i was not long in grasping the fact that there was one god for grandfather and another for grandmother. thefrequency with which this difference was brought to my notice made it impossible to ignore it.
sometimes grandmother woke up in the morning and sat a long while on the bed combing her wonderful hair.
holding her head firmly, she would draw the comb with its jagged teeth through every thread of that black, silkymane, whispering the while, not to wake me:
“bother you! the devil take you for sticking together like this !”
when she had thus taken all the tangles out, she quickly wove it into a thick plait, washed in a hurry, with manyangry tossings of her head, and without washing away the signs of irritation from her large face, which wascreased by sleep, she placed herself before the icon and began her real morning ablutions, by which her wholebeing was instantly refreshed.
she straightened her crooked back, and raising her head, gazed upon the round face of our lady of kazan, andafter crossing herself reverently, said in a loud, fierce whisper:
“most glorious virgin! take me under thy protection this day, dear mother.”
having made a deep obeisance, she straightened her back with difficulty, and then went on whispering ardently,and with deep feeling:
“source of our joy! stainless beauty! apple tree in bloom !”
every morning she seemed to find fresh words of praise; and for that reason i used to listen to her prayers withstrained attention.
“dear heart, so pure, so heavenly! my defense and my refuge! golden sun! mother of god! guard me fromtemptation; grant that i may do no one harm, and may not be offended by what others do to me thoughtlessly.”
with her dark eyes smiling, and a general air of rejuvenation about her, she crossed herself again, with that slowand ponderous movement of her hand.
“jesus christ, son of god, have mercy on me, a sinner, for thy mother’s sake!”
her prayers were always non-liturgical, full of sincere praise, and very simple.
she did not pray long in the mornings because she had to get the samovar ready, for grandfather kept noservants, and if the tea was not made to the moment, he used to give her a long and furious scolding.
sometimes he was up before her, and would come up to the attic. finding her at prayer, he would stand for someminutes listening to her, contemptuously curling his thin, dark lips, and when he was drinking his tea, he wouldgrowl:
“how often have i taught you how to say your prayers, blockhead. but you are always mumbling somenonsense, you heretic! i can’t think why god puts up with you.”
“he understands,” grandmother would reply confidently, “what we don’t say to him. he looks into everything.”
“you cursed dullard! u u ugh, you!” was all he said to this.
her god was with her all day; she even spoke to the animals about him. evidently this god, with willingsubmission, made himself subject to all creatures to men, dogs, bees, and even the grass of the field; and he wasimpartially kind and accessible to every one on earth.
once the petted cat belonging to the innkeeper’s wife an artful, pretty, coaxing creature, smoke-colored withgolden eyes caught a starling in the garden. grandmother took away the nearly exhausted bird and punished thecat, crying:
“have you no fear of god, you spiteful wretch?”
the wife of the innkeeper and the porter laughed at these words, but she said to them angrily:
“do you think that animals don’t understand about god? all creatures understand about him better than you do,you heartless things !”
when she harnessed sharapa, who was growing fat and melancholy, she used to hold a conversation with him.
“why do you look so miserable, toiler of god? why? you are getting old, my dear, that’s what it is.” and thehorse would sigh and toss his head.
and yet she did not utter the name of god as frequently as grandfather did. her god was quite com prehensibleto me, and i knew that i must not tell lies in his presence; i should be ashamed to do so. the thought of himproduced such an invincible feeling of shame, that i never lied to grandmother. it would be simply impossible tohide anything from this good god ; in fact, i had not even a wish to do so.
one day the innkeeper’s wife quarreled with grandfather and abused him, and also grandmother, who had takenno part in the quarrel; nevertheless she abused her bitterly, and even threw a carrot at her.
