My Childhood - Maxim Gorky [65]
His dumb nephew had been married some time and had gone to live in the country, so Peter lived alone in the stables, in a low stall with a broken window and a close smell of hides, tar, sweat and tobacco; and because of that smell I would never enter his dwellingplace. He had taken to sleep with his lamp burning, and grandfather greatly objected to the habit.
"You see! You 'll burn me out, Peter."
"No, I shan't. Don't you worry. I stand the lamp in a basin of water at night," he would reply, with a sidelong glance.
He seemed to look askance at every one now, and had long given over attending grandmother's evenings and bringing her jam; his face seemed to be shriveling, his wrinkles became much deeper, and as he walked he swayed from side to side and shuffled his feet like a sick person.
One week-day morning grandfather and I were clearing away the snow in the yard, there having been a heavy fall that night, when suddenly the latch of the gate clanged loudly and a policeman entered the yard, closing the gate by setting his back against it while he beckoned to grandfather with a fat, gray finger. When grandfather went to him the policeman bent down so that his long-pointed nose looked exactly as if it were chiseling grandfather's forehead, and said something, but in such a low tone that I could not hear the words; but grandfather answered quickly:
"Here? When? Good God!"
And suddenly he cried, jumping about comically:
"God bless us! Is it possible?"
"Don't make so much noise," said the policeman sternly.
Grandfather looked round and saw me.
"Put away your spade, and go indoors," he said.
I hid myself in a corner and saw them go to the drayman's stall, and I saw the policeman take off his
right glove and strike the palm of his left hand with it as he said:
"He knows we 're after him. He left the horse to wander about, and he is hiding here somewhere."
I rushed into the kitchen to tell grandmother all about it; she was kneading dough for bread, and her floured head was bobbing up and down as she listened to me, and then said calmly:
"He has been stealing something, I suppose. You run away now. What is it to do with you?"
When I went out into the yard again grandfather was standing at the gate with his cap off, and his eyes raised to heaven, crossing himself. His face looked angry; he was bristling with anger, in fact, and one of his legs was trembling.
"I told you to go indoors!" he shouted, stamping at me; but he came with me into the kitchen, calling: "Come here, Mother!"
They went into the next room, and carried on a long conversation in whispers; but when grandmother came back to the kitchen I saw at once from her expression that something dreadful had happened.
"Why do you look so frightened?" I asked her.
"Hold your tongue!" she said quietly.
All day long there was an oppressive feeling about the house. Grandfather and grandmother frequently exchanged glances of disquietude, and spoke together, softly uttering unintelligible, brief words which intensified the feeling of unrest.
"Light lamps all over the house, Mother," grandfather ordered, coughing.
We dined without appetite, yet hurriedly, as if we were expecting some one. Grandfather was tired, and puffed out his cheeks as he grumbled in a squeaky voice:
"The power of the devil over man! . . . You see it everywhere . . . even our religious people and ecclesiastics! . . . What is the reason of it, eh?"
Grandmother sighed.
The hours of that silver-gray winter's day dragged wearily on, and the atmosphere of the house seemed to become increasingly disturbed and oppressive. Before the evening another policeman came, a red, fat man, who sat by the stove in the kitchen and dozed, and when grandmother asked him: "How did they