Twenty-Six Men and a Girl

“Twenty-Six Men and a Girl” is a short story written by the Russian writer Maxim Gorky in 1899, and is one of his most famous. It is a pioneering tale of social realism (the story predates Soviet socialist realism), and is a lament of lost ideals. Twenty-six men slave away in a cellar, making kringles, looked down on by all around them, including the bread bakers. Their only joy in their lives is the sixteen-year-old Tanya, who visits them every morning to collect kringles. A new bread baker, a soldier, visits the kringle makers. He befriends them, and boasts of his success with women. The kringle bakers bet him that he will not be able to seduce their beloved Tanya … and watch in an agony of tension as he takes on the bet.