My Childhood (18 page)

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 "Goodbusiness"; 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 warlike 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 knee-cap. 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 did n't grieve much," said grandmother.

Uncle Peter agreed with her:

"That's true! . . . His property. . . yes, that was n'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 is n'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 was n't a man, was she?"

He laughed shrilly.

"Of course she was n'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, goodlooking 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 dustsmeared panes the sun fell with a rainbow effect. And on tht other side of the gateway stood a storehouse, with a fagade 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.