Free My Childhood by Maxim Gorky Page A

and the terrible stories of Martha Posadnitz, of Baba Ustye the robber chief, of Mary the sinner of Egypt, and of sorrowing mothers of robber sons. The fairytales, and stories of old times, and the poems which she knew were without number.
    She feared no one--neither grandfather, nor devils, nor any of the powers of evil; but she was terribly afraid of black cockroaches, and could feel their presence when they were a long way from her. Sometimes she would wake me in the night whispering:
    "Oleysha, dear, there is a cockroach crawling about. Do get rid of it, for goodness' sake."
    Half-asleep, I would light the candle and creep about on the floor seeking the enemy--a quest in which I did not always succeed at once.
    "No, there's not a sign of one," I would say; but lying quite still with her head muffled up in the bedclothes, she would entreat me in a faint voice:
    "Oh, yes, there is one there! Do look again, please. I am sure there is one about somewhere."
    And she was never mistaken. Sooner or later I found the cockroach, at some distance from the bed; and throwing the blanket off her she would breathe a sigh of relief and smile as she said:
    "Have you killed it? Thank God! Thank you."
    If I did not succeed in discovering the insect, she could not go to sleep again, and I could feel how she trembled in the silence of the night; and I heard her whisper breathlessly:
    "It is by the door. Now it has crawled under the trunk."
    "Why are you so frightened of cockroaches?"
    "I don't know myself," she would answer, reasonably enough. "It is the way the horrid black things crawl about. God has given a meaning to all other vermin: woodlice show that the house is damp; bugs mean that the walls are dirty; lice foretell an illness, as every one knows; but these creatures!--who knows what powers they possess, or what they live on?"
    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