My Childhood - Maxim Gorky [63]
"Come here and play with us."
We gathered together, under the projecting roof of the storehouse, in the old sledge, and having surveyed one another thoughtfully, we held a long conversation.
"Did they whip you?" I asked.
"Rather!"
It was hard for me to believe that these boys were whipped like myself, and I felt aggrieved about it for their sakes.
"Why do you catch birds?" asked the youngest.
"Because I like to hear them sing."
"But you ought not to catch them; why don't you let them fly about as they like to?"
"Well, I 'm not going to, so there!"
"Won't you just catch one then and give it to me?"
"To you! . . . What kind?"
"A lively one, in a cage."
"A siskin . . . that's what you want."
"The cat would eat it," said the youngest one; "and besides, papa would not allow us to have it."
"No, he would n't allow it," agreed the elder.
"Have you a mother?"
"No," said the eldest, but the middle one corrected him:
"We have a mother, but she is not ours really. Ours is dead."
"And the other is called a stepmother?" I said, and the elder nodded "Yes."
And they all three looked thoughtful, and their faces were clouded. I knew what a stepmother was like from the stories grandmother used to tell me, and I understood that sudden thoughtfulness. There they sat, all close together, as much alike as a row of peas in a pod; and I remembered the witch-stepmother who took the place of the real mother by means of a trick.
"Your real mother will come back to you again, see if she does n't," I assured them.
The elder one shrugged his shoulders.
"How can she if she is dead? Such things don't happen."
"Don't happen? Good Lord! how many times have the dead, even when they have been hacked to pieces, come to life again when sprinkled with living water? How many times has death been neither real, nor the work of God, but simply the evil spell cast by a wizard or a witch!"
I began to tell grandmother's stories to them excitedly; but the eldest laughed at first, and said under his breath:
"We know all about those fairy-tales!"
His brothers listened in silence; the little one with his lips closely shut and pouting, and the middle one with his elbows on his knees, and holding his brother's hand which was round his neck.
The evening was far advanced, red clouds hung over the roof, when suddenly there appeared before us the old man with the white mustache and cinnamon-colored clothes, long, like those worn by a priest, and a rough fur cap.
"And who may this be?" he asked, pointing to me.
The elder boy stood up and nodded his head in the direction of grandfather's house:
"He comes from there."
"Who invited him in here?"
The boys silently climbed down from the sledge, and went into the house, reminding me more than ever of a flock of geese.
The old man gripped my shoulder like a vice and propelled me across the yard to the gate. I felt like crying through sheer terror, but he took such long, quick steps that before I had time to cry we were in the street, and he stood at the little gate raising his finger at me threateningly, as he said:
"Don't you dare to come near me again!"
I flew into a rage.
"I never did want to come near you, you old devil!"
Once more I was seized by his long arm and he dragged me along the pavement as he asked in a voice which was like the blow of a hammer on my head:
"Is your grandfather at home?"
To my sorrow he proved to be at home, and he stood before the minacious old man, with his head thrown back and his beard thrust forward, looking up into the dull, round, fishy eyes as he said hastily:
"His mother is away, you see, and I am a busy man, so there is no one to look after him; so I hope you will overlook it this time, Colonel."
The Colonel raved and stamped about the house like a madman, and he was hardly gone before I was thrown into Uncle Peter's cart.
"In trouble again, young gentleman?" he asked as he unharnessed the horse. "What are you being punished for now?"
When I told him, he flared up.
"And what do you want to be friends with them for?" he hissed. "The young serpents! Look