“you are a fool, my good woman,” said grandmother very quietly; but i felt the insult keenly, and resolved to berevenged on the spiteful creature.
for a long time i could not make up my mind as to the best way to punish this sandy-haired, fat woman, with twochins and no eyes to speak of. from my own experience of feuds between people living together, i knew thatthey avenged themselves on one another by cutting off the tails of their enemy’s cat, by chasing his dogs, bykilling his cocks and hens, by creeping into his cellar in the night and pouring kerosene over the cabbages andcucumbers in the tubs, and letting the kvass run out of the barrels; but nothing of this kind appealed to me. iwanted something less crude, and more terrifying.
at last i had an idea. i lay in wait for the inn-keeper’s wife, and as soon as she went down to the cellar, i shut thetrap door on her, fastened it, danced a jig on it, threw the key on to the roof, and rushed into the kitchen wheregrandmother was busy cooking. at first she could not understand why i was in such an ecstasy of joy, but whenshe had grasped the cause, she slapped me on that part of my anatomy provided for the purpose, dragged me outto the yard, and sent me up to the roof to find the key. i gave it to her with reluctance, astonished at her askingfor it, and ran away to a corner of the yard, whence i could see how she set the captive free, and how theylaughed together in a friendly way as they crossed the yard.
“i’ll pay you for this !” threatened the innkeeper’s wife, shaking her plump fist at me; but there was a good-natured smile on her eyeless face.
grandmother dragged me back to the kitchen by the collar. “why did you do that?” she asked.
“because she threw a carrot at you.”
“that means that you did it for me? very well! this is what i will do for you i will horsewhip you and put youamongst the mice under the oven. a nice sort of protector you are! ‘look at a bubble and it will burst directly.’ ifi were to tell grandfather he would skin you. go up to the attic and learn your lesson.”
she would not speak to me for the rest of the day, but before she said her prayers that night she sat on the bedand uttered these memorable words in a very impressive tone:
“now, lenka, my darling, you must keep yourself from meddling with the doings of grown-up persons. grown-up people are given responsibilities and they have to answer for them to god; but it is not so with you yet; youlive by a child’s conscience. wait till god takes possession of your heart, and shows you the work you are to do,and the way you are to take. do you understand? it is no business of yours to decide who is to blame in anymatter. god judges, and punishes; that is for him, not for us.”
she was silent for a moment while she took a pinch of snuff; then, half-closing her right eye, she added:
“why, god himself does not always know where the fault lies.”
“doesn’t god know everything?” i asked in astonishment.
“if he knew everything, a lot of things that are done would not be done. it is as if he, the father, . looks andlooks from heaven at the earth, and sees how often we weep, how often we sob, and says: ‘my people, my dearpeople, how sorry i am for you !’ ”
she was crying herself as she spoke; and drying her wet cheeks, she went into the corner to pray.
from that time her god became still closer and still more comprehensible to me.
grandfather, in teaching me, also said that god was a being omnipresent, omniscient, all-seeing, the kindhelper of people in all their affairs ; but he did not pray like grandmother. in the morning, before going to standbefore the icon, he took a long time washing himself; then, when he was fully dressed, he carefully combed hissandy hair, brushed his beard, and looking at himself in the mirror, saw that his shirt sat well, and tucked hisblack cravat into his waistcoat after which he advanced cautiously, almost stealthily, to the icon. he always stoodon one particular board of the parquet floor, and with an expression in his eyes which made them look like theeyes of a horse, he stood in silence for a minute, with bowed head, and arms held straight down by his sides insoldier fashion; then, upright, and slender as a nail, he began impressively :
“in the name of the father, and of the son, and of the holy ghost.”
after these words it always seemed to me that the room became extraordinarily quiet; the very flies seemed tobuzz cautiously.
there he stood, with his head thrown back, his eyebrows raised and bristling, his golden beard sticking outhorizontally, and recited the prayers, in a firm tone, as if he were repeating a lesson, and with a voice which wasvery distinct and very imperious.
“it will be useless when the judge comes, and every action is laid bare ”
striking himself lightly on the breast, he prayed fervently:
“to thee alone can sinners come. oh, turn thy face away from my misdeeds.”
he recited the “i believe,” using the prescribed words only; and all the while his right leg quivered, as if it werenoiselessly keeping time with his prayers, and his whole form, straining towards the icon, seemed to becometaller, leaner, and drier so clean he was, so neat, and so persistent in his demands.
