How could my friends be in love with her?
“I have been lame a long time,” she told me, willingly and almost boastfully.
“A neighbor bewitched me; she had a quarrel with mother, and then bewitched me out of spite.
Were you frightened in the hospital?’
“Yes.”
I felt awkward with her, and went indoors.
About midnight grandmother tenderly awoke me.
“Are you coming?
If you do something for other people, your hand will soon be well.”
She took my arm and led me in the dark, as if I had been blind.
It was a black, damp night; the wind blew continuously, making the river flow more swiftly and blowing the cold sand against my legs.
Grandmother cautiously approached the darkened windows of the poor little houses, crossed herself three times, laid a five-copeck piece and three cracknel biscuits on the window-sills, and crossed herself again. Glancing up into the starless sky, she whispered:
“Holy Queen of Heaven, help these people!
We are all sinners in thy sight, Mother dear.”
Now, the farther we went from home, the denser and more intense the darkness and silence became.
The night sky was pitch black, unfathomable, as if the moon and stars had disappeared forever.
A dog sprang out from somewhere and growled at us. His eyes gleamed in the darkness, and I cravenly pressed close to grandmother.
“It is all right,” she said; “it is only a dog. It is too late for the devil; the cocks have already begun to crow.”
Enticing the dog to her, she stroked it and admonished it:
“Look here, doggie, you must not frighten my grandson.”
The dog rubbed itself against my legs, and the three of us went on.
Twelve times did grandmother place “secret alms” on a window-sill. It began to grow light: gray houses appeared out of the darkness; the belfry of Napolni Church rose up white like a piece of sugar; the brick wall of the cemetery seemed to become transparent.
“The old woman is tired,” said grandmother; “it is time we went home.
When the women wake up they will find that Our Lady has provided a little for their children.
When there is never enough, a very little comes in useful.
O Olesha, our people live so poorly and no one troubles about them!
“The rich man about God never thinks; Of the terrible judgment he does not dream; The poor man is to him neither friend nor brother; All he cares about is getting gold together.
But that gold will be coal in hell!
“That’s how it is.
But we ought to live for one another, while God is for us all.
I am glad to have you with me again.”
And I, too, was calmly happy, feeling in a confused way that I had taken part in something which I should never forget.
Close to me shivered the brown dog, with its bare muzzle and kind eyes which seemed to be begging forgiveness.
“Will it live with us?”
“What?
It can, if it likes.
Here, I will give it a cracknel biscuit. I have two left.
Let us sit down on this bench. I am so tired.”
We sat down on a bench by a gate, and the dog lay at our feet, eating the dry cracknel, while grandmother informed me :
“There’s a Jewess living here; she has about ten servants, more or less.
I asked her,
‘Do you live by the law of Moses?’
But she answered, I live as if God were with me and mine; how else should I live?’ ”
I leaned against the warm body of grandmother and fell asleep.
Once more my life flowed on swiftly and full of interest, with a broad stream of impressions bringing something new to my soul every day, stirring it to enthusiasm, disturbing it, or causing me pain, but at any rate forcing me to think.
Before long I also was using every means in my power to meet the lame girl, and I would sit with her on the bench by the gate, either talking or in silence. It was pleasant to be silent in her company.
She was very neat, and had a voice like a singing bird. She used to tell me prettily of the way the Cossacks lived on the Don, where she had lived with her uncle, who was employed in some oil-works. Then her father, a locksmith, had gone to live at Nijni.
“And I have another uncle who serves the czar himself.”
In the evenings of Sundays and festivals all the inhabitants of the street used to stand “at the gate.” The boys and girls went to the cemetery, the men to the taverns, and the women and children remained in the street.
The women sat at the gate on the sand or on a small bench. The children used to play at a sort of tennis, at skittles, and at sharmazL The mothers watched the games, encouraging the skilful ones and laughing at the bad players.