My Childhood - Maxim Gorky [36]
And she laughed heartily, wrinkling her nose comically, while her eyes, shining pensively, seemed to caress me, more eloquent even than her words.
I remember one quiet evening having tea with grandmother in grandfather's room. He was not well, and was sitting on his bed undressed, with a large towel wrapped round his shoulders, sweating profusely and breathing quickly and heavily. His green eyes were dim, his face puffed and livid; his small, pointed ears also were quite purple, and his hand shook pitifully as he stretched it out to take his cup of tea. His manner was gentle too; he was quite unlike himself.
"Why have n't you given me any sugar?" he asked pettishly, like a spoiled child.
"I have put honey in it; it is better for you," replied grandmother kindly but firmly.
Drawing in his breath and making a sound in his throat like the quacking of a duck, he swallowed the hot tea at a gulp.
"I shall die this time," he said; "see if I don't!"
"Don't you worry! I will take care of you."
"That's all very well; but if I die now I might as well have never lived. Everything will fall to pieces."
"Now, don't you talk. Lie quiet."
He lay silent for a minute with closed eyes, twisting his thin beard round his fingers, and smacking his discolored lips together; but suddenly he shook himself as if some one had run a pin into him, and began to utter his thoughts aloud:
"Jaaschka and Mischka ought to get married again as soon as possible. New ties would very likely give them a fresh hold on life. What do you think?" Then he began to search his memory for the names of eligible brides in the town.
But grandmother kept silence as she drank cup after cup of tea, and I sat at the window looking at the evening sky over the town as it grew redder and redder and cast a crimson reflection upon the windows of the opposite houses. As a punishment for some misdemeanor, grandfather had forbidden me to go out in the garden or the yard. Round the birch trees in the garden circled beetles, making a tinkling sound with their wings; a cooper was working in a neighboring yard, and not far away some one was sharpening knives. The voices of children who were hidden by the thick bushes rose up from the garden and the causeway. It all seemed to draw me and hold me, while the melancholy of eventide flowed into my heart.
Suddenly grandfather produced a brand-new book from somewhere, banged it loudly on the palm of his hand, and called me in brisk tones.
"Now, you young rascal, come here! Sit down! Now do you see these letters? This is'Az.' Say after me 'Az,' 'Buki,' 'Viedi.' What is this one?"
"Buki."
"Right! And what is this?"
"Viedi."
"Wrong! It is 'Az.*
"Look at these--'Glagol,' 'Dobro,' Test.' What is this one?"
"Dobro."
"Right! And this one?"
"Glagol."
"Good! And this one?"
"Az."
"You ought to be lying still, you know, Father," put in grandmother.
"Oh, don't bother! This is just the thing for me; it takes my thoughts off myself. Go on, Lexei!"
He put his hot, moist arm round my neck, and ticked off the letters on my shoulder with his fingers. He smelled strongly of vinegar, to which an odor of baked onion was added, and I felt nearly suffocated; but he flew into a rage and growled and roared in my ear:
"'Zemlya,' 'Loodi'!"
The words were familiar to me, but the Slav characters did not correspond with them. "Zemlya" (Z) looked like a worm; "Glagol" (G) like round-shouldered Gregory; "Ya" resembled grandmother and me standing together; and grandfather seemed to have something in common with all the letters of the alphabet.
He took me through it over and over again, sometimes asking me the names of the letters in order, sometimes "dodging"; and his hot temper must have been catching, for I also began to