Narrative
My Childhood
Детство
Maxim Gorky · 1914
Opening lines
В полутемной тесной комнате, на полу, под окном, лежит мой отец, одетый в белое и необыкновенно длинный; пальцы его босых ног странно растопырены, пальцы ласковых рук, смирно положенных на грудь, тоже кривые; его веселые глаза плотно прикрыты черными кружками медных монет, доброе лицо темно и пугает меня нехорошо оскаленными зубами.
In a narrow, half-dark room, on the floor under the window, lies my father, dressed in white and unusually long; the toes of his bare feet are strangely spread, the fingers of his gentle hands, folded quietly on his chest, are crooked too; his merry eyes are tightly covered with the black circles of copper coins, his kind face is dark and frightens me with its nastily bared teeth.
Translation by Erostrate
Text quoted from ru.wikisource.org
Synopsis
Left alone with his mother, little Alexei, five years old, goes with her to his grandfather's house, a dyer. There he discovers the Kashirin family, full of anger: his uncles Mikhail and Yakov quarrel over money to open a dye-works each, and his grandfather, who made his fortune alone, beats the child while teaching him to read. His grandmother, a peasant full of tales and tenderness, protects him. When business declines, the grandfather buys a house above a tavern, where the child gets to know tenants and workers.
Context
Written for the most part in 1912 and 1913, the narrative appeared serially in the newspaper Russkoye slovo from August 1913 to January 1914, then in volume form in Berlin from Ladyzhnikov, and in 1915 in Petrograd in the author's collected works, in a revised version that is now authoritative. The author considered for a time calling it “Grandmother”. It opens a trilogy continued by two further volumes, the last of which appeared in 1923.
Who it is for
An autobiographical narrative in a single piece, which can be read independently of the two following volumes.
Prizes and reception
Hailed as a gallery of portraits rather than as a self-portrait, the author effacing himself before his own people.
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