childhood, on earth, my university

Chapter 6 Childhood (5)
After my father and mother got married, they lived in a messy courtyard, but they lived happily.Grandma often visits them secretly and brings them all kinds of food.Later, my grandfather also began to miss my mother.So my father and mother moved to my grandfather's house.At that time, my grandfather was very rich and owned several houses.I was born there.But the two uncles didn't like their father.Because he doesn't drink, speaks bluntly, and has a lot of tricks.Father often played tricks on them.Once, he played a terrible trick on them: he skinned the wolf he had hunted, hollowed out its head, put glass eyes on it, just like real wolves, and put it in a large wardrobe by the door, so that Uncle Mihailo would go to him at night. When I went to the toilet, I was too scared to say a word after seeing it.Uncle Mihailo held a grudge in his heart and made up his mind to take revenge on his father.And his revenge almost cost his father his life.They lured my father into a pond, as if to go ice skating, and pushed him into a hole in the ice.My father came out of the ice hole and grabbed the edge of the hole with both hands trying to climb up. They smashed his hands and stomped his fingers with their boots.Fortunately he didn't drink, he stretched his body under the ice as best he could, floating on his back in the middle of the ice hole, breathing.Until they were gone, the father finally climbed up and ran all the way to the police station.But he concealed the incident from the police, saying that he was drunk and fell into the ice hole.My grandfather thanked my father for that.Later, they reconciled.But mother was very angry.Father had been ill and spent seven weeks in bed.Soon, father and mother went to the city of Astrakhan, where the emperor's holy car was to be greeted, and his father was responsible for building the triumphal arch.In this way, they left their grandfather's house.

As the grandmother spoke, she sniffed the snuff, looked thoughtfully at the gray-blue sky outside the window, and said:
"Although your father and I are not blood relatives, we share the same soul..."

While I was recuperating on the top floor, my grandfather went bankrupt.He lent a large sum of money to a gentleman, but the gentleman went bankrupt.

Mother rarely came to see me on the top floor.She became more and more beautiful and dressed better and better.I sensed that my grandmother and mother were hiding something from me.

My grandmother's fairy tales fascinated me less and less, and even her father's tales did not quell my vague but growing apprehensions.

Many sleepless nights, I watched the stars slowly move in the sky through the window, and made up all kinds of sad stories in my mind-in these stories, my father occupied the main space, and he was always going somewhere Walking, alone, with a stick in his hand, followed by a shaggy dog...

12
After lying on the top floor for three months, I was finally able to walk on the ground.But when I climbed from the top floor to my mother's room with difficulty, what was waiting for me was the news that my mother was going to marry Yevgeny Maximov.I really want to tell my mother:
"Don't get married, I'll support you!"

But I didn't say it.My mother has always called to me many fond thoughts of her, but I have never dared to speak of them.

After the engagement, the mother disappeared somewhere, and there was only unbearable silence in the house.In the garden, the grass has sprouted pale green shoots, and the apple tree buds are in bloom.Birds were singing everywhere.In the back garden, I found that the pit of Uncle Peter was covered with brown-red weeds that had been crushed by the snow. There was no breath of spring, which made people feel uncomfortable.So I started to remove the weeds and the debris in it, trying to create a quiet and tidy place for myself in this pit, so that I could get away from all the things that happened in the house, although these things still hurt, but I am very happy. They gradually lost interest.

"Why are you pouting like that?" My grandmother asked me for a while, and my mother asked me for a while.It made me uncomfortable when they asked me that.Actually, I'm not angry with them, it's just that everything at home makes me feel very strange.

Things are going really well with my house in the garden.I cleared the weeds, built broken bricks around the pit, and built a wide seat with broken bricks, even a person can lie on it.I picked up many colorful pieces of glass and broken tiles, and used clay to fit them into the cracks in the bricks.When the sun shines into the pit, these little fragments are as colorful as a rainbow, just like in the church.

"You have a clever idea, ah!" Once, my grandfather saw my hut and said, "But those weeds will still grow, you left their roots in it. Go, get the shovel!"

I brought the shovel, and my grandfather stepped the shovel deeply into the soil with his feet and said:
"Shovel out those grass roots and throw them away! I'll plant some more sunflowers and mallows for you, it will look nice..."

He stopped suddenly and stopped talking.I looked at his little drops of tears dripping from his little eyes into the soil.

"What's the matter with you?" I asked him.

"I'm sweating!" He wiped his face with his palms, and continued digging.

After a moment of silence, he said:
"It's useless for you to fix these! I'm going to sell this house soon, probably in the fall. I need money to pay your mother a dowry, so that's what I have to do. I hope she can live better..."

With that said, he threw the shovel away, waved his hand, and went to his greenhouse.I picked up the shovel and started digging, but accidentally the shovel broke my toe, which prevented me from sending my mother to the church for the wedding.I could only go outside the gate and look at her with her head down, holding Maximov's hand.After returning from church, everyone drank tea dully, and mother immediately changed her clothes and went to her bedroom to pack the boxes.

