TALES OF
TWO COUNTRIES
BY
MAXIM GORKY
LONDON
T. WERNER LAURIE, LTD.
8 ESSEX STREET, STRAND
1914
"Aleksyei Maksimovitch Pyeshkof (pseudonym Maxim Gorky). Born atNijni-Novgorod, March 14, 1868. A Russian writer. He led a vagabondlife for many years, working and tramping with the poorest classesin Russia, and his writings record the tragedy of poverty and crimeas he found it. Among the best known of his works are 'MAKAR CHUDRA'(1890), 'EMILIAN PIBGAI,' 'CHELKASH,' 'OSHYBKA' (1895), 'TYENOVYAKARTINKI'(1895), 'TOSKA,' 'KONOVALOV' (1896), 'MALVA' (1896), 'FOMAGORDYEEV'(1901), 'MUJIKI' (1901). Three volumes of short stories(1898-99), 'MIEST-CHANYE' (1902), 'COMRADES' (1907), 'THE SPY' (1908),and 'IN THE DEPTHS,' a play". Century Cyclopædia of Names.
CONTENTS
ITALIAN TALES
MAN AND THE SIMPLON
AN UNWRITTEN SONATA
SUN AND SEA
LOVE OF LOVERS
HEARTS AND CREEDS
THE TRAITOR'S MOTHER
THE FREAK
THE MIGHT OF MOTHERHOOD
A MESSAGE FROM THE SEA
THE HONOUR OF THE VILLAGE
THE SOCIALIST
THE HUNCHBACK
ON THE STEAMER
RUSSIAN TALES
THE PROFESSOR
THE POET
THE WRITER
THE MAN WITH A NATIONAL FACE
THE LIBERAL
THE JEWS AND THEIR FRIENDS
HARD TO PLEASE
PASSIVE RESISTANCE
MAKING A SUPERMAN
ITALIAN TALES
MAN AND THE SIMPLON
A blue lake is deeply set in mountains capped with eternal snow. Adark network of gardens descends in gorgeous folds to the water. Whitehouses that look like lumps of sugar peer down from the bank into thelake; and everything around is as quiet and peaceful as the sleep of achild.
It is morning. A perfume of flowers is wafted gently from themountains. The sun is new risen and the dew still glistens on theleaves of trees and the petals of flowers. A road like a grey ribbonthrusts into the quiet mountain gorge—a stone-paved road which yetlooks as soft as velvet, so that one almost has a desire to stroke it.
Near a pile of stones sits a workman, like some dark coloured beetle;on his br