My Childhood - Maxim Gorky [46]
"My benefactors, who averted a calamity."
I remember that "calamity."
In his anxiety about the maintenance of his very unprofitable children, grandfather set up as a moneylender, and used to receive articles in pledge secretly. Some one laid an information against him, and one night the police came to search the premises. There was a great fuss, but it ended well, and grandfather prayed till sunrise the next morning, and before breakfast, and in my presence, wrote those words in the calendar.
Before supper he used to read with me the Psalms, the breviary, or the heavy book of Ephraim Sirine; but as soon as he had supped he began to pray again, and his melancholy words of contrition resounded in the stillness of evening:
"What can I offer to Thee, or how can I atone to Thee, O generous God, O King of Kings! . . . Preserve us from all evil imaginations. . . . O Lord, protect me from certain persons! . . . My tears fall like rain, and the memory of my sins . . ."
But very often grandmother said:
"Oie, I am dog-tired! I shall go to bed without saying my prayers."
Grandfather used to take me to church--to vespers on Saturday, and to High Mass on Sundays and festivals--but even in church I made a distinction as to which God was being addressed; whatever the priest or the deacon recited--that was to grandfather's God; but the choir always sang to grandmother's God. Of course I can only crudely express this childish distinction which I made between these two Gods, but I remember how it seemed to tear my heart with terrific violence, and how grandfather's God aroused in my mind a feeling of terror and unpleasantness. A Being Who loved no one, He followed all of us about with His severe eyes, seeking and finding all that was ugly, evil, and sinful in us. Evidently He put no trust in man, He was always insisting on penance, and He loved to chastise.
In those days my thoughts and feelings about God were the chief nourishment of my soul and were the most beautiful ones of my existence. All other impressions which I received did nothing but disgust me by their cruelty and squalor, and awaken in me a sense of repugnance and ferocity. God was the best and brightest of all the beings who lived about me--grandmother's God, that Dear Friend of all creation; and naturally I could not help being disturbed by the question--"How is it that grandfather cannot see the Good God?"
I was not allowed to run about the streets because it made me too excited. I became, as it were, intoxicated by the impressions which I received, and there was almost always a violent scene afterwards.
I had no comrades. The neighbors' children treated me as an enemy. I objected to their calling me "the Kashmirin boy," and seeing that they did it all the more, calling out to each other as soon as they saw me: "Look, here comes that brat, Kashmirin's grandson. Go for him!" then the fight would begin. I was strong for my age and active with my fists, and my enemies, knowing this, always fell upon me in a crowd; and as a rule the street vanquished me, and I returned home with a cut across my nose, gashed lips, and bruises all over my face--all in rags and smothered in dust.
"What now?" grandmother exclaimed as she met me, with a mixture of alarm and pity; "so you 've been fighting again, you young rascal? What do you mean by it?"
She washed my face, and applied to my bruises copper coins or fomentations of lead, saying as she did so:
"Now, what do you mean by all this fighting? You are as quiet as anything at home, but out of doors you are like I don't know what. You ought to be ashamed of yourself. I shall tell grandfather not to let you go out."
Grandfather used to see my bruises, but he never scolded me; he only quackled, and roared:
"More decorations! While you are in my house, young warrior, don't you dare to run about the streets; do you hear me?"
I was never attracted,