“‘A fool,’ I said, ‘is a person who won’t work, and hangs round other people’s necks. You look at Jaakov and Michael, for instance; don’t they live like fools? Who is the worker in this house? Who earns the money? You! And are they much use as assistants ?’
“Then he fell to scolding me I was a fool, an abject creature and a bawd, and I don’t know what else. I held my tongue.
“‘How can you allow yourself to be taken in by a man like that, when no one knows where he came from or what he is?’
“I kept quiet until he was tired, and then I said:
“‘You ought to go and see how they are living. They are getting along all right.’
“‘That would be doing them too much honor,’ he said. ‘Let them come here.’
“At this I cried for joy, and he loosened my hair (he loved to play with my hair) and muttered:
“‘Don’t upset yourself, stupid. Do you think I have not got a heart?’
“He used to be very good, you know, our grandfather, before he got an idea into his head that he was cleverer than any one else, and then he became spiteful and stupid.
“Well, so they came, your father and mother, one Saint’s Day both of them large and sleek and neat; and Maxim stood in front of grandfather, who laid a hand on his shoulder he stood there and he said:
“‘Don’t think, Vassili Vassilitch, that I have come to you for a dowry ; I have come to do honor to my wife’s father.’
“Grandfather was very pleased at this, and burst out laughing. ‘Ach! you fighter!’ he said. ‘You robber ! Well,’ he said, ‘we’ll be indulgent for once. Come and live with me.’
“Maxim wrinkled his forehead. ‘That must be as Varia wishes,’ he said. ‘It is all the same to me.’
“And then it began. They were at each other tooth and nail all the time; they could not get on together anyhow. I used to wink at your father and kick him under the table, but it was no use; he would stick to his own opinion. He had very fine eyes, very bright and clear, and his brows were dark, and when he drew them together his eyes were almost hidden, and his face became stony and stubborn. He would not listen to any one but me. I loved him, if possible, more than my own children, and he knew this and loved me too. Sometimes he would hug me, and catch me up in his arms, and drag me round the room, saying: ‘You are my real mother, like the earth. I love you more than I love Varvara.’ And your mother (when she was happy she was very saucy) would fly at him and cry: ‘How dare you say such a thing, you rascal?’ And the three of us would romp together. Ah! we were happy then, my dear. He used to dance wonderfully well too and such beautiful songs he knew. He picked them up from the blind people; and there are no better singers than the blind.
“Well, they settled themselves in the outbuilding in the garden, and there you were born on the stroke of noon. Your father came home to dinner, and you were there to greet him. He was so delighted that he was almost beside himself, and nearly tired your mother out; as if he did not realize, the stupid creature, what an ordeal it is to bring a child into the world. He put me on his shoulder and carried me right across the yard to grandfather to tell him the news that another grandson had appeared on the scene. Even grandfather laughed : ‘What a demon you are, Maxim !’ he said.
“But your uncles did not like him. He did not drink wine, he was bold in his speech, and clever in all kinds of tricks for which he was bitterly paid out. One day, for instance, during the great Fast, the wind sprang up, and all at once a terrible howling resounded through the house. We were all stupefied. What did it mean? Grandfather himself was terrified, ordered lamps to be lit all over the house, and ran about, shouting at the top of his voice: ‘We must offer up prayers together


And suddenly it stopped which frightened us still more. Then Uncle Jaakov guessed. ‘This is Maxim’s doing, I am sure!’ he said. And afterwards Maxim himself confessed that he had put bottles and glasses of various kinds in the dormer-window, and the wind blowing down the necks of the vessels produced the sounds, all by itself. ‘These jokes will land you in Siberia again if you don’t take care, Maxim,’ said grandfather menacingly.
“One year there was a very hard frost and wolves began to come into the towns from the fields; they killed the dogs, frightened the horses, ate up tipsy watchmen, and caused a great panic. But your father took his gun, put on his snow-shoes, and tracked down two wolves. He skinned them, cleaned out their heads, and put in glass eyes made quite a good job of it, in fact. Well, Uncle Michael went into the vestibule for something, and came running back at once, with his hair on end, his eyes rolling, gasping for breath, and unable to speak. At length he whispered : ‘Wolf!’ Every one seized anything which came to hand in the shape of a weapon, and rushed into the vestibule with lights; they looked and saw a wolf’s head sticking out from behind a raised platform. They beat him, they fired at him and what do you think he was? They looked closer, and saw that it was nothing but a skin and an empty head, and its front feet were nailed to the platform. This time grandfather was really very angry with Maxim.
“And then Jaakov must begin to join in these pranks. Maxim cut a head out of cardboard, and made a nose, eyes, and a mouth on it, glued tow on it to represent hair, and then went out into the street with Jaakov, and thrust that dreadful face in at the windows; and of course people were terrified and ran away screaming. Another night they went out wrapped in sheets and frightened the priest, who rushed into a sentry-box; and the sentry, as much frightened as he was, called the police. And many other wanton tricks like this they played; and nothing would stop them. I begged them to give up their nonsense, and so did Varia, but it was no good; they would not leave off. Maxim only laughed. It made his sides ache with laughing, he said, to see how folk ran wild with terror, and broke their heads because of his nonsense. ‘Come and speak to them!’ he would say.
