“Make haste and eat them before any one sees you.”
“I will tell how you steal cakes for me behind their backs.”
Once I took out the vessel and ate two custards, for which Victor nearly killed me.
He disliked me as heartily as I disliked him. He used to jeer at me and make me clean his boots about three times a day, and when I slept in the loft, he used to push up the trap-door and spit in the crevice, trying to aim at my head.
It may be that in imitation of his brother, who often said “wild fowl,” Victor also needed to use some catch-words, but his were all senseless and particularly ab — surd.
“Mamasha! Left wheel! where are my socks?”
And he used to follow me about with stupid questions.
“Alesha, answer me. Whv do we write ‘sinenki’ and pronounce it ‘phiniki?
Why do we say ‘Kolokola’ and not ‘Okolokola”?
Why do we say ‘K’derevou’ and not ‘gdye plachou?”
I did not like the way any of them spoke, and having been educated in the beautiful tongue which grand — mother and grandfather spoke, I could not understand at first how words that had no sort of connection came to be coupled together, such as “terribly funny,” “I am dying to eat,” “awfully happy.” It seemed to me that what was funny could not be terrible, that to be happy could not be awful, and that people did not die for something to eat.
“Can one say that?” I used to ask them; but they jeered at me:
“I say, what a teacher!
Do you want your ears plucked?”
But to talk of “plucking” ears also appeared incorrect to me. One could “pluck” grass and flowers and nuts, but not ears.
They tried to prove to me that ears could be plucked, but they did not convince me, and I said triumphantly:
“Anyhow, you have not plucked my ears.”
All around me I saw much cruel insolence, filthy shamelessness. It was far worse here than in the Kunavin streets, which were full of “houses of resort” and “street-walkers.”
Beneath the filth and brutality in Kunavin there was a something which made itself felt, and which seemed to explain it all — a strenuous, half-starved existence and hard work.
But here they were overfed and led easy lives, and the work went on its way without fuss or worry.
A corrosive, fretting weariness brooded over all.
My life was hard enough, anyhow, but I felt it still harder when grandmother came to see me.
She would appear from the black flight of steps, enter the kitchen, cross herself before the icon, and then bow low to her younger sister. That bow bent me down like a heavy weight, and seemed to smother me.
“Ah, Akulina, is it you?” was my mistress’s cold and negligent greeting to grandmother.
I should not have recognized grandmother. Her lips modestly compressed, her face changed out of knowledge, she set herself quietly on a bench near the door, keeping silence like a guilty creature, except when she answered her sister softly and submissively.
This was torture to me, and I used to say angrily:
“What are you sitting there for?”
Winking at me kindly, she replied:
“You be quiet. You are not master here.”
“He is always meddling in matters which do not concern him, however we beat him or scold him,” and the mistress was launched on her complaints.
She often asked her sister spitefully:
“Well, Akulina, so you are living like a beggar?”
“That is a misfortune.”
“It is no misfortune where there is no shame.”
“They say that Christ also lived on charity.”
“Blockheads say so, and heretics, and you, old fool, listen to them!
Christ was no beggar, but the Son of God. He will come, it is said, in glory, to judge the quick and dead — and dead, mind you.
You will not be able to hide yourself from Him, Matushka, although you may be burned to ashes.
He is punishing you and Vassili now for your pride, and on my account, because I asked help from you when you were rich.”
“And I helped you as much as it was in my power to do,” answered grandmother, calmly, “and God will pay us back, you know.” <
“It was little enough you did, little enough.”
Grandmother was bored and worried by her sister’s untiring tongue. I listened to her squeaky voice and wondered how grandmother could put up with it.
In that moment I did not love her.
The young mistress came out of her room and nodded affably to grandmother.
“Come into the dining-room. It is all right; come along!”
The master would receive grandmother joyfully.
“Ah, Akulina, wisest of all, how are you?
Is old man Kashirin still alive?”
And grandmother would give him her most cordial smile.
“Are you still working your hardest?”