We may assume that in this they represent Gorky himself.

But although all his heroes are seeking the meaning of life, no two of them are alike.

His characters, like his landscapes, grip the heart, and once known, leave an ineffaceable imprint.

Although he propounds problems of life among various classes, he differs from the majority of people, in not regarding a full stomach as the panacea for the poor man.

On the contrary (as in "Foma Gordyeeff," his most ambitious effort), he seems to regard precisely this as the cause of more ruin than the life of "the barefoot brigade," the tramps and stepchildren of Dame Fortune, with whom he principally deals.