طفولتي/ مكسيم جوركي - الصفحة 2 - منتديات منابر ثقافية

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Grandfather used to see my bruises, but he never scolded me ; he only quackled, and roared :
“More decorations! While you are in my house, young warrior, don’t you dare to run about the streets; do you hear me?”
I was never attracted, by the street if it was quiet, but as soon as I heard the merry buzz of the children, I ran out of the yard, forgetting all about grandfather’s prohibition. Bruises and taunts did not hurt me, but the brutality of the street sports a brutality only too well known to me, wearying and oppressive, reducing one to a state of frenzy disturbed me tremendously. I could not contain myself when the children baited dogs and cocks, tortured cats, drove away the goats of the Jews, jeered at drunken vagabonds, and at happy “Igosha with death in his pocket.”
This was a tall, withered-looking, smoke-dried individual clad in a heavy sheepskin, with coarse hair on his fleshless, rusty face. He went about the streets, stooping, wavering strangely, and never speaking gazing fixedly all the time at the ground. His iron-hued face, with its small, sad eyes, inspired me with an uneasy respect for him. Here was a man, I thought, pre occupied with a weighty matter; he was looking for something, and it was wrong to hinder him.
The little boys used to run after him, slinging stones at his broad back; and after going on for some time as if he did not notice them, and as if he were not even conscious of the pain of the blows, he would stand still, throw up his head, push back his ragged cap with a spasmodic movement of his hands, and look about him as if he had but just awoke.
“Igosha with death in his pocket! Igosha, where are you going? Look out, Death in your pocket!” cried the boys.
He would thrust his hand in his pocket, then stooping quickly would pick up a stone or a lump of dry mud from the ground, and flourish his long arms as he muttered abuse, which was confined always to the same few filthy words. The boys’ vocabulary was immeasurably richer than his in this respect. Sometimes he hobbled after them, but his long sheepskin hindered him in running, and he would fall on his knees, resting his black hands on the ground, and looking just like the withered branch of a tree; while the children aimed stones at his sides and back, and the biggest of them ventured to run quite close to him and, jumping about him, scattered handfuls of dust over his head.
But the most painful spectacle which I beheld in the streets was that of our late foreman, Gregory Ivanovitch, who had become quite blind, and now went about begging; looking so tall and handsome, and never speaking. A little gray-haired old woman held him by the arm, and halting under the windows, to which she never raised her eyes, she wailed in a squeaky voice : “For Christ’s sake, pity the poor blind !” But Gregory Ivanovitch said never a word. His dark glasses looked straight into the walls of the houses, in at the windows, or into the faces of the passers-by; his broad beard gently brushed his stained hands; his lips were closely pressed together. I often saw him, but I never heard a sound proceed from that sealed mouth ; and the thought of that silent old man weighed upon me torturingly. I could not go to him I never went near him; on the contrary, as soon as I caught sight of him being led along, I used to run into the house and say to grandmother:
“Gregory is out there.”
“Is he?” she would exclaim in an uneasy, pitying tone. “Well, run back and give him this.”
But I would refuse curtly and angrily, and she would go to the gate herself and stand talking to him for a long time. He used to laugh, and pull his beard, but he said little, and that little in monosyllables. Sometimes grandmother brought him into the kitchen and gave him tea and something to eat, and every time she did so he inquired where I was. Grandmother called me, but I ran away and hid myself in the yard. I could not go to him. I was conscious of a feeling of intolerable shame in his presence, and I knew that grandmother was ashamed too. Only once we discussed Gregory between ourselves, and this was one day when, having led him to the gate, she came back through the yard, crying and hanging her head. I went to her and took her hand.
“Why do you run away from him?” she asked softly. “He is a good man, and very fond of you, you know.”
“Why doesn’t grandfather keep him?” I asked.
“Grandfather?” she halted, and then uttered in a very low voice those prophetic words: “Remember what I say to you now God will punish us grievously for this. He will punish us ”
And she was not wrong, for ten years later, when she had been laid to rest, grandfather was wandering through the streets of the town, himself a beggar, and out of his mind pitifully whining under the windows :
“Kind cooks, give me a little piece of pie just a little piece of pie. U gh, you!”
Besides Igosha and Gregory Ivanovitch, I was greatly concerned about the Voronka a woman of bad reputation, who was chased away from the streets. She used to appear on holidays an enormous, dishevelled, tipsy creature, walking with a peculiar gait, as if without moving her feet or touching the earth drifting along like a cloud, and bawling her ribald, songs. People in the street hid themselves as soon as they saw her, running into gateways, or corners, or shops ; she simply swept the street clean. Her face was almost blue, and blown out like a bladder; her large gray eyes were hideously and strangely wide open, and sometimes she groaned and cried :
“My little children, where are you?”
I asked grandmother who she was.
“There is no need for you to know,” she answered; nevertheless she told me briefly:
“This woman had a husband a civil-servant named Voronov, who wished to rise to a better position ; so he sold his wife to his Chief, who took her away somewhere, and she did not come home for two years. When she returned, both her children a boy and a girl were dead, and her husband was in prison for gambling with Government money. She took to drink, in her grief, and now goes about creating disturbances. No holiday passes without her being taken up by the police.”
Yes, home was certainly better than the street. The best time was after dinner, when grandfather went to Uncle Jaakov’s workshop, and grandmother sat by the window and told me interesting fairy-tales, and other stories, and spoke to me about my father.
The starling, which she had rescued from the cat, had had his broken wings clipped, and grandmother had skilfully made a wooden leg to replace the one which had been devoured. Then she taught him to talk. Sometimes she would stand for a whole hour in front of the cage, which hung from the window-frame, and, looking like a huge, good-natured animal, would repeat in her hoarse voice to the bird, whose. plumage was as black as coal :
“Now, my pretty starling, ask for something to eat.”
The starling would fix his small, lively, humorous eye upon her, and tap his wooden leg on the thin bottom of the cage; then he would stretch out his neck and whistle like a goldfinch, or imitate the mocking note of the cuckoo. He would try to mew like a cat, and howl like a dog; but the gift of human speech was denied to him.
“No nonsense now!” grandmother would say quite seriously. “Say ‘Give the starling something to eat.’ ”
The little black-feathered monkey having uttered a sound which might have been “babushka” (grandmother), the old woman would smile joyfully and feed him from her hand, as she said :
“I know you, you rogue ! You are a make-believe. There is nothing you can’t do you are clever enough for anything.”
And she certainly did succeed in teaching the starling; and before long he could ask for what he wanted clearly enough, and, prompted by grandmother, could drawl :
“Go oo ood mo o orning, my good woman!” At first his cage used to hang in grandfather’s room, but he was soon turned out and put up in the attic, because he learned to mock grandfather. He used to put his yellow, waxen bill through the bars of the cage while grandfather was saying his prayers loudly and clearly, and pipe :
“Thou! Thou! Thee! The ee! Thou!” Grandfather chose to take offense at this, and once he broke off his prayers and stamped his feet, crying furiously :
“Take that devil away, or I will kill him !” Much that was interesting and amusing went on in this house; but at times I was oppressed by an inexpressible sadness. My whole being seemed to be consumed by it; and for a long time I lived as in a dark pit, deprived of sight, hearing, feeling blind and half-dead.

10-28-2011, 05:49 PM

المشاركة 12

ريم بدر الدين

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Chapter VIII

GRANDFATHER unexpectedly sold the house over the tavern and bought another in Kanatoroi Street a ramshackle house overgrown with grass, but clean and quiet; and it seemed to rise up out of the fields, being the last of a row of little houses painted in various colors.
The new house was trim and charming; its fagade was painted in a warm but not gaudy shade of dark raspberry, against which the sky-blue shutters of the three lower windows and the solitary square of the shutter belonging to the attic window appeared very bright. The left side of the roof was picturesquely hidden by thick green elms and lime trees. Both in the yard and in the garden there were many winding paths, so convenient that they seemed to have been placed there on purpose for hide-and-seek.
The garden was particularly good; though not large, it was wooded and pleasantly intricate. In one corner stood a small washhouse, just like a toy building; and in the other was a fair-sized pit, grown over with high grass, from which protruded the thick chimney-stack which was all that remained of the heating apparatus of an earlier washhouse. On the left the garden was bounded by the wall of Colonel Ovsyanikov’s stables, and on the right by Betlenga House; the end abutted on the farm belonging to the dairy-woman Petrovna a stout, red, noisy female, who reminded me of a bell. Her little house, built in a hollow, was dark and dilapidated, and well covered with moss; its two windows looked out with a benevolent expression upon the field, the deep ravine, and the forest, which apppeared like a heavy blue cloud in the distance. Soldiers moved or ran about the fields all day long, and their bayonets flashed like white lightning in the slanting rays of the autumn sun.
The house was filled with people who seemed to me very wonderful. On the first floor lived a soldier from Tartary with his little, buxom wife, who shouted from morn till night, and laughed, and played on a richly ornamented guitar, and sang in a high flute-like voice. This was the song she sang most often :
“There ‘s one you love, but her love you will miss,
Seek on ! another you must find. And you will find her for reward a kiss
Seven times as beautiful and kind. Oh, what a glo or i ous reward!”
The soldier, round as a ball, sat at the window and puffed out his blue face, and roguishly turned his red-dish eyes from side to side, as he smoked his everlasting pipe, and occasionally coughed, and giggled with a strange, doglike sound:
“Vookh! Voo kh!”
In the comfortable room which had been built over the cellar and the stables, lodged two draymen little, gray-haired Uncle Peter and his dumb nephew Stepa a smooth, easy-going fellow, whose face reminded me of a copper tray and a long-limbed, gloomy Tartar, Valei, who was an officer’s servant. All these people were to me a complete novelty magnificent “unknowns.” But the one who attracted my attention and held it in a special degree, was the boarder, nicknamed “Good-business.” He rented a room at the back of the house, next to the kitchen a long room with two windows, one looking on the garden, the other on the yard. He was a lean, stooping man with a white face and a black beard, cleft in two, with kind eyes over which he wore spectacles. He was silent and unobtrusive, and when he was called to dinner or tea, his in variable reply was “Good-business !” so grandmother began to call him that both to his face and behind his back. It was: “Lenka! Call ‘Good-business’ to tea,” or “‘Good-business,’ you are eating nothing!”
His room was blocked up and encumbered with all sorts of cases and thick books, which looked strange to me, in Russian characters. Here were also bottles containing liquids of different colors, lumps of copper and iron, and bars of lead; and from morning till night, dressed in a reddish leather jacket, with gray check trousers all smeared with different kinds of paint, and smelling abominable, and looking both untidy and uncomfortable, he melted lead, soldered some kind of brass articles, weighed things in small scales, roared out when he burned his fingers, and then patiently blew on them. Or he would stumblingly approach a plan on the wall, and polishing his glasses, sniff at it, almost touching the paper with his straight, curiously pallid nose; or he would suddenly stand still for a long time in the middle of the room, or at the window, with his eyes closed, and his head raised as if he were in a state of immobile stupefaction.
I used to climb on the roof of the shed, whence I could look across the yard; and in at the open window I could see the blue light of the spirit-lamp on the table, and his dark figure as he wrote something in a tattered notebook, with his spectacles gleaming with a bluish light, like ice. The wizard-like employment of this man often kept me on the roof for hours together, with my curiosity excited to a tormenting pitch. Sometimes he stood at the window, as if he were framed in it, with his hands behind him, looking straight at the roof; but apparently he did not see me, a fact which gave me great offense. Suddenly he would start back to the table, and bending double, would begin to rummage about.
I think that if he had been rich and better dressed I should have been afraid of him; but he was poor a dirty shirt collar could be seen above the collar of his coat, his trousers were soiled and patched, and the slippers on his bare feet were down-trodden and the poor are neither formidable nor dangerous. I had unconsciously learned this from grandmother’s pitiful respect, and grandfather’s contempt for them.
Nobody in the house liked “Good-business.” They all made fun of him. The soldier’s lively wife nicknamed him “Chalk-nose,” Uncle Peter used to call him “The Apothecary” or “The Wizard,” and grandfather described him as “The Black Magician” or “That Freemason.”
“What does he do?” I asked grandmother.
“That is no business of yours. Hold your tongue !”
But one day I plucked up courage to go to his window, and concealing my nervousness with difficulty, I asked him, “What are you doing?”
He started, and looked at me for a long time over the top of his glasses; then stretching out his hand, which was covered with scars caused by burns, he said :
“Climb up!”
His proposal that I should enter by the window instead of the door raised him still higher in my estimation. He sat on a case, and stood me in front of him ; then he moved away and came back again quite close to me, and asked in a low voice:
“And where do you come from?”
This was curious, considering that I sat close to him at table in the kitchen four times a day.
“I am the landlord’s grandson,” I replied.
“Ah yes,” he said, looking at his fingers.
He said no more, so I thought it necessary to explain to him :
“I am not a Kashmirin my name is Pyeshkov.”
“Pyeshkov?” he repeated incredulously. “Good-business !”
Moving me on one side, he rose, and went to the table, saying:
“Sit still now.”
I sat for a long, long time watching him as he scraped a filed piece of copper, put it through a press, from under which the filings fell, like golden groats, on to a piece of cardboard. These he gathered up in the palm of his hand and shook them into a bulging vessel, to which he added white dust, like salt, which he took from a small bowl, and some fluid out of a dark bottle. The mixture in the vessel immediately began to hiss and to smoke, and a biting smell rose to my nostrils which caused me to cough violently.
“Ah!” said the wizard in a boastful tone. “That smells nasty, doesn’t it?”
“Yes!”
“That ‘s right ! That shows that it has turned out well, my boy.”
“What is there to boast about?” I said to myself; and aloud I remarked severely :
“If it is nasty it can’t have turned out well.”
“Really!” he exclaimed, with a wink. “That does not always follow, my boy. However Do you play knuckle-bones’?”
“You mean dibs?”
“That ‘s it.”
“Yes.”
“Would you like me to make you a thrower?”
“Very well, let me have the dibs then.”
He came over to me again, holding the steaming vessel in his hand; and peeping into it with one eye, he said :
“I’ll make you a thrower, and you promise not to come near me again is that agreed?”
I was terribly hurt at this.
“I will never come near you again, never!” And I indignantly left him and went out to the garden, where grandfather was bustling about, spreading manure round the roots of the apple trees, for it was autumn and the leaves had fallen long ago.
“Here! you go and clip the raspberry bushes,” said grandfather, giving me the scissors.
“What work is it that ‘Good-business’ does’?” I asked.
“Work why, he is damaging his room, that ‘s all. The floor is burned, and the hangings soiled and torn. I shall tell him he ‘d better shift.”
“That ‘s the best thing he can do,” I said, beginning to clip the dried twigs from the raspberry bushes.
But I was too hasty.
On wet evenings, whenever grandfather went out, grandmother used to contrive to give an interesting little party in the kitchen, and invited all the occupants of the house to tea. The draymen, the officer’s servant, the robust Petrovna often came, sometimes even the merry little lodger, but always “Good-business” was to be found in his corner by the stove, motionless and mute. Dumb Stepa used to play cards with the Tartar. Valei would bang the cards on the deaf man’s broad nose and yell :
“Your deal !”
Uncle Peter brought an enormous chunk of white bread, and some jam in large, tall pots ; he cut the bread hi slices, which he generously spread with jam, and distributed the delicious raspberry-strewn slices to all, pre senting them on the palm of his hand and bowing low.
“Do me the favor of eating this,” he would beg courteously; and after any one had accepted a slice, he would look carefully at his dark hand, and if he noticed any drops of jam on it, he would lick them off.
Petrovna brought some cherry liqueur in a bottle, the merry lady provided nuts and sweets, and so the feast would begin, greatly to the content of the dear, fat grandmother.
Very soon after “Good-business” had tried to bribe me not to go and see him any more, grandmother gave one of her evenings.
A light autumn rain was falling; the wind howled, the trees rustled and scraped the walls with their branches; but in the kitchen it was warm and cozy as we all sat close together, conscious of a tranquil feeling of kindness towards one another, while grandmother, unusually generous, told us story after story, each one better than the other. She sat on the ledge of the stove, resting her feet on the lower ledge, bending towards her audience with the light of a little tin lamp thrown upon her. Always when she was in a mood for story-telling she took up this position.
“I must be looking down on you,” she would explain. “I can always talk better that way.”
I placed myself at her feet on the broad ledge, almost on a level with the head of “Good-business,” and grandmother told us the fine story of Ivan the Warrior, and Miron the Hermit, in a smooth stream of pithy, well-chosen words.
“Once lived a wicked captain Gordion,
His soul was black, his conscience was of stone;
He hated truth, victims he did not lack,
Fast kept in chains, or stretched upon the rack,
And, like an owl, in hollow tree concealed,
So lived this man, in evil unrevealed.
But there was none who roused his hate and fear
Like Hermit Miron, to the people dear.
Mild and benign, but fierce to fight for truth,
His death was planned without remorse or ruth.
The captain calls most trusted of his band
Ivan the Warrior, by whose practiced hand
The Monk, unarmed and guileless, must be slain.
‘Ivan!’ he said, ‘too long that scheming brain
Of Hermit Miron has defied my power.
This proud Monk merits death, and now the hour
Has struck when he must say farewell to earth.
A curse he has been to it, from his birth.
Go, seize him by his venerable beard,
And to me bring the head which cowards have feared.
My dogs with joy shall greedily devour
The head of him who thirsted after power.’
Ivan, obedient, went upon his way;
But to himself he bitterly did say:
‘It is not I who do this wicked deed;
I go because my master I must heed.’
His sharp word he hid lest it should betray
The evil designs in his mind that day.
The Monk he salutes with dissembling voice:
‘To see you in health I greatly rejoice!
Your blessing, my Father! And God bless you!’
The Monk laughed abrutly, his words were few:
‘Enough, Ivan! Your lies do not deceive.
That God knows all, I hope you do believe.
Against His will, nor good nor ill is done.
I know, you see, why you to me have come.’
In shame before the Monk Ivan stood still;
In fear of this man he had come to kill.
From leathern sheath his sword he proudly drew;
The shining blade he rubbed till it looked new.
‘I meant to take you unawares,’ he said;
‘To kill you prayerless ; now I am afraid.
To God you now shall have some time to pray.
I’ll give you time for all you want to say,
For me, for you, for all, born and unborn,
And then I’ll send you where your prayers have gone.’
The Hermit knelt; above him spread an oak
Which bowed its head before him. Then he spoke,
In archness smiling. ‘Oh, Ivan, think well!
How long my prayer will take I cannot tell.
Had you not better kill me straight away
Lest waiting tire you, furious at delay ?’
Ivan in anger frowned, and said in boast,
‘My word is given, and though at my post
You keep me a century, I will wait.
So pray in peace, nor your ardor abate.’
The shadows of even fell on the Monk,
And all through the night in prayer he was sunk;
From dawn till sunset, through another night;
From golden summer days to winter’s blight
So ran on, year by year, old Miron’s prayer.
And to disturb him Ivan did not dare.
The sapling oak its lofty branches reared
Into the sky, while all around appeared
Its offshoots, into a thick forest grown.
And all the time the holy prayer went on,
And still continues to this very day.
The old man softly to his God doth pray,
And to Our Lady, the mother of all,
To help men and women who faint and fall,
To succor the weak, to the sad give joy.
Ivanushka, Warrior, stands close by,
His bright sword long has been covered with dust,
Corroded his armor by biting rust,
Long fallen to pieces his brave attire.
His body is naked and covered with mire.
The heat does but sear, no warmth does impart;
Such fate as his would freeze the stoutest heart.
Fierce wolves and savage bears from him do flee,
From snowstorm and from frost alike he ‘s free ;
No strength has he to move from that dread spot
Or lift his hands. To speak is not his lot.
Let us be warned by his terrible fate,
Nor of meek obedience let us prate.
If we are ordered to do something wrong,
Our duty is then to stand firm and be strong.
But for us sinners still the Hermit prays,
Still flows his prayer to God, e’en in these days
A dear, bright river, flowing to the sea.”

