“Of all the kinds of work I have tried, this was the hardest. In Kasan I came into relations with the ‘Lost People’ and lived long with them. I worked in the villages on the Volga, now as a woodchopper, now as a porter, and during this time read every book I could lay my hands on, which various kind people supplied me with. I got along very badly, and in 1888 even tried to kill myself by shooting a bullet into my body. “I lay a long time in the hospital, but finally recovered and went into the apple trade. I finally turned my back on inhospitable Kasan, to try my luck in Zarizyn, where I got a job as a railroad attendant. Then I returned to Nijni, where I had to go up for the army. But since they could not make use of fellows with holes in their bodies, I escaped the fate of becoming a soldier, and instead became a Munich beer seller. I soon exchanged this calling for that of a clerk in the office of Lanin, a lawyer of Nijni Novgorod. “That was a turning point in my life. Lanin’s influence on my development was immeasurably great. I owe this cultivated and great-hearted man more than to any one else. But, however agreeable I found life with Lanin, where my soul could at last find room to breathe, I was again impelled to the life of a tramp. And I have tramped all over Russia. Where have I not been! What have I not seen and suffered! What kind of work have I not done!” COMRADES _By Maxim Gorki_ I The burning July sun blazed dazzlingly over Smolkena, pouring down upon the old huts a generous stream of resplendent rays. A goodly share of the sunlight fell to the roof of the _Starosta’s_[2] hut, newly recovered with smoothly-planed, yellow, fragrant planks. It was Sunday, and almost the entire population of the village had gone out into the street, thickly overgrown with grass and bespattered in spots with quantities of dry mud. A large group of peasants--men and women--had gathered in front of the _Starosta’s_ hut. Some sat on the earthwork around the house, others simply stood; while the children chased one another in and out of the throng, calling forth from the elders rebukes and blows.