My Childhood - Maxim Gorky [34]
It seemed to me that she had brought death to grandmother, and darting at her I yelled with all my force:
"Go away!"
Grandfather seized me, not too gently, and, looking very cross, carried me to the attic.
CHAPTER VI
WHEN the spring came my uncles separated-- Jaakov remained in the town and Michael established himself by the river, while grandfather bought a large, interesting house in Polevoi Street, with a tavern on the ground-floor, comfortable little rooms under the roof, and a garden running down to the causeway which simply bristled with leafless willow branches.
"Canes for you!" grandfather said, merrily winking at me, as after looking at the garden, I accompanied him on the soft, slushy road. "I shall begin teaching you to read and write soon, so they will come in handy."
The house was packed full of lodgers, with the exception of the top floor, where grandfather had a room for himself and for the reception of visitors, and the attic, in which grandmother and I had established ourselves. Its window gave on to the street, and one could see, by leaning over the sill, in the evenings and on holidays, drunken men crawling out of the tavern and staggering up the road, shouting and tumbling about. Sometimes they were thrown out into the road, just as if they had been sacks, and then they would try to make their way into the tavern again; the door would bang, and creak, and the hinges would squeak, and then a fight would begin. It was very interesting to look down on all this.
Every morning grandfather went to the workshops of his sons to help them to get settled, and every evening he would return tired, depressed, and cross.
Grandmother cooked, and sewed, and pottered about in the kitchen and flower gardens, revolving about something or other all day long, like a gigantic top set spinning by an invisible whip; taking snuff continually, and sneezing, and wiping her perspiring face as she said:
"Good luck to you, good old world! Well now, Oleysha, my darling, isn't this a nice quiet life now? This is thy doing, Queen of Heaven--that everything has turned out so well!"
But her idea of a quiet life was not mine. From morning till night the other occupants of the house ran in and out and up and down tumultuously, thus demonstrating their neighborliness--always in a hurry, yet always late; always complaining, and always ready to call out: "Akulina Ivanovna!"
And Akulina Ivanovna, invariably amiable, and impartially attentive to them all, would help herself to
snuff and carefully wipe her nose and fingers on a red check handkerchief before replying:
"To get rid of lice, my friend, you must wash yourself oftener and take baths of mint-vapor; but if the lice are under the skin, you should take a tablespoonful of the purest goose-grease, a teaspoonful of sulphur, three drops of quicksilver--stir all these ingredients together seven times with a potsherd in an earthenware vessel, and use the mixture as an ointment. But remember that if you stir it with a wooden or a bone spoon the mercury will be wasted, and that if you put a brass or silver spoon into it, it will do you harm to use it."
Sometimes, after consideration, she would say:
"You had better go to Asaph, the chemist at Petchyor, my good woman, for I am sure I don't know how to advise you."
She acted as midwife, and as peacemaker in family quarrels and disputes; she would cure infantile maladies, and recite the "Dream of Our Lady," so that the women might learn it by heart "for luck," and was always ready to give advice in matters of housekeeping.
"The cucumber itself will tell you when pickling time comes; when it falls to the ground and gives forth a curious odor, then is the time to pluck it. Kvass must be roughly dealt with, and it does not like much sweetness, so prepare it with raisins, to which you may
add one zolotnik to every two and a half gallons. . . . You can make curds in different ways. There 's the Donski flavor, and the Gimpanski, and the Caucasian."
All