My Childhood (9 page)

One day when she was on her knees, conversing earnestly with God, grandfather, throwing open the door, shouted hoarsely:

"Well, Mother, God has afflicted us again. We are on fire."

"What are you talking about?" cried grandmother, jumping up from the floor; and they both rushed into the large parlor, making a great noise with their feet. "Eugenia, take down the icons. Natalia, dress the baby."

Grandmother gave her orders in a stern voice of authority, but all grandfather did was to mutter: "Ug--h!"

I ran into the kitchen. The window looking on to the yard shone like gold, and yellow patches of light appeared on the floor, and Uncle Jaakov, who was dressing, trod on them with his bare feet, and jumped about as if they had burned him, shrieking:

"This is Mischka's doing. He started the fire, and then went out."

"Peace, cur!" said grandmother, pushing him towards the door so roughly that he nearly fell.

Through the frost on the window-panes the burning roof of the workshop was visible, with the curling flames pouring out from its open door. It was a still night, and the color of the flames was not spoiled by any admixture of smoke; while just above them hovered a dark cloud which, however, did not hide from our sight the silver stream of the Mlethchna Road. The snow glittered with a livid brilliance, and the walls of the house tottered and shook from side to side, as if about to hurl themselves into that burning corner of the yard where the flames disported themselves so gaily as they poured through the broad red cracks in the walls of the workshop, dragging crooked, red-hot nails out with them. Gold and red ribbons wound themselves about the dark beams of the roof, and soon enveloped it entirely; but the slender chimney-pot stood up straight in the midst of it all, belching forth clouds of smoke. A gentle crackling sound like the rustle of silk beat against our windows, and all the time the flames were spreading till the workshop, adorned by them, as it were, looked like the iconostasis in church, and became more and more attractive to me.

Throwing a heavy fur coat over my head and thrusting my feet into the first boots that came handy, I ran out to the porch and stood on the steps, stupefied and blinded by the brilliant play of light, dazed by the yells of my grandfather, and uncles, and Gregory, and alarmed by grandmother's behavior, for she had wrapped an empty sack round her head, enveloped her body in a horse-cloth, and was running straight into the flames. She disappeared, crying, "The vitriol, you fools! It will explode!"

"Keep her back, Gregory!" roared grandfather. "Aie! she's done for--!"

But grandmother reappeared at this moment, blackened with smoke, half-fainting, bent almost double over the bottle of vitriolic oil which she was carrying in her stretched-out hands.

"Father, get the horse out!" she cried hoarsely, coughing and spluttering, "and take this thing off my shoulders. Can't you see it is on fire?"

Gregory dragged the smoldering horse-cloth from her shoulders, and then, working hard enough for two men, went on shoveling large lumps of snow into the door of the workshop. My uncle jumped about him with an ax in his hands, while grandfather ran round grandmother, throwing snow over her; then she put the bottle into a snowdrift, and ran to the gate, where there were a great many people gathered together. After greeting them, she said:

"Save the warehouse, neighbors! If the fire fastens upon the warehouse and the hay-loft, we shall be burnt out; and it will spread to your premises. Go and pull off the roof and drag the hay into the garden! Gregory, why don't you throw some of the snow on top, instead of throwing it all on the ground? Now, Jaakov, don't dawdle about! Give some axes and spades to these good folk. Dear neighbors, behave like true friends, and may God reward you!"

She was quite as interesting to me as the fire. Illuminated by those flames which had so nearly devoured her, she rushed about the yard--a black figure, giving assistance at all points, managing the whole thing, and letting nothing escape her attention.

Sharapa ran into the yard, rearing and nearly throwing grandfather down. The light fell on his large eyes which shone expressively; he breathed heavily as his forefeet pawed the air, and grandfather let the reins fall, and jumping aside called out: "Catch hold of him, Mother!"

She threw herself almost under the feet of the rearing horse, and stood in front of him, with outstretched arms in the form of a cross; the animal neighed pitifully and let himself be drawn towards her, swerving aside at the flames.

"Now, you are not frightened," said grandmother in a low voice, as he patted his neck and grasped the reins, "Do you think I would leave you when you are in such a state? Oh, you silly little mouse!"

