My Childhood - Maxim Gorky [16]
"If your father were here, Alexei Maximitch, he would have added to the fun. A merry fellow he was--always cheerful. You remember him, don't you?"
"No."
"You don't? Well, once he and your grandmother --but wait a bit."
Tall and emaciated, somewhat resembling a conventional icon, he stood up, and bowing to grandmother, entreated in an extraordinarily gruff voice:
"Akulina Ivanovna, will you be so kind as to dance for us as you did once with Maxim Savatyevitch? It would cheer us up."
"What are you talking about, my dear man? What do you mean, Gregory Ivanovitch?" cried grandmother, smiling and bridling. "Fancy me dancing at my time of life! I should only make people laugh."
But suddenly she jumped up with a youthful air, arranged her skirts, and very upright, tossed her ponderous head and darted across the kitchen, crying:
"Well, laugh if you want to! And a lot of good may it do you. Now, Jaasha, play up!"
My uncle let himself go, and, closing his eyes, went on playing very slowly. Tsiganok stood still for a moment, and then leaped over to where grandmother was and encircled her, resting on his haunches, while she skimmed the floor without a sound, as if she were floating on air, her arms spread out, her eyebrows raised, her dark eyes gazing into space. She appeared very comical to me, and I made fun of her; but Gregory held up his finger sternly, and all the grown-up peopie looked disapprovingly over to my side of the room.
"Don't make a noise, Ivan," said Gregory, and Tsiganok obediently jumped to one side, and sat by the door, while Nyanya Eugenia, thrusting out her Adam's apple, began to sing in her low-pitched, pleasant voice:
"All the week till Saturday
She does earn what e'er she may,
Making lace from morn till night
Till she 's nearly lost her sight."
Grandmother seemed more as if she were telling a story than dancing. She moved softly, dreamily; swaying slightly, sometimes looking about her from under her arms, the whole of her huge body wavering uncertainly, her feet feeling their way carefully. Then she stood still as if suddenly frightened by something; her face quivered and became overcast . . . but directly after it was again illuminated by her pleasant, cordial smile. Swinging to one side as if to make way for some one, she appeared to be refusing to give her hand, then letting her head droop seemed to die; again, she was listening to some one and smiling joyfully . . . and suddenly she was whisked from her place and turned round and round like a whirligig, her figure seemed to become more elegant, she seemed to grow taller, and we could not tear our eyes away from her-- so triumphantly beautiful and altogether charming did she appear in that moment of marvelous rejuvenation. And Nyanya Eugenia piped:
"Then on Sundays after Mass
Till midnight dances the lass,
Leaving as late as she dare,
Holidays with her are rare."
When she had finished dancing, grandmother returned to her place by the samovar. They all applauded her, and as she put her hair straight, she said:
"That is enough! You have never seen real dancing. At our home in Balakya, there was one young girl--I have forgotten her name now, with many others--but when you saw her dance you cried for joy. To look at her was a treat. You did n't want anything else. How I envied her--sinner that I was!"
"Singers and dancers are the greatest people in the world," said Nyanya Eugenia gravely, and she began to sing something about King David, while Uncle Jaakov, embracing Tsiganok, said to him:
"You ought to dance in the wineshops. You would turn people's heads."
"I wish I could sing!" complained Tsiganok. "If God had given me a voice I should have been singing ten years by now, and should have gone on singing if only as a monk."
They all drank vodka, and Gregory drank an extra lot. As she poured out glass after glass for him, grandmother warned him:
"Take care, Grisha, or you 'll become quite blind."
"I don't care! I 've no more use for my eyesight," he replied firmly.
He drank,