"My dear, my Andriusha!" she began, as if her heart had burst open,
and gushed over merrily with a limpid stream of living words full of
serene joy. "I've thought all my life, 'Lord Christ in heaven! what
did I live for?' Beatings, work! I saw nothing except my husband.
I knew nothing but fear! And how Pasha grew I did not see, and I
hardly know whether I loved him when my husband was alive. All my
concerns, all my thoughts were centered upon one thing--to feed my
beast, to propitiate the master of my life with enough food, pleasing
to his palate, and served on time, so as not to incur his displeasure,
so as to escape the terrors of a beating, to get him to spare me
but once! But I do not remember that he ever did spare me. He beat
me so--not as a wife is beaten, but as one whom you hate and detest.
Twenty years I lived like that, and what was up to the time of my
marriage I do not recall. I remember certain things, but I see
nothing! I am as a blind person. Yegor Ivanovich was here--we are
from the same village--and he spoke about this and about that. I
remember the houses, the people, but how they lived, what they spoke
about, what happened to this one and what to that one--I forget,
I do not see! I remember fires--two fires.
Pages:
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163