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298 Maxim Gorki
him "... and so they whipped each other at my com
mand. And when they had each had a sound beating,
they said to me: "Grandfather," said they, "for the
sake of Christ give us a piece of bread. We haven t a
bite in our bodies." They were the thieves, who had
fallen upon me with the hand ax. Yes . . .
they were a
pair of splendid fellows. ... I said to them, "If
you had
asked for bread." Then they answered: "We had got
ten past that. . . . We had asked and asked and nobody
would give us anything . . . endurance was worn out,"
. . . and so they remained with me the whole winter.
One of them, Stephen by name, liked to take the rifle and
go into the woods . . . and the other, Jakoff, was con
stantly ill, always coughing . . . the three of us watched
the place, and when spring came, they said,
"
Farewell,
grandfather," and went away to Russia. . . .
Natasha, Were they convicts, escaping?
Luka. They were . . .
fugitives . . .
they had left
their colony ... a pair of splendid fellows. ... If I
had not had pity on them who knows what would have
happened. They might have killed me. . . . Then they
would be taken to court again, put in prison, sent back to
Siberia. . . .
Why all that? You learn nothing good in
prison, nor in Siberia . . . but a man, what can he not
learn. Man may teach his fellowman something good
. . .
very simply.
Impressed and strengthened by Luka s wonder
ful faith and vision, the unfortunates make an at
tempt to rise from the social swamp. But he has
come too late into their lives. They have been
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