Before grandmother had reached the end of her story, I had noticed that “Good-business” was, for some reason, agitated; he was fidgeting restlessly with his hands, taking off his spectacles and putting them on again, or waving them to keep time with the rhythm of the words, nodding his head, putting his fingers into his eyes, or rubbing them energetically, and passing the palms of his hands over his forehead and cheeks, as if he were perspiring freely. When any one of the others moved, coughed, or scraped his feet on the floor, the boarder hissed: “Ssh!”; and when grandmother ceased speaking, and sat rubbing her perspiring face with the sleeve of her blouse, he jumped up noisily, and putting out his hands as if he felt giddy, he babbled :
“I say ! That ‘s wonderful ! It ought to be written down; really, it ought. It is terribly true too. . . . Our . . .”
Every one could see now that he was crying ; his eyes were full of tears, which flowed so copiously that his eyes were bathed in them it was a strange and pitiful sight. He looked so comical as he ran about the kitchen, or rather clumsily hopped about swinging his glasses before his nose; desirous of putting them on again but unable to slip the wires over his ears that Uncle Peter laughed, and the others were silent from embarrassment. Grandmother said harshly:
“Write it down by all means, if you like. There ‘s no harm in that. And I know plenty more of the same kind.”
“No, that is the only one I want. It is so dreadfully Russian!” cried the boarder excitedly; and standing stock-still in the middle of the kitchen, he began to talk loudly, clearing the air with his right hand, and holding his glasses in the other. He spoke for some time in a frenzied manner, his voice rising to a squeak, stamping his feet, and often repeating himself:
“If we are ordered to do something wrong our duty is then to be firm and strong. True ! True !”
Then suddenly his voice broke, he ceased speaking, looked round on all of us, and quietly left the room, hanging his head with a guilty air.
The other guests laughed, and glanced at each other with expressions of embarrassment. Grandmother moved farther back against the stove, into the shadow, and was heard to sigh heavily.
Rubbing the palm of her hand across her thick red lips, Petrovna observed :
“He seems to be in a temper.”
“No,” replied Uncle Peter; “that ‘s only his way.”
Grandmother left the stove, and in silence began to heat the samovar; and Uncle Peter added, in a slow voice :
“The Lord makes people like that sometimes freaks.”
“Bachelors always play the fool,” Valei threw out gruffly, at which there was a general laugh ; but Uncle Peter drawled:
“He was actually in tears. It is a case of the pike nibbling what the roach hardly ”
I began to get tired of all this. I was conscious of a heartache. I was greatly astonished by the behavior of “Good-business,” and very sorry for him. I could not get his swimming eyes out of my mind.
That night he did not sleep at home, but he returned the next day, after dinner quiet, crushed, obviously embarrassed.
“I made a scene last night,” he said to grandmother, with the air of a guilty child. “You are not angry?”
“Why should I be angry T
“Why, because I interrupted . . . and talked . . .”
“You offended no one.”
I felt that grandmother was afraid of him. She did not look him in the face, and spoke in a subdued tone, and was quite unlike herself.
He drew near to her and said with amazing simplicity :
“You see, I am so terribly lonely. I have no one belonging to me. I am always silent silent; and then, all on a sudden, my soul seems to boil over, as if it had been torn open. At such times I could speak to stones and trees ”
Grandmother moved away from him.
“If you were to get married now,” she began.
“Eh?” he cried, wrinkling up his face, and ran out, throwing his arms up wildly.
Grandmother looked after him frowning, and took a pinch of snuff; after which she sternly admonished me:
“Don’t you hang round him so much. Do you hear? God knows what sort of a man he is !”
But I was attracted to him afresh. I had seen how his face changed and fell when he said “terribly lonely”; there was something in those words which I well understood, and my heart was touched. I went to find him.
I looked, from the yard, into the window of his room; it was empty, and looked like a lumber-room into which had been hurriedly thrown all sorts of unwanted things as unwanted and as odd as its occupier. I went into the garden, and there I saw him by the pit. He was bending over, with his hands behind his head, his elbows resting on his knees, and was seated uncomfortably on the end of a half — burnt plank. The greater part of this plank was buried in the earth, but the end of it struck out, glistening like coal, above the top of the pit, which was grown over with nettles.
The very fact of his being in such an uncomfortable place made me look upon this man in a still more favorable light. He did not notice me for some time; he was gazing beyond me with his half-blind, owl-like eyes, when he suddenly asked in a tone of vexation :
“Did you want me for anything?”
“No.”
“Why are you here then?”
“I couldn’t say.”
He took off his glasses, polished them with his red and black spotted

10-28-2011, 05:50 PM

المشاركة 13

ريم بدر الدين

عضو مجلس الإدارة سابقا



handkerchief, and said:
“Well, climb up here.”
When I was sitting beside him, he put his arm round my shoulders and pressed me to him.
“Sit down. Now let us sit still and be quiet. Will that suit you? This is the same Are you obstinate?”
“Yes.”
“Good-business !”
We were silent a long time. It was a quiet, mild evening, one of those melancholy evenings of late summer, when, in spite of the profusion of flowers, signs of decay are visible, and every hour brings impoverishment; when the earth, having already exhausted its luxuriant summer odors, smells of nothing but a chill dampness; when the air is curiously transparent, and the daws dart aimlessly to and fro against the red sky, arousing a feeling of unhappiness. Silence reigned; and any sound, such as the fluttering of birds or the rustling of fallen leaves, struck one as being unnaturally loud, and caused a shuddering start, which soon died away into that torpid stillness which seemed to encompass the earth and cast a spell over the heart. In such moments as these are born thoughts of a peculiar i86 purity ethereal thoughts, thin, transparent as a cob-web, incapable of being expressed in words. They come and go quickly, like falling stars, kindling a flame of sorrow in the soul, soothing and disturbing it at the same time; and the soul is, as it were, on fire, and, being plastic, receives an impression which lasts for all time.
Pressed close to the boarder’s warm body, I gazed, with him, through the black branches of the apple tree, at the red sky, following the flight of the flapping rooks, and noticing how the dried poppy-heads shook on their stems, scattering their coarse seeds; and I observed the ragged, dark blue clouds with livid edges, which stretched over the fields, and the crows flying heavily under the clouds to their nests in the burial-ground.
It was all beautiful ; and that evening it all seemed especially beautiful, and in harmony with my feelings. Sometimes, with a heavy sigh, my companion said:
“This is quite all right, my boy, isn’t it? And you don’t feel it damp or cold?”
But when the sky became overcast, and the twilight, laden with damp, spread over everything, he said :
“Well, it can’t be helped. We shall have to go in.”
He halted at the garden gate and said softly :
“Your grandmother is a splendid woman. Oh, what a treasure !” And he closed his eyes with a smile and recited in a low, very distinct voice:
“‘Let us be warned by his terrible fate, Nor of meek obedience let us prate. If we are ordered to do something wrong, Our duty is then to stand firm and be strong.’ ”
“Don’t forget that, my boy!”
And pushing me before him, he asked :
“Can you write?’
“No.”
“You must learn; and when you have learned, write down grandmother’s stories. You will find it worth while, my boy.”
And so we became friends ; and from that day I went to see “Good-business” whenever I felt inclined; and sitting on one of the cases, or on some rags, I used to watch him melt lead and heat copper till it was red-hot, beat layers of iron on a little anvil with an elegant-handled, light hammer, or work with a smooth file and a saw of emery, which was as fine as a thread. He weighed everything on his delicately adjusted copper scales; and when he had poured various liquids into bulging, white vessels, he would watch them till they smoked and filled the room with an acrid odor, and then with a wrinkled-up face he would consult a thick book, biting his red lips, or softly humming in his husky voice :
“O Rose of Sharon !”
“What are you doing?” i88
“I am making something, my boy.”
“What?”
“Ah that I can’t tell you. You wouldn’t understand.”
“Grandfather says he would not be surprised if you were coining false money.”
“Your grandfather? M’m! Well, he says that for something to say. Money ‘s all nonsense, my boy.”
“How should we buy bread without it?”
“Well, yes; we want it for that, it is true.”
“And for meat too.”
“Yes, and for meat.”
He smiled quietly, with a kindness which astonished me ; and pulling my ear, said :
“It is no use arguing with you. You always get the best of it. I ‘d better keep quiet.”
Sometimes he broke off his work, and sitting beside me he would gaze for a long time out of the window, watching the rain patter down on the roof, and noting how the grass was growing over the yard, and how the apple trees were being stripped of their leaves. “Good-business” was niggardly with his words, but what he said was to the point; more often than not, when he wished to draw my attention to something, he nudged me and winked instead of speaking. The yard had never been particularly attractive to me, but his nudges and his brief words seemed to throw a different complexion on it, and everything within sight seemed worthy of notice. A kitten ran about, and halting before a shining pool gazed at its own reflection, lifting its soft paw as if it were going to strike it.
“Cats are vain and distrustful,” observed “Good-business” quietly.
Then there was the red-gold cock Mamae, who flew on to the garden hedge, balanced himself, shook out his wings, and nearly fell; whereupon he was greatly put out, and muttered angrily, stretching out his neck:
“A consequential general, and not over-clever at that.”
Clumsy Valei passed, treading heavily through the mud, like an old horse ; his face, with its high cheek-bones, seemed inflated as he gazed, blinking, at the sky, from which the pale autumn beams fell straight on his chest, making the brass buttons on his coat shine brilliantly. The Tartar stood still and touched them with his crooked fingers “just as if they were medals bestowed on him.”
My attachment to “Good-business” grew apace, and became stronger every day, till I found that he was indispensable both on days when I felt myself bitterly aggrieved, and in my hours of happiness. Although he was taciturn himself, he did not forbid me to talk about anything which came into my head; grandfather, on the other hand, always cut me short by his stern exclamation:
“Don’t chatter, you mill of the devil !”
Grandmother, too, was so full of her own ideas that she neither listened to other people’s ideas nor admitted them into her mind; but “Good-business” always listened attentively to my chatter, and often said to me smilingly :
“No, my boy, that is not true. That is an idea of your own.”
And his brief remarks were always made at the right time, and only when absolutely necessary; he seemed to be able to pierce the outer covering of my heart and head, and see all that went on, and even to see all the useless, untrue words on my lips before I had time to utter them he saw them and cut them off with two gentle blows:
“Untrue, boy.”
Sometimes I tried to draw out his wizard-like abilities. I made up something and told it to him as if it had really happened; but after listening for a time, he would shake his head.
“Now that ‘s not true, my boy.”
“How do you know?”
“I can feel it, my boy.”
When grandmother went to fetch water from Syeniu
Square, she often used to take me with her ; and on one occasion we saw five citizens assault a peasant, throwing him on the ground, and dragging him about as dogs might do to another dog. Grandmother slipped her pail off the yoke, which she brandished as she flew to the rescue, calling to me as she went:
“You run away now !”
But I was frightened, and, running after her, I began to hurl pebbles and large stones at the citizens, while she bravely made thrusts at them with the yoke, striking at their shoulders and heads. When other people came on the scene they ran away, and grandmother set to work to bathe the injured man’s wounds. His face had been trampled, and the sight of him as he pressed his dirty fingers to his torn nostrils and howled and coughed, while the blood spurted from under his fingers over grandmother’s face and breast, filled me with repugnance; she uttered a cry too, and trembled violently.
As soon as I returned home I ran to the boarder and began to tell him all about it. He left off working, and stood in front of me looking at me fixedly and sternly from under his glasses; then he suddenly interrupted me, speaking with unusual impressiveness :
“That ‘s a fine thing, I must say very fine !”
I was so taken up by the sight I had witnessed that his words did not surprise me, and I went on with my story; but he put his arm round me, and then left me and walked about the room uncertainly.
“That will do,” he said; “I don’t want to hear any more. You have said all that is needful, my boy all. Do you understand?”
I felt offended, and did not answer; but on thinking the matter over afterwards, I have still a lively recollection of my astonishment at the discovery that he had stopped me at exactly the right time. I had, in truth, told all there was to tell.
“Do not dwell on this incident, child; it is not a good thing to remember,” he said.
Sometimes on the spur of the moment he uttered words which I have never forgotten. I remember telling him about my enemy Kliushnikov, a warrior from New Street a fat boy with a large head, whom I could not conquer in battle, nor he me. “Good-business” listened attentively to my complaint, and then he said :
“That ‘s all nonsense ! That sort of strength does not count. Real strength lies in swift movements. He who is swiftest is strongest. See?”
The next Sunday I used my fists more quickly, and easily conquered Kliushnikov, which made me pay still more heed to what the boarder said.
“You must learn to grasp all kinds of things, do you see”? It is very difficult to learn how to grasp.”
I did not understand him at all, but I involuntarily remembered this, with many other similar sayings ; but this one especially, because in its simplicity it was provokingly mysterious. Surely it did not require any extraordinary cleverness to be able to grasp stones, a piece of bread, a cup or a hammer !
In the house, however, “Good-business” became less and less liked ; even the friendly cat of the merry lady would not jump on his knees as she jumped on the knees of the others, and took no notice when he called her kindly. I beat her for that and pulled her ears, and, almost weeping, told her not to be afraid of the man.
“It is because my clothes smell of acids that is why he will not come to me,” he explained; but I knew that every one else, even grandmother, gave quite a different explanation uncharitable, untrue, and injurious to him.
“Why are you always hanging about him 9” demanded grandmother angrily. “He’ll be teaching you something bad you’ll see !”
And grandfather hit me ferociously whenever I visited the boarder, who, he was firmly convinced, was a rogue.
Naturally I did not mention to “Good-business” that I was forbidden to make a friend of him, but I did tell him frankly what was said about him in the house :
“Grandmother is afraid of you; she says you are a black magician. And grandfather too he says you are one of God’s enemies, and that it is dangerous to have you here.”
He moved his hand about his head as if he were driving away flies ; but a smile spread like a blush over his chalk-white face, and my heart contracted, and a mist seemed to creep over my eyes.
“I see !” he said softly. “It is a pity, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“It ‘s a pity, my lad yes.”
Finally they gave him notice to quit. One day, when I went to him after breakfast, I found him sitting on the floor packing his belongings in cases, and softly singing to himself about the Rose of Sharon.
“Well, it ‘s good-by now, my friend; I am going.”
“Why?”
He looked at me fixedly as he said:
“Is it possible you don’t know? This room is wanted for your mother.”
“Who said so?’
“Your grandfather.”
“Then he told a lie!”
“Good-business” drew me towards him; and when I sat beside him on the floor, he said softly :
“Don’t be angry. I thought that you knew about it and would not tell me; and I thought you were not treating me well.”
So that was why he had been sad and vexed in his manner.
“Listen!” he went on, almost in a whisper. “You remember when I told you not to come and see me?”
I nodded.
“You were offended, weren’t you?”
“Yes.”
“But I had no intention of offending you, child. I knew, you see, that if you became friendly with me, you would get into trouble with your family. And wasn’t I right? Now, do you understand why I said it?”
He spoke almost like a child of my own age, and I was beside myself with joy at his words. I felt that I had known this all along, and I said :
“I understood that long ago.”
“Well, there it is. It has happened as I said, my little dove !”
The pain in my heart was almost unbearable.
“Why do none of them like you?”
He put his arm round me, and pressed me to him and answered, blinking down at me:
“I am of a different breed do you see? That’s what it is. I am not like them ”
I just held his hands, not knowing what to say; incapable, in fact, of saying anything.
“Don’t be angry!” he said again; and then he whispered in my ear : “And don’t cry either.” But all the time his own tears were flowing freely from under his smeared glasses.
After that we sat, as usual, in silence, which was broken at rare intervals by a brief word or two; and that evening he went, courteously bidding farewell to every one, and hugging me warmly. I accompanied him to the gate, and watched him drive away in the cart, and being violently jolted as the wheels passed over the hillocks of frozen mud.
Grandmother set to work immediately to clean and scrub the dirty room, and I wandered about from corner to corner on purpose to hinder her.
“Go away !” she cried, when she stumbled over me.
“Why did you send him away then?”
“Don’t talk about things you don’t understand.”
“You are fools all of you !” I said.
She flicked me with her wet floorcloth, crying :
“Are you mad, you little wretch?”
“I did not mean you, but the others,” I said, trying to pacify her; but with no success.
At supper grandfather exclaimed :
“Well, thank God he has gone! I should never have been surprised, from what I saw of him, to find him one day with a knife through his heart. Och ! It was time he went.”
I broke a spoon out of revenge, and then I relapsed into my usual state of sullen endurance. Thus ended my friendship with the first one of that endless chain of friends belonging to my own country the verv best of her people.