“heavenly physician, heal my soul of its long-lived passions. to thee, holy virgin, i cry from my heart; to thee ioffer myself with fervor.”
and with his green eyes full of tears he wailed loudly:
“impute to me, my god, faith instead of works, and be not mindful of deeds which can by no means justify me!”
here he crossed himself frequently at intervals, tossing his head as if he were about to butt at something, and hisvoice became squeaky and cracked. later, when i happened to enter a synagogue, i realized that grandfatherprayed like a jew.
by this time the samovar would have been snorting on the table for some minutes, and a hot smell of rye-cakeswould be floating through the room. grandmother, frowning, strolled about, with her eyes on the floor; the sunlooked cheerfully in at the window from the garden, the dew glistened like pearls on the trees, the morning airwas deliciously perfumed by the smell of dill, and currant-bushes, and ripening apples, but grandfather went onwith his prayers quavering and squeaking.
“extinguish in me the flame of passion, for i am in misery and accursed.”
i knew all the morning prayers by heart, and even in my dreams i could say what was to come next, andi followed with intense interest to hear if he made a mistake or missed out a word which very seldom happened;but when it did, it aroused a feeling of malicious glee in me.
when he had finished his prayers, grandfather used to say “good morning!” to grandmother and me, and wereturned his greeting and sat down to table. then i used to say to him:
“you left out a word this morning.”
“not really?” grandfather would say with an uneasy air of incredulity.
“yes. you should have said, ‘this, my faith, reigns supreme,’ but you did not say ‘reigns.’ ’
“there now!” he would exclaim, much perturbed, and blinking guiltily.
afterwards he would take a cruel revenge on me for pointing out his mistake to him; but for the moment, seeinghow disturbed he was, i was able to enjoy my triumph.
one day grandmother said to him jokingly:
“god must get tired of listening to your prayers, father. you do nothing but insist on the same things over andover again.”
“what ‘s that?” he drawled in an ominous voice. “what are you nagging about now?”
“i say that you do not offer god so much as one little word from your own heart, so far as i can hear.”
he turned livid, and quivering with rage, jumped up on his chair and threw a dish at her head, yelping with asound like that made by a saw on a piece of wood:
“take that, you old hag!”
when he spoke of the omnipotence of god, he always emphasized its cruelty above every other attribute. “mansinned, and the flood was sent; sinned again, and his towns were destroyed by fire; then god punished people byfamine and plague, and even now he is always holding a sword over the earth a scourge for sinners. all whohave wilfully broken the commandments of god will be punished by sorrow and ruin.” and he emphasized thisby rapping his fingers on the table.
it was hard for me to believe in the cruelty of god, and i suspected grandfather of having made it all up onpurpose to inspire me with fear not of god but of himself; so i asked him frankly:
“are you saying all this to make me obey you?”
and he replied with equal frankness:
“well, perhaps i am. do you mean to disobey me again?”
“and how about what grandmother says?”
“don’t you believe the old fool!” he admonished me sternly. “from her youth she has always been stupid,illiterate, and unreasonable. i shall tell her she must not dare to talk to you again on such an important matter.
tell me, now how many companies of angels are there?”
i gave the required answer, and then i asked :
“are they limited companies’?”
“oh, you scatterbrain !” he laughed, covering his eyes and biting his lips. “what have companies to do withgod . . . they belong to life on earth . . . they are founded to set the laws at naught.”
“what are laws?”
“laws! well, they are really derived from custom,” the old man explained, with pleased alacrity; and hisintelligent, piercing eyes sparkled. “people living together agree amongst themselves ‘such and such is our bestcourse of action ; we will make a custom of it a rule’ ; finally it becomes a law. for example, before they begin agame, children will settle amongst themselves how it is to be played, and what rules are to be observed. laws aremade in the same way.”
“and what have companies to do with laws’?”
“why, they are like an impudent fellow; they come along and make the laws of no account.”
“but why?”
