In the garden, beetles buzzed around the birches; in the next yard there was a coopers working, and somewhere nearby someone was sharpening his knife in a hokey-pokey; in the ravine below the garden, the children were noisily making noise in the dense forest, which tempted the heart to itch, and I really wanted to go out and play a good time! ! The melancholy of dusk gradually came to mind.
Suddenly, my grandfather put a small new book he got from somewhere in the palm of his hand and slapped it hard, and called out to me excitedly: "Hey, come here, naughty boy! You sit down, you high cheekbones. You read this. You read ...... right ...... this? You read ...... wrong, it's ......" (Grandfather taught Alexei to read and write, the translator intentionally left out the ancient Russian letters untranslated. Translator's note) Grandmother interjected: "You lie down honestly, old man ......" "You stay out of it, shut up! I'm just right like this, or else I can't stand the nonsense. Come on, Lexie!" He hooked one hot, sweaty arm around my neck and held the book up under my nose, while his other hand went over my shoulder and fingered the letters. He gave off a smell of vinegar, sweat, and roasted onions, and I could hardly breathe, while he shouted gleefully, muffled, into my ear: "Land! People!" I knew all these words in the language, but writing them in Slavic letters did not correspond to their meaning. The letter for "land" looks like a maggot, the letter for "verb" looks like a hunchbacked Grigori, and the word "I" looks like Grandma and me; but there are some things about Grandpa that are similar to all the letters. (Grandfather taught me to memorize the shapes and sounds of the letters of the alphabet, regardless of the meaning of the words. ) He pushed me to read the alphabet for long periods of time, sometimes asking me in order, sometimes randomly. His fervor infected me, and I sweated and shouted at the top of my lungs . It made him laugh. He scratched his chest and coughed, crumpling the book in his hands. He said in a muffled voice: "Look, old mom, he's hanging his voice! Hey, crazy boy of Astrakhan, what are you shouting for and why are you shouting?" ("I" is from Astrakhan, where Gorky's parents lived. See the beginning of the book. Translator's note) "It's you who are shouting ......" I looked at him and then at Grandma, and I was so happy. Grandma leaned her elbows against the table, supported her cheeks with her fists, looked at us, and said with a low laugh, "Come on, you'll break your voices shouting! ......"Grandfather kindly explained to me:
"I'm shouting because I'm sick, you're shouting because what?" He shook his sweaty head and said to Grandma: "Natalia was wrong when she was alive when she said he had a bad memory. Thank God he has the memory of a horse! Warped Nose, read it again!" (Natalia was Gorky's aunt. Translator's note) Finally, as if in jest, he pushed me out of bed: "There! You take the book. Tomorrow you will have to read the whole alphabet to me, one by one, without fail, so that I will reward you with five kopecks ......" As I reached for the book, he pulled me to him again and said melancholically: "Your mother has left you to suffer in this world, O little grandson! ......" (Gorky died at the age of three when his father died and his mother ran away. Translator's note) Grandmother couldn't help but shiver: "Alas! Gramps, why are you saying this? ......" "I didn't want to say it, but the pain forced me to ...... Alas! What a good girl who took the wrong path ......" (Grandfather loved his daughter. Translator's note) He pushed me away with a jerk and said:"Go and play! Not on the street, just in the yard or in the garden ......"
I should have gone to the garden exactly! I had just arrived on the garden hill when some kids started throwing rocks at me from the ravine, and I happily threw them back.
