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A Night s Lodging 295
for many years thereafter he lived the life of the
bosyaki. He tramped through the length and
breadth of Russia; he lived with the peasant, the
factory worker and the outcast. He knew them
intimately; he understood their psychology, for he
was not only with them, but of them. Therefore
Gorki has been able to present such a vivid picture
of the underworld.
"
A Night s Lodging
"
portrays a lodging
house, hideous and foul, where gather the social
derelicts, the thief, the gambler, the ex-artist, the
ex-aristocrat, the prostitute. All of them had at
one time an ambition, a goal, but because of their
lack of will and the injustice and cruelty of the
world, they were forced into the depths and cast
back whenever they attempted to rise. They are
the superfluous ones, dehumanized and brutalized.
In this poisonous air, where everything withers
and dies, we nevertheless find character. Na
tasha, a young girl, still retains her wholesome in
stincts. She had never known love or sympathy,
had gone hungry all her days, and had tasted noth
ing but abuse from her brutal sister, on whom she
was dependent. Vaska Pepel, the young thief, a
lodger in the house, strikes a responsive chord in
her the moment he makes her feel that he cares
for her and that she might be of spiritual and
moral help to him. Vaska, like Natasha, is a
product of his social environment.
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