The outcasts Author:Maksim Gorky Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: I'm forty, you are fifty. There is no one under thirty among us. And even if one were twenty, one could not live very long in such surroundings as these." " A... more »nd then again, what new phase are we ? Tramps, it seems to me, have always existed in the world," says " Scraps" satirically. " Tramps created Rome," says the schoolmaster. " Yes; that was so !" said the captain jubilantly. " Romulus and Remus, were they not tramps ? And we—when our time comes—we shall also create." " A breach of the peace!" interjects " Scraps," and laughs, pleased with his own wit. His laugh is wicked, and jars on the nerves. He is echoed by Simtzoff, by the deacon, and by " Tarass and a half." The naive eyes of the lad " Meteor " burn with a bright glow, and his cheeks flush red. " The End " mutters, in tones that fall like a hammer on the heads of the audience— " All that's trash and nonsense, and dreams !" It was strange to hear these people, outcasts from life, ragged, saturated with vodka, anger, irony, and filth, discussing life in this way. For the captain such discussions were a feast. He spoke more than the others, and that gave him a chance of feeling his superiority. For however low a person may fall, he can never refuse himself the delight of feeling stronger and better off than the rest. Aristide Kouvalda abused this sensation, and never seemed to have enough of it, much to the disgust of " Scraps," " The Top," and the other outcasts, little interested in similar questions. Politics was with them the favourite topic. A discussion on the necessity of conquering India, and of checking England, would continue endlessly. The question as to the best means of sweeping the Jews off the face of the earth, was no less hotly debated. In this latter question the leader was always "...« less