10-28-2011, 05:53 PM

المشاركة 14

ريم بدر الدين

عضو مجلس الإدارة سابقا



Chapter IX

I IMAGINE myself, in my childhood, as a hive to which all manner of simple, undistinguished people brought, as the bees bring honey, their knowledge and thoughts about life, generously enriching my soul with what they had to give. The honey was often dirty, and bitter, but it was all the same knowledge and honey.
After the departure of “Good-business,” Uncle Peter became my friend. He was in appearance like grandfather, in that he was wizened, neat, and clean ; but he was shorter and altogether smaller than grandfather. He looked like a person hardly grown-up dressed up like an old man for fun. His face was creased like a square of very fine leather, and his comical, lively eyes, with their yellow whites, danced amidst these wrinkles like siskins in a cage. His raven hair, now growing gray, was curly, his beard also fell into ringlets, and he smoked a pipe, the smoke from which the same color as his hair curled upward into rings too; his style of speech was florid, and abounded in quaint sayings. He always spoke in a buzzing voice, and sometimes very kindly, but I always had an idea that he was making fun of everybody.
“When I first went to her, the lady-countess Tatian her name was Lexievna said to me, ‘You shall be blacksmith’; but after a time she orders me to go and help the gardener. ‘All right, I don’t mind, only I didn’t engage to work as a laborer, and it is not right that I should have to.’ Another time she ‘d say ‘Now, Petrushka, you must go fishing.’ It was all one to me whether I went fishing or not, but I preferred to say ‘good-by’ to the fish, thank you! and I came to the town as a drayman. And here I am, and have never been anything else. So far I have not done much good for myself by the change. The only thing I possess is the horse, which reminds me of the Countess.”
This was an old horse, and was really white, but one day a drunken house painter had begun to paint it in various colors, and had never finished his job. Its legs were dislocated, and altogether it looked as if it were made of rags sewn together; the bony head, with its dim, sadly drooping eyes, was feebly attached to the carcass by swollen veins and old, worn-out skin. Uncle Peter waited upon the creature with much respect, and called it “Tankoe.”
“Why do you call that animal by a Christian name?” asked grandfather one day.
“Nothing of the kind, Vassili Vassilev, nothing of the kind in all respect I say it. There is no such Christian name as Tanka but there is ‘Tatiana’ !”
Uncle Peter was educated and well-read, and he and grandfather used to quarrel as to which of the saints was the most holy; and sit in judgment, each more severely than the other, on the sinners of ancient times. The sinner who was most hardly dealt with was Absalom. Sometimes the dispute took a purely grammatical form, grandfather saying that it ought to be “sogryeshiM0#z, bezzakonnovaM0w, nepravdava-khom” and Uncle Peter insisting that it was “sogry.” “I say it one way, and you say it another!” said grandfather angrily, turning livid. Then he jeered: “Vaska! Skiska!”
But Uncle Peter, enveloped in smoke, asked maliciously:
“And what is the use of your ‘Idioms’? Do you think God takes any notice of them? What God says when He listens to our prayers is : Pray how you like, pray what you like.”
“Go away, Lexei !” shrieked grandfather in a fury, with his green eyes flashing.
Peter was very fond of cleanliness and tidiness. When he went into the yard he used to kick to one side any shavings, or pieces of broken crockery, or bones that were lying about, with the scornful remark :
“These things are no use, and they get in the way.”
Although he was usually talkative, good-natured, and merry, there were times when his eyes became bloodshot and grew dim and fixed, like the eyes of a dead person, and he would sit, huddled up in a corner, morose and as dumb as his nephew.
“What is the matter with you, Uncle Peter?”
“Let me alone!” he would say darkly and grimly.
In one of the little houses in our street there lived a gentleman, with wens on his forehead, and the most extraordinary habits; on Sundays he used to sit at the window and shoot from a shot-gun at dogs and cats, hens and crows, or whatever came in his way that did not please him. One day he fired at the side of “Good-business”; the shots did not pierce his leather coat, but some of them fell into his pocket. I shall never forget the interested expression with which the boarder regarded the dark-blue shots. Grandfather tried to persuade him to make a complaint about it, but, throwing the shots into a corner of the kitchen, he replied :
“It is not worth while.”
Another time our marksman planted a few shots in grandfather’s leg, and he, much enraged, got up a petition to the authorities, and set to work to get the names of other sufferers and witnesses in the street ; but the culprit suddenly disappeared.
As for Uncle Peter, every time he heard the sound of shooting in the street if he were at home he used to hastily cover his iron-gray head with his glossy Sunday cap, which had large ear-flaps, and rush to the gate. Here he would hide his hands behind his back under his coat-tails, which he would lift up in imitation of a cock, and sticking out his stomach, would strut solemnly along the pavement quite close to the marksman, and then turn back. He would do this over and over again, and our whole household would be standing at the gate; while the purple face of the war-like gentleman could be seen at his window, with the blonde head of his wife over his shoulder, and people coming out of Betlenga yard only the gray, dead house of the Ovsyanikovs showed no signs of animation.
Sometimes Uncle Peter made these excursions without any result, the hunter evidently not looking upon him as game worthy of his skill in shooting; but on other occasions the double-barrelled gun was discharged over and over again.
“Boom! Boom!”
With leisurely steps Uncle Peter came back to us and exclaimed, in great delight :
“He sent every shot into the field!”
Once he got some shot into his shoulder and neck; and grandmother gave him a lecture while she was getting them out with a needle :
“Why on earth do you encourage the beast? He will blind you one of these days.”
“Impossible, Akulina Ivanna,” drawled Peter contemptuously. “He ‘s no marksman !”
“But why do you encourage him?”
“Do you think I am encouraging him? No ! I like teasing the gentleman.”
And looking at the extracted shot in his palm, he said:
“He ‘s no marksman. But up there, at the house of my mistress, the Countess Tatiana Lexievna, there was an Army man Marmont Ilich. He was taken up most of the time with matrimonial duties husbands were in the same category as footmen with her and so he was kept busy about her; but he could shoot, if you like only with bullets though, grandmother; he wouldn’t shoot with anything else. He put Ignashka the Idiot at forty paces or thereabouts from him, with a bottle tied to his belt and placed so that it hung between his legs; and while Ignashka stood there with his legs apart laughing in his foolish way, Marmont Ilich took his pistol and bang! the bottle was smashed to pieces. Only, unfortunately Ignashka swallowed a gadfly, or something, and gave a start, and the bullet went into his knee, right into the kneecap. The doctor was called and he took the leg off; it was all over in a minute, and the leg was buried ...”
“But what about the idiot?”
“Oh, he was all right! What does an idiot want with legs and arms? His idiocy brings him in more than enough to eat and drink. Every one loves idiots ; they are harmless enough. You know the saying: ‘It is better for underlings to be fools; they can do less harm then.’ ”
This sort of talk did not astonish grandmother, she had listened to it scores of times, but it made me rather uncomfortable, and I asked Uncle Peter:
“Would that gentleman be able to kill any one?”
“And why not? Of cou rse he could! . . . He even fought a duel. A Uhlan, who came on a visit to Tatiana Lexievna, had a quarrel with Marmont, and in a minute they had their pistols in their hands, and went out to the park; and there on the path by the pond that Uhlan shot Marmont bang through the liver. Then Marmont was sent to the churchyard, and the Uhlan to the Caucasus . . . and the whole affair was over in a very short time. That is how they did for themselves. And amongst the peasants, and the rest of them, he is not talked of now. People don’t regret him much; they never regretted him for himself . . . but all the same they did grieve at one time for his property.”
“Well, then they didn’t grieve much,” said grandmother.
Uncle Peter agreed with her:
“That ‘s true ! . . . His property. . . yes, that wasn’t worth much.”
He always bore himself kindly towards me, spoke to me good-naturedly, and as if I were a grown person, and looked me straight in the eyes; but all the same there was something about him which I did not like. Having regaled me with my. favorite jam, he would spread my slice of bread with what was left, he would bring me malted gingerbread from the town, and always conversed with me in a quiet and serious tone.
“What are you going to do, young gentleman, when you grow up? Are you going into the Army or the Civil Service?’
“Into the Army.”
“Good! A soldier’s life is not a hard one in these days. A priest’s life isn’t bad either ... all he has to do is to chant, and pray to God, and that does not take long. In fact, a priest has an easier job than a soldier . . . but a fisherman’s job is easier still; that does not require any education at all, it is simply a question of habit.”
He gave an amusing imitation of the fish hovering round the bait, and of the way perch, mugil, and bream throw themselves about when they get caught on the hook.
“Now, you get angry when grandfather whips you,” he would say soothingly, “but you have no cause to be angry at that, young gentleman; whippings are a part of your education, and those that you get are, after all, mere child’s play. You should just see how my mistress, Tatiana Lexievna, used to thrash! She could do it all right, she could ! And she used to keep a man especially for that Christopher his name was and he did his work so well that sometimes neighbors from other manor-houses sent a message to the Countess: ‘Please, Tatiana Lexievna, send Christopher to thrash our footman.’ And she used to let him go.”
In his artless manner, he would give a detailed account of how the Countess, in a white muslin frock with a gauzy, sky-colored handkerchief over her head, would sit on the steps, by one of the pillars, in a red armchair, while Christopher flogged the peasants, male and female, in her presence.
“And this Christopher was from Riazan, and he looked like a gipsy, or a Little Russian, with mustaches sticking out beyond his ears, and his ugly face all blue where he had shaved his beard. And either he was a fool, or he pretended to be one so that he should not be asked useless questions. Sometimes he used to pour water into a cup to catch flies and cockroaches, which are a kind of beetle, and then he used to boil them over the fire.”
I was familiar with many such stories, which I had heard from the lips of grandmother and grandfather. Though they were different, yet they were all curiously alike; each one told of people being tormented, jeered at, or driven away, and I was tired of them, and as I did not wish to hear any more, said to the cab-driver :
“Tell me another kind of story.”
All his wrinkles were gathered about his mouth for a space, then they spread themselves to his eyes, as he said obligingly:
“All right, Greedy! Well, we once had a cook”
“Who had?”
“The Countess Tatian Lexievna.”
“Why do you call her Tatian ? She wasn’t a man, was she?”
He laughed shrilly.
“Of course she wasn’t. She was a lady; but all the same she had whiskers. Dark she was . . . she came of a dark German race . . . people of the negro type they are. Well, as I was saying, this cook this is a funny story, young gentleman.”
And this “funny story” was that the cook had spoiled a fish pasty, and had been made to eat it all up himself, after which he had been taken ill.
“It is not at all funny!” I said angrily.
“Well, what is your idea of a funny story? Come on ! Let ‘s have it.”
“I don’t know”
“Then hold your tongue !” And he spun out another dreary yarn.
Occasionally, on Sundays and holidays, we received a visit from my cousins the lazy and melancholy Sascha Michhailov, and the trim, omniscient Sascha Jaakov. Once, when the three of us had made an excursion up to the roof, we saw a gentleman in a green fur-trimmed coat sitting in the Betlenga yard upon a heap of wood against the wall, and playing with some puppies; his little, yellow, bald head was uncovered. One of the brothers suggested the theft of a puppy, and they quickly evolved an ingenious plan by which the brothers were to go down to the street and wait at the entrance to Betlenga yard, while I did something to startle the gentleman; and when he ran away in alarm they were to rush into the yard and seize a puppy.
“But how am I to startle him?’
“Spit on his bald head,” suggested one of my cousins.
But was it not a grievous sin to spit on a person’s head”? However, I had heard over and over again, and had seen with my own eyes, that they had done many worse things than that, so I faithfully performed my part of the contract, with my usual luck.
There was a terrible uproar and scene; a whole army of men and women, headed by a young, good-looking officer, rushed out of Betlenga House into the yard, and as my two cousins were, at the very moment when the outrage was committed, quietly walking along the street, and knew nothing of my wild prank, I was the only one to receive a thrashing from grandfather, by which the inhabitants of Betlenga House were completely satisfied.
And as I lay, all bruised, in the kitchen, there came to me Uncle Peter, dressed in his best, and looking very happy.
“That was a jolly good idea of yours, young gentleman,” he whispered. “That ‘s just what the silly old goat deserved to be spit upon! Next time throw a stone on his rotten head !”
Before me rose the round, hairless, childlike face of the gentleman, and I remembered how he had squeaked feebly and plaintively, just like the puppies, as he had wiped his yellow pate with his small hands, and I felt overwhelmed with shame, and full of hatred for my cousins ; but I forgot all this in a moment when I gazed on the drayman’s wrinkled face, which quivered with a half-fearful, half-disgusted expression, like grandfather’s face when he was beating me.
“Go away!” I shrieked, and struck at him with my hands and feet.
He tittered, and winking at me over his shoulder, went away.
