My Childhood - Maxim Gorky [75]
When I saw him for the first time I suddenly remembered one day long ago, while we were living in New Street, hearing the dull, insistent beating of a drum outside the gate, and seeing a night-cart, surrounded by soldiers and people in black, going from the prison to the square; and seated on a bench in the cart was a man of medium size, with a round cap made of woolen stuff, in chains--and upon his breast a black tablet was displayed, on which there were written some words in large white letters. The man hung his head as if he were reading what was written there, and he shook all over and his chains rattled. So when mother said to the winder: "This is my son," I shrank away from him in terror, and put my hands behind me.
"Pray don't trouble!" he said, and his whole mouth seemed to stretch, in a ghastly fashion, as far as his right ear, as he seized me by the belt, drew me to him, turned me round swiftly and lightly, and let me go.
"He 's all right. He 's a sturdy little chap."
I betook myself to the corner, where there was an armchair upholstered in leather--so large that one could lie in it; and grandfather used to brag about it, and call it "Prince Gruzincki's armchair"--and in this I settled myself and looked on, thinking that grown-up people's ideas of enjoyment were very boring, and that the way the clock-winder's face kept on changing was very strange, and was not calculated to inspire confidence.
It was an oily, flexible face, and it seemed to be melting and always softly on the move; if he smiled, his thick lips shifted to his right cheek, and his little nose turned that way too, and looked like a meat pasty on a plate. His great projecting ears moved strangely too, one being lifted every time he raised his eyebrow over his seeing eye, and the other moving in unison with his cheek-bone; and when he sneezed it seemed as if it were as easy to cover his nose with them as with the palm of his hand. Sometimes he sighed, and thrust out his dark tongue, round as a pestle, and licked his thick, moist lips with a circular movement. This did not strike me as being funny, but only as something wonderful, which I could not help looking at.
They drank tea with rum in it, which smelt like burnt onion tops; they drank liqueurs made by grandmother, some yellow like gold, some black like tar, some green; they ate curds, and buns made of butter, eggs and honey; they perspired, and panted, and lavished praises on grandmother; and when they had finished eating, they settled themselves, looking flushed and puffy, decorously in their chairs, and languidly asked Uncle Jaakov to play.
He bent over his guitar and struck up a disagreeable, irritating song:
"Oh, we have been out on the spree,
The town rang with our voices free,
And to a lady from Kazan
We 've told our story, every man."
I thought this was a miserable song, and grandmother said:
"Why don't you play something else, Jaasha?--a real song! Do you remember, Matrena, the sort of songs we used to sing?"
Spreading out her rustling frock, the laundress reminded her:
"There 's a new fashion in singing now, Matushka."
Uncle looked at grandmother, blinking as if she were a long way off, and went on obstinately producing those melancholy sounds and foolish words.
Grandfather was carrying on a mysterious conversation with the clock-winder, pointing his finger at him; and the latter, raising his eyebrow, looked over to mother's side of the room and shook his head, and his mobile face assumed a new and indescribable shape.
Mother always sat between the Sergievnas, and as she talked quietly and gravely to Vassili, she sighed:
"Ye--es! That wants thinking about."
And Victor smiled the smile of one who has eaten to satiety, and scraped his feet on the floor; then he suddenly burst shrilly into song:
"Andrei-papa! Andrei-papa!"