"Here comes Moo!" They shouted, arming themselves as they saw me from afar. "Hit hard!" I don't know what "moo" means (here in Russian it's an onomatopoeia made up by the children, probably after the cry of a "goat". The nickname didn't offend me either, but I did enjoy fighting off many men by myself, and was pleased to see my own well-aimed stones force the enemy to flee into the woods. Such battles were not fought out of malice, and the end was scarcely irritating. I had no trouble learning to read, and Grandpa (again, this time using the endearment "Grandpa". This is one of the few times in Childhood. In all other places, he uses "Grandpa". ) cared for me more and more, and beat me less and less, though, in my own estimation, more often than before; for as I grew up, I became more and more bold, and more and more disobedient to his rules and teachings. But he only scolded me a few times, and beat me a few times with his hand. (This old man was born bitter, a strong man among the poor. With his resourcefulness, hard work and ability, he actually climbed up to such a position as he is now, and became the owner of a dye house with many properties. (Translator's note) I thought to myself that perhaps he had beaten me in vain before and had not received the effect. One day I told him the idea. He gently poked me in the chin, propped up my head, blinked, and said in a long drawn-out accent, "Wh-what? " He hemmed and hawed and said, "Hey, hello bullshit! How can you estimate how many times you should be hit? Who can estimate but myself? Fuck off, fuck you!" But he immediately grabbed me by the shoulders again, gave me a heavy stare, and asked, "Are you resourceful or honest, eh?" "I don't know ......" "You don't know? Then I'll tell you: learn to be witty, it's better. Honesty is stupidity, do you understand? A sheep is honest. You remember that! Go on, play away ......" Soon I was able to spell hymn-literate; this learning was usually scheduled after evening tea, and in each case I had to finish reading a hymn. (It seems that Grandfather taught Gorky to read in many places. Translator's note) "Alphabet-people-alphabet-life-live-us-foolish-guy -fools -fortune -happiness" I read as I moved my grandfather's whip across the page. (Some of the original text is in Old Slavonic letters. Translator's note) Being dull, I asked: "Uncle Yakov is the husband with the fool's blessing, isn't he?" "I'll give you a slap on the face and show you who is the husband who is stupid and happy!" Grandfather grunted his nose in exasperation, but I had the feeling that he was angry only out of habit, for the sake of dignity. I am almost never wrong in this feeling: in a moment he forgot all about me, and gibbered: "That's true! To play and sing, he calls himself King David; but does things as wickedly as Absalom. Making up songs, covetousness, teasing ...... everything! O this kind of man! You recite, 'Bounce on your legs with quickness,' but can you jump far? He can't jump far that way!" (Absalom was the son of King David, who stabbed his brother to death, rose up to usurp the throne, and later died in defeat. Translator's note) I simply stopped reading and listened attentively, looking from time to time at his gloomy and worried face. Both of his eyes were narrowed, facing me, and looking forward past the top of my head, with a bright light of melancholy warmth shining in them. I already knew that by this time Grandfather's usual harshness was disappearing from him. He thumped the table with his thin fingers, his stained fingernails flickering, his golden eyebrows twitching slightly. "Grandpa!" (Another term of endearment. Translator's note) "Uh-huh!" "Tell a story." "You read, lazy boy!" He muttered, as if he'd just woken up, rubbing his eyes with his hands. "Prefer joke stories to chanting hymns ......"But I suspect he likes joke stories better than hymns himself, though hymns he can memorize almost all of them and reads them aloud every night before bed, like the altar boy reads a prayer in church The book.
(The quotes could go on and on about reading. But the following quote is more interesting. It also fits the heart of a child when he or she reads. It fits the pedagogy. I remember, when I was in history class in middle school, we used to ask the teacher to tell us some stories about it in class. And the following quote was useful for us to understand the Russian society at that time. (Translator inserted)
I begged him sincerely, and the old man, who was becoming softer and softer, gave in to me. "All right, then! The hymns will always accompany you, and I shall soon go to God to be judged ......" He leaned back and pressed himself against the woolen backrest of the ancient easy chair. He tilted his head back, looked up at the ceiling, and spoke in a low, contemplative voice about the past, about his own father: Once, when a gang of robbers came to Barahanna to rob the merchant Chayev, Grandpa's father ran to the belfry to ring the bell to call the police, and the robbers caught up with him, hacked him to death with their machetes, and threw him down to the bottom of the belfry. "I was very young and did not see the incident, so I do not remember it. I began to remember it from the year the French came, which was 1812, and I was exactly twelve years old. (My father also began his apprenticeship at the age of twelve. I graduated from elementary school at the age of twelve. Generally speaking, children start school at the age of six and graduate at the age of twelve. Perhaps