From that time I ceased to have any desire for intercourse with him; in fact, I avoided him. And yet I began to watch his movements suspiciously, with a confused idea that I should discover something about him. Soon after the incident connected with the gentleman of Betlenga House, something else occurred. For a long time I had been very curious about Ovsyanikov House, and I imagined that its gray exterior hid a mysterious romance.
Betlenga House was always full of bustle and gaiety; many beautiful ladies lived there, who were visited by officers and students, and from it sounds of laughter and singing, and the playing of musical instruments, continually proceeded. The very face of the house looked cheerful, with its brightly polished window-panes.
Grandfather did not approve of it.
“They are heretics . . . and godless people, all of them!” he said about its inhabitants, and he applied to the women an offensive term, which Uncle Peter explained to me in words equally offensive and malevolent.
But the stern, silent Ovsyanikov House inspired grandfather with respect.
This one-storied but tall house stood in a well-kept yard overgrown with turf, empty save for a well with a roof supported by two pillars, which stood in the middle. The house seemed to draw back from the street as if it wished to hide from it. Two of its windows, which had chiselled arches, were at some distance from the ground, and upon their dust-smeared panes the sun fell with a rainbow effect. And on the other side of the gateway stood a store-house, with a facade exactly like that of the house, even to the three windows, but they were not real ones; the outlines were built into the gray wall, and the frames and sashes painted on with white paint. These blind windows had a sinister appearance, and the whole storehouse added to the impression which the house gave, of having a desire to hide and escape notice. There was a suggestion of mute indignation, or of secret pride, about the whole house, with its empty stables, and its coachhouse, with wide doors, also empty.
Sometimes a tall old man, with shaven chin and white mustache, the hair of which stuck out stiffly like so many needles, was to be seen hobbling about the yard. At other times another old man, with whiskers and a crooked nose, led out of the stables a gray mare with a long neck a narrow-chested creature with thin legs, which bowed and scraped like an obsequious nun as soon as she came out into the yard. The lame man slapped her with his palms, whistling, and drawing in his breath noisily; and then the mare was again hidden in the dark stable. I used to think that the old man wanted to run away from the house, but could not because he was bewitched.
Almost every day from noon till the evening three boys used to play in the yard all dressed alike in gray coats and trousers, with caps exactly alike, and all of them with round faces and gray eyes; so much alike that I could only tell one from the other by their height.
I used to watch them through a chink in the fence; they could not see me, but I wanted them to know I was there. I liked the way they played together, so gaily and amicably, games which were unfamiliar to me; I liked their dress, and their consideration for each other, which was especially noticeable in the conduct of the elder ones to their little brother, a funny little fellow, full of life. If he fell down, they laughed it being the custom to laugh when any one has a fall but there was no malice in their laughter, and they ran to help him up directly; and if he made his hands or knees dirty, they wiped his fingers and trousers with leaves or their handkerchiefs, and the middle boy said good-naturedly:
“There, clumsy!”
They never quarreled amongst themselves, never cheated, and all three were agile, strong and indefatigable.
One day I climbed up a tree and whistled to them; they stood stock-still for a moment, then they calmly drew close together, and after looking up at me, deliberated quietly amongst themselves. Thinking that they were going to throw stones at me, I slipped to the ground, filled my pockets and the front of my blouse with stones, and climbed up the tree again; but they were playing in another corner of the yard, far away from me, and apparently had forgotten all about me. I was very sorry for this; first, because I did not wish to be the one to begin the war, and secondly, because just at that moment some one called to them out of the window :
“You must come in now, children.”
They went submissively, but without haste, in single file, like geese.
I often sat on the tree over the fence hoping that they would ask me to play with them; but they never did. But in spirit I was always playing with them, and I was so fascinated by the games sometimes that I shouted and laughed aloud ; whereupon all three would look at me and talk quietly amongst themselves, whilst I, overcome with confusion, would let myself drop to the ground.
One day they were playing hide-and-seek, and when it came to the turn of the middle brother to hide, he stood in the corner by the storehouse and shut his eyes honestly, without attempting to peep, while his brothers ran to hide themselves. The elder one nimbly and swiftly climbed into a broad sledge which was kept in a shed against the storehouse, but the youngest one ran in a comical fashion round and round the well, flustered by not knowing where to hide.
“One” shouted the elder one. “Two”
The little boy jumped on the edge of the well, seized the rope, and stepped into the bucket, which, striking once against the edge with a dull sound, disappeared. I was stupefied, as I saw how quickly and noiselessly the well-oiled wheel turned, but I realized in a moment the possibilities of the situation, and I jumped down into the yard crying:
“He has fallen into the well !”
The middle boy and I arrived at the edge of the well at the same time; he clutched at the rope and, feeling himself drawn upwards, loosed his hands. I was just in time to catch the rope, and the elder brother, having come up, helped me to draw up the bucket, saying :
“Gently, please !”
We quickly pulled up the little boy, who was very frightened; there were drops of blood on the fingers of his right hand, and his cheek was severely grazed. He was wet to the waist, and his face was overspread with a bluish pallor; but he smiled, then shuddered, and closed his eyes tightly, then smiled again, and said slowly :
“Howe ver did I fa all?’
“You must have been mad to do such a thing!” said the middle brother, putting his arm round him and wiping the blood off his face with a handkerchief; and the elder one said frowning:
“We had better go in. We can’t hide it anyhow ”
“Will you be whipped?” I asked.
He nodded, and then he said, holding out his hand :
“How quickly you ran here !”
I was delighted by his praise, but I had no time to take his hand for he turned away to speak to his brothers again.
“Let us go in, or he will take cold. We will say that he fell down, but we need not say anything about the well.”
“No,” agreed the youngest, shuddering. “We will say I fell in a puddle, shall we?” And they went away.
All this happened so quickly that when I looked at the branch from which I had sprung into the yard, it was still shaking and throwing its yellow leaves about.
The brothers did not come into the yard again for a week, and when they appeared again they were more noisy than before; when the elder one saw me in the tree he called out to me kindly:
“Come here and play with us.”
We gathered together, under the projecting roof of the storehouse, in the old sledge, and having surveyed one another thoughtfully, we held a long conversation.
“Did they whip you?” I asked.
“Rather!”
It was hard for me to believe that these boys were whipped like myself, and I felt aggrieved about it for their sakes.
“Why do you catch birds’?” asked the youngest.
“Because I like to hear them sing.”
“But you ought not to catch them; why don’t you let them fly about as they like to?”
“Well, I ‘m not going to, so there !”
“Won’t you just catch one then and give it to me?”
“To you! . . . What kind?”
“A lively one, in a cage.”
“A siskin . . . that ‘s what you want.”
“The cat would eat it,” said the youngest one; “and besides, papa would not allow us to have it.”
“No, he wouldn’t allow it,” agreed the elder.
“Have you a mother?”
“No,” said the eldest, but the middle one corrected him:
“We have a mother, but she is not ours really. Ours is dead.”
“And the other is called a stepmother?” I said, and the elder nodded “Yes.”
And they all three looked thoughtful, and their faces were clouded. I knew what a stepmother was like from the stories grandmother used to tell me, and I understood that sudden thoughtfulness. There they sat, all close together, as much alike as a row of peas in a pod; and I remembered the witch-stepmother who took the place of the real mother by means of a trick.
“Your real mother will come back to you again, see if she doesn’t,” I assured them.
The elder one shrugged his shoulders.
“How can she if she is dead? Such things don’t happen.”
“Don’t happen”? Good Lord ! how many times have the dead, even when they have been hacked to pieces, come to life again when sprinkled with living water?
How many times has death been neither real, nor the work of God, but simply the evil spell cast by a wizard or a witch !”
I began to tell grandmother’s stories to them excitedly; but the eldest laughed at first, and said under his breath :
“We know all about those fairy-tales !”
His brothers listened in silence; the little one with his lips closely shut and pouting, and the middle one with his elbows on his knees, and holding his brother’s hand which was round his neck.
The evening was far advanced, red clouds hung over the roof, when suddenly there appeared before us the old man with the white mustache and cinnamon-colored clothes, long, like those worn by a priest, and a rough fur cap.
“And who may this be?” he asked, pointing to me.
The elder boy stood up and nodded his head in the direction of grandfather’s house :
“He comes from there.”
“Who invited him in here?”
The boys silently climbed down from the sledge, and went into the house, reminding me more than ever of a flock of geese.
The old man gripped my shoulder like a vice and propelled me across the yard to the gate. I felt like crying through sheer terror, but he took such long, quick steps that before I had time to cry we were in the street, and he stood at the little gate raising his finger at me threateningly, as he said :
“Don’t you dare to come near me again !”
I flew into a rage.
“I never did want to come near you, you old devil !”
Once more I was seized by his long arm and he dragged me along the pavement as he asked in a voice which was like the blow of a hammer on my head :
“Is your grandfather at home?”
To my sorrow he proved to be at home, and he stood before the minacious old man, with his head thrown back and his beard thrust forward, looking up into the dull, round, fishy eyes as he said hastily :
“His mother is away, you see, and I am a busy man, so there is no one to look after him; so I hope you will overlook it this time, Colonel.”
The Colonel raved and stamped about the house like a madman, and he was hardly gone before I was thrown into Uncle Peter’s cart.
“In trouble again, young gentleman?” he asked as he unharnessed the horse. “What are you being punished for now?”
When I told him, he flared up.
“And what do you want to be friends with them for?” he hissed. “The young serpents! Look what they have done for you ! It is your turn now to blow on them ; see you do it.”
He whispered like this for a long time, and all sore from my beating as I was, I was inclined to listen to him at first; but his wrinkled face quivered in a way which became more and more repellent to me every moment, and reminded me that the other boys would be beaten too, and undeservedly, in my opinion.
“They ought not to be whipped; they are all good boys. As for you, every word you say is a lie,” I said.
He looked at me, and then without any warning cried :
“Get out of my cart !”
“You fool !” I yelled, jumping down to the ground.
He ran after me across the yard, making unsuccessful attempts to catch me, and yelling in an uncanny voice :
“I am a fool, am I? I tell lies, do I? You wait till I get you !”
At this moment grandmother came out of the kitchen, and I rushed to her.
“This little wretch gives me no peace! I am five times older than he is, yet he dares to come and revile me . . . and my mother . . . and all.”
Hearing him lie like this so brazenly, I lost my presence of mind, and could do nothing but stand staring at him stupidly; but grandmother replied sternly :
“Now you are telling lies, Peter, there is no doubt about it. He would never be offensive to you or any one.”
Grandfather would have believed the drayman!
From that day there was silent but none the less bitter warfare between us; he would try to hit me with his reins, without seeming to do it, he would let my birds out of their cage, and sometimes the cat would catch and eat them, and he would complain about me to grandfather on every possible occasion, and was always believed. I was confirmed in my first impression of him that he was just a boy like myself disguised as an old man. I unplaited his bast shoes, or rather I ripped a little inside the shoes so that as soon as he put them on they began to fall to pieces; one day I put some pepper in his cap which set him sneezing for a whole hour, and trying with all his might not to leave off his work because of it.
On Sundays he kept me under observation, and more than once he caught me doing what was forbidden talking to the Ovsyanikovs, and went and told tales to grandfather.
My acquaintance with the Ovsyanikovs progressed, and gave me increasing pleasure. On a little winding pathway between the wall of grandfather’s house and the Ovsyanikovs’ fence grew elms and lindens, with some thick elder bushes, under cover of which I bored a semicircular hole in the fence, and the brothers used to come in turns, or perhaps two of them together, and, squatting or kneeling at this hole, we held long conversations in subdued tones ; while one of them watched lest the Colonel should come upon us unawares.
They told me how miserable their existence was, and it made me sad to listen to them; they talked about my caged birds, and of many childish matters, but they never spoke a single word about their stepmother or their father, at least, as far as I can remember. More often than not they asked me to tell them a story, and I faithfully reproduced one of grandmother’s tales, and if I forgot anything, I would ask them to wait while I ran to her and refreshed my memory. This pleased her.
“I told them a lot about grandmother, and the eldest boy remarked once with a deep sigh :
“Your grandmother seems to be good in every way. . . . We had a good grandmother too, once.”
.

