They do not call hunger "economic pressure"; they
call it hunger. They do not call rich men "examples of
capitalistic concentration," they call them rich men. And this
note of plainness and of something nobly prosaic is as
characteristic of Gorky, the most recent and in some ways the
most modern and sophisticated of Russian authors, as it is of
Tolstoy or any of the Tolstoyan type of mind. The very title of
this story strikes the note of this sudden and simple vision.
The philanthropist writing long letters to the Daily Telegraph
says, of men living in a slum, that "their degeneration is of
such a kind as almost to pass the limits of the semblance of
humanity," and we read the whole thing with a tepid assent as we
should read phrases about the virtues of Queen Victoria or the
dignity of the House of Commons. The Russian novelist, when he
describes a dosshouse, says, "Creatures that once were Men." And
we are arrested, and regard the facts as a kind of terrible fairy
tale. This story is a test case of the Russian manner, for it is
in itself a study of decay, a study of failure, and a study of
old age.
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