My Childhood - Maxim Gorky [8]
Hearing the tumult, I ran into the kitchen, and I shall never forget how funny grandfather looked nursing his burnt finger as he jumped about and shrieked:
"Where is the villain who played this trick?"
Uncle Michael, doubled up under the table, snatched up the thimble and blew upon it; Gregory unconcernedly went on sewing, while the shadows played on his enormous bald patch. Then Uncle Jaakov rushed in, and, hiding himself in the corner by the stove, stood there quietly laughing; grandmother busied herself with grating up raw potatoes.
"Sascha Jaakov did it!" suddenly exclaimed Uncle Michael.
"Liar!" cried Jaakov, darting out from behind the stove.
But his son, from one of the comers, wept and wailed:
"Papa! don't believe him. He showed me how to do it himself."
My uncles began to abuse each other, but grandfather all at once grew calm, put a poultice of grated potatoes on his finger, and silently went out, taking me with him.
They all said that Uncle Michael was to blame. I asked naturally if he would be whipped, or get a hiding.
"He ought to," answered grandfather, with a sidelong glance at me.
Uncle Michael, striking his hand upon the table, bawled at my mother: "Varvara, make your pup hold his jaw before I knock his head off."
"Go on, then; try to lay your hands on him!" replied my mother. And no one said another word.
She had a gift of pushing people out of her way, brushing them aside as it were, and making them feel very small by a few brief words like these. It was perfectly clear to me that they were all afraid of her; x even grandfather spoke to her more quietly than he spoke to the others. It gave me great satisfaction to observe this, and in my pride I used to say openly to my cousins: "My mother is a match for all of them." And they did not deny it.
But the events which happened on Saturday diminished my respect for my mother.
By Saturday I also had had time to get into trouble. I was fascinated by the ease with which the grown-up people changed the color of different materials; they took something yellow, steeped it in black dye, and it came out dark blue. They laid a piece of gray stuff in reddish water and it was dyed mauve. It was quite simple, yet to me it was inexplicable. I longed to dye something myself, and I confided my desire to Sascha Yaakovitch, a thoughtful boy, always in favor with his elders, always good-natured, obliging, and ready to wait upon every one.
The adults praised him highly for his obedience and his cleverness, but grandfather looked on him with no favorable eye, and used to say:
"An artful beggar that!"
Thin and dark, with prominent, watchful eyes, Sascha Yaakov used to speak in a low, rapid voice, as if his words were choking him, and all the while he talked he glanced fearfully from side to side as if he were ready to run away and hide himself on the slightest pretext. The pupils of his hazel eyes were stationary except when he was excited, and then they became merged into the whites. I did not like him. I much preferred the despised idler, Sascha Michailovitch. He was a quiet boy, with sad eyes and a pleasing smile, very like his kind mother. He had ugly, protruding teeth, with a double row in the upper jaw; and being very greatly concerned about this defect, he constantly had his fingers in his mouth, trying to loosen his back ones, very amiably allowing any one who chose to inspect them. But that was the only interesting thing about him. He lived a solitary life in a house swarming with people, loving