10-28-2011, 05:54 PM

المشاركة 15

ريم بدر الدين

عضو مجلس الإدارة سابقا



He often spoke sadly like this, and spoke of things which had happened as if he had lived a hundred years instead of eleven. I remember that his hands were narrow, and his ringers very slender and delicate, and that his eyes were kind and bright, like the lights of the church lamps. His brothers were lovable too; they seemed to inspire confidence and to make one want to do the things they liked; but the eldest one was my favorite.
Often I was so absorbed in our conversations that I did not notice Uncle Peter till he was close upon us, and the sound of his voice sent us flying in all directions as he exclaimed:
“A gai ne?”
I noticed that his fits of taciturnity and moroseness became more frequent, and I very soon learned to see at a glance what mood he was in when he returned from work. As a rule he opened the gate in a leisurely manner, and its hinges creaked with a long-drawn-out, lazy sound ; but when he was in a bad mood, they gave a sharp squeak, as if they were crying out in pain

His dumb nephew had been married some time and had gone to live in the country, so Peter lived alone in the stables, in a low stall with a broken window and a close smell of hides, tar, sweat and tobacco; and because of that smell I would never enter his dwelling-place. He had taken to sleep with his lamp burning, and grandfather greatly objected to the habit.
“You see ! You’ll burn me out, Peter.”
“No, I shan’t. Don’t you worry. I stand the lamp in a basin of water at night,” he would reply, with a sidelong glance.
He seemed to look askance at every one now, and had long given over attending grandmother’s evenings and bringing her jam; his face seemed to be shriveling, his wrinkles became much deeper, and as he walked he swayed from side to side and shuffled his feet like a sick person.
One week-day morning grandfather and I were clearing away the snow in the yard, there having been a heavy fall that night, when suddenly the latch of the gate clanged loudly and a policeman entered the yard, closing the gate by setting his back against it while he beckoned to grandfather with a fat, gray finger. When grandfather went to him the policeman bent down so that his long-pointed nose looked exactly as if it were chiseling grandfather’s forehead, and said something, but in such a low tone that I could not hear the words; but grandfather answered quickly:
“Here? When? Good God!”
And suddenly he cried, jumping about comically:
“God bless us! Is it possible?”
“Don’t make so much noise,” said the policeman sternly.
Grandfather looked round and saw me.
“Put away your spade, and go indoors,” he said.
I hid myself in a corner and saw them go to the drayman’s stall, and I saw the policeman take off his right glove and strike the palm of his left hand with it as he said:
“He knows we ‘re after him. He left the horse to wander about, and he is hiding here somewhere.”
I rushed into the kitchen to tell grandmother all about it; she was kneading dough for bread, and her floured he’ad was bobbing up and down as she listened to me, and then said calmly:
“He has been stealing something, I suppose. You run away now. What is it to do with you?”
When I went out into the yard again grandfather was standing at the gate with his cap off, and his eyes raised to heaven, crossing himself. His face looked angry; he was bristling with anger, in fact, and one of his legs was trembling.
“I told you to go indoors!” he shouted, stamping at me; but he came with me into the kitchen, calling: “Come here, Mother !”
They went into the next room, and carried on a long conversation in whispers; but when grandmother came back to the kitchen I saw at once from her expression that something dreadful had happened.
“Why do you look so frightened?” I asked her.
“Hold your tongue !” she said quietly.
All day long there was an oppressive feeling about the house. Grandfather and grandmother frequently exchanged glances of disquietude, and spoke together, softly uttering unintelligible, brief words which intensified the feeling of unrest.
“Light lamps all over the house, Mother,” grandfather ordered, coughing.
We dined without appetite, yet hurriedly, as if we were expecting some one. Grandfather was tired, and puffed out his cheeks as he grumbled in a squeaky voice :
“The power of the devil over man! . . . You see it everywhere . . . even our religious people and ecclesiastics! . . . What is the reason of it, eh?”
Grandmother sighed.
The hours of that silver-gray winter’s day dragged wearily on, and the atmosphere of the house seemed to become increasingly disturbed and oppressive. Before the evening another policeman came, a red, fat man, who sat by the stove in the kitchen and dozed, and when grandmother asked him : “How did they find this out?” he answered in a thick voice: “We find out everything, so don’t you worry yourself!”
I sat at the window, I remember, warming an old two-kopeck piece in my mouth, preparatory to an attempt to make an impression on the frozen window-panes of St. George and the Dragon. All of a sudden there came a dreadful noise from the vestibule, the door was thrown open, and Petrovna shrieked deliriously :
“Look and see what you ‘ve got out there !”
Catching sight of the policeman, she darted back into the vestibule; but he caught her by the skirt, and cried fearfully:
“Wait! Who are you? What are we to look for?”
Suddenly brought to a halt on the threshold, she fell on her knees and began to scream; and her words and her tears seemed to choke her :
“I saw it when I went to milk the cows . . . what is that thing that looks like a boot in the Kashmirins’ garden? I said to myself ”
But at this grandfather stamped his foot and shouted :
“You are lying, you fool ! You could not see anything in our garden, the fence is too high and there are no crevices. You are lying; there is nothing in our garden,”
“Little Father, it is true !” howled Petrovna, stretching out one hand to him, and pressing the other to her head. “It is true, little Father . . . should I lie about such a thing? There were footprints leading to your fence, and the snow was all trampled in one place, and I went and looked through the fence and I saw . . . him . . . lying there . . .”
“Who? Who?”
This question was repeated over and over again, but nothing more was to be got out of her. Suddenly they all made a dash for the garden, jostling each other as if they had gone mad; and there, by the pit, with the snow softly spread over him, lay Uncle Peter, with his back against the burnt beam and his head fallen on his chest. Under his right ear was a deep gash, red, like a mouth, from which jagged pieces of flesh stuck out like teeth.
I shut my eyes in horror at the sight, but I could see, through my eyelashes, the harness-maker’s knife, which I knew so well, lying on Uncle Peter’s knees, clutched in the dark fingers of his right hand; his left hand was cut off and was sinking into the snow. Under the drayman the snow had thawed, so that his diminutive body was sunk deep in the soft, sparkling down, and looked even more childlike than when he was alive. On the right side of the body a strange red design, resembling a bird, had been formed on the snow ; but on the left the snow was untouched, and had remained smooth and dazzingly bright. The head had fallen forward in an attitude of submission, with the chin pressed against the chest, and crushing the thick curly beard; and amidst the red streams of congealed blood on the breast there lay a large brass cross. The noise they were all making seemed to set my head spinning. Petrovna never left off shrieking, the policeman shouted orders to Valei as he sent him on an errand, and grandfather cried:
“Take care not to tread in his footprints !”
But he suddenly knit his brows, and looking on the ground said in a loud, imperious tone to the policeman : “There is nothing for you to kick up a row about, Constable! This is God’s affair ... a judgment from God . . . yet you must be fussing about some nonsense or other bah!”
And at once a hush fell on them all; they stood still and, taking in a long breath, crossed themselves. Several people now came hastily into the garden from the yard. They climbed over Petrovna’s fence and some of them fell down, and uttered exclamations of pain ; but for all that they were quite quiet until grandfather cried in a voice of despair:
“Neighbors! why are you spoiling my raspberry bushes? Have you no consciences’?”
Grandmother, sobbing violently, took my hand and brought me into the house.
“What did he do?” I asked.
“Couldn’t you see?” she answered.
For the rest of the evening, until far into the night, strangers tramped in and out of the kitchen and the other rooms talking loudly; the police were in command, and a man who looked like a deacon was making notes, and quacking like a duck :
“Wha at? Wha at?”
Grandmother offered them all tea in the kitchen, where, sitting at the table, was a rotund, whiskered individual, marked with smallpox, who was saying in a shrill voice :
“His real name we don’t know ... all that we can find out is that his birthplace was Elatma. As for the Deaf Mute . . . that is only a nickname . . . he was not deaf and dumb at all ... he knew all about the business. . . . And there ‘s a third man in it too ... we ‘ve got to find him yet. They have been robbing churches for a long time; that was their lay.”
“Good Lord!” ejaculated Petrovna, very red, and perspiring profusely.
As for me, I lay on the ledge of the stove and looked down on them, and thought how short and fat and dreadful they all were.

10-28-2011, 05:55 PM

المشاركة 16

ريم بدر الدين

عضو مجلس الإدارة سابقا



Chapter X

EARLY one Saturday morning I made my way to Petrovna’s kitchen-garden to catch robins. I was there a long time, because the pert red-breasts refused to go into the trap ; tantalizingly beautiful, they hopped playfully over the silvery frozen snow, and flew on to the branches of the frost-covered bushes, scattering the blue snow-crystals all about. It was such a pretty sight that I forgot my vexation at my lack of success; in fact, I was not a very keen sportsman, for I took more pleasure in the incidents of the chase than in its results, and my greatest delight was to observe the ways of the birds and think about them. I was quite happy sitting alone on the edge of a snowy field listening to the birds chirping in the crystal stillness of the frosty day, when, faintly, in the distance, I heard the fleeting sounds of the bells of a troika like the melancholy song of a skylark in the Russian winter. I was benumbed by sitting in the snow, and I felt that my ears were frost-bitten, so I gathered up the trap and the cages, climbed over the wall into grandfather’s garden, and made my way to the house.
The gate leading to the street was open, and a man of colossal proportions was leading three steaming horses, harnessed to a large, closed sledge, out of the yard, whistling merrily the while. My heart leaped.
“Whom have you brought here?”
He turned and looked at me from under his arms, and jumped on to the driver’s seat before he replied:
“The priest.”
But I was not convinced ; and if it was the priest, he must have come to see one of the lodgers.
“Gee-up !” cried the driver, and he whistled gaily as he slashed at the horses with his reins.
The horses tore across the fields, and I stood looking after them; then I closed the gate. The first thing I heard as I entered the empty kitchen was my mother’s energetic voice in the adjoining room, saying very distinctly :
“What is the matter now? Do you want to kill me?’
Without taking off my outdoor clothes, I threw down the cages and ran into the vestibule, where I collided with grandfather; he seized me by the shoulder, looked into my face with wild eyes, and swallowing with difficulty, said hoarsely :
“Your mother has come back ... go to her . . . wait ... !” He shook me so hard that I was nearly taken off my feet, and reeled against the door of the room. “Goon! . . Go . !”
I knocked at the door, which was protected by felt and oilcloth, but it was some time before my hand, benumbed with cold, and trembling with nervousness, found the latch; and when at length I softly entered, I halted on the threshold, dazed and bewildered.
“Here he is!” said mother. “Lord! how big he is grown. Why, don’t you know me? . . . What a way you ‘ve dressed him ! . . . And, yes, his ears are going white! Make haste, Mama, and get some goose-grease.”
She stood in the middle of the room, bending over me as she took off my outdoor clothes, and turning me about as if I were nothing more than a ball; her massive figure was clothed in a warm, soft, beautiful dress, as full as a man’s cloak, which was fastened by black buttons, running obliquely from the shoulder to the hem of the skirt. I had never seen anything like it before.
Her face seemed smaller than it used to be, and her eyes larger and more sunken; while her hair seemed to be of a deeper gold. As she undressed me, she threw the garments across the threshold, her red lips curling in disgust, and all the time her voice rang out:
“Why don’t you speak”? Aren’t you glad to see me”? Phoo ! what a dirty shirt. . . .”
Then she rubbed my ears with goose-grease, which hurt; but such a fragrant, pleasant odor came from her while she was doing it, that the pain seemed less than usual.
I pressed close to her, looking up into her eyes, too moved to speak, and through her words I could hear grandmother’s low, unhappy voice:
“He is so self-willed ... he has got quite out of hand. He is not afraid of grandfather, even. . . . Oh, Varia! . . . Varia!”
“Don’t whine, Mother, for goodness’ sake; it doesn’t make things any better.”
Everything looked small and pitiful and old beside mother. I felt old too, as old as grandfather.
Pressing me to her knees, and smoothing my hair with her warm, heavy hand, she said:
“He wants some one strict over him. And it is time he went to school. . . . You will like to learn lessons, won’t you?”
“I ‘ve learned all I want to know.”
“You will have to learn a little more. . . . Why! How strong you ‘ve grown !” And she laughed heartily in her deep contralto tones as she played with me.
When grandfather came in, pale as ashes, with blood-shot eyes, and bristling with rage, she put me from her and asked in a loud voice:
“Well, what have you settled, Father? Am I to go?”
He stood at the window scraping the ice off the panes with his finger-nails, and remained silent for a long while. The situation was strained and painful, and, as was usual with me in such moments of tension, my body felt as if it were all eyes and ears, and something seemed to swell within my breast, causing an in tense desire to scream.
“Lexei, leave the room!” said grandfather roughly.
“Why?” asked mother, drawing me to her again. “You shall not go away from this place. I forbid it!” Mother stood up, gliding up the room, just like a rosy cloud, and placed herself behind grandfather.
“Listen to me, Papasha ”
He turned upon her, shrieking “Shut up !”
“I won’t have you shouting at me,” said mother coolly.
Grandmother rose from the couch, raising her finger admonishingly.
“Now, Varvara!”
And grandfather sat down, muttering:
“Wait a bit! I want to know who ? Eh? Who was it? ... How did it happen?”
And suddenly he roared out in a voice which did not seem to belong to him :
“You have brought shame upon me, Varka!”
“Go out of the room!” grandmother said to me; and I went into the kitchen, feeling as if I were being suffocated, climbed on to the stove, and stayed there a long time listening to their conversation, which was audible through the partition. They either all talked at once, interrupting one another, or else fell into a long silence as if they had fallen asleep. The subject of their conversation was a baby, lately bom to my mother and given into some one’s keeping; but I could not understand whether grandfather was angry with mother for giving birth to a child without asking his permission, or for not bringing the child to him.
He came into the kitchen later, looking dishevelled; his face was livid, and he seemed very tired. With him came grandmother, wiping the tears from her cheeks with the basque of her blouse. He sat down on a bench, doubled up, resting his hands on it, tremulously biting his pale lips ; and she knelt down in front of him, and said quietly but with great earnestness:
“Father, forgive her ! For Christ’s sake forgive her ! You can’t get rid of her in this manner. Do you think that such things don’t happen amongst the gentry, and in merchants’ families’? You know what women are. Now, forgive her ! No one is perfect, you know.”
Grandfather leaned back against the wall and looked into her face; then he growled, with a bitter laugh which was almost a sob :
“Well what next”? Who wouldn’t you forgive?
I wonder! If you had your way every one would be forgiven. . . . Ugh! You!”
And bending over her he seized her by the shoulders and shook her, and said, speaking in a rapid whisper:
“But, by God, you needn’t worry yourself. You will find no forgiveness in me. Here we are almost in our graves overtaken by punishment in our last days . . . there is neither rest nor happiness for us . . . nor will there be. . . . And what is more . . . mark my words! ... we shall be beggars before we ‘re done beggars !”
Grandmother took his hand, and sitting beside him laughed gently as she said:
“Oh, you poor thing! So you are afraid of being a beggar. Well, and suppose we do become beggars’? All you will have to do is to stay at home while I go out begging. . . . They’ll give to me, never fear ! . . . We shall have plenty; so you can throw that trouble aside.”
He suddenly burst out laughing, moving his head about just like a goat; and seizing grandmother round the neck, pressed her to him, looking small and crumpled beside her.
“Oh, you fool !” he cried. “You blessed fool ! . . . You are all that I ‘ve got now ! . . . You don’t worry about anything because you don’t understand. But you must look back a little . . . and remember how you and I worked for them . . . how I sinned for their sakes . . . yet, in spite of all that, now ”
Here I could contain myself no longer; my tears would not be restrained, and I jumped down off the stove and flew to them, sobbing with joy because they were talking to each other in this wonderfully friendly fashion, and because I was sorry for them, and because mother had come, and because they took me to them, tears and all, and embraced me, and hugged me, and wept over me; but grandfather whispered to me:
“So you are here, you little demon! Well, your mother ‘s come back, and I suppose you will always be with her now. The poor old devil of a grandfather can go, eh”? And grandmother, who has spoiled you so ... she can go to ... eh? Ugh you! . .
He put us away from him and stood up as he said in a loud, angry tone:
“They are all leaving us all turning away from us. . . . Well, call her in. What are you waiting for? Make haste !”
Grandmother went out of the kitchen, and he went and stood in the corner, with bowed head.
“All-merciful God!” he began. “Well . . . Thou seest how it is with us !” And he beat his breast with his fist.
I did not like it when he did this; in fact the way he spoke to God always disgusted me, because he seemed to be vaunting himself before his Maker.
When mother came in her red dress lighted up the kitchen, and as she sat down by the table, with grandfather and grandmother one on each side of her, her wide sleeves fell against their shoulders. She related something to them quietly and gravely, to which they listened in silence, and without attempting to interrupt her, just as if they were children and she were their mother.
Worn out by excitement, I fell fast asleep on the couch.
In the evening the old people went to vespers, dressed in their best. Grandmother gave a merry wink in the direction of grandfather, who was resplendent in the uniform he wore as head of the Guild, with a racoon pelisse over it, and his stomach sticking out importantly; and as she winked she observed to mother :
“Just look at father! Isn’t he grand. ... As spruce as a little goat.” And mother laughed gaily.
When I was left alone with her in her room, she sat on the couch, with her feet curled under her, and pointing to the place beside her, she said :
“Come and sit here. Now, tell me how do you like living here? Not much, eh?”
How did I like it?
“I don’t know.”
“Grandfather beats you, does he?”
“Not so much now.”
“Oh? . . . Well, now, you tell me all about it . . . tell me whatever you like . . . well ?”
As I did not want to speak about grandfather, I told her about the kind man who used to live in that room, whom no one liked, and who was turned out by grandfather. I could see that she did not like this story as she said:
‘‘Well, and what else?”
I told her about the three boys, and how the Colonel had driven me out of his yard ; and her hold upon me tightened as she listened.
“What nonsense !” she exclaimed with flashing eyes, and was silent a minute, gazing on the floor.
“Why was grandfather angry with you?” I asked.
“Because I have done wrong, according to him.”
“In not bringing that baby here ?”
She started violently, frowning, and biting her lips ; then she burst into a laugh and pressed me more closely to her, as she said:
“Oh, you little monster ! Now, you are to hold your tongue about that, do you hear? Never speak about it forget you ever heard it, in fact.”
And she spoke to me quietly and sternly for some time; but I did not understand what she said, and presently she stood up and began to pace the room, strumming on her chin with her fingers, and alternately raising and depressing her thick eyebrows.
A guttering tallow candle was burning on the table, and was reflected in the blank face of the mirror; murky shadows crept along the floor; a lamp burned before the icon in the corner; and the ice-clad windows were silvered by moonlight. Mother looked about her as if she were seeking something on the bare walls or on the ceiling.
“What time do you go to bed?”
“Let me stay a little longer.”
“Besides, you have had some sleep today,” she reminded herself.
“Do you want to go away?” I asked her.
“Where to?” she exclaimed, in a surprised tone; and raising my head she gazed for such a long time at my face that tears came into my eyes.
“What is the matter with you?” she asked.
“My neck aches.”
My heart was aching too, for I had suddenly realized that she would not remain in our house, but would go away again.
“You are getting like your father,” she observed, kicking a mat aside. “Has grandmother told you anything about him?”
“Yes.”
“She loved Maxim very much very much indeed; and he loved her ”
“I know.”
Mother looked at the candle and frowned; then she extinguished it, saying: “That ‘s better!”
Yes, it made the atmosphere fresher and clearer, and the dark, murky shadows disappeared; bright blue patches of light lay on the floor, and golden crystals shone on the window-panes.
“But where have you lived all this time?”
She mentioned several towns, as if she were trying to remember something which she had forgotten long ago; and all the time she moved noiselessly round the room, like a hawk.
“Where did you get that dress?”
“I made it myself. I make all my own clothes.”
I liked to think that she was different from others, but I was sorry that she so rarely spoke; in fact, unless I asked questions, she did not open her mouth.
Presently she came and sat beside me again on the couch; and there we stayed without speaking, pressing close to each other, until the old people returned, smelling of wax and incense, with a solemn quietness and gentleness in their manner.
We supped as on holidays, ceremoniously, exchanging very few words, and uttering those as if we were afraid of waking an extremely light sleeper.
Almost at once my mother energetically undertook the task of giving me Russian lessons. She bought some books, from one of which “Kindred Words” I acquired the art of reading Russian characters in a few days; but then my mother must set me to learn poetry by heart to our mutual vexation.
The verses ran :
“Bolshaia doroga, priamaia doroga Prostora ne malo beresh twi ou Boga Tebia ne rovniali topor ee lopata Miagka twi kopitou ee pwiliu bogata.”
But I read “prostovo” for “prostora,” and “roubili” for “rovniali,” and “kopita” for “kopitou.”
“Now, think a moment,” said mother. “How could it be ‘prostovo,’ you little wretch? . . . Tro sto ra’-; now do you understand?”
I did understand, but all the same I read “pros-tovo,” to my own astonishment as much as hers.
She said angrily that I was senseless and obstinate. This made bitter hearing, for I was honestly trying to remember the cursed verses, and I could repeat them in my own mind without a mistake, but directly I tried to say them aloud they went wrong. I loathed the elusive lines, and began to mix the verses up on purpose, putting all the words which sounded alike together anyhow. I was delighted when, under the spell
I placed upon them, the verses emerged absolutely meaningless.
But this amusement did not go for long unpunished. One day, after a very successful lesson, when mother asked me if I had learned my poetry, I gabbled almost involuntarily :
“Doroga, dvouroga, tvorog, nedoroga, Kopwita, popwito, korwito ”
I recollected myself too late. Mother rose to her feet, and resting her hands on the table, asked in very distinct tones:
“What is that you are saying?”
“I don’t know,” I replied dully.
“Oh, you know well enough!”
“It was just something ”
“Something what?”
“Something funny.”
“Go into the corner.”
“Why?”
“Go into the corner,” she repeated quietly, but her aspect was threatening.
“Which corner?”
Without replying, she gazed so fixedly at my face that I began to feel quite flustered, for I did not understand what she wanted me to do. In one corner, under the icon, stood a small table on which was a vase containing scented dried grass and some flowers; in another stood a covered trunk. The bed occupied the third, and there was no fourth, because the door came close up to the wall.
“I don’t know what you mean,” I said, despairing of being able to understand her.
She relaxed slightly, and wiped her forehead and her cheeks in silence ; then she asked :
“Didn’t grandfather put you in the corner?”
“When?”
“Never mind when! Has he ever done so?” she cried, striking the table twice with her hand.
“No at least I don’t remember it.”
She sighed. “Phew! Come here!”
I went to her, saying: “Why are you so angry with me?”
“Because you made a muddle of that poetry on purpose.”
I explained as well as I was able that I could remember it word for word with my eyes shut, but that if I tried to say it the words seemed to change.
“Are you sure you are not making that up?”
I answered that I was quite sure; but on second thoughts I was not so sure, and I suddenly repeated the verses quite correctly, to my own utter astonishment and confusion. I stood before my mother burning with shame ; my face seemed to be swelling, my tingling ears to be filled with blood, and unpleasant noises surged through my head. I saw her face through my tears, dark with vexation, as she bit her lips and frowned.

