Have you ever thought about what fiction is? Probably, such a question may seem surprising: and so everything is clear. Every person throughout his life has to repeatedly create the works he needs for specific purposes - statements, autobiographies, dictations - using not gypsum or clay, not musical notes, not paints, but just a word. At the same time, almost every person will be very surprised if he is told that he thereby created a work of fiction, which is very different from visual art, music and sculpture making. However, everyone understands that a student's essay or dictation is fundamentally different from novels, short stories, news that are created by professional writers. In the works of professionals there is the most important difference - excogitation. But, oddly enough, in a school literature course, you don’t realize the full power of fiction. So using our website in your free time discover fiction for yourself. Mother by Maxim Gorky (bookstand for reading .TXT) 📖
- Author: Maxim Gorky
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Book online «Mother by Maxim Gorky (bookstand for reading .TXT) 📖». Author Maxim Gorky
“And Pasha is in prison with Andriusha!” she thought sadly.
Nikolay met her with an anxious exclamation:
“You know that Yegor is in a very bad way, very bad! He was taken to the hospital. Liudmila was here. She asks you to come to her there.”
“At the hospital?”
Adjusting his eyeglasses with a nervous gesture, Nikolay helped her on with her jacket and pressed her hand in a dry, hot grasp. His voice was low and tremulous. “Yes. Take this package with you. Have you disposed of Vyesovshchikov all right?”
“Yes, all right.”
“I’ll come to Yegor, too!”
The mother’s head was in a whirl with fatigue, and Nikolay’s emotion aroused in her a sad premonition of the drama’s end.
“So he’s dying—he’s dying!” The dark thought knocked at her brain heavily and dully.
But when she entered the bright, tidy little room of the hospital and saw Yegor sitting on the pallet propped against the wide bosom of the pillow, and heard him laugh with zest, she was at once relieved. She paused at the door, smiling, and listened to Yegor talk with the physician in a hoarse but lively voice.
“A cure is a reform.”
“Don’t talk nonsense!” the physician cried officiously in a thin voice.
“And I’m a revolutionist! I detest reforms!”
The physician, thoughtfully pulling his beard, felt the dropsical swelling on Yegor’s face. The mother knew him well. He was Ivan Danilovich, one of the close comrades of Nikolay. She walked up to Yegor, who thrust forth his tongue by way of welcome to her. The physician turned around.
“Ah, Nilovna! How are you? Sit down. What have you in your hand?”
“It must be books.”
“He mustn’t read.”
“The doctor wants to make an idiot of me,” Yegor complained.
“Keep quiet!” the physician commanded, and began to write in a little book.
The short, heavy breaths, accompanied by rattling in his throat, fairly tore themselves from Yegor’s breast, and his face became covered with thin perspiration. Slowly raising his swollen hand, he wiped his forehead with the palm. The strange immobility of his swollen cheeks denaturalized his broad, good face, all the features of which disappeared under the dead, bluish mask. Only his eyes, deeply sunk beneath the swellings, looked out clear and smiling benevolently.
“Oh, Science, I’m tired! May I lie down?”
“No, you mayn’t.”
“But I’m going to lie down after you go.”
“Nilovna, please don’t let him. It’s bad for him.”
The mother nodded. The physician hurried off with short steps. Yegor threw back his head, closed his eyes and sank into a torpor, motionless save for the twitching of his fingers. The white walls of the little room seemed to radiate a dry coldness and a pale, faceless sadness. Through the large window peered the tufted tops of the lime trees, amid whose dark, dusty foliage yellow stains were blazing, the cold touches of approaching autumn.
“Death is coming to me slowly, reluctantly,” said Yegor without moving and without opening his eyes. “He seems to be a little sorry for me. I was such a fine, sociable chap.”
“You’d better keep quiet, Yegor Ivanovich!” the mother bade, quietly stroking his hand.
“Wait, granny, I’ll be silent soon.”
Losing breath every once in a while, enunciating the words with a mighty effort, he continued his talk, interrupted by long spells of faintness.
“It’s splendid to have you with me. It’s pleasant to see your face, granny, and your eyes so alert, and your naivete. ‘How will it end?’ I ask myself. It’s sad to think that the prison, exile, and all sorts of vile outrages await you as everybody else. Are you afraid of prison?”
“No,” answered the mother softly.
“But after all the prison is a mean place. It’s the prison that knocked me up. To tell you the truth, I don’t want to die.”
“Maybe you won’t die yet,” the mother was about to say, but a look at his face froze the words on her lips.
“If I hadn’t gotten sick I could have worked yet, not badly; but if you can’t work there’s nothing to live for, and it’s stupid to live.”
“That’s true, but it’s no consolation.” Andrey’s words flashed into the mother’s mind, and she heaved a deep sigh. She was greatly fatigued by the day, and hungry. The monotonous, humid, hoarse whisper of the sick man filled the room and crept helplessly along the smooth, cold, shining walls. At the windows the dark tops of the lime trees trembled quietly. It was growing dusk, and Yegor’s face on the pillow turned dark.
“How bad I feel,” he said. He closed his eyes and became silent. The mother listened to his breathing, looked around, and sat for a few minutes motionless, seized by a cold sensation of sadness. Finally she dozed off.
The muffled sound of a door being carefully shut awakened her, and she saw the kind, open eyes of Yegor.
“I fell asleep; excuse me,” she said quietly.
“And you excuse me,” he answered, also quietly. At the door was heard a rustle and Liudmila’s voice.