“ah! that you would not understand,” he replied, knitting his brows heavily ; but afterwards, as if in explanation,he said:
“all the actions of men help to work out god’s plans.
men desire one thing, but he wills something quite different. human institutions are never lasting. the lordblows on them, and they fall into dust and ashes.”
i had reason for being interested in “companies,” so i went on inquisitively:
“but what does uncle jaakov mean when he sings:
“the angels bright for god will fight, but satan’s slaves are companies”?
grandfather raised his hand to his beard, thus hiding his mouth, and closed his eyes. his cheeks quivered, and iguessed that he was laughing inwardly.
“jaakov ought to have his feet tied together and be thrown into the water,” he said. “there was no necessity forhim to sing or for you to listen to that song. it is nothing but a silly joke which is current in kalonga a piece ofschismatical, heretical nonsense.” and looking, as it were, through and beyond me, he murmured thoughtfully:
“u u ugh, you!”
but though he had set god over mankind, as a being to be very greatly feared, none the less did he, likegrandmother, invoke him in all his doings.
the only saints grandmother knew were nikolai, yowry, frola, and lavra, who were full of kindness andsympathy with human-nature, and went about in the villages and towns sharing the life of the people, andregulating all their concerns; but grandfather’s saints were nearly all males, who cast down idols, or defied theroman emperors, and were tortured, burned or flayed alive in consequence.
sometimes grandfather would say musingly:
“if only god would help me to sell that little house, even at a small profit, i would make a public thanksgiving tost. nicholas.”
but grandmother would say to me, laughingly:
“that’s just like the old fool! does he think st. nicholas will trouble himself about selling a house”? hasn’t ourlittle father nicholas something better to do?”
i kept by me for many years a church calendar which had belonged to grandfather, containing severalinscriptions in his handwriting. amongst others, opposite the day of joachim and anne, was written in red ink,and very upright characters :
“my benefactors, who averted a calamity.”
i remember that “calamity.”
in his anxiety about the maintenance of his very unprofitable children, grandfather set up as a money-lender, andused to receive articles in pledge secretly. some one laid an information against him, and one night the policecame to search the premises. there was a great fuss, but it ended well, and grandfather prayed till sunrise thenext morning, and before breakfast, and in my presence, wrote those words in the calendar.
before supper he used to read with me the psalms, the breviary, or the heavy book of ephraim sirine ; but assoon as he had supped he began to pray again, and his melancholy words of contrition resounded in the stillnessof evening :
“what can i offer to thee, or how can i atone to thee, o generous god, o king of kings! . . . preserve us fromall evil imaginations. . . . o lord, protect me from certain persons ! . . . my tears fall like rain, and the memory ofmy sins ...”
but very often grandmother said:
“oie, i am dog-tired! i shall go to bed without saying my prayers.”
grandfather used to take me to church to vespers on saturday, and to high mass on sundays and festivals buteven in church i made a distinction as to which god was being addressed ; whatever the priest or the deaconrecited that was to grandfather’s god ; but the choir always sang to grandmother’s god. of course i can onlycrudely express this childish distinction which i made between these two gods, but i remember how it seemed totear my heart with terrific violence, and how grandfather’s god aroused in my mind a feeling of terror andunpleasantness. a being who loved no one, he followed all of us about with i6ohis severe eyes, seeking and finding all that was ugly, evil, and sinful in us. evidently he put no trust in man, hewas always insisting on penance, and he loved to chastise.
in those days my thoughts and feelings about god were the chief nourishment of my soul and were the mostbeautiful ones of my existence. all other impressions which i received did nothing but disgust me by theircruelty and squalor, and awaken in me a sense of repugnance and ferocity. god was the best and brightest of allthe beings who lived about me grandmother’s god, that dear friend of all creation; and naturally i could nothelp being disturbed by the question “how is it that grandfather cannot see the good god?”
i was not allowed to run about the streets because it made me too excited. i became, as it were, intoxicated by theimpressions which i received, and there was almost always a violent scene afterwards.
i had no comrades. the neighbors’ children treated me as an enemy. i objected to their calling me “thekashmirin boy,” and seeing that they did it all the more, calling out to each other as soon as they saw me :
“look, here comes that brat, kashmirin’s grandson. go for him!” then the fight would begin. i was strong for myage and active with my fists, and my enemies, knowing this, always fell upon me in a crowd ; and as a rule thestreet vanquished me, and i returned home with a cut across my nose, gashed lips, and bruises all over my faceall in rags and smothered in dust.
