My Childhood - Maxim Gorky [55]
Sometimes he broke off his work, and sitting beside me he would gaze for a long time out of the window, watching the rain patter down on the roof, and noting how the grass was growing over the yard, and how the apple trees were being stripped of their leaves. "Goodbusiness" was niggardly with his words, but what he said was to the point; more often than not, when he wished to draw my attention to something, he nudged me and winked instead of speaking. The yard had never been particularly attractive to me, but his nudges and his brief words seemed to throw a different complexion on it, and everything within sight seemed worthy of notice. A kitten ran about, and halting before a shining pool gazed at its own reflection, lifting its soft paw as if it were going to strike it.
"Cats are vain and distrustful," observed "Goodbusiness" quietly.
Then there was the red-gold cock Mamae, who flew on to the garden hedge, balanced himself, shook out his wings, and nearly fell; whereupon he was greatly put out, and muttered angrily, stretching out his neck:
"A consequential general, and not over-clever at that."
Clumsy Valei passed, treading heavily through the mud, like an old horse; his face, with its high cheekbones, seemed inflated as he gazed, blinking, at the sky, from which the pale autumn beams fell straight on his chest, making the brass buttons on his coat shine brilliantly. The Tartar stood still and touched them with his crooked fingers--"just as if they were medals bestowed on him."
My attachment to "Good-business" grew apace, and became stronger every day, till I found that he was indispensable both on days when I felt myself bitterly aggrieved, and in my hours of happiness. Although he was taciturn himself, he did not forbid me to talk about anything which came into my head; grandfather, on the other hand, always cut me short by his stern exclamation:
"Don't chatter, you mill of the devil!"
Grandmother, too, was so full of her own ideas that she neither listened to other people's ideas nor admitted them into her mind; but "Good-business" always listened attentively to my chatter, and often said to me smilingly:
"No, my boy, that is not true. That is an idea of your own."
And his brief remarks were always made at the right time, and only when absolutely necessary; he seemed to be able to pierce the outer covering of my heart and head, and see all that went on, and even to see all the useless, untrue words on my lips before I had time to utter them--he saw them and cut them off with two gentle blows:
"Untrue, boy."
Sometimes I tried to draw out his wizard-like abilities. I made up something and told it to him as if it had really happened; but after listening for a time, he would shake his head.
"Now--that's not true, my boy."
"How do you know?"
"I can feel it, my boy."
When grandmother went to fetch water from Syeniu Square, she often used to take me with her; and on one occasion we saw five citizens assault a peasant, throwing him on the ground, and dragging him about as dogs might do to another dog. Grandmother slipped her pail off the yoke, which she brandished as she flew to the rescue, calling to me as she went:
"You run away now!"
But I was frightened, and, running after her, I began to hurl pebbles and large stones at the citizens, while she bravely made thrusts at them with the yoke, striking at their shoulders and heads. When other people came on the scene they ran away, and grandmother set to work to bathe the injured man's wounds. His face had been trampled, and the sight of him as he pressed his dirty fingers to his torn nostrils and howled and coughed, while the blood spurted from under his fingers over grandmother's face and breast, filled me with repugnance; she uttered a cry too, and trembled violently.
As soon as I returned home I ran to the boarder and began to tell him all about it. He left off working, and stood in front of me looking at me fixedly and sternly from under his glasses; then he suddenly interrupted