And the little "mouse," who was twice as large as herself, submissively went to the gate with her, snuffling, and gazing at her red face.

Nyanya Eugenia had brought some muffled-up youngsters, who were bellowing in smothered tones, from the house.

"Vassili Vassilitch," she cried, "we can't find Alexei anywhere!"

"Go away! Go away!" answered grandfather, waving his hands, and I hid myself under the stairs so that Nyanya should not take me away.

The roof of the workshop had fallen in by this time, and the stanchions, smoking, and glittering like golden coal, stood out against the sky. With a howl and a crash a green, blue and red tornado burst inside the building, and the flames threw themselves with a new energy on the yard and on the people who were gathered round and throwing spadefuls of snow on the huge bonfire.

The heat caused the vats to boil furiously; a thick cloud of steam and smoke arose, and a strange odor, which caused one's eyes to water, floated into the yard. I crept out from beneath the stairs and got under grandmother's feet.

"Get away!" she shrieked. "You will get trampled on. Get away!"

At this moment a man on horseback, with a copper helmet, burst into the yard. His roan-colored horse was covered with froth, and he raised a whip high above his head and shouted threateningly:

"Make way there!"

Bells rang out hurriedly and gaily; it was just as beautiful as a festival day.

Grandmother pushed me back towards the steps.

"What did I tell you? Go away!"

I could not disobey her at such a time, so I went back to the kitchen and glued myself once more to the window; but I could not see the fire through that dense mass of people--I could see nothing but the gleam of copper helmets amongst the winter caps of fur.

In a short time the fire was got under, totally extinguished, and the building submerged. The police drove the onlookers away, and grandmother came into the kitchen.

"Who is this? Oh, it is you! Why are n't you in bed? Frightened, eh? There 's nothing to be frightened about; it is all over now."

She sat beside me in silence, shaking a little. The return of the quiet night with its darkness was a relief. Presently grandfather came in, and standing in the doorway said:

"Mother?"

"Yes?"

"Were you burned?"

"A little--nothing to speak of."

He lit a brimstone match, which lit up his soot-begrimed face, looked for and found the candle on the table, and then came over swiftly and sat beside grandmother.

"The best thing we can do is to wash ourselves," she said, for she was covered with soot too, and smelt of acrid smoke.

"Sometimes," said grandfather, drawing a deep breath, "God is pleased to endue you with great goodsense." And stroking her shoulder he added with a grin: "Only sometimes, you know, just for an hour or so; but there it is all the same."

Grandmother smiled too, and began to say something, but grandfather stopped her, frowning:

"We shall have to get rid of Gregory. All this trouble has been caused by his neglect. His working days are over. He is worn out. That fool Jaaschka is sitting on the stairs crying; you had better go to him."

She stood up and went out, holding her hand up to her face and blowing on her fingers; and grandfather, without looking at me, asked softly:

"You saw it all from the beginning of the fire, did n't you? Then you saw how grandmother behaved, did n't you? And that is an old woman, mind you!-- crushed and breaking-up--and yet you see--! U-- ugh,
you!"

After a long silence, during which he sat huddled up, he rose and snuffed the candle, as he asked me:

"Were you frightened?"

"No."

"Quite right! There was nothing to be frightened about."

Irritably dragging his shirt from his shoulder, he went to the washstand in the corner, and I could hear him in the darkness stamping his feet as he exclaimed:

"A fire is a silly business. The person who causes a fire ought to be beaten in the market-place. He must be either a fool or a thief. If that was done there would be no more fires. Go away now, and go to bed! What are you sitting there for?"

I did as he told me, but sleep was denied to me that night. I had no sooner laid myself down when an unearthly howl greeted me, which seemed to come from the bed. I rushed back to the kitchen, in the middle of which stood grandfather, shirtless, holding a candle which flickered violently as he stamped his feet on the floor, crying:

"Mother! Jaakov! What is that?"

I jumped on the stove and hid myself in a corner, and the household was once more in a state of wild commotion; a heartrending howl beat against the ceiling and walls, increasing in sound every moment.

