My Childhood - Maxim Gorky [93]
All the summer, except, of course, when the weather was bad, I lived in the garden, and on warm nights I even slept out there on a piece of felt which grandmother had made me a present of; not infrequently she slept in the garden herself, and bringing out a bundle of hay, which she spread out close to my couch, she would lie down on it and tell me stories for a long time, interrupting her speech from time to time by irrelevant remarks:
"Look! ... A star fell then! That is some pure soul suffering ... a mother thinking of earth! That means that a good man or woman has just been born."
Or she would point out to me:
"There's a new star appeared; look! It looks like a large eye. . . . Oh, you bright creature of the sky! . . . You holy ornament of God! . . ."
"You will catch cold, you silly woman!" grandfather would growl, "and have an apoplectic fit. Thieves will come and kill you."
Sometimes, when the sun set, rivers of light streamed across the sky, looking as if they were on fire, and red-gold ashes seemed to fall on the velvety-green garden; then everything became perceptibly a shade darker, and seemed to grow larger--to swell, as the warm twilight closed round. Tired of the sun, the leaves drooped, the grass bowed its head; everything seemed to be softer and richer, and gently breathed out various odors as soothing as music. And music there was, too, floating from the camps in the fields, where they were playing spasmodically.
Night came, and with it there came into one's heart something vigorous and fresh, like the loving caress of a mother; the quietness softly smoothed one's heart with its warm, rough hands, and all that ought to be forgotten--all the bitterness, the fine dust of the day-- was washed away. It was enchanting to lie with upturned face watching the stars flaming in the infinite profundity of the sky--a profundity which, as it stretches higher and higher, opens out a new vista of stars; to raise yourself lightly from the ground and-- how strange!--either the earth has grown smaller before your eyes, or you yourself, grown wonderfully big, are being absorbed into your surroundings. It grows darker and quieter every moment, but there is a succession of minute, hardly perceptible, prolonged sounds, and each sound--whether it be a bird singing in its sleep, or a hedgehog running along, or a human voice softly raised somewhere--differs from the sounds of daytime, and has something peculiarly its own, amorously underlying its sensitive quietness.
A harmonium is being played somewhere, a woman's laugh rings out, a sword rattles on the stone flags of the pavement, a dog yelps--but all these sounds are nothing more than the falling of the last leaves of the day which has blossomed and died.
Sometimes in the night a drunken cry would suddenly rise from the field or the street, and the sound of some one running noisily; but this was a common occurrence, and passed unheeded.
Grandmother never slept long, and as she lay with her head resting on her folded arms, she would begin, at the slightest hint, to tell me a story, obviously not caring whether I was listening to her or not. She was always able to choose stories which would make the night still more precious and beautiful to me.
Under the influence of her measured flow of words I insensibly sank into slumber, and awoke with the birds; the sun was looking straight into my eyes, and, warmed by his rays, the morning air flowed softly round us, the leaves of the apple tree were shaking off the dew, the moist green grass looked brighter and fresher than ever, with its newly acquired crystal transparency, and a faint mist floated over it. High up in the sky, so high as to be invisible, a lark