"I should like to say to the intelligent classes: 'You people are the best in my country! Your life is paid for by the blood and tears of ten Russian generations! How much you have cost your country! And what do you for her? What have you given to life? What have you done?...'" The absence of all independence, of any passion even a little sincere, the complete submission of heart and mind to the old prescribed morality, the constant effort to realize mere personal ambitions--all of these are the reproaches that Gorky addresses to cultivated man, whose moral disintegration he proves has been produced by routine and prejudice. In contrast to them, the vagabonds are the instinctive enemies of all slavery, in any form whatsoever. The complete independence of their personality means everything to them. And no material conditions, no matter how prosperous, will induce them to make the least compromise on this point. One of these "restless" types, Konovalov, tells how, after he had bound himself to the wife of a rich merchant, he could have lived in the greatest comfort, but he abandoned everything, the easy life, and even the woman, whom he loved well enough, in order to go out and look for the unknown. This is a common adventure on the part of Gorky's heroes. * * * * * What is the cause of this restlessness? "Well, you see," explains Konovalov, "I became weary. It was such weariness, I must tell you, little brother, that at moments I simply could not live. It seemed to me as if I were the only man on the whole earth, and, with the exception of myself, there was no living thing anywhere. And in those moments, everything was repugnant to me, everything in the world; I became a burden to myself, and if everybody were dead, I wouldn't even sigh! It must have been a disease with me, and the reason why I took to drink, for, before this time, I never drank." For the same reasons, in "Anguish," a workingman leaves his mistress and his employer, the miller. Where does this anguish come from? Perhaps it is the simple result of a psychological process which, Konovalov admits, is nothing other than a disease. It is very possible that, in impulsive acts, a psychiatrist would see something analogous to alcoholism, or the symptoms of some other anomaly. Turgenev had already analyzed a similar case in "The Madman." When Michael Poltev is asked what evil spirit led him to drink and to risk his life, he always refers to his anguish. "'Why this anguish?' asks his uncle. "'Why?... When the brain is free, one begins to think of poverty, injustice, Russia.... And that's the end! anguish hastens on.... One is ready to send a bullet through one's head! There's nothing left to do but get drunk!...' "'And why do you associate Russia with all of that? Why, you are nothing but a sluggard!' "'But I can do nothing, dear uncle!... Teach me what I ought to do, to what task I ought to consecrate my life. I will do it gladly!...'"