When I told her that I had not had time to read the book, and that I had been forbidden to read, tears filled my eyes. They were caused by mortification, and by joy at seeing this woman.
“Too! what stupid people!” she said, drawing her fine brows together.
“And your master has such an interesting face, too!
Don’t you fret about it.
I will write to him.”
“You must not! Don’t write!” I begged her.
“They will laugh at you and abuse you.
Don’t you know that no one in the yard likes you, that they all laugh at you, and say that you are a fool, and that some of your ribs are missing?”
As soon as I had blurted this out I knew that I had said something unnecessary and insulting to her. She bit her lower lip, and clapped her hands on her hips as if she were riding on horseback.
I hung my head in confusion and wished that I could sink into the earth; but she sank into a chair and laughed merrily, saying over and over again:
“Oh, how stupid I how stupid!
Well, what is to be done?” she asked, looking fixedly at me. Then she sighed and said, “You are a strange boy, very strange.”
Glancing into the mirror beside her, I saw a face with high cheek-bones and a short nose, a large bruise on the forehead, and hair, which had not been cut for a long time, sticking out in all directions. That is what she called “a strange boy.”
The strange boy was not in the least like a fine porcelain figure.
“You never took the money that I gave you.
Why?”
“I did not want it.”
She sighed.
“Well, what is to be done?
If they will allow you to read, come to me and I will give you some books.”
On the mantel-shelf lay three books. The one which I had brought back was the thickest.
I looked at it sadly.
The tailor’s wife held out her small, pink hand to me.
“Well, good-by!”
I touched her hand timidly, and went away quickly.
It was certainly true what they said about her not knowing anything. Fancy calling two grevines money! It was just like a child.
But it pleased me.
CHAPTER IX
I HAVE sad and ludicrous reasons for remembering the burdensome humiliations, insults, and alarms which my swiftly developed passion for reading brought me.
The books of the tailor’s wife looked as if they were terribly expensive, and as I was afraid that the old mistress might burn them in the stove, I tried not to think of them, and began to buy small colored books from the shop where I bought bread in the mornings.
The shopkeeper was an ill-favored fellow with thick lips. He was given to sweating, had a white, wizen face covered with scrofulous scars and pimples, and his eyes were white. He had short, clumsy fingers on puffy hands.
His shop took the place of an evening club for grown-up people; also for the thoughtless young girls living in the street. My master’s brother used to go there every evening to drink beer and play cards.
I was often sent to call him to supper, and more than once I saw, in the small, stuffy room behind the shop, the capricious, rosy wife of the shopkeeper sitting on the knee of Victorushka or some other young fellow.
Apparently this did not offend the shop-keeper; nor was he offended when his sister, who helped him in the shop, warmly embraced the drunken men, or soldiers, or, in fact any one who took her fancy.
The business done at the shop was small. He explained this by the fact that it was a new business, al — though the shop had been open since the autumn.
He showed obscene pictures to his guests and customers, allowing those who wished to copy the disgraceful verses beneath them.
I read the foolish little books of Mischa Evstignev, paying so many copecks for the loan of them. This was dear, and the books afforded me no pleasure at all.
“Guyak, or, the Unconquerable Truth,”
“Franzl, the Venitian,”
“The Battle of the Russians with the Kabardines,” or “The Beautiful Mahomedan Girl, Who Died on the Grave of her Husband,” — all that kind of literature did not interest me either, and often aroused a bitter irritation. The books seemed to be laughing at me, as at a fool, when they told in dull words such improbable stories.
“The Marksmen,”
“Youri Miloslavski,”
“Monks’ Secrets,”
“Yapacha, the Tatar Freebooter,” and such books I like better. I was the richer for reading them; but what I liked better than all was the lives of the saints. Here was something serious in which I could believe, and which at times deeply stirred me.
All the martyrs somehow reminded me of “Good Business,” and the female martyrs of grandmother, and the holy men of grandfather in his best moments.
I used to read in the shed when I went there to chop wood, or in the attic, which was equally uncomfortable and cold.
Sometimes, if a book interested me or I had to read it quickly, I used to get up in the night and light the candle; but the old mistress, noticing that my candle had grown smaller during the night, began to measure the candles with a piece of wood, which she hid away somewhere.
In the morning, if my candle was not as long as the measure, or if I, having found the measure, had not broken it to the length of the burned candle, a wild cry arose from the kitchen. Sometimes Victorushka called out loudly from the loft:
“Leave off that howling, Mamasha!
You make life unbearable.