10-28-2011, 05:56 PM

المشاركة 17

ريم بدر الدين

عضو مجلس الإدارة سابقا

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“What is the meaning of this?” she asked in a voice which did not seem to belong to her. “So you did make it up?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t mean to!”
“You are very difficult,” she said, letting her head droop. “Run away!”
She began to insist on my learning still more poetry, but my memory seemed to grow less capable every day of retaining the smooth, flowing lines, while my insane desire to alter or mutilate the verses grew stronger and more malevolent in proportion. I even substituted different words, by which I somewhat surprised myself, for a whole series of words which had nothing to do with the subject would appear and get mixed up with the correct words out of the book. Very often a whole line of the verse would seem to be obliterated, and no matter how conscientiously I tried, I could not get it back into my mind’s eye. That pathetic poem of Prince Biazemskov (I think it was his) caused me a great deal of trouble :
‘At eventide and early morn
The old man, widow and orphan
For Christ’s sake ask for help from man.
But the last line:
At windows beg, with air forlorn.
I always rendered correctly. Mother, unable to make anything of me, recounted my exploits to grandfather, who said in an ominous tone:
“It is all put on ! He has a splendid memory. He learned the prayers by heart with me. . . . He is making believe, that ‘s all. His memory is good enough. . . . Teaching him is like engraving on a piece of stone . . . that will show you how good it is! . . . You should give him a hiding.”
Grandmother took me to task too.
“You can remember stories and songs . . . and aren’t songs poetry?”
All this was true and I felt very guilty, but all the same I no sooner set myself to learn verses than from somewhere or other different words crept in like cockroaches, and formed themselves into lines.
“We too have beggars at our door, Old men and orphans very poor. They come and whine and ask for food, Which they will sell, though it is good. To Petrovna to feed her cows And then on vodka will carouse.”
At night, when I lay in bed beside grandmother, I used to repeat to her, till I was weary, all that I had learned out of books, and all that I had composed myself. Sometimes she giggled, but more often she gave me a lecture.
“There now! You see what you can do. But it is not right to make fun of beggars, God bless them! Christ lived in poverty, and so did all the saints.”
I murmured :
“Paupers I hate, Grandfather too. It ‘s sad to relate, Pardon me, God! Grandfather beats me Whenever he can.”
“What are you talking about? I wish your tongue may drop out !” cried grandmother angrily. “If grandfather could hear what you are saying ”
“He can hear if he likes.”
“You are very wrong to be so saucy; it only makes your mother angry, and she has troubles enough without you,” said grandmother gravely and kindly.
“What is the matter with her?’
“Never mind ! You wouldn’t understand.”
“I know ! It is because grandfather ”
“Hold your tongue, I tell you !”
My lot was a hard one, for I was desperately trying to find a kindred spirit, but as I was anxious that no one should know of this, I took refuge in being saucy and disagreeable. The lessons with my mother became gradually more distasteful and more difficult to me. I easily mastered arithmetic, but I had not the patience to learn to write, and as for grammar, it was quite unintelligible to me.
But what weighed upon me most of all was the fact, which I both saw and felt, that it was very hard for mother to go on living in grandfather’s house. Her expression became more sullen every day; she seemed to look upon everything with the eyes of a stranger. She used to sit for a long time together at the window overlooking the garden, saying nothing, and all her brilliant coloring seemed to have faded.
In lesson-time her deep-set eyes seemed to look right through me, at the wall, or at the window, as she asked me questions in a weary voice, and straightway forgot the answers; and she flew into rages with me much oftener which hurt me, for mothers ought to behave better than any one else, as they do in stories.
Sometimes I said to her:
“You do not like living with us, do you?”
“Mind your own business!” she would cry angrily.
It began to dawn upon me that grandfather was up to something which worried grandmother and mother. He often shut himself up with mother in her room, and there we heard him wailing and squeaking like the wooden pipe of Nikanora, the one-sided shepherd, which always affected me so unpleasantly. Once when one of these conversations was going on, mother shrieked so that every one in the house could hear her :
“I won’t have it! I won’t!”
And a door banged and grandfather set up a howl.
This happened in the evening. Grandmother was sitting at the kitchen table making a shirt for grandfather and whispering to herself. When the door banged, she said, listening intently:
“O Lord ! she has gone up to the lodgers.”
At this moment grandfather burst into the kitchen, and rushing up to grandmother, gave her a blow on the head, and hissed as he shook his bruised fist at her:
“Don’t you go chattering about things there ‘s no need to talk about, you old hag !”
“You are an old fool !” retorted grandmother quietly, as she put her knocked-about hair straight. “Do you think I am going to keep quiet? I’ll tell her everything I know about your plots always.”
He threw himself upon her and struck at her large head with his fists.
Making no attempt to defend herself, or to strike him back, she said :
“Go on! Beat me, you silly fool! . . . That’s right! Hit me!”
I threw cushions and blankets at him from the couch, and the boots which were round the stove, but he was in such a frenzy of rage that he did not heed them. Grandmother fell to the floor and he kicked her head, till he finally stumbled and fell down himself, over-turning a pailful of water. He jumped up spluttering and snorting, glanced wildly round, and rushed away to his own room in the attic.
Grandmother rose with a sigh, sat down on the bench, and began to straighten her matted hair. I jumped oil the couch, and she said to me in an angry tone:
“Put these pillows and things in their places. The idea ! Fancy throwing pillows at any one ! . . . And was it any business of yours? As for that old devil, he has gone out of his mind the fool !”
Then she drew in her breath sharply, wrinkling up her face as she called me to her, and holding her head down said:
“Look! What is it that hurts me so?”
I put her heavy hair aside, and saw that a hairpin had been driven deep intc the skin of her head. I pulled it out; but finding another one, my ringers seemed to lose all power of movement and I said: “I think I had better call mother. I am frightened.”
She waved me aside.
“What is the matter? . . . Call mother indeed! I’ll call you ! . . . Thank God that she has heard and seen nothing of it ! As for you Now then, get out of my way!”
And with her own flexible lace-worker’s fingers she rummaged in her thick mane, while I plucked up sufficient courage to help her pull out two more thick, bent hairpins.
“Does it hurt you?’
“Not much. I’ll heat the bath tomorrow and wash my head. It will be all right then.”
Then she began persuasively: “Now, my darling, you won’t tell your mother that he beat me, will you? There is enough bad feeling between them without that. So you won’t tell, will you?”
“No.”
“Now, don’t you forget! Come, let us put things straight. . . . There are no bruises on my face, are there? So that’s all right; we shall be able to keep it quiet.”
Then she set to work to clean the floor, and I exclaimed, from the bottom of my heart:
“You are just like a saint . . . they torture you, and torture you, and you think nothing of it.”
“What is that nonsense you are jabbering? Saint ? Where did you ever see one?”
And going on all fours, she kept muttering to herself, while I sat by the side of the stove and thought on ways and means of being revenged on grandfather. It was the first time in my presence that he had beaten grandmother in such a disgusting and terrible manner. His red face and his dishevelled red hair rose before me in the twilight; my heart was boiling over with rage, and I was irritated because I could not think of an adequate punishment.
But a day or two after this, having been sent up to his attic with something for him, I saw him sitting on the floor before an open trunk, looking through some papers; while on a chair lay his favorite calendar consisting of twelve leaves of thick, gray paper, divided into squares according to the number of days in the month, and in each square was the figure of the saint of the day. Grandfather greatly valued this calendar, and only let me look at it on those rare occasions when he was very pleased with me; and I was conscious of an indefinable feeling as I gazed at the charming little gray figures placed so close together. I knew the lives of some of them too Kirik and Uliti, Barbara, the great martyr, Panteleimon, and many others ; but what I liked most was the sad life of Alexei, the man of God, and the beautiful verses about him. Grandmother often repeated them to me feelingly. One might consider hundreds of such people and console oneself with the thought that they were all martyrs.
But now I made up my mind to tear up the calendar ; and when grandfather took a dark blue paper to the window to read it, I snatched up several leaves, and flying downstairs stole the scissors off grandmother’s table, and throwing myself on the couch began to cut off the heads of the saints.
When I had beheaded one row I began to feel that it was a pity to destroy the calendar, so I decided to just cut out the squares; but before the second row was in pieces grandfather appeared in the doorway and asked:
“Who gave you permission to take away my calendar?”
Then seeing the squares of paper scattered over the table he picked them up, one after the other, holding each close to his face, then dropping it and picking up another; his jaw went awry, his beard jumped up and down, and he breathed so hard that the papers flew on to the floor.
“What have you done?” he shrieked at length, dragging me towards him by the foot.
I turned head over heels, and grandmother caught me, with grandfather striking her with his fist and screaming :
“I’ll kill him!”
At this moment mother appeared, and I took refuge in the corner of the stove, while she, barring his way, caught grandfather’s hands, which were being flourished in her face, and pushed him away as she said :
“What is the meaning of this unseemly behavior? Recollect yourself.”
Grandfather threw himself on the bench under the window, howling:
“You want to kill me. You are all against me every one of you !”
“Aren’t you ashamed of yourself?” My mother’s voice sounded subdued. “Why all this pretense?”
Grandfather shrieked, and kicked the bench, with his beard sticking out funnily towards the ceiling and his eyes tightly closed; it seemed to me that he really was ashamed before mother, and that he was really pretending and that was why he kept his eyes shut.
“I’ll gum all these pieces together on some calico, and they will look even better than before,” said mother, glancing at the cuttings and the leaves. “Look they were crumpled and torn; they had been lying about.”
She spoke to him just like she used to speak to me in lesson-time when I could not understand something, and he stood up at once, put his shirt and waistcoat straight, in a business-like manner, expectorated and said:
“Do it today. I will bring you the other leaves at once.”
He went to the door, but he halted on the threshold and pointed a crooked finger at me:
“And he will have to be whipped.”
“That goes without saying,” agreed mother, bending towards me. “Why did you do it?”
“I did it on purpose. He had better not beat grandmother again, or I’ll cut his beard off.”
Grandmother, taking off her torn bodice, said, shaking her head reproachfully :
“Hold your tongue now, as you promised.” And she spat on the floor. “May your tongue swell up if you don’t keep it still !”
Mother looked at her, and again crossed the kitchen to me.
“When did he beat her?’
“Now, Varvara, you ought to be ashamed to ask him about it. Is it any business of yours?” said grandmother angrily.
Mother went and put her arm round her. “Oh, little mother my dear little mother!”
“Oh, go away with your little mother’ ! Get away !”
They looked at each other in silence. Grandfather could be heard stamping about in the vestibule.
When she first came home mother had made friends with the merry lady, the soldier’s wife, and almost every evening she went up to the front room of the half-house, where she sometimes found people from
Betlenga House beautiful ladies, and officers. Grandfather did not like this at all, and one day, as he was sitting in the kitchen, he shook his spoon at her threateningly and muttered:
“So you are starting your old ways, curse you ! We don’t get a chance of sleeping till the morning now.”
He soon cleared the lodgers out, and when they had gone he brought from somewhere or other two loads of assorted furniture, placed it in the front room, and locked it up with a large padlock.
“We have no need to take lodgers,” he said. “I am going to entertain on my own account now.”
And so on Sundays and holidays visitors began to appear. There was grandmother’s sister, Matrena Sergievna, a shrewish laundress with a large nose, in a striped silk dress and with hair dyed gold; and with her came her sons Vassili, a long-haired draughtsman, good-natured and gay, who was dressed entirely in gray; and Victor, in all colors of the rainbow, with a head like a horse, and a narrow face covered with freckles, who, even while he was in the vestibule taking off his goloshes, sang in a squeaky voice just like Petrushka’s: “Andrei-papa! Andrei-papa!” which occasioned me some surprise and alarm.
Uncle Jaakov used to come too, with his guitar, and accompanied by a bent, bald-headed man a clock-winder, who wore a long, black frock-coat and had a smooth manner; he reminded me of a monk. He used to sit in a corner with his head on one side, and smiling curiously as he tapped his shaven, clefted chin with his ringers. He was dark, and there was something peculiar in the way he stared at us with his one eye ; he said very little, and his favorite expression was: “Pray don’t trouble; it doesn’t matter in the least.”
When I saw him for the first time I suddenly remembered one day long ago, while we were living in New Street, hearing the dull, insistent beating of a drum outside the gate, and seeing a night-cart, surrounded by soldiers and people in black, going from the prison to the square; and seated on a bench in the cart was a man of medium size, with a round cap made of woolen stuff, in chains and upon his breast a black tablet was displayed, on which there were written some words in large white letters. The man hung his head as if he were reading what was written there, and he shook all over and his chains rattled. So when mother said to the winder : “This is my son,” I shrank away from him in terror, and put my hands behind me.
“Pray don’t trouble !” he said, and his whole mouth seemed to stretch, in a ghastly fashion, as far as his right ear, as he seized me by the belt, drew me to him, turned me round swiftly and lightly, and let me go.
“He ‘s all right. He ‘s a sturdy little chap.”
I betook myself to the corner, where there was an armchair upholstered in leather so large that one could lie in it; and grandfather used to brag about it, and call it “Prince Gruzincki’s armchair” and in this I settled myself and looked on, thinking that grown-up people’s ideas of enjoyment were very boring, and that the way the clock-winder’s face kept on changing was very strange, and was not calculated to inspire confidence.
It was an oily, flexible face, and it seemed to be melting and always softly on the move; if he smiled, his thick lips shifted to his right cheek, and his little nose turned that way too, and looked like a meat pasty on a plate. His great projecting ears moved strangely too, one being lifted every time he raised his eyebrow over his seeing eye, and the other moving in unison with his cheek-bone; and when he sneezed it seemed as if it were as easy to cover his nose with them as with the palm of his hand. Sometimes he sighed, and thrust out his dark tongue, round as a pestle, and licked his thick, moist lips with a circular movement. This did not strike me as being funny, but only as something wonderful, which I could not help looking at.
They drank tea with rum in it, which smelt like burnt onion tops; they drank liqueurs made by grandmother, some yellow like gold, some black like tar, some green; they ate curds, and buns made of butter, eggs and honey; they perspired, and panted, and lavished praises on grandmother; and when they had finished eating, they settled themselves, looking flushed and puffy, decorously in their chairs, and languidly asked Uncle Jaakov to play.
He bent over his guitar and struck up a disagreeable, irritating song:
“Oh, we have been out on the spree,
The town rang with our voices free,
And to a lady from Kazan
We ‘ve told our story, every man.”

