The SPY by MAKSIM GORKY

📖 The Scoop

When Yevsey Klimkov was four years old, his father was shot dead by the forester; and when he was seven years old, his mother died. She died suddenly in the field at harvest time. And so strange was this that Yevsey was not even frightened by the sight of her dead body.Uncle Piotr, a blacksmith, put his hand on the boy's head, and said:"What are we going to do now?"Yevsey took a sidelong glance at the corner where his mother lay upon a bench, and answered in a low voice:"I don't know."The blacksmith wiped the sweat from his face with his shirtsleeve, and after a long silence gently shoved his nephew aside."You're going to live with me," he said. "We'll send you to school, I suppose, so that you won't be in our way. Ah, you old man!"From that day the boy was called Old Man. The nickname suited him very well. He was too small for his age, his movements were sluggish, and his voice thin. A little bird-like nose stuck out sadly from a bony face, his round colorless eyes blinked timorously, his hair was sparse and grew in tufts. The impression he made was of a puny, shriveled-up little old fellow. The children in school laughed at him and beat him, his dull oldish look and his owl-like face somehow irritating the healthier and livelier among them. He held himself aloof, and lived alone, silently, always in the shade, or in some corner or hole. Without winking his round eyes he looked forth upon the people from his retirement, cautiously contracted like a snail in its shell. When his eyes grew tired, he closed them, and for a long time sat sightless, gently swaying his thin body.Yevsey endeavored to escape observation even in his uncle's home; but here it was difficult. He had to dine and sup in the company of the whole family, and when he sat at the table, Yakov, the uncle's youngest son, a lusty, red-faced youngster, tried every trick to tease him or make him laugh. He made faces, stuck out his tongue, kicked Yevsey's legs under the table, and pinched him. He never succeeded, however, in making the Old Man laugh, though he did succeed in producing quite the opposite result, for often Yevsey would start with pain, his yellow face would turn grey, his eyes open wide, and his spoon tremble in his hand."What is it?" his uncle Piotr sometimes asked."It's Yashka," the boy explained in an even voice, in which there was no note of complaint.If Uncle Piotr gave Yashka a box on the ear, or pulled his hair, Aunt Agafya puckered up her lips and muttered angrily:"Ugh, you telltale!"And then Yashka found him somewhere, and pummeled him long and assiduously upon back, sides, and stomach. Yevsey endured the drubbing as something inevitable. It would not have been profitable to complain of Yashka, because if Uncle Piotr beat his son, Aunt Agafya repaid the punishment with interest upon her nephew, and her blows were more painful than Yashka's. So when Yevsey saw that Yashka wanted to attack him, he merely ran away, though he was always overtaken. Then the Old Man dropped to the ground, and pressed his body to the soil with all his might, pulling up his knees to his stomach, covering his face and his head with his hands, and silently yielding his sides and back to his cousin's fists. The more patiently he bore the buffeting, the angrier grew Yashka. Sometimes Yashka even cried and shouted, while he kicked his cousin's body:"You nasty louse, you, scream!"Once Yevsey found a horseshoe and gave it to the little pugilist, because he knew Yashka would take it from him at any rate. Mollified by the present, Yashka asked:"Did I hurt you very much when I beat you the last time?""Very much," answered Yevsey.Yashka thought a while, scratched his head, and said in embarrassment:"It's nothing. It will pass away."He left Yevsey, but somehow his words settled deep in the Old Man's heart, and he repeated hopefully in an undertone:"It will pass away."Once Yevsey saw some women pilgrims rubbing their tired feet with nettles.

Genre: Law / Courts (fancy, right?)