My Childhood - Maxim Gorky [77]
"What is the matter?" I asked, running to her.
She snatched the basin from me, splashing the water over my legs, and cried:
"So this is where you come for water. Bolt the door!" And she went back into mother's room; and I went into the kitchen again and listened to them sighing and groaning and muttering, just as if they were moving a load, which was too heavy for them, from one place to another.
It was a brilliant day. Through the ice-covered window-panes peeped the slanting beams of the winter sun; on the table, which was laid for dinner, was the pewter dinner-service; a goblet containing red kvass, and another with some dark-green vodka made by grandfather from betony and St. John's wort, gleamed dully. Through the thawed places on the window could be seen the snow on the roofs, dazzlingly bright and sparkling like silver on the posts of the fence. Hanging against the window-frame in cages, my birds played in the sunshine: the tame siskins chirped gaily, the robins uttered their sharp, shrill twitter, and the goldfinch took a bath.
But this radiant, silver day, in which every sound was clear and distinct, brought no joy with it, for it seemed out of place--everything seemed out of place. I was seized with a desire to set the birds free, and was about to take down the cages when grandmother rushed in, clapping her hands to her sides, and flew to the stove, calling herself names.
"Curse you! Bad luck to you for an old fool, Akulina!"
She drew a pie out of the oven, touched the crust with her finger, and spat on the floor out of sheer exasperation.
"There you are--absolutely dried up! It is your own fault that it is burnt. Uch! Devil! A plague upon all your doings! Why don't you keep your eyes open, owl? . . . You are as unlucky as bad money!"
And she cried, and blew on the pie, and turned it over, first on this side, then on that, tapping the dry crust with her fingers, upon which her large tears splashed forlornly.
When grandfather and mother came into the kitchen she banged the pie on the table so hard that all the plates jumped.
"Look at that! That's your doing . . . there's no crust for you, top or bottom!"
Mother, looking quite happy and peaceful, kissed her, and told her not to get angry about it; while grandfather, looking utterly crushed and weary, sat down to table and unfolded his serviette, blinking, with the sun in his eyes, and muttered:
"That will do. It does n't matter. We have eaten plenty of pies that were not spoilt. When the Lord buys He pays for a year in minutes . . . and allows no interest. Sit down, do, Varia! . . . and have done with it."
He behaved just as if he had gone out of his mind, and talked all dinner-time about God, and about ungodly Ahab, and said what a hard lot a father's was, until grandmother interrupted him by saying angrily:
"You eat your dinner . . . that's the best thing you can do!"
Mother joked all the time, and her clear eyes sparkled.
"So you were frightened just now?" she asked, giving me a push.
No, I had not been so frightened then, but now I felt uneasy and bewildered. As the meal dragged out to the weary length which was usual on Sundays and holidays, it seemed to me that these could not be the same people who, only half an hour ago, were shouting at each other, on the verge of fighting, and bursting out into tears and sobs. I could not believe, that is to say, that they were in earnest now, and that they were not ready to weep all the time. But those tears and cries, and the scenes which they inflicted upon one another, happened so often, and died away so quickly, that I began to get used to them, and they gradually ceased to excite me or to cause me heartache.
Much later I realized that Russian people, because of the poverty and squalor of their lives, love to amuse themselves with sorrow--to play with it like children, and are seldom ashamed of being unhappy.
Amidst their endless week-days, grief makes a holiday, and a fire is an amusement--a scratch is an ornament to an empty face.