Read Online My Childhood by Maxim Gorky - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Maxim Gorky
Tags: Autobiography
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through them, growing brighter and brighter, and their gossamer-like wings touched the floor. They moved about the altar, helping old Father Elia, and supporting his elbows as he raised his feeble hands in prayer. He was very old, and being almost blind, stumbled frequently; but that day he got through the Mass quickly, and was finished early. When I saw them I nearly died of joy. My heart seemed as if it would burst; my tears ran down. Ah, how beautiful it was! Oh, Lenka, dear heart, where God is-- whether in Heaven or earth--all goes well."
"But you don't mean to say that everything goes well here--in our house?"
Making the sign of the cross grandmother answered:
"Our Lady be praised--everything goes well."
This irritated me. I could not agree that things were going well in our household. From my point of view they were becoming more and more intolerable.
One day, as I passed the door of Uncle Michael's room I saw Aunt Natalia, not fully dressed, with her hands folded on her breast, pacing up and down like a creature distraught, and moaning, not loudly, but in a tone of agony:
"My God, take me under Thy protection! Remove me from here!"
I could sympathize with her prayer as well as I could understand Gregory when he growled:
"As soon as I am quite blind they will turn me out to beg; it will be better than this, anyhow."
And I wished that he would make haste and go blind, for I meant to seize the opportunity to go away with him so that we could start begging together. I had already mentioned the matter to Gregory, and he had replied, smiling in his beard:
"That's right! We will go together. But I shall show myself in the town. There's a grandson of Vassili Kashmirin's there--his daughter's son; he may give me something to do."
More than once I noticed a blue swelling under the sunken eyes of Aunt Natalia; and sometimes a swollen lip was thrown into relief by her yellow face.
"Does Uncle Michael beat her, then?" I asked grandmother. And she answered with a sigh:
"Yes, he beats her, but not very hard--the devil! Grandfather does not object so long as he does it at night. He is ill-natured, and she--she is like a jelly!
"But he does not beat her as much as he used to," she continued in a more cheerful tone. "He just gives her a blow on the mouth, or boxes her ears, or drags her about by the hair for a minute or so; but at one time he used to torture her for hours together. Grandfather beat me one Easter Day from dinner-time till bed-time. He kept on; he just stopped to get his breath sometimes, and then started again. And he used a strap too!"
"But why did he do it?"
"I forget now. Another time he knocked me about till I was nearly dead, and then kept me without food for five hours. I was hardly alive when he had finished with me."
I was thunderstruck. Grandmother was twice as big as grandfather, and it was incredible that he should be able to get the better of her like this.
"Is he stronger than you, then?" I asked.
"Not stronger, but older. Besides, he is my husband, he has to answer for me to God; but my duty is to suffer patiently."
It was an interesting and pleasing sight to see her dusting the icon and cleaning its ornamentation; it was richly adorned with pearls, silver and colored gems in the crown, and as she took it gently in her hands she gazed at it with a smile, and said in a tone of feeling:
"See what a sweet face it is!" And crossing herself and kissing it, she went on: "Dusty art thou, and begrimed, Mother, Help of Christians, Joy of the Elect! Look, Lenia, darling, how small the writing is, and what tiny characters they are; and yet it is all quite distinct. It is called 'The Twelve Holy-Days,' and in the middle you see the great Mother of God by predestination immaculate; and here is written: 'Mourn not for me, Mother, because I am about to be laid in the grave.'"
Sometimes it seemed to me as if she played with the icon as earnestly and seriously as my Cousin Ekaterina with her doll.
She
"But you don't mean to say that everything goes well here--in our house?"
Making the sign of the cross grandmother answered:
"Our Lady be praised--everything goes well."
This irritated me. I could not agree that things were going well in our household. From my point of view they were becoming more and more intolerable.
One day, as I passed the door of Uncle Michael's room I saw Aunt Natalia, not fully dressed, with her hands folded on her breast, pacing up and down like a creature distraught, and moaning, not loudly, but in a tone of agony:
"My God, take me under Thy protection! Remove me from here!"
I could sympathize with her prayer as well as I could understand Gregory when he growled:
"As soon as I am quite blind they will turn me out to beg; it will be better than this, anyhow."
And I wished that he would make haste and go blind, for I meant to seize the opportunity to go away with him so that we could start begging together. I had already mentioned the matter to Gregory, and he had replied, smiling in his beard:
"That's right! We will go together. But I shall show myself in the town. There's a grandson of Vassili Kashmirin's there--his daughter's son; he may give me something to do."
More than once I noticed a blue swelling under the sunken eyes of Aunt Natalia; and sometimes a swollen lip was thrown into relief by her yellow face.
"Does Uncle Michael beat her, then?" I asked grandmother. And she answered with a sigh:
"Yes, he beats her, but not very hard--the devil! Grandfather does not object so long as he does it at night. He is ill-natured, and she--she is like a jelly!
"But he does not beat her as much as he used to," she continued in a more cheerful tone. "He just gives her a blow on the mouth, or boxes her ears, or drags her about by the hair for a minute or so; but at one time he used to torture her for hours together. Grandfather beat me one Easter Day from dinner-time till bed-time. He kept on; he just stopped to get his breath sometimes, and then started again. And he used a strap too!"
"But why did he do it?"
"I forget now. Another time he knocked me about till I was nearly dead, and then kept me without food for five hours. I was hardly alive when he had finished with me."
I was thunderstruck. Grandmother was twice as big as grandfather, and it was incredible that he should be able to get the better of her like this.
"Is he stronger than you, then?" I asked.
"Not stronger, but older. Besides, he is my husband, he has to answer for me to God; but my duty is to suffer patiently."
It was an interesting and pleasing sight to see her dusting the icon and cleaning its ornamentation; it was richly adorned with pearls, silver and colored gems in the crown, and as she took it gently in her hands she gazed at it with a smile, and said in a tone of feeling:
"See what a sweet face it is!" And crossing herself and kissing it, she went on: "Dusty art thou, and begrimed, Mother, Help of Christians, Joy of the Elect! Look, Lenia, darling, how small the writing is, and what tiny characters they are; and yet it is all quite distinct. It is called 'The Twelve Holy-Days,' and in the middle you see the great Mother of God by predestination immaculate; and here is written: 'Mourn not for me, Mother, because I am about to be laid in the grave.'"
Sometimes it seemed to me as if she played with the icon as earnestly and seriously as my Cousin Ekaterina with her doll.
She
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