“And it all came back on his own head and nearly caused his ruin. Your Uncle Michael, who was always with grandfather, was easily offended and vindictively disposed, and he thought out a way to get rid of your father. It was in the beginning of winter and they were coming away from a friend’s house, four of them Maxim, your uncles, and a deacon, who was degraded afterwards for killing a cabman. They came out of Yamski Street and persuaded Maxim to go round by the Dinkov Pond, pretending that they were going to skate. They began to slide on the ice like boys and drew him on to an ice-hole, and then they pushed him in but I have told you about that.”
“Why are my uncles so bad?”
“They are not bad,” said grandmother calmly, taking a pinch of snuff. “They are simply stupid. Mischka is cunning and stupid as well, but Jaakov is a good fellow, taking him all round. Well, they pushed him into the water, but as he went down he clutched at the edge of the ice-hole, and they struck at his hands, crushing his fingers with their heels. By good luck he was sober, while they were tipsy, and with God’s help he dragged himself from under the ice, and kept himself face upwards in the middle of the hole, so that he could breathe; but they could not get hold of him, and after a time they left him, with his head surrounded by ice, to drown. But he climbed out, and ran to the police-station it is quite close, you know, in the market-place. The Inspector on duty knew him and all the family, and he asked : ‘How did this happen?’ ”
Grandmother crossed herself and went on in a grateful tone :
“God rest the soul of Maxim Savatyevitch ! He deserves it, for you must know that he hid the truth from the police. ‘It was my own fault,’ he said. ‘I had been drinking, and I wandered on to the pond, and tumbled down an ice-hole.’
“‘That ‘s not true,’ said the Inspector; ‘you ‘ve not been drinking.’
“Well, the long and short of it was that they rubbed him with brandy, put dry clothes on him, wrapped him in a sheepskin, and brought him home the Inspector himself and two others. Jaaschka and Mischka had not returned ; they had gone to a tavern to celebrate the occasion. Your mother and I looked at Maxim. He was quite unlike himself; his face was livid, his fingers were bruised, and there was dry blood on them, and his curls seemed to be flecked with snow only it did not melt. He had turned gray !
“Varvara screamed out ‘What have they done to you?’
“The Inspector, scenting the truth, began to ask questions, and I felt in my heart that something very bad had happened.
“I put Varia off on to the Inspector, and I tried to get the truth out of Maxim quietly. ‘What has happened?’
“‘The first thing you must do,’ he whispered, ‘is to lie in wait for Jaakov and Michael and tell them that they are to say that they parted from me at Yamski Street and went to Pokrovski Street, while I turned off at Pryadilni Lane. Don’t mix it up now, or we shall have trouble with the police.’
“I went to grandfather and said : ‘Go and talk to the Inspector while I go and wait for our sons to tell them what evil has befallen us.’
“He dressed himself, all of a tremble, muttering: T knew how it would be! This is what I expected.’
“All lies ! He knew nothing of the kind. Well, I met my children with my hands before my face. Fear sobered Mischka at once, and Jaashenka, the dear boy, let the cat out of the bag by babbling: ‘I don’t know anything about it. It is all Michael’s doing. He is the eldest.’
“However, we made it all right with the Inspector. He was a very nice gentleman. ‘Oh,’ he says, ‘but you had better take care; if anything bad happens in your house I shall know who is to blame.’ And with that he went away.
“And grandfather went to Maxim and said: ‘Thank you! Any one else in your place would not have acted as you have done that I know! And thank you, daughter, for bringing such a good man into your father’s house.’ Grandfather could speak very nicely when he liked. It was after this that he began to be silly, and keep his heart shut up like a castle.
“We three were left together. Maxim Savatyevitch began to cry, and became almost delirious. ‘Why have they done this to me? What harm have I done them? Mama . . . why did they do it?’ He never called me ‘mamasha,’ but always ‘mama,’ like a child . . . and he was really a child in character. ‘Why ... ?’ he asked.
“I cried too what else was there for me to do? I was so sorry for my children. Your mother tore all the buttons off her bodice, and sat there, all dishevelled as if she had been fighting, calling out: ‘Let us go away, Maxim. My brothers are our enemies; I am afraid of them. Let us go away!’
“I tried to quieten her. ‘Don’t throw rubbish on the fire,’ I said. ‘The house is full of smoke without that.’
“At that very moment that fool of a grandfather must go and send those two to beg forgiveness; she sprang at Mischka and slapped his face. ‘There ‘s your forgiveness!’ she said. And your father complained: ‘How could you do such a thing, brothers? You might have crippled me. What sort of a workman shall I be without hands’?’
