My Childhood - Maxim Gorky [6]
With her face painfully distorted, grandmother said: "Give them what they ask, Father; then you will have some peace."
"Be quiet, simpleton!" shouted my grandfather with flashing eyes; and it was wonderful, seeing how small he was, that he could yell with such deafening effect.
My mother rose from the table, and going calmly to the window, turned her back upon us all.
Suddenly Uncle Michael struck his brother on the face with the back of his hand. The latter, with a howl of rage, grappled with him; both rolled on the floor growling, gasping for breath and abusing each other. The children began to cry, and my Aunt Natalia, who was with child, screamed wildly; my mother seized her round the body and dragged her somewhere out of the way; the lively little nursemaid, Eugenia, drove the children out of the kitchen; chairs were knocked down; the young, broad-shouldered foreman, Tsiganok, sat on Uncle Michael's back, while the head of the works, Gregory Ivanovitch, a bald-headed, bearded man with colored spectacles, calmly bound up my uncle's hands with towels.
Turning his head and letting his thin, straggly, black beard trail on the floor, Uncle Michael cursed horribly, and grandfather, running round the table, exclaimed bitterly: "And these are brothers! . . . Blood relations! . . . Shame on you!"
At the beginning of the quarrel I had jumped on to the stove in terror; and thence, with painful amazement, I had watched grandmother as she washed Uncle Jaakov's battered face in a small basin of water, while he cried and stamped his feet, and she said in a sad voice: "Wicked creatures! You are nothing better than a family of wild beasts. When will you come to your senses?"
Grandfather, dragging his torn shirt over his shoulder, called out to her: "So you have brought wild animals into the world, eh, old woman?"
When Uncle Jaakov went out, grandmother retired to a comer and, quivering with grief, prayed: "Holy Mother of God, bring my children to their senses."
Grandfather stood beside her, and, glancing at the table, on which everything was upset or spilled, said softly:
"When you think of them, Mother, and then of the little one they pester Varia about . . . who has the best nature?"
"Hold your tongue, for goodness' sake! Take off that shirt and I will mend it. . . ." And laying the palms of her hands on his head, grandmother kissed his forehead; and he--so small compared to her-- pressing his face against her shoulder, said:
"We shall have to give them their shares, Mother, that is plain."
"Yes, Father, it will have to be done."
Then they talked for a long time; amicably at first, but it was not long before grandfather began to scrape his feet on the floor like a cock before a fight, and holding up a threatening finger to grandmother, said in a fierce whisper:
"I know you! You love them more than me. . . . And what is your Mischka?--a Jesuit! And Jaaschka --a Freemason! And they live on me. . . . Hangers-on! That is all they are."
Uneasily turning on the stove, I knocked down an iron, which fell with a crash like a thunder-clap.
Grandfather jumped up on the step, dragged me down, and stared at me as if he now saw me for the first time.
"Who put you on the stove? Your mother?"
"I got up there by myself."
"You are lying!"
"No I 'm not. I did get up there by myself. I was frightened."
He pushed me away from him, lightly striking me on the head with the palm of his hand.
"Just like your father! Get out of my sight!"
And I was only too glad to run out of the kitchen.
I was very well aware that grandfather's shrewd, sharp green eyes followed me everywhere, and I was afraid of him. I remember how I always wished to hide myself from that fierce glance. It seemed to me that grandfather was malevolent; he spoke to every one mockingly and offensively, and, being