“They sit in the darkness and whisper. Where is the knob?”
The room trembled and suddenly became filled with a white, unfriendly light. In the middle of the room stood Liudmila, all black, tall, straight, and serious. Yegor transferred his glance to her, and making a great effort to move his body, raised his hand to his breast.
“What’s the matter?” exclaimed Liudmila, running up to him. He looked at the mother with fixed eyes, and now they seemed large and strangely bright.
“Wait!” he whispered.
Opening his mouth wide, he raised his head and stretched his hand forward. The mother carefully held it up and caught her breath as she looked into his face. With a convulsive and powerful movement of his neck he flung his head back, and said aloud:
“Give me air!”
A quiver ran through his body; his head dropped limply on his shoulder, and in his wide open eyes the cold light of the lamp burning over the bed was reflected dully.
“My darling!” whispered the mother, firmly pressing his hand, which suddenly grew heavy.
Liudmila slowly walked away from the bed, stopped at the window and stared into space.
“He’s dead!” she said in an unusually loud voice unfamiliar to Vlasova. She bent down, put her elbows on the window sill, and repeated in dry, startled tones: “He’s dead! He died calmly, like a man, without complaint.” And suddenly, as if struck a blow on the head, she dropped faintly on her knees, covered her face, and gave vent to dull, stifled groans.
The mother folded Yegor’s hands over his breast and adjusted his head, which was strangely warm, on the pillow. Then silently wiping her eyes, she went to Liudmila, bent over her, and quietly stroked her thick hair. The woman slowly turned around to her, her dull eyes widened in a sickly way. She rose to her feet, and with trembling lips whispered:
“I’ve known him for a long time. We were in exile together. We went there together on foot, we sat in prison together; at times it was intolerable, disgusting; many fell in spirit.”
Her dry, loud groans stuck in her throat. She overcame them with an effort, and bringing her face nearer to the mother’s she continued in a quick whisper, moaning without tears:
“Yet he was unconquerably jolly. He joked and laughed, and covered up his suffering in a manly way, always striving to encourage the weak. He was always good, alert, kind. There, in Siberia, idleness depraves people, and often calls forth ugly feelings toward life. How he mastered such feelings! What a comrade he was! If you only knew. His own life was hard and tormented; but I know that nobody ever heard him complain, not a soul—never! Here was I, nearer to him than others. I’m greatly indebted to his heart, to his mind. He gave me all he could of it; and though exhausted, he never asked either kindness or attention in return.”
She walked up to Yegor, bent down and kissed him. Her voice was husky as she said mournfully:
“Comrade, my dear, dear friend, I thank you with all my heart! Good-by. I shall work as you worked—unassailed by doubt—all my life—good-by!”
The dry, sharp groans shook her body, and gasping for breath she laid her head on the bed at Yegor’s feet. The mother wept silent tears which seared her cheeks. For some reason she tried to restrain them. She wanted to fondle Liudmila, and wanted to speak about Yegor with words of love and grief. She looked through her tears at his swollen face, at his eyes calmly covered by his drooping eyelids as in sleep, and at his dark lips set in a light, serene smile. It was quiet, and a bleak brightness pervaded the room.
Ivan Danilovich entered, as always, with short, hasty steps. He suddenly stopped in the middle of the room, and thrust his hands into his pockets with a quick gesture.
“Did it happen long ago?” His voice was loud and nervous.
Neither woman replied. He quietly swung about, and wiping his forehead went to Yegor, pressed his hand, and stepped to one side.
“It’s not strange—with his heart. It might have happened six months ago.”
His voice, high-pitched and jarringly loud for the occasion, suddenly broke off. Leaning his back against the wall, he twisted his beard with nimble fingers, and winking his eyes, rapidly looked at the group by the bed.
“One more!” he muttered.
Liudmila rose and walked over to the window. The mother raised her head and glanced around with a sigh. A minute afterwards they all three stood at the open window, pressing close against one another, and looked at the dusky face of the autumn night. On the black tops of the trees glittered the stars, endlessly deepening the distance of the sky.
Liudmila took the mother by the hand, and silently pressed her head to her shoulders. The physician nervously bit his lips and wiped his eyeglasses with his handkerchief. In the stillness beyond the window the nocturnal noise of the city heaved wearily, and cold air blew on their faces and shoulders. Liudmila trembled; the mother saw tears running down her cheeks. From the corridor of the hospital floated confused, dismal sounds. The three stood motionless at the window, looking silently into the darkness.
The mother felt herself not needed, and carefully freeing her hand, went to the door, bowing to Yegor.
“Are you going?” the physician asked softly without looking around.
“Yes.”
In the street she thought with pity of Liudmila, remembering her scant tears. She couldn’t even have a good cry. Then she pictured to herself Liudmila and the physician in the extremely light white room, the dead eyes of Yegor behind them. A compassion for all people oppressed her. She sighed heavily, and hastened her pace, driven along by her tumultuous feelings.
“I must hurry,” she thought in obedience to a sad but encouraging power that jostled her from within.
The whole of the following day the mother was busy with preparations for the funeral. In the evening when she, Nikolay, and Sofya were drinking tea, quietly talking about Yegor, Sashenka appeared, strangely brimming over with good spirits, her cheeks brilliantly red, her eyes beaming happily. She seemed to be filled with some joyous hope. Her animation contrasted sharply with the mournful gloom of the others. The discordant note disturbed them and dazzled them like a fire that suddenly flashes in the darkness. Nikolay thoughtfully struck his fingers
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