My Childhood - Maxim Gorky [76]
They all stopped talking in surprise and looked at him; while the laundress explained in a tone of pride:
"He got that from the theater; they sing it there."
There were two or three evenings like this, made memorable by their oppressive dullness, and then the winder appeared in the daytime, one Sunday after High Mass. I was sitting with mother in her room helping her to mend a piece of torn beaded embroidery, when the door flew open unexpectedly and grandmother rushed into the room with a frightened face, saying in a loud whisper: "Varia, he has come!" and disappeared immediately.
Mother did not stir, not an eyelash quivered; but the door was soon opened again, and there stood grandfather on the threshold.
"Dress yourself, Varvara, and come along!"
She sat still, and without looking at him said:
"Come where?"
"Come along, for God's sake! Don't begin arguing. He is a good, peaceable man, in a good position, and he will make a good father for Lexei."
He spoke in an unusually important manner, stroking his sides with the palms of his hands the while; but his elbows trembled, as they were bent backwards, exactly as if his hands wanted to be stretched out in front of him, and he had a struggle to keep them back.
Mother interrupted him calmly.
"I tell you that it can't be done."
Grandfather stepped up to her, stretching out his hands just as if he were blind, and bending over her, bristling with rage, he said, with a rattle in his throat:
"Come along, or I 'll drag you to him-- by the hair."
"You'll drag me to him, will you?" asked mother, standing up. She turned pale and her eyes were painfully drawn together as she began rapidly to take off her bodice and skirt, and finally, wearing nothing but her chemise, went up to grandfather and said:
"Now, drag me to him."
He ground his teeth together and shook his fist in her face:
"Varvara! Dress yourself at once!"
Mother pushed him aside with her hand, and took hold of the door handle.
"Well? Come along!"
"Curse you!" whispered grandfather.
"I am not afraid--come along!"
She opened the door, but grandfather seized her by her chemise and fell on his knees, whispering:
"Varvara! You devil! You will ruin us. Have you no shame?"
And he wailed softly and plaintively:
"Mo--ther! Mo--ther!"
Grandmother was already barring mother's way; waving her hands in her face as if she were a hen, she now drove her away from the door, muttering through her closed teeth:
"Varka! You fool! What are you doing? Go away, you shameless hussy!"
She pushed her into the room and secured the door with the hook; and then she bent over grandfather, helping him up with one hand and threatening him with the other.
"Ugh! You old devil!"
She sat him on the couch, and he went down all of a heap, like a rag doll, with his mouth open and his head waggling.
"Dress yourself at once, you!" cried grandmother to mother.
Picking her dress up from the floor, mother said:
"But I am not going to him--do you hear?"
Grandmother pushed me away from the couch.
"Go and fetch a basin of water. Make haste!"
She spoke in a low voice, which was almost a whisper, and with a calm, assured manner.
I ran into the vestibule. I could hear the heavy tread of measured footsteps in the front room of the half-house, and mother's voice came after me from her room:
"I shall leave this place to-morrow!"
I went into the kitchen and sat down by the window as if I were in a dream.
Grandfather groaned and shrieked; grandmother muttered; then there was the sound of a door being banged, and all was silent--oppressively so.
Remembering what I had been sent for, I scooped up some water in a brass basin and went into the vestibule. From the front room came the clock-winder with his head bent; he was smoothing his fur cap with his hand, and quacking. Grandmother with her hands folded over her stomach was bowing to his back, and saying softly:
"You know what it is yourself--you can't be forced to be nice to people."
He halted on the threshold, and then stepped into the yard; and grandmother, trembling all over, crossed