My Childhood - Maxim Gorky [89]
ONE day I fell asleep before the evening, and when I woke up I felt that my legs had waked up too. I put them out of bed, and they became numb again; but the fact remained that my legs were cured and that I should be able to walk. This was such glorious news that I shouted for joy, and put my feet to the floor with the whole weight of my body on them. I fell down, but I crawled to the door and down the staircase, vividly representing to myself the surprise of those downstairs when they should see me.
I do not remember how I got into mother's room on my knees; but there were some strangers with her, and one, a dried-up old woman in green, said sternly, drowning all other voices:
"Give him some raspberry syrup to drink, and cover up his head."
She was green all over: her dress, and hat, and her
face, which had warts under the eyes; even the tufts
of hair on the warts were like grass. Letting her
lower lip droop, she raised the upper one and looked at
me with her green teeth, covering her eyes with a hand
in a black thread mitten.
"Who is that?" I asked, suddenly growing timid.
Grandfather answered in a disagreeable voice:
"That's another grandmother for you."
Mother, laughing, brought Eugen Maximov to me.
"And here is your father!"
She said something rapidly which I did not understand, and Maximov, with twinkling eyes, bent towards me and said:
"I will make you a present of some paints."
The room was lit up very brightly; silver candelabra, holding five candles each, stood on the table, and between them was placed grandfather's favorite icon-- "Mourn not for me, Mother." The pearls with which it was set gave forth an intermittent brilliancy as the lights played on them flickeringly, and the gems in the golden crown shone radiantly; heavy, round faces like pancakes were pressing against the window-panes from outside, flattening their noses against the glass, and everything round me seemed to be floating. The old green woman felt my ears with her cold fingers and said:
"By all means! By all means!"
"He is fainting," said grandmother, and she carried me to the door.
But I was not fainting. I just kept my eyes shut, and as soon as she had half-dragged, half-carried me up the staircase, I asked:
"Why was n't I told of this?"
"That will do. . . . Hold your tongue!"
"You are deceivers--all of you!"
Laying me on the bed, she threw herself down with her head on the pillow and burst into tears, shaking from head to foot; her shoulders heaved, and she muttered chokingly:
"Why don't you cry?"
I had no desire to cry. It was twilight in the attic, and cold. I shuddered, and the bed shook and creaked; and ever before my eyes stood the old green woman. I pretended to be asleep, and grandmother went away.
Several uneventful days, all alike, flowed by like a thin stream. Mother had gone away somewhere after the betrothal, and the house was oppressively quiet.
One morning grandfather came in with a chisel and began to break away the cement around the attic window-frames which were put in for the winter; then grandmother appeared with a basin of water and a cloth, and grandfather asked softly:
"Well, old woman, what do you think of it?"
"What do you mean?"
"Well, are you pleased, or what?"
She answered him as she had answered me on the staircase:
"That will do. . . . Hold your tongue!"
The simplest words had a peculiar significance for me now, and I imagined that they concealed something of tremendous import and sorrow of which no one might speak, but of which every one knew.
Carefully taking out the window-frame, grandfather carried it away, and grandmother went to the window and breathed the air. In the garden the starling was calling; the sparrows chirped; the intoxicating odor of the thawing earth floated into the room. The dark blue tiles of the stove seemed to turn pale with confusion; it made one cold to look at them. I climbed down from the bed to the floor.
"Don't go running about with your feet bare," said grandmother.
"I am going into the garden."
"It is not dry enough there yet. Wait a bit!"