My Childhood - Maxim Gorky [48]
"Why does n't grandfather keep him?" I asked.
"Grandfather?" she halted, and then uttered in a very low voice those prophetic words: "Remember what I say to you now--God will punish us grievously for this. He will punish us--"
And she was not wrong, for ten years later, when she had been laid to rest, grandfather was wandering through the streets of the town, himself a beggar, and out of his mind--pitifully whining under the windows:
"Kind cooks, give me a little piece of pie--just a little piece of pie. U--gh, you!"
Besides Igosha and Gregory Ivanovitch, I was greatly concerned about the Voronka--a woman of bad reputation, who was chased away from the streets. She used to appear on holidays--an enormous, dishevelled, tipsy creature, walking with a peculiar gait, as if without moving her feet or touching the earth--drifting along like a cloud, and bawling her ribald songs. People in the street hid themselves as soon as they saw her, running into gateways, or corners, or shops; she simply swept the street clean. Her face was almost blue, and blown out like a bladder; her large gray eyes were hideously and strangely wide open, and sometimes she groaned and cried:
"My little children, where are you?"
I asked grandmother who she was.
"There is no need for you to know," she answered; nevertheless she told me briefly:
"This woman had a husband--a civil-servant named Voronov, who wished to rise to a better position; so he sold his wife to his Chief, who took her away somewhere, and she did not come home for two years. When she returned, both her children--a boy and a girl--were dead, and her husband was in prison for gambling with Government money. She took to drink, in her grief, and now goes about creating disturbances. No holiday passes without her being taken up by the police."
Yes, home was certainly better than the street. The best time was after dinner, when grandfather went to Uncle Jaakov's workshop, and grandmother sat by the window and told me interesting fairy-tales, and other stories, and spoke to me about my father.
The starling, which she had rescued from the cat, had had his broken wings clipped, and grandmother had skilfully made a wooden leg to replace the one which had been devoured. Then she taught him to talk. Sometimes she would stand for a whole hour in front of the cage, which hung from the window-frame, and, looking like a huge, good-natured animal, would repeat in her hoarse voice to the bird, whose plumage was as black as coal:
"Now, my pretty starling, ask for something to eat."
The starling would fix his small, lively, humorous eye upon her, and tap his wooden leg on the thin bottom of the cage; then he would stretch out his neck and whistle like a goldfinch, or imitate the mocking note of the cuckoo. He would try to mew like a cat, and howl like a dog; but the gift of human speech was denied to him.
"No nonsense now!" grandmother would say quite seriously. "Say 'Give the starling something to eat.'"
The little black-feathered monkey having uttered a sound which might have been "babushka" (grandmother), the old woman would smile joyfully and feed him from her hand, as she said:
"I know you, you rogue! You are a make-believe. There is nothing you can't do--you are clever enough for anything."
And she certainly did succeed in teaching the starling; and before long he could ask for what he wanted clearly enough, and, prompted by grandmother, could drawl:
"Go--00--ood mo--0--orning, my good woman!" At first his cage used to hang in grandfather's room, but he was soon turned out and put up in the attic, because he learned to mock grandfather. He used to put his yellow, waxen bill through the bars of the cage while grandfather was saying his prayers loudly and clearly, and pipe:
"Thou! Thou! Thee! The--ee! Thou!" Grandfather chose to take offense at this, and once he broke off his prayers and stamped his feet, crying furiously:
"Take that devil away, or I will kill him!" Much that was interesting and amusing went on in this house; but at times I was oppressed by an inexpressible