Page:Ossendowski - The Shadow of the Gloomy East.djvu/29

Rh Thus, while in the country we behold primitive men and primeval passions, the instincts of the original "homo sapiens," turned nomad and pagan, according to whose views crimes are not sins, we are being shown quite a different picture, perhaps even more dangerous from a psychological point of view, by the poet of barefeeters and revolutionary workmen in the towns—Gorky.

When he saw that the types of heroes, represented for instance in the novel Mother, were not exactly attractive in their nudity, he tried to adorn them with the mantle of respect for old age, of filial love, of fidelity to ideals; but then his figures became wooden, astonishingly like marionettes of a pantomime, like vociferous provincial actors. Nobody could believe that these worthies ever lived.

But when those heroes dream of "the naked man upon the naked earth," when they want to throw one massive, collective bomb of revenge into the human ant-heap—their words burn with true force.

Let us consider the facts. There came the October revolution, that triumph of the illiterate, the day of the "approaching brute," of the Russian "Apocalyptic monster." What were Gorky's heroes doing? Why, they robbed and destroyed the workshops of their own labour and the property of the whole nation, condemning all to misery and to degrading independence on other nations. They have killed off or driven off the brains of industry—the technicians and capitalists, the