My Childhood - Maxim Gorky [59]
"He sent every shot into the field!"
Once he got some shot into his shoulder and neck; and grandmother gave him a lecture while she was getting them out with a needle:
"Why on earth do you encourage the beast? He will blind you one of these days."
"Impossible, Akulina Ivanna," drawled Peter contemptuously. "He 's no marksman!"
"But why do you encourage him?"
"Do you think I am encouraging him? No! I like teasing the gentleman."
And looking at the extracted shot in his palm, he said:
"He 's no marksman. But up there, at the house of my mistress, the Countess Tatiana Lexievna, there was an Army man--Marmont Ilich. He was taken up most of the time with matrimonial duties--husbands were in the same category as footmen with her --and so he was kept busy about her; but he could shoot, if you like--only with bullets though, grandmother; he wouldn't shoot with anything else. He put Ignashka the Idiot at forty paces or thereabouts from him, with a bottle tied to his belt and placed so that it hung between his legs; and while Ignashka stood there with his legs apart laughing in his foolish way, Marmont Ilich took his pistol and--bang!--the bottle was smashed to pieces. Only, unfortunately Ignashka swallowed a gadfly, or something, and gave a start, and the bullet went into his knee, right into the knee-cap. The doctor was called and he took the leg off; it was all over in a minute, and the leg was buried . . ."
"But what about the idiot?"
"Oh, he was all right! What does an idiot want with legs and arms? His idiocy brings him in more than enough to eat and drink. Every one loves idiots; they are harmless enough. You know the saying: 'It is better for underlings to be fools; they can do less harm then.'"
This sort of talk did not astonish grandmother, she had listened to it scores of times, but it made me rather uncomfortable, and I asked Uncle Peter:
"Would that gentleman be able to kill any one?"
"And why not? Of cou--rse he could! . . . He even fought a duel. A Uhlan, who came on a visit to Tatiana Lexievna, had a quarrel with Marmont, and in a minute they had their pistols in their hands, and went out to the park; and there on the path by the pond that Uhlan shot Marmont bang through the liver. Then Marmont was sent to the churchyard, and the Uhlan to the Caucasus . . . and the whole affair was over in a very short time. That is how they did for themselves. And amongst the peasants, and the rest of them, he is not talked of now. People don't regret him much; they never regretted him for himself . . . but all the same they did grieve at one time --for his property."
"Well, then they did n't grieve much," said grandmother.
Uncle Peter agreed with her:
"That's true! . . . His property. . . yes, that was n't worth much."
He always bore himself kindly towards me, spoke to me good-naturedly, and as if I were a grown person, and looked me straight in the eyes; but all the same there was something about him which I did not like. Having regaled me with my favorite jam, he would spread my slice of bread with what was left, he would bring me malted gingerbread from the town, and always conversed with me in a quiet and serious tone.
"What are you going to do, young gentleman, when you grow up? Are you going into the Army or the Civil Service?"
"Into the Army."
"Good! A soldier's life is not a hard one in these days. A priest's life is n't bad either ... all he has to do is to chant, and pray to God, and that does not take long. In fact, a priest has an easier job than a soldier . . . but a fisherman's job is easier still; that does not require any education at all, it is simply a question of habit."
He gave an amusing imitation of the fish hovering round the bait, and of the way perch, mugil, and bream throw themselves about when they get caught on the hook.
"Now, you get angry when grandfather whips you," he would say soothingly, "but you have no cause to be angry at that, young gentleman; whippings are a part of your education, and those that you get are, after all, mere child's play. You should just see how