I thought this was a miserable song, and grandmother said:
“Why don’t you play something else, Jaasha, a real song! Do you remember, Matrena, the sort of songs we used to sing?”
Spreading out her rustling frock, the laundress reminded her:
“There ‘s a new fashion in singing now, Matushka.”
Uncle looked at grandmother, blinking as if she were a long way off, and went on obstinately producing those melancholy sounds and foolish words.
Grandfather was carrying on a mysterious conversation with the clock-winder, pointing his finger at him; and the latter, raising his eyebrow, looked over to mother’s side of the room and shook his head, and his mobile face assumed a new and indescribable shape.
Mother always sat between the Sergievnas, and as she talked quietly and gravely to Vassili, she sighed :
“Ye es ! That wants thinking about.”
And Victor smiled the smile of one who has eaten to satiety, and scraped his feet on the floor; then he suddenly burst shrilly into song:
“Andrei-papa! Andrei-papa!”
They all stopped talking in surprise and looked at him; while the laundress explained in a tone of pride :
“He got that from the theater; they sing it there.”
There were two or three evenings like this, made memorable by their oppressive dullness, and then the winder appeared in the daytime, one Sunday after High Mass. I was sitting with mother in her room helping her to mend a piece of torn beaded embroidery, when the door flew open unexpectedly and grandmother rushed into the room with a frightened face, saying in a loud whisper: “Varia, he has come!” and disappeared immediately.
Mother did not stir, not an eyelash quivered; but the door was soon opened again, and there stood grandfather on the threshold.
“Dress yourself, Varvara, and come along!”
She sat still, and without looking at him said :
“Come where?”
“Come along, for God’s sake ! Don’t begin arguing.
He is a good, peaceable man, in a good position, and he will make a good father for Lexei.”
He spoke in an unusually important manner, stroking his sides with the palms of his hands the while; but his elbows trembled, as they were bent backwards, exactly as if his hands wanted to be stretched out in front of him, and he had a struggle to keep them back.
Mother interrupted him calmly.
“I tell you that it can’t be done.”
Grandfather stepped up to her, stretching out his hands just as if he were blind, and bending over her, bristling with rage, he said, with a rattle in his throat :
“Come along, or I’ll drag you to him by the hair.”
“You’ll drag me to him, will you?” asked mother, standing up. She turned pale and her eyes were painfully drawn together as she began rapidly to take off her bodice and skirt, and finally, wearing nothing but her chemise, went up to grandfather and said:
“Now, drag me to him.”
He ground his teeth together and shook his fist in her face :
“Varvara ! Dress yourself at once !”
Mother pushed him aside with her hand, and took hold of the door handle.
“Well? Come along!”
“Curse you !” whispered grandfather.
“I am not afraid come along !”
She opened the door, but grandfather seized her by her chemise and fell on his knees, whispering :
“Varvara ! You devil ! You will ruin us. Have you no shame?”
And he wailed softly and plaintively:
“Mo ther ! Mo ther !”
Grandmother was already barring mother’s way; waving her hands in her face as if she were a hen, she now drove her away from the door, muttering through her closed teeth:
“Varka! You fool! What are you doing? Go away, you shameless hussy!”
She pushed her into the room and secured the door with the hook; and then she bent over grandfather, helping him up with one hand and threatening him with the other.
“Ugh! You old devil!”
She sat him on the couch, and he went down all of a heap, like a rag doll, with his mouth open and his head waggling.
“Dress yourself at once, you!” cried grandmother to mother.
Picking her dress up from the floor, mother said :
“But I am not going to him do you hear?”
Grandmother pushed me away from the couch.
“Go and fetch a basin of water. Make haste !”
She spoke in a low voice, which was almost a whisper, and with a calm, assured manner.
I ran into the vestibule. I could hear the heavy tread of measured footsteps in the front room of the half — house, and mother’s voice came after me from her room:
“I shall leave this place tomorrow !”
I went into the kitchen and sat down by the window as if I were in a dream.
Grandfather groaned and shrieked; grandmother muttered; then there was the sound of a door being banged, and all was silent oppressively so.
Remembering what I had been sent for, I scooped up some water in a brass basin and went into the vestibule. From the front room came the clock-winder with his head bent ; he was smoothing his fur cap with his hand, and quacking. Grandmother with her hands folded over her stomach was bowing to his back, and saying softly:
“You know what it is yourself you can’t be forced to be nice to people.”
He halted on the threshold, and then stepped into the yard ; and grandmother, trembling all over, crossed herself and did not seem to know whether she wanted to laugh or cry.
“What is the matter?” I asked, running to her.
She snatched the basin from me, splashing the water over my legs, and cried :
“So this is where you come for water. Bolt the door!” And she went back into mother’s room; and I went into the kitchen again and listened to them sighing and groaning and muttering, just as if they were moving a load, which was too heavy for them, from one place to another.
It was a brilliant day. Through the ice-covered window-panes peeped the slanting beams of the winter sun; on the table, which was laid for dinner, was the pewter dinner-service; a goblet containing red kvass, and another with some dark-green vodka made by grandfather from betony and St. John’s wort, gleamed dully. Through the thawed places on the window could be seen the snow on the roofs, dazzlingly bright and sparkling like silver on the posts of the fence. Hanging against the window-frame in cages, my birds played in the sunshine : the tame siskins chirped gaily, the robins uttered their sharp, shrill twitter, and the goldfinch took a bath.
But this radiant, silver day, in which every sound was clear and distinct, brought no joy with it, for it seemed out of place everything seemed out of place. I was seized with a desire to set the birds free, and was about to take down the cages when grandmother rushed in, clapping her hands to her sides, and flew to the stove, calling herself names.
“Curse you! Bad luck to you for an old fool, Akulina!”
She drew a pie out of the oven, touched the crust with her finger, and spat on the floor out of sheer exasperation.
“There you are absolutely dried up! It is your own fault that it is burnt. Uch ! Devil ! A plague upon all your doings ! Why don’t you keep your eyes open, owl”? . . . You are as unlucky as bad money!”
And she cried, and blew on the pie, and turned it over, first on this side, then on that, tapping the dry crust with her fingers, upon which her large tears splashed forlornly.
When grandfather and mother came into the kitchen she banged the pie on the table so hard that all the plates jumped.
“Look at that! That ‘s your doing . . . there’s no crust for you, top or bottom !”
Mother, looking quite happy and peaceful, kissed her, and told her not to get angry about it; while grandfather, looking utterly crushed and weary, sat down to table and unfolded his serviette, blinking, with the sun in his eyes, and muttered :
“That will do. It doesn’t matter. We have eaten plenty of pies that were not spoilt. When the Lord buys He pays for a year in minutes . . . and allows no interest. Sit down, do, Varia! . . . and have done with it.”
He behaved just as if he had gone out of his mind, and talked all dinner-time about God, and about ungodly Ahab, and said what a hard lot a father’s was, until grandmother interrupted him by saying angrily:
“You eat your dinner . . . that ‘s the best thing you can do !”
Mother joked all the time, and her clear eyes sparkled.
“So you were frightened just now?” she asked, giving me a push.
No, I had not been so frightened then, but now I felt uneasy and bewildered. As the meal dragged out to the weary length which was usual on Sundays and holidays, it seemed to me that these could not be the same people who, only half an hour ago, were shouting at each other, on the verge of fighting, and bursting out into tears and sobs. I could not believe, that is to say, that they were in earnest now, and that they were not ready to weep all the time. But those tears and cries, and the scenes which they inflicted upon one another, happened so often, and died away so quickly, that I began to get used to them, and they gradually ceased to excite me or to cause me heartache.
Much later I realized that Russian people, because of the poverty and squalor of their lives, love to amuse themselves with sorrow to play with it like children, and are seldom ashamed of being unhappy.
Amidst their endless week-days, grief makes a holiday, and a fire is an amusement a scratch is an ornament to an empty face.

10-28-2011, 05:59 PM

المشاركة 18

ريم بدر الدين

عضو مجلس الإدارة سابقا

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Chapter XI

AFTER this incident mother suddenly asserted herself, made a firm stand, and was soon mistress of the house, while grandfather, grown thoughtful and quiet, and quite unlike himself, became a person of no account.
He hardly ever went out of the house, but sat all day up in the attic reading, by stealth, a book called “The Writings of My Father.” He kept this book in a trunk under lock and key, and one day I saw him wash his hands before he took it out. It was a dumpy, fat book bound in red leather; on the dark blue title page a figured inscription in different colored inks flaunted itself: “To worthy Vassili Kashmirin, in gratitude, and sincere remembrance”; and underneath were written some strange surnames, while the frontispiece depicted a bird on the wing.
Carefully opening the heavy binding, grandfather used to put on his silver-rimmed spectacles, and gazing at the book, move his nose up and down for a long time, in order to get his spectacles at the right angle.
I asked him more than once what book it was that he was reading, but he only answered in an impressive tone:
“Never mind. . . . Wait a bit, and when I die it will come to you. I will leave you my racoon pelisse too.”
He began to speak to mother more gently, but less often; listening attentively to her speeches with his eyes glittering like Uncle Peter’s, and waving her aside as he muttered:
“There ! that ‘s enough. Do what you like . . .”
In that trunk of his lay many wonderful articles of attire skirts of silken material, padded satin jackets, sleeveless silk gowns, cloth of woven silver and head-bands sewn with pearls, brightly colored lengths of material and handkerchiefs, with necklaces of colored stones. He took them all, panting as he went, to mother’s room and laid them about on the chairs and tables clothes were mother’s delight and he said to her:
“In our young days dress was more beautiful and much richer than it is now. Dress was richer, and people seemed to get on better together. But these times are past and cannot be called back . . . well, here you are; take them, and dress yourself up.”
One day mother went to her room for a short time, and when she reappeared she was dressed in a dark blue sleeveless robe, embroidered with gold, with a pearl head-band ; and making a low obeisance to grandfather, she asked:
“Well, how does this suit you, my lord Father?” Grandfather murmured something, and brightening wonderfully, walked round her, holding up his hands, and said indistinctly, just as if he were talking in his sleep :
“Ech! Varvara! ... if you had plenty of money you would have the best people round you ... !”
Mother lived now in two front rooms in the half-house, and had a great many visitors, the most frequent being the brothers Maximov: Peter, a well-set-up, handsome officer with a large, light beard and blue eyes the very one before whom grandfather thrashed me for spitting on the old gentleman’s head; and Eugen, also tall and thin, with a pale face and a small, pointed beard. His large eyes were like plums, and he was dressed in a green coat with gold buttons and gold letters on his narrow shoulders. He often tossed his head lightly, throwing his long, wavy hair back from his high, smooth forehead, and smiled indulgently; and whenever he told some story in his husky voice, he invariably began his speech with these insinuating words : “Shall I tell you how it appears to me?” Mother used to listen to him with twinkling eyes, and frequently interrupted him laughingly with: “You are a baby, Eugen Vassilovitch forgive me for saying so !”
And the officer, slapping his broad palms on his knees, would cry:
“A queer sort of baby !”
The Christmas holidays were spent in noisy gaiety, and almost every evening people came to see mother in full dress ; or she put on gala dress better than any of them wore and went out with her guests.
Every time she left the house, in company with her gaily attired guests, it seemed to sink into the earth, and a terrifying silence seemed to creep into every corner of it. Grandmother flapped about the room like an old goose, putting everything straight. Grandfather stood with his back against the warm tiles of the stove, and talked to himself.
“Well . . . that will do ... very good! . . . We’ll have a look and see what family . . .”
After the Christmas holidays mother sent Sascha, Uncle Michael’s son, and me to school. Sascha’s father had married again, and from the very first the stepmother had taken a dislike to her stepson, and had begun to beat him; so at grandmother’s entreaty, grandfather had taken Sascha to live in his house. We went to school for a month, and all I learned, as far as I remember, was that when I was asked “What . is your surname?” I must not reply “Pyeshkov” simply, but “My surname is Pyeshkov.” And also that I must not say to the teacher: “Don’t shout at me, my dear fellow, I am not afraid of you !”
At first I did not like school, but my cousin was very pleased with it in the beginning, and easily made friends for himself; but once he fell asleep during a lesson, and suddenly called out in his sleep :
“I wo on’t!”
He awoke with a start and ran out of the class-room without ceremony. He was mercilessly laughed at for this; and the next day, when we were in the passage by Cyenvi Square, on our way to school, he came to a halt saying:
“You go on ... I am not coming ... I would rather go for a walk.”
He squatted on his heels, carelessly dug his bundle of books into the snow, and went off. It was a clear January day, and the silver rays of the sun fell all round me. I envied my cousin very much, but, hardening my heart, I went on to school. I did not want to grieve my mother. The books which Sascha buried disappeared, of course, so he had a valid reason for not going to school the next day; but on the third day his conduct was brought to grandfather’s notice. We were called up for judgment; in the kitchen grandfather, grandmother, and mother sat at the table and cross-examined us and I shall never forget how comically Sascha answered grandfather’s questions.
“Why didn’t you go to school?”
“I forgot where it was.”
“Forgot?”
“Yes. I looked and looked”
“But you went with Alexei; he remembered where it was.”
“And I lost him.”
“Lost Lexei?”
“Yes.”
“How did that happen?”
Sascha reflected a moment, and then said, drawing in his breath:
“There was a snowstorm, and you couldn’t see anything.”
They all smiled and the atmosphere began to clear ; even Sascha smiled cautiously. But grandfather said maliciously, showing his teeth:
“But you could have caught hold of his arm or his belt, couldn’t you?”
“I did catch hold of them, but the wind tore them away,” explained Sascha.
He spoke in a lazy, despondent tone, and I listened uncomfortably to this unnecessary, clumsy lie, amazed at his obstinacy.
We were thrashed, and a former fireman, an old man with a broken arm, was engaged to take us to school, and to watch that Sascha did not turn aside from the road of learning. But it was no use. The next day, as soon as my cousin reached the causeway, he stooped suddenly, and pulling off one of his high boots threw it a long way from him; then he took off the other and threw it in the opposite direction, and in his stockinged feet ran across the square. The old man, breathing hard, picked up the boots, and thereupon, terribly flustered, took me home.
All that day grandfather, grandmother, and my mother searched the town for the runaway, and it was evening before they found him in the bar at Tchirkov’s Tavern, entertaining the public by his dancing. They took him home, and actually did not beat the shaking, stubborn, silent lad; but as he lay beside me in the loft, with his legs up and the soles of his feet scraping against the ceiling, he said softly:
“My stepmother does not love me, nor my father. Grandfather does not love me either; why should I live with them? So I shall ask grandmother to tell me where the robbers live, and I shall run away to them . . . then you will understand, all of you. . . . Why shouldn’t we run away together?”
I could not run away with him, for in those days I had a work before me I had resolved to be an officer with a large, light beard, and for that study was indispensable. When I told my cousin of my plan, he agreed with me, on reflection.
“That ‘s a good idea too. By the time you are an officer I shall be a robber-chief, and you will have to capture me, and one of us will have to kill the other, or take him prisoner. I shan’t kill you.”
“Nor I you.”
On that point we were agreed.
Then grandmother came in, and climbing on to the stove, glanced up at us and said:
“Well, little mice? E ekh! Poor orphans! . . . Poor little mites !”
Having pitied us, she began to abuse Sascha’s step-mother fat Aunt Nadejda, daughter of the inn-keeper, going on to abuse stepmothers in general, and, apropos, told us the story of the wise hermit lona, and how when he was but a lad he was judged, with his step-mother, by an act of God. His father was a fisherman of the White Lake :
“By his young wife his ruin was wrought,
A potent liquor to him she brought,
Made of herbs which bring sleep.

