My Childhood - Maxim Gorky [68]
"Why don't you speak? Aren't you glad to see me? Phoo! what a dirty shirt. . . ."
Then she rubbed my ears with goose-grease, which hurt; but such a fragrant, pleasant odor came from her while she was doing it, that the pain seemed less than usual.
I pressed close to her, looking up into her eyes, too moved to speak, and through her words I could hear grandmother's low, unhappy voice:
"He is so self-willed ... he has got quite out of hand. He is not afraid of grandfather, even. . . . Oh, Varia! . . . Varia!"
"Don't whine, Mother, for goodness' sake; it does n't make things any better."
Everything looked small and pitiful and old beside mother. I felt old too, as old as grandfather.
Pressing me to her knees, and smoothing my hair with her warm, heavy hand, she said:
"He wants some one strict over him. And it is time he went to school. . . . You will like to learn lessons, won't you?"
"I 've learned all I want to know."
"You will have to learn a little more. . . . Why! How strong you 've grown!" And she laughed heartily in her deep contralto tones as she played with me.
When grandfather came in, pale as ashes, with bloodshot eyes, and bristling with rage, she put me from her and asked in a loud voice:
"Well, what have you settled, Father? Am I to go?"
He stood at the window scraping the ice off the panes with his finger-nails, and remained silent for a long while. The situation was strained and painful, and, as was usual with me in such moments of tension, my body felt as if it were all eyes and ears, and something seemed to swell within my breast, causing an intense desire to scream.
"Lexei, leave the room!" said grandfather roughly.
"Why?" asked mother, drawing me to her again. "You shall not go away from this place. I forbid it!" Mother stood up, gliding up the room, just like a rosy cloud, and placed herself behind grandfather.
"Listen to me, Papasha--"
He turned upon her, shrieking "Shut up!"
"I won't have you shouting at me," said mother coolly.
Grandmother rose from the couch, raising her finger admonishingly.
"Now, Varvara!"
And grandfather sat down, muttering:
"Wait a bit! I want to know who--? Eh? Who was it? . . . How did it happen?"
And suddenly he roared out in a voice which did not seem to belong to him:
"You have brought shame upon me, Varka!"
"Go out of the room!" grandmother said to me; and I went into the kitchen, feeling as if I were being suffocated, climbed on to the stove, and stayed there a long time listening to their conversation, which was audible through the partition. They either all talked at once, interrupting one another, or else fell into a long silence as if they had fallen asleep. The subject of their conversation was a baby, lately born to my mother and given into some one's keeping; but I could not understand whether grandfather was angry with mother for giving birth to a child without asking his permission, or for not bringing the child to him.
He came into the kitchen later, looking dishevelled; his face was livid, and he seemed very tired. With him came grandmother, wiping the tears from her cheeks with the basque of her blouse. He sat down on a bench, doubled up, resting his hands on it, tremulously biting his pale lips; and she knelt down in front of him, and said quietly but with great earnestness:
"Father, forgive her! For Christ's sake forgive her! You can't get rid of her in this manner. Do you think that such things don't happen amongst the gentry, and in merchants' families? You know what women are. Now, forgive her! No one is perfect, you know."
Grandfather leaned back against the wall and looked into her face; then he growled, with a bitter laugh which was almost a sob:
"Well--what next? Who would n't you forgive?
I wonder! If you had your way every one would be forgiven. . . . Ugh! You!"
And bending over her he seized her by the shoulders and shook her, and said, speaking in a rapid whisper:
"But, by God, you