It was all just the same as it had been during the fire. Grandfather and uncle ran about aimlessly; grandmother shouted as she drove them away from one place to another; Gregory made a great noise as he thrust logs into the stove and filled the iron kettle with water. He went about the kitchen bobbing his head just like an Astrakhan camel.

"Heat the stove first," said grandmother in a tone of authority.

He rushed to do her bidding, and fell over my legs.

"Who is there?" he cried, greatly flustered. "Phew! How you frightened me! You are always where you ought not to be."

"What has happened?"

"Aunt Natalia has had a little baby born to her," he replied calmly, jumping down to the floor.

I remembered that my mother had not screamed like that when her little baby was born.

Having placed the kettle over the fire, Gregory climbed up to me on the stove, and drawing a long pipe from his pocket, showed it to me.

"I am taking to a pipe for the good of my eyes," he explained. "Grandmother advised me to take snuff, but I think smoking will do me more good."

He sat on the edge of the stove with his legs crossed, looking down at the feeble light of the candle; his ears and cheeks were smothered in soot, one side of his shirt was torn, and I could see his ribs--as broad as the ribs of a cask. One of his eyeglasses was broken; almost half of the glass had come out of the frame, and from the empty space peered a red, moist eye, which had the appearance of a wound.

Filling his pipe with coarse-cut tobacco, he listened to the groans of the travailing woman, and murmured disjointedly, like a drunken man:

"That grandmother of yours has burned herself so badly that I am sure I don't know how she can attend to the poor creature. Just hear how your aunt is groaning. You know, they forgot all about her. She was taken bad when the fire first broke out. It was fright that did it. You see what pain it costs to bring children into the world, and yet women are thought nothing of! But, mark my words--women ought to be thought a lot of, for they are the mothers--"

Here I dozed, and was awakened by a tumult: a banging of doors, and the drunken cries of Uncle Michael; these strange words floated to my ears:

"The royal doors must be opened--!"

"Give her holy oil with rum, half a glass of oil, half a glass of rum, and a tablespoonful of soot--"

Then Uncle Michael kept asking like a tiresome "Let me have a look at her!"

He sat on the floor with his legs sprawling, and kept spitting straight in front of him, and banging his hands on the floor.

I began to find the stove unbearably hot, so I slid down, but when I got on a level with uncle he seized and held me by the legs, and I fell on the back of my head.

"Fool!" I exclaimed.

He jumped to his feet, grabbed me again, and roared:

"I 'll smash you against the stove--"

I escaped to a corner of the best parlor, under the image, and ran against grandfather's knees; he put me aside, and gazing upwards, went on in a low voice:

"There is no excuse for any of us--"

The image-lamp burned brightly over his head, a candle stood on the table in the middle of the room, and the light of a foggy winter's morning was already peeping in at the window.

Presently he bent towards me, and asked:

"What's the matter with you?"

Everything was the matter with me--my head was clammy, my body sorely weary; but I did not like to say so because everything about me was so strange. Almost all the chairs in the room were occupied by strangers; there were a priest in a lilac-colored robe, a gray-headed old man with glasses, in a military uniform, and many other people who all sat quite still like wooden figures, or figures frozen, as it were, in expectation of something, and listened to the sound of water splashing somewhere near. By the door stood Uncle Jaakov, very upright, with his hands behind his back. "Here!" said grandfather to him, "take this child to bed."

My uncle beckoned me to follow him, and led the way on tiptoe to the door of grandmother's room, and when I had got into bed he whispered:

"Your Aunt Natalia is dead."

I was not surprised to hear it. She had not been visible for a long time, either in the kitchen or at meals.

"Where is grandmother?" I asked.

"Down there," he replied, waving his hand, and went out of the room, still going softly on his bare feet.

I lay in bed and looked about me. I seemed to see hairy, gray, sightless faces pressed against the windowpane, and though I knew quite well that those were grandmother's clothes hanging over the box in the corner, I imagined that some living creature was hiding there and waiting. I put my head under the pillow, leaving one eye uncovered so that I could look at the door, and wished that I dared jump out of bed and run out of the room. It was very hot, and there was a heavy, stifling odor which reminded me of the night when Tsiganok died, and that rivulet of blood ran along the floor.