She laid him, slumbering, in a bark
Of oak, like a grave, so close and dark,
And plied the maple oars.
In the lake’s center she dug a hole,
For there she had planned, in that dark pool,

To hide her vile witch deed.
Bent double she rocked from side to side,
And the frail craft o’erturned that witch bride !

And her husband sank deep.
And the witch swam quickly to the shore
And fell to the earth with wailings sore,

And womanly laments.
The good folk all, believing her tale,
Wept with the disconsolate female,

And in bitterness cried:
‘Oi ! As wife thy life was all too brief !
O’erwhelmed art thou by wifely grief;

But life is God’s affair.
Death too He sends when it doth please Him.’
Stepson lonushka alone looked grim,

Her tears not believing.
With his little hand upon his heart
He swiftly at her these words did dart:

‘Oi! Fateful stepmother!
Oi ! Artful night-bird, born to deceive !
Those tears of yours I do not believe !

It is joy you feel not pain.
But we’ll ask our Lord, my charge to prove,
And the aid of all the saints above.

Let some one take a knife,
And throw it up to the cloudless sky;
Blameless you, to me the knife will fly.

If I am right, you die!’
The stepmother turned her baleful gaze
On him, and with hate her eyes did blaze

As she rose to her feet.
And with vigor replied to the attack
Of her stepson, nor words did she lack.

‘Oh! creature without sense!
Abortion you ! fit for rubbish heap !
By this invention, what do you reap ?

Answer you cannot give !’
The good folk looked on, but nothing said;
Of this dark business they were afraid.

Sad and pensive they stood;
Then amongst themselves they held a debate,
And a fisherman old and sedate

Bowing, advanced and said:
‘In my right hand, good people, give me
A steel knife, which I will throw, and ye

Shall see on whom it falls.’
A knife to his hand was their reply.
High above his gray head, to the sky,

The sharp blade he did fling.
Like a bird, up in the air it went ;
Vainly they waited for its descent,

The crystal height scanning.

Their hats they doffed, and closer pressed they stood,
Silent ; yea, Night herself seemed to brood ;

But the knife did not fall.
The ruby dawn rose over the lake,
The stepmother, flushed, did courage take

And scornfully did smile.
When like a swallow the knife did dart
To earth, and fixed itself in her heart.

Down on their knees the people did fall
Praising God Who is Ruler of All :

‘Thou are just, O God !’
lona, the fisherman, did take,
And of him a hermit did make.

Far away by the bright River Kerjentza
In a cell almost invisible from the town Kite j a.” 1

1 In the year ‘90 in the village of Kolinpanovka, in the Government of Tambov, and the district Borisoglebsk, I heard another version of this legend, in which the knife kills the stepson who ha’s calumniated his stepmother.
The next day I woke up covered with red spots, and this was the beginning of smallpox.
They put me up in the back attic, and there I lay for a long time, blind, with my hands and feet tightly bandaged, living through horrible nightmares, in one of which I nearly died. No one but grandmother came near me, and she fed me with a spoon as if I were a baby, and told me stories, a fresh one every time, from her endless store.
One evening, when I was convalescent, and lay without bandages, except for my hands, which were tied up to prevent me from scratching my face, grandmother, for some reason or ‘other, had not come at her usual time, which alarmed me; and all of a sudden I saw her. She was lying outside the door on the dusty floor of the attic, face downwards, with her arms outspread, and her neck half sawed through, like Uncle Peter’s; while from the corner, out of the dusty twilight, there moved slowly towards her a great cat, with its green eyes greedily open. I sprang out of bed, bruising my legs and shoulders against the window-frame, and jumped down into the yard into a snowdrift. It happened to be an evening when mother had visitors, so no one heard the smashing of the glass, or the breaking of the window-frame, and I had to lie in the snow for some time. I had broken no bones, but I had dislocated my shoulder and cut myself very much with the broken glass, and I had lost the use of my legs, and for three months I lay utterly unable to move. I lay still and listened, and thought how noisy the house had become, how often they banged the doors downstairs, and what a lot of people seemed to be coming and going.
Heavy snowstorms swept over the roof; the wind came and went resoundingly outside the door, sang a funereal song down the chimney, and set the dampers rattling; by day the rooks cawed, and in the quiet night the doleful howling of wolves reached my ears such was the music under whose influence my heart developed. Later on shy spring peeped into the window with the radiant eyes of the March sun, timidly and gently at first, but growing bolder and warmer every day; she-cats sang and howled on the roof and in the loft; the rustle of spring penetrated the very walls the crystal icicles broke, the half-thawed snow fell off the stable-roof, and the bells began to give forth a sound less clear than they gave in winter. When grandmother came near me her words were more often impregnated with the odor of vodka, which grew stronger every day, until at length she began to bring a large white teapot with her and hide it under my bed, saying with a wink:
“Don’t you say anything to that grandfather of ours, will you, darling?”
“Why do you drink?”
“Never mind! When you are grown-up you’ll know.”
She pulled at the spout of the teapot, wiped her lips with her sleeve, and smiled sweetly as she asked:
“Well, my little gentleman, what do you want me to tell you about this evening?”
“About my father.”
“Where shall I begin?”
I reminded her, and her speech flowed on like a melodious stream for a long time.
She had begun to tell me about my father of her own accord one day when she had come to me, nervous, sad, and tired, saying:
“I have had a dream about your father. I thought I saw him coming across the fields, whistling, and followed by a piebald dog with its tongue hanging out. For some reason I have begun to dream about Maxim Savatyevitch very often ... it must mean that his soul is not at rest ...”
For several evenings in succession she told me my father’s history, which was interesting, as all her stories were.
My father was the son of a soldier who had worked his way up to be an officer and was banished to Siberia for cruelty to his subordinates; and there somewhere in Siberia my father was born. He had an unhappy life, and at a very early age he used to run away from home. Once grandfather set the dogs to track him down in the forest, as if he were a hare ; another time, having caught him, he beat him so unmercifully that the neighbors took the child away and hid him.
“Do they always beat children?” I asked, and grandmother answered quietly:
“Always.”
My father’s mother died early, and when he was nine years old grandfather also died, and he was taken by a cross-maker, who entered him on the Guild of the town of Perm and began to teach him his trade ; but my father ran away from him, and earned his living by leading blind people to the fairs. When he was sixteen he came to Nijni and obtained work with a joiner who was a contractor for the Kolchin steamboats. By the time he was twenty he was a skilled carpenter, upholsterer and decorator. The workshop in which he was employed was next door to grandfather’s house in Kovalikh Street.
“The fences were not high, and certain people were not backward,” said grandmother, laughing. “So one day, when Varia and I were picking raspberries in the garden, who should get over the fence but your father! ... I was frightened, foolishly enough; but there he went amongst the apple trees, a fine-looking fellow, in a white shirt, and plush breeches . . . bare-footed and hatless, with long hair bound with leather bands. That ‘s the way he came courting. When I saw him for the first time through the window, I said to myself: ‘That’s a nice lad!’ So when he came close to me now I asked him :
“‘Why do you come out of your way like this, young man?’
“And he fell on his knees. ‘Akulina, he says, Tvanovna ! . . . because my whole heart is here . . . with Varia. Help us, for God’s sake! We want to get married.’
“At this I was stupefied and my tongue refused to speak. I looked, and there was your mother, the rogue, hiding behind an apple tree, all red as red as the raspberries and making signs to him; but there were tears in her eyes.
“‘Oh, you rogues !’ I cried. ‘How have you managed all this? Are you in your senses, Varvara? And you, young man,’ I said, ‘think what you are doing! Do you intend to get your way by force?’
“At that time grandfather was rich, for he had not given his children their portions, and he had four houses of his own, and money, and he was ambitious; not long before that they had given him a laced hat and a uniform because he had been head of the Guild for nine years without a break and he was proud in those days. I said to them what it was my duty to say, but all the time I trembled for fear and felt very sorry for them too; they had both become so gloomy. Then said your father:
“‘I know quite well that Vassili Vassilitch will not consent to give Varia to me, so I shall steal her; only you must help us.’
“So I was to help them. I could not help laughing at him, but he would not be turned from his purpose. ‘You may stone me or you may help me, it is all the same to me I shall not give in,’ he said.
“Then Varvara went to him, laid her hand on his shoulder, and said : ‘We have been talking of getting married a long time we ought to have been married in May.’
“How I started ! Good Lord !”
Grandmother began to laugh, and her whole body shook; then she took a pinch of snuff, dried her eyes and said, sighing comfortably:
“You can’t understand that yet . . . you don’t know what marrying means . . . but this you can understand that for a girl to give birth to a child before she is married is a dreadful calamity. Remember that, and when you are grown-up never tempt a girl in that way ; it would be a great sin on your part the girl would be disgraced, and the child illegitimate. See that you don’t forget that ! You must be kind to women, and love them for their own sakes, and not for the sake of self-indulgence. This is good advice I am giving you.”
She fell into a reverie, rocking herself in her chair; then, shaking herself, she began again:
“Well, what was to be done? I hit Maxim on the forehead, and pulled Varia’s plait; but he said reasonably enough: ‘Quarreling won’t put things right.’ And she said : ‘Let us think what is the best thing to do first, and have a row afterwards.’
“‘Have you any money?’ I asked him.
“‘I had some,’ he replied, ‘but I bought Varia a ring with it.’
“‘How much did you have then?’
“‘Oh,’ says he, ‘about a hundred roubles.’
“Now at that time money was scarce and things were dear, and I looked at the two your mother and father and I said to myself: ‘What children! . . . What young. fools!’
“‘I hid the ring under the floor,’ said your mother, ‘so that you should not see it. We can sell it.’
“Such children they were both of them! However, we discussed the ways and means for them to be married in a week’s time, and I promised to arrange the matter with the priest. But I felt very uncomfortable myself, and my heart went pit-a-pat, because I was so frightened of grandfather; and Varia was frightened too, painfully so. Well, we arranged it all!
“But your father had an enemy a certain workman, an evil-minded man who had guessed what was going on long ago, and now watched our movements. Well, I arrayed my only daughter in the best things I could get, and took her out to the gate, where there was a troika waiting. She got into it, Maxim whistled, and away they drove. I was going back to the house, in tears, when I ran across this man, who said in a cringing tone:
“‘I have a good heart, and I shall not interfere with the workings of Fate; only, Akulina Ivanovna, you must give me fifty roubles for keeping quiet.’
“But I had no money; I did not like it, nor care to save it, and so I told him, like a fool:
“‘I have no money, so I can’t give you any.’
“‘Well,’ he said, ‘you can promise it to me.’
“‘How can I do that? Where am I to get it from after I have promised?’
“‘Is it so difficult to steal from a rich husband?’ he says.
“‘If I had not been a fool I should have temporized with him ; but I spat full in his ugly mug, and went into the house. And he rushed into the yard and raised a hue and cry.”
Closing her eyes, she said, smiling:
“Even now I have a lively remembrance of that daring deed of mine. Grandfather roared like a wild beast, and wanted to know if they were making fun of him. As it happened, he had been taking stock of Varia lately, and boasting about her: ‘I shall marry her to a nobleman a gentleman !’ Here was a pretty nobleman for him! here was a pretty gentleman! But the Holy Mother of God knows better than we do what persons ought to be drawn together.
“Grandfather tore about the yard as if he were on fire, calling Jaakov and Michael and even at the suggestion of that wicked workman Klima, the coachman too. I saw him take a leathern strap with a weight tied on the end of it, and Michael seized his gun. We had good horses then, full of spirit, and the carriage was light. ‘Ah well !’ I thought, ‘they are sure to overtake them.’ But here Varia’s Guardian Angel suggested something to me. I took a knife and cut the ropes belonging to the shafts. ‘There! they will break down on the road now.’ And so they did. The shafts came unfastened on the way, and nearly killed grandfather and Michael and Klima too, besides delaying them; and by the time they had repaired it, and dashed up to the church, Varia and Maxim were standing in the church porch married thank God!
“Then our people started a fight with Maxim; but he was in very good condition and he was rare and strong. He threw Michael away from the porch and broke his arm. Klima also was injured; and grandfather and Jaakov and that workman were all frightened!
“Even in his rage he did not lose his presence of mind, but he said to grandfather:
“‘You can throw away that strap. Don’t wave it about over me, for I am a man of peace, and what I have taken is only what God gave me, and no man shall take from me ... and that is all I have to say to you.’
“They gave it up then, and grandfather returned to the carriage crying:
“‘It is good-by now, Varvara ! You are no daughter of mine, and I never wish to see you again, either alive or dead of hunger.’
“When he came ‘home he beat me, and he scolded me; but all I did was to groan and hold my tongue.
“Everything passes away, and what is to be will be. After this he said to me :
“‘Now, look here, Akulina, you have no daughter now. Remember that.’
“But I only said to myself:
“‘Tell more lies, sandy-haired, spiteful man say that ice is warm !’ ’
I listened attentively, greedily. Some part of her story surprised me, for grandfather had given quite a different account of mother’s wedding; he said that he had been against the marriage and had forbidden mother to his house after it, but the wedding had not been secret, and he had been present in the church. I did not like to ask grandmother which of them spoke the truth, because her story was the more beautiful of the two, and I liked it best.
When she was telling a story she rocked from side to side all the time, just as if she were in a boat. If she was relating something sad or terrible, she rocked more violently, and stretched out her hands as if she were pushing away something in the air; she often covered her eyes, while a sightless, kind smile hid itself in her wrinkled cheek, but her thick eyebrows hardly moved. Sometimes this uncritical friendliness of hers to everybody touched my heart, and sometimes I wished that she would use strong language and assert herself more.
“At first, for two weeks, I did not know where
Varvara and Maxim were; then a little barefooted boy was sent to tell me. I went to see them on a Saturday I was supposed to be going to vespers, but I went to them instead. They lived a long way off, on the Suetinsk Slope, in the wing of a house overlooking a yard belonging to some works a dusty, dirty, noisy place; but they did not mind it they were like two cats, quite happy, purring, and even playing together. I took them what I could tea, sugar, cereals of various kinds, jam, flour, dried mushrooms, and a small sum of money which I had got from grandfather on the quiet. You are allowed to steal, you know, when it is not for yourself.
“But your father would not take anything. ‘What ! Are we beggars’?’ he says.
“And Varvara played the same tune. ‘Ach! . . . What is this for, Mamasha’?’
“I gave them a lecture. ‘You young fools !’ I said. ‘Who am I, I should like to know? ... I am the mother God gave you . . . and you, silly, are my own flesh and blood. Are you going to offend me ? Don’t you know that when you offend your mother on earth, the Mother of God in Heaven weeps bitterly?’
“Then Maxim seized me in his arms and carried me round the room ... he actually danced he was strong, the bear! And Varvara there, the hussy, was as proud as a peacock of her husband, and kept looking at him as if he were a new doll, and talked about house-keeping with such an air you would have thought she was an old hand at it ! It was comical to listen to her. And she gave us cheese-cakes for tea which would have broken the teeth of a wolf, and curds all sprinkled with dust.
“Things went on like this for a long time, and your birth was drawing near, but still grandfather never said a word he is obstinate, our old man ! I went to see them on the quiet, and he knew it; but he pretended not to. It was forbidden to any one in the house to speak of Varia, so she was never mentioned. I said nothing about her either, but I knew that a father’s heart could not be dumb for long. And at last the critical moment arrived. It was night; there was a snowstorm raging, and it sounded as if bears were throwing themselves against the window. The wind howled down the chimneys; all the devils were let loose. Grandfather and I were in bed but we could not sleep.
“‘It is bad for the poor on such a night as this,’ I remarked; ‘but it is worse for those whose minds are not at rest.’
“Then grandfather suddenly asked:
“‘How are they getting on? All right?’
“‘Who are you talking about?’ I asked. ‘About our daughter Varvara and our son-in-law Maxim?’
“‘How did you guess who I meant?’
“‘That will do, Father,’ I said. ‘Suppose you leave off playing the fool”? What pleasure is to be got out of it?
“He drew in his breath. ‘Ach, you devil !’ he said. ‘You gray devil !’
“Later on he said: ‘They say he is a great fool’ (he was speaking of your father). ‘Is it true that he is a fool?’
!’
“

10-28-2011, 06:01 PM

المشاركة 19

ريم بدر الدين

عضو مجلس الإدارة سابقا



“‘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.

10-28-2011, 06:05 PM

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