“what now?” grandmother exclaimed as she met me, with a mixture of alarm and pity; “so you ‘ve been fightingagain, you young rascal ? what do you mean by it?’
she washed my face, and applied to my bruises copper coins or fomentations of lead, saying as she did so :
“now, what do you mean by all this fighting”? you are as quiet as anything at home, but out of doors you arelike i don’t know what. you ought to be ashamed of yourself. i shall tell grandfather not to let you go out.”
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 youhear 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 outof the yard, forgetting all about grandfather’s prohibition. bruises and taunts did not hurt me, but the brutality ofthe street sports a brutality only too well known to me, wearying and oppressive, reducing one to a state offrenzy disturbed me tremendously. i could not contain myself when the children baited dogs and cocks, torturedcats, drove away the goats of the jews, jeered at drunken vagabonds, and at happy “igosha with death in hispocket.”
this was a tall, withered-looking, smoke-dried individual clad in a heavy sheepskin, with coarse hair on hisfleshless, rusty face. he went about the streets, stooping, wavering strangely, and never speaking gazing fixedlyall the time at the ground. his iron-hued face, with its small, sad eyes, inspired me with an uneasy respect forhim. here was a man, i thought, pre occupied with a weighty matter; he was looking for something, and it waswrong 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 hedid not notice them, and as if he were not even conscious of the pain of the blows, he would stand still, throw uphis head, push back his ragged cap with a spasmodic movement of his hands, and look about him as if he had butjust 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 fromthe ground, and flourish his long arms as he muttered abuse, which was confined always to the same few filthywords. 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 theground, 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 dustover 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. alittle gray-haired old woman held him by the arm, and halting under the windows, to which she never raised hereyes, she wailed in a squeaky voice : “for christ’s sake, pity the poor blind !” but gregory ivanovitch said nevera word. his dark glasses looked straight into the walls of the houses, in at the windows, or into the faces of thepassers-by; his broad beard gently brushed his stained hands; his lips were closely pressed together. i often sawhim, but i never heard a sound proceed from that sealed mouth ; and the thought of that silent old man weighedupon me torturingly. i could not go to him i never went near him; on the contrary, as soon as i caught sight ofhim 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 longtime. he used to laugh, and pull his beard, but he said little, and that little in monosyllables. sometimesgrandmother brought him into the kitchen and gave him tea and something to eat, and every time she did so heinquired where i was. grandmother called me, but i ran away and hid myself in the yard. i could not go to him. iwas 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, shecame 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 toyou 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 throughthe 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, andbawling her ribald, songs. people in the street hid themselves as soon as they saw her, running into gateways, orcorners, or shops ; she simply swept the street clean. her face was almost blue, and blown out like a bladder; herlarge 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 soldhis wife to his chief, who took her away somewhere, and she did not come home for two years. when shereturned, both her children a boy and a girl were dead, and her husband was in prison for gambling withgovernment money. she took to drink, in her grief, and now goes about creating disturbances. no holiday passeswithout 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 unclejaakov’s workshop, and grandmother sat by the window and told me interesting fairy-tales, and other stories, andspoke to me about my father.
the starling, which she had rescued from the cat, had had his broken wings clipped, and grandmother hadskilfully 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 asblack 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 thecage; 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), theold 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 foranything.”
and she certainly did succeed in teaching the starling; and before long he could ask for what he wanted clearlyenough, 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 wassoon turned out and put up in the attic, because he learned to mock grandfather. he used to put his yellow, waxenbill 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 prayersand 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 attimes i was oppressed by an inexpressible sadness. my whole being seemed to be consumed by it; and for a longtime i lived as in a dark pit, deprived of sight, hearing, feeling blind and half-dead.