“However, they were reconciled. Your father was ailing for some time; for seven weeks he tossed about, and got no better, and he kept saying: Ekh! Mama, let us go to another town; I am weary of this place.’
“Then he had a chance of going to Astrakhan; they expected the Emperor there in the summer, and your father was entrusted with the building of a triumphal arch. They sailed on the first boat. It cut me to the heart to part from them, and he was grieved about it too, and kept saying to me that I ought to go with them to Astrakhan; but Varvara rejoiced, and did not even try to hide her joy the hussy! And so they went away . . . and that is all!”
She drank a drop of vodka, took a pinch of snuff, and added, gazing out of the window at the dark blue sky:
“Yes, your father and I were not of the same blood, but in soul we were akin.”
Sometimes, while she was telling me this, grandfather came in with his face uplifted, sniffed the air with his sharp nose, and looking suspiciously at grandmother, listened to what she was saying and muttered :
“That’s not true! That’s not true!”
Then he would ask, without warning:
“Lexei, has she been drinking brandy here?”
“No.”
“That ‘s a lie, for I saw her with my own eyes !” And he would go out in an undecided manner.
Grandmother would wink at him behind his back and utter some quaint saying:
“Go along, Avdye, and don’t frighten the horses.”
One day, as he stood in the middle of the room, staring at the floor, he said softly:
“Mother?”
“Aye?”
“You see what is going on?”
“Yes, I see!”
“What do you think of it?”
“There’ll be a wedding, Father. Do you remember how you used to talk about a nobleman?”
“Yes.”
“Well here he is!”
“He ‘s got nothing.”
“That ‘s her business.”
Grandfather left the room, and conscious of a sense of uneasiness, I asked:
“What were you talking about?”
“You want to know everything,” she replied querulously, rubbing my feet. “If you know everything when you are young, there will be nothing to ask questions about when you get old.” And she laughed and shook her head at me.
“Oh, grandfather! grandfather! you are nothing but a little piece of dust in the eyes of God. Lenka now don’t you tell any one this, but grandfather is absolutely ruined. He lent a certain gentleman a large sum of money, and now the gentleman has gone bankrupt.”
Smiling, she fell into a reverie, and sat without speaking for a long time ; and her face became wrinkled, and sad, and gloomy.
“What are you thinking about?”
“I am thinking of something to tell you,” she answered, with a start. “Shall we have the story about Evstignia ? Will that do? Well, here goes then.
“A deacon there was called Evstignia,
He thought there was no one more wise than he,
Be he presbyter, or be he boyard ;
Not even a huntsman knew more than he.
Like a spike of spear grass he held himself,
So proud, and taught his neighbors great and small ;
He found fault with this, and grumbled at that ;
He glanced at a church ‘Not lofty enough !’
He passed up a street ‘How narrow !’ he said.
An apple he plucked ‘It not red !’ he said.
The sun rose too soon for Evstignia!
In all the world there was nothing quite right!”
Grandmother puffed out her cheeks, and rolled her eyes; her kind face assumed a stupid, comical expression as she went on in a lazy, dragging voice :
“ ‘There is nothing I could not do myself,
And do it much better, I think,’ he said,
‘If I only had a little more time !’ ”
She was smilingly silent for a moment, and then she continued:
“To the deacon one night some devils came ;
‘So you find it dull here, deacon?’ they said.
‘Well, come along with us, old fellow, to hell,
You’ll have no fault to find with the fires there.’
Ere the wise deacon could put on his hat
The devils seized hold of him with their paws
And, with titters and howls, they dragged him down.
A devil on each of his shoulders sat,
And there, in the flames of hell they set him.
‘Is it all right, Evstignyeushka ?’
The deacon was roasting, brightly he burned,
Kept himself up with his hands to his sides,
Puffed out his lips as he scornfully said :
‘It ‘s dreadfully smoky down here in hell !’ ”
Concluding in an indolent, low-pitched, unctuous voice, she changed her expression and, laughing quietly, explained :
“He would not give in that Evstignia, but stuck to his own opinion obstinately, like our grandfather. . . . That ‘s enough now ; go to sleep ; it is high time.”
Mother came up to the attic to see me very seldom, and she did not stay long, and spoke as if she were in a hurry. She was getting more beautiful, and was dressed better every day, but I was conscious of something different about her, as about grandmother; I felt that there was something going on which was being kept from me and I tried to guess what it was.
Grandmother’s stories interested me less and less, even the ones she told me about my father; and they did not soothe my indefinable but daily increasing alarm.
“Why is my father’s soul not at rest?” I asked grandmother.
“How can I tell?” she replied, covering her eyes. “That is God’s affair ... it is supernatural . . . and hidden from us.”
At night, as I gazed sleeplessly through the dark blue windows at the stars floating so slowly across the sky, I made up some sad story in my mind in which the chief place was occupied by my father, who was always wandering about alone, with a stick in his hand, and with a shaggy dog behind him.