My Childhood - Maxim Gorky [21]
Tsiganok was motionless, except for the fact that as he lay with his hands alongside his body, his fingers scratched at the floor, and his stained fingernails shone in the sunlight.
Nyanya Eugenia, crouching beside him, put a slender candle into his hand, but he could not hold it and it fell to the floor, the wick being drenched in blood. Nyanya Eugenia picked it up and wiped it dry, and made another attempt to fix it in those restless fingers. A gentle whispering made itself heard in the kitchen; it seemed to blow me away from the door like the wind, but I held firmly to the doorpost.
"He stumbled!" Uncle Jaakov was explaining, in a colorless voice, shuddering and turning his head about. His face was gray and haggard; his eyes had lost their color, and blinked incessantly. "He fell, and it fell on top of him . . . and hit him on the back. We should have been disabled if we had not dropped the cross in time."
"This is your doing," said Gregory dully.
"But how . . .?"
"IWdidit!"
All this time the blood was flowing, and by the door had already formed a pool which seemed to grow darker and deeper. With another effusion of bloodflecked foam, Tsiganok roared out as if he were dreaming, and then collapsed, seeming to grow flatter and flatter, as if he were glued to the floor, or sinking through it.
"Michael went on horseback to the church to find father," whispered Uncle Jaakov, "and I brought him here in a cab as quickly as I could. It is a good job that I was not standing under the arms myself, or I should have been like this."
Nyanya Eugenia again fixed the candle in Tsiganok's hand, dropping wax and tears in his palm.
"That's right! Glue his head to the floor, you careless creature," said Gregory gruffly and rudely.
"What do you mean?"
"Why don't you take off his cap?"
Nyanya dragged Ivan's cap from his head, which struck dully on the floor. Then it fell to one side and the blood flowed profusely from one side of his mouth only. This went on for a terribly long time. At first I expected Tsiganok to sit up on the floor with a sigh, and say sleepily, "Phew! It is baking hot!" as he used to do after dinner on Sundays.
But he did not rise; on the contrary he seemed to be sinking into the ground. The sun had withdrawn from him now; its bright beams had grown shorter, and fell only on the window-sill. His whole form grew darker; his fingers no longer moved; the froth had disappeared from his lips. Round his head three candles stood out from the darkness, waving their golden flames, lighting up his dishevelled blue-black hair, and throwing quivering yellow ripples on his swarthy cheek, illuminating the tip of his pointed nose and his blood-stained teeth.
Nyanya, kneeling at his side, shed tears as she lisped: "My little dove! My bird of consolation!"
It was painfully cold. I crept under the table and hid myself there. Then grandfather came tumbling into the kitchen, in his coat of racoon fur; with him came grandmother in a cloak with a fur collar, Uncle Michael, the children, and many people not belonging to the house.
Throwing his coat on the floor, grandfather cried:
"Riff-raff! See what you have done for me, between you, in your carelessness! He would have been worth his weight in gold in five years--that's certain!"
The coats which had been thrown on the floor hindered me from seeing Ivan, so I crept out and knocked myself against grandfather's legs. He