My Childhood - Maxim Gorky [32]
On a box by the door sat grandmother, doubled up, motionless, hardly breathing. I went and stood close to her and stroked her warm, soft, wet cheeks, but she did not seem to feel my touch, as she murmured over and over again hoarsely:
"O God! have You no compassion left for me and my children? Lord! have mercy--!"
It seems that grandfather had only lived in that house in Polevoi Street for a year--from one spring to another--yet during that time it had acquired an unpleasant notoriety. Almost every Sunday boys ran about our door, chanting gleefully:
"There 's another row going on at the Kashmirins!" Uncle Michael generally put in an appearance in the evening and held the house in a state of siege all night, putting its occupants into a frenzy of fear: sometimes he was accompanied by two or three assistants--repulsive-looking loafers of the lowest class. They used to make their way unseen from the causeway to the garden, and, once there, they indulged their drunken whims to the top of their bent, stripping the raspberry and currant bushes, and sometimes making a raid on the washhouse and breaking everything in it which could be broken--washing-stools, benches, kettles--smashing the stove, tearing up the flooring, and pulling down the framework of the door.
Grandfather, grim and mute, stood at the window listening to the noise made by these destroyers of his property; while grandmother, whose form could not be descried in the darkness, ran about the yard, crying in a voice of entreaty:
"Mischka! what are you thinking of? Mischka!"
For answer, a torrent of abuse in Russian, hideous as the ravings of a madman, was hurled at her from the garden by the brute, who was obviously ignorant of the meaning, and insensible to the effect of the words which he vomited forth.
I knew that I must not run after grandmother at such a time, and I was afraid to be alone, so I went down to grandfather's room; but directly he saw me, he cried:
"Get out! Curse you!"
I ran up to the garret and looked out on the yard and garden from the dormer-window, trying to keep grandmother in sight. I was afraid that they would kill her, and I screamed, and called out to her, but she did not come to me; only my drunken uncle, hearing my voice, abused my mother in furious and obscene language.
On one of these evenings grandfather was unwell, and as he uneasily moved his head, which was swathed in a towel, upon his pillow, he lamented shrilly:
"For this I have lived, and sinned, and heaped up riches! If it were not for the shame and disgrace of it, I would call in the police, and let them be taken before the Governor to-morrow. But look at the disgrace! What sort of parents are they who bring the law to bear on their children? Well, there 's nothing for you to do but to lie still under it, old man!"
He suddenly jumped out of bed, and went, staggeringly, to the window.
Grandmother caught his arm: "Where are you going?" she asked.
"Light up!" he said, breathing hard.
When grandmother had lit the candle, he took the candlestick from her, and holding it close to him, as a soldier would hold a gun, he shouted from the window in loud, mocking tones:
"Hi, Mischka! You burglar! You mangy, mad
Instantly the top pane of glass was shattered to atoms, and half a brick fell on the table beside grandmother.
"Why don't you aim straight?" shrieked grandfather hysterically.
Grandmother just took him in her arms, as she would have taken me, and carried him back to bed, saying over and over