My Childhood - Maxim Gorky [66]
I sat at the window, I remember, warming an old two-kopeck piece in my mouth, preparatory to an attempt to make an impression on the frozen windowpanes of St. George and the Dragon. All of a sudden there came a dreadful noise from the vestibule, the door was thrown open, and Petrovna shrieked deliriously:
"Look and see what you 've got out there!"
Catching sight of the policeman, she darted back into the vestibule; but he caught her by the skirt, and cried fearfully:
"Wait! Who are you? What are we to look for?"
Suddenly brought to a halt on the threshold, she fell on her knees and began to scream; and her words and her tears seemed to choke her:
"I saw it when I went to milk the cows . . . what is that thing that looks like a boot in the Kashmirins' garden? I said to myself--"
But at this grandfather stamped his foot and shouted:
"You are lying, you fool! You could not see anything in our garden, the fence is too high and there are no crevices. You are lying; there is nothing in our garden."
"Little Father, it is true!" howled Petrovna, stretching out one hand to him, and pressing the other to her head. "It Is true, little Father . . . should I lie about such a thing? There were footprints leading to your fence, and the snow was all trampled in one place, and I went and looked through the fence and I saw . . . him . . . lying there . . ."
"Who? Who?"
This question was repeated over and over again, but nothing more was to be got out of her. Suddenly they all made a dash for the garden, jostling each other as if they had gone mad; and there, by the pit, with the snow softly spread over him, lay Uncle Peter, with his back against the burnt beam and his head fallen on his chest. Under his right ear was a deep gash, red, like a mouth, from which jagged pieces of flesh stuck out like teeth.
I shut my eyes in horror at the sight, but I could see, through my eyelashes, the harness-maker's knife, which I knew so well, lying on Uncle Peter's knees, clutched in the dark fingers of his right hand; his left hand was cut off and was sinking into the snow. Under the drayman the snow had thawed, so that his diminutive body was sunk deep in the soft, sparkling down, and looked even more childlike than when he was alive. On the right side of the body a strange red design, resembling a bird, had been formed on the snow; but on the left the snow was untouched, and had remained smooth and dazzingly bright. The head had fallen forward in an attitude of submission, with the chin pressed against the chest, and crushing the thick curly beard; and amidst the red streams of congealed blood on the breast there lay a large brass cross. The noise they were all making seemed to set my head spinning. Petrovna never left off shrieking, the policeman shouted orders to Valei as he sent him on an errand, and grandfather cried:
"Take care not to tread in his footprints!"
But he suddenly knit his brows, and looking on the ground said in a loud, imperious tone to the policeman: "There is nothing for you to kick up a row about, Constable! This is God's affair ... a judgment from God . . . yet you must be fussing about some nonsense or other--bah!"
And at once a hush fell on them all; they stood still and, taking in a long breath, crossed themselves. Several people now came hastily into the garden from the yard. They climbed over Petrovna's fence and some of them fell down, and uttered exclamations of pain; but for all that they were quite quiet until grandfather cried in a voice of despair:
"Neighbors! why are you spoiling my raspberry bushes? Have you no consciences?"
Grandmother, sobbing violently, took my hand and brought me into the house.
"What did he do?" I asked.
"Couldn't you see?" she answered.
For the rest of the evening, until far into the night, strangers tramped in and out of the kitchen and the other rooms talking loudly; the police were in command, and a man who looked like a deacon was making notes, and quacking like a duck: