Childhood

Author: Maxim Gorky
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-08-01
Features: On the floor of a dimly lit room, beneath the window, lay my father. He wore white clothes that seemed unnaturally long, and his toes were oddly splayed. His gentle hands rested peacefully on his chest, also bent. His joyful eyes were tightly shut, like two dark copper coins. His kind face was also dark, and the crooked teeth made me fear him. My mother, bare-chested, with her lower body wrapped in a red skirt, knelt there, using the black I usually used to shave watermelon rinds to gently comb my father's long, soft hair from his forehead to the back...