefor excitement, who should be turned adrift to shift for himself at anage when most young lads are still safe at school. The fortunes of sucha one, if adequately recorded, might, and no doubt would, be infinitelymore engrossing, if less edifying, than the humdrum chronicle of thesteady clerk or patient mechanic; but a prison, or workhouse infirmary,might safely be predicted as the ultimate and inevitable receptacle ofsuch a piece of human flotsam.

But now let us suppose—a handy supposition, I admit—that ourimaginary little nomad were endowed with that illuminating spark wecall genius; let us suppose, too, that in late boyhood, or earlymanhood, he learnt to love letters, and deliberately set aboutdescribing his extraordinary experiences, as well as the strangebedfellows whom misery from time to time threw in his way—whatpiquant, what grotesque pen-and-ink sketches we might expect from suchan inspired ragamuffin! It would be Oliver Twist or Humphrey Clinkertelling his own tale without the softening intervention of Mr. CharlesDickens or Mr. Tobias Smollett.

Let us further supp

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