My Childhood - Maxim Gorky [57]
He spoke almost like a child of my own age, and I was beside myself with joy at his words. I felt that I had known this all along, and I said:
"I understood that long ago."
"Well, there it is. It has happened as I said, my little dove!"
The pain in my heart was almost unbearable.
"Why do none of them like you?"
He put his arm round me, and pressed me to him and answered, blinking down at me:
"I am of a different breed--do you see? That's what it is. I am not like them--"
I just held his hands, not knowing what to say; incapable, in fact, of saying anything.
"Don't be angry!" he said again; and then he whispered in my ear: "And don't cry either." But all the time his own tears were flowing freely from under his smeared glasses.
After that we sat, as usual, in silence, which was broken at rare intervals by a brief word or two; and that evening he went, courteously bidding farewell to every one, and hugging me warmly. I accompanied him to the gate, and watched him drive away in the cart, and being violently jolted as the wheels passed over the hillocks of frozen mud.
Grandmother set to work immediately to clean and scrub the dirty room, and I wandered about from corner to corner on purpose to hinder her.
"Go away!" she cried, when she stumbled over me.
"Why did you send him away then?"
"Don't talk about things you don't understand."
"You are fools--all of you!" I said.
She flicked me with her wet floorcloth, crying:
"Are you mad, you little wretch?"
"I did not mean you, but the others," I said, trying to pacify her; but with no success.
At supper grandfather exclaimed:
"Well, thank God he has gone! I should never have been surprised, from what I saw of him', to find him one day with a knife through his heart. Och! It was time he went."
I broke a spoon out of revenge, and then I relapsed into my usual state of sullen endurance. Thus ended my friendship with the first one of that endless chain of friends belonging to my own country--the verv best of her people.
CHAPTER IX
I IMAGINE myself, in my childhood, as a hive to which all manner of simple, undistinguished people brought, as the bees bring honey, their knowledge and thoughts about life, generously enriching my soul with what they had to give. The honey was often dirty, and bitter, but it was all the same knowledge-- and honey.
After the departure of "Good-business," Uncle Peter became my friend. He was in appearance like grandfather, in that he was wizened, neat, and clean; but he was shorter and altogether smaller than grandfather. He looked like a person hardly grown-up dressed up like an old man for fun. His face was creased like a square of very fine leather, and his comical, lively eyes, with their yellow whites, danced amidst these wrinkles like siskins in a cage. His raven hair, now growing gray, was curly, his beard also fell into ringlets, and he smoked a pipe, the smoke from which--the same color as his hair--curled upward into rings too; his style of speech was florid, and abounded in quaint sayings. He always spoke in a buzzing voice, and sometimes very kindly, but I always had an idea that he was making fun of everybody.
"When I first went to her, the lady-countess Tatian --her name was Lexievna--said to me, 'You shall be blacksmith'; but after a time she orders me to go and help the gardener. 'All right, I don't mind, only I did n't engage to work as a laborer, and it is not right that I should have to.' Another time she 'd say 'Now, Petrushka, you must go fishing.' It was all one to me whether I went fishing or not, but I preferred to say 'good-by' to the fish, thank you!--and I came to the town as a drayman. And here I am, and have never been anything else. So far I have not done much good for myself by the change. The only thing I possess is the horse, which reminds me of the Countess."
This was an old horse, and was really white, but one day a drunken house painter had begun to paint it in various colors, and had never