Early the next morning, mother and stepfather left, they were going to Moscow.My mother once promised that when they came back, I would live with them, and then I would go to middle school and then college.But I feel that all this is very far away.My mother hugged me, said goodbye to me, kissed me, looked at me with strange eyes, and said, "Well, goodbye..."

They drove away in a carriage.Mother turned her head several times, waving her scarf. Grandmother supported the wall with one hand while waving the other hand in the air. Tears flowed down. Grandpa squeezed a few tears from his eyes and murmured: There will be... a good result... no."

I watched the carriage drive into the distance, as if something in my chest was tightly closed and closed.

From morning to night, my grandfather and I were silently busy in the garden.I spend almost all summer in the garden.On warm nights, I even slept on the blanket my grandmother gave me.Grandmother sometimes spends the night in the garden with a bunch of hay.This is the most peaceful period of my life, when I like to observe everything quietly.It was during this summer that I became withdrawn and withdrawn.I was indifferent to the cries of the children of Colonel Ofsianiko's family.

My grandfather and grandmother often quarreled.Xibu's grandmother went to the houses of two uncles, and sometimes did not come back for several days, and Xibu's grandfather died of illness.In autumn, Xibu's grandfather sold the house.We usually go to the basement of a Japanese house, which has two small rooms with very little light.

Not long after my grandfather moved into the basement, my mother and stepfather came.She was pale and very thin.Wearing a fat brown-red skirt, with a bulging belly.The stepfather kept walking up and down the room, whistling softly, and coughing from time to time.They looked tired, and their clothes were crumpled and worn out.

Everyone drank tea dully, and my grandfather asked:

"So—it's all burnt out?"

’” said the stepfather affirmatively, “We almost didn’t escape ourselves. "

"But I have the information that, Mr. Yevgeny Vasinievich," said the grandfather sarcastically and calmly, "there was no fire, but you lost everything at cards..."

So the four of them started yelling, with the stepfather being the loudest.I went out of the room, and sat down on the woodpile in the doorway.I was surprised to feel that my mother seemed to be a different person, she was completely different from before.

Later, we moved to a house on Somov Street.There was no wallpaper on the walls, hemp rope was stuffed in the long gaps between the logs around, and there were many cockroaches in the hemp rope. My mother and stepfather lived in two houses with windows facing the street, and my grandmother and I lived in the kitchen with a skylight.Smoke billows from the black chimneys of a nearby factory.Our room always had a strong smell of soot during the cold winter months.

Grandmother became a cook, cooking, washing floors, chopping firewood, and carrying water. She was busy all day long, and she was exhausted when she lay down to sleep.Sometimes she cooks and goes to see her grandfather who lives in the city.

My mother was getting more and more scruffy, and she seldom talked to me, just giving me orders.She also rarely let me play in the street.Every time I came back, I was always scarred by the children, and my mother beat me with a whip.This punishment irritated me, and next time I fought harder with the children, and the mother punished me harder.In my heart, that flame of love was extinguished, and what was burning was resentment and dissatisfaction.

Mother and stepfather often quarreled.During the quarrel, my stepfather always shut the kitchen door tightly. Obviously he didn't want me to hear him, but I still listened carefully to his dull bass.

Every Saturday, groups of workers come to my stepfather to sell food coupons.The factory gave these vouchers to the workers as wages, and the stepfather bought them at half price.He received these workers condescendingly in the kitchen, frowned, took the tickets, and said:
"A ruble."

"Evgeny Vasilyevich, fear God..."

"One and a half rubles."

However, this ridiculous day did not last long.Before my mother gave birth, I was sent to my maternal grandfather, who was already living in Kunavino.There he rented a small house with a large Russian-style stove and two windows opening onto the courtyard.

Not long after, the grandmother and mother came with the baby.The stepfather was fired from the factory for exploiting workers.But he was hired again as a station conductor.

After living with my grandfather for a while, I was sent to my mother to live in the basement of a stone house.My mother sent me to school right away.

I wore my mother's leather shoes to school, and my grandmother's coat was modified from my grandmother's coat. I wore a yellow shirt inside and a pair of loose-leg trousers underneath.The outfit was immediately ridiculed.But I soon got on well with the children, but the teacher and the priest didn't like me.So I often make some pranks to repay them.

Although my studies were fine, the school informed me that I was expelled due to my unseemly behavior.Fortunately, a savior came.At that time, a bishop came to the school. He looked like a wizard and was a little hunchback. I remember that his name was Khrisanf.He went to the classroom to chat with the children, and praised me as a learned child, and said that he was also a full-fledged naughty ghost when he was young.The kids all liked him very much.When he left the classroom, he deliberately took my hand, led me to the door, bent down, and whispered to me:
"You've got to bear it, won't you? I see why you're naughty! Well, bye, little boy!"

I was very excited, and a special feeling boiled in my chest.After the bishop had gone, the priest said to me in a kind and low voice:
"From now on, you have to come to my class! But you must sit obediently."

My situation improved at school, but at home a shameful scene occurred: I stole a ruble from my mother.This was a crime without premeditation.

(End of this chapter)