there is a physiological reason for this. (Translator's note) At that time, there were about thirty French prisoners who were escorted to our city of Barahana. They were all thin and small, dressed worse than beggars, shivering, and some of them were so cold that they could not stand on their feet. The people wanted to beat them to death, but the escorting troops would not allow it. The city guards came to intervene and drove the people back home in droves. There was nothing more to it, everyone got used to it. These Frenchmen were smart and capable, and even lived quite happily, singing from time to time. The noble lords used to come here from Niger in their troika to see the prisoners. When they arrived, some of them insulted the French, frightened them with their fists, and even beat them; others talked to them kindly in French, gave them some money, and gave them all sorts of things to keep them warm. There was also an aged lord who covered his face with his hands and wept. He said: 'In the end, Napoleon the villain has victimized the French!' You see, this Russian, who is even a nobleman, has such a good heart that he has sympathy for the people of other countries......." (Napoleon I, or Napoleon? Napoleon I, or Napoleon Bonaparte, was the first emperor of the French Empire.In 1812, France invaded Russia and marched on Moscow, but in the end suffered a complete defeat. When two countries go to war, the victims are the people of both countries. When Japan invaded China in the past, the Japanese people were also the victims. It's amazing that Grandfather could see things this way. Of course, this is more Gorky's point of view. (Translator's note) He closed his eyes, wiped his hands through his hair, and was silent for a moment before continuing to carefully tell his past: "One winter, the wind and snow rolled in on the street, and it was bitterly cold in the hut. The French used to run under the little window of my house looking for my mother - she baked bread to sell. They knocked on the glass, shouting and jumping, begging for hot bread; my mother wouldn't let them come into my hut, and handed a loaf of bread out of the window, and the Frenchmen grabbed it and put it in their arms; freshly baked bread, piping hot, put it right on their bodies and pressed it against their hearts, and I don't know how they could stand it! Several froze to death-they had come from warm places, and were not accustomed to the cold. There were two Frenchmen living in the bath-house in our vegetable garden-an officer and his orderly, Miron. The officer was thin and tall, skin and bones, and wore an old-fashioned woman's coat - it came only to his knees. He was very amiable and loved to drink; my mother sold beer secretly, so he used to come and buy it, and when he returned he drank enough to get drunk and sang. He learned to speak our language, gibbering: 'You don't have white on your side, it's black and vicious!' He didn't speak Russian well, but it was understandable. He was right: it is not warm on our upper border; it is warmer down the Volga; and after the Caspian there seems to be no snow at all. This is believable, because neither the Gospel, nor the Sacred Tradition, nor especially the Song of Songs, contain any mention of snow or winter, and the place where Christ lives is on that side of the ...... Let's finish the Song of Songs here, and I'll have to teach you to read the Gospel." (Grandfather, like Grandmother, was a devout believer in God. But the God in their hearts was different: Grandfather's God was fierce and Grandmother's God was kind. This is wonderfully depicted in Childhood. (Translator's note) He fell silent again, as if dozing. He looked out the window with squinted eyes, as if thinking about something, and his body seemed smaller and more pointed. "You speak," I reminded him gently. "All right," he began again, after a moment's bafflement. "The French, I mean, they're people too! Not worse than us, and we're all God's sinners, too. They used to shout at my mother from time to time, 'Madame, Madame,' which is also 'Mrs.,' 'Madame,' in Russian, but this lady of my mother's could carry from the grain store a sack weighing One hundred and fifty pounds of flour. She was incredibly strong, not at all like a woman. I'm twenty years old, and she can still shake me by the hair without difficulty, and I was quite strong when I was twenty. Besides, the orderly Milan, who loved horses, used to go up to the yards and gesture for them to be washed. At first we were afraid that he would do something bad - the enemy! Later, the townspeople took the initiative to look for him: 'Milang, come here!' He came with a smile and a bowed head, tame as an ox. He had reddish yellow hair, a big nose and thick lips. He was a very good horseman, and a marvelous healer of horses. Then he became a horse doctor here in Niger, but then he went crazy and was killed by the fire department. As for the officer, he got sick at the beginning of spring and died quietly on Nikolai's spring day (May 5): he sat under the window of the bathhouse with his head stretched out, as if he were in deep thought - and so he passed away. I pitied him and even cried for him secretly. He was gentle and affectionate. He lifted me by the ear and spoke affectionately about himself, which I did not understand, but felt good about. You can't buy human affection on the market. He wanted to teach me French, but my mother wouldn't let him and took me to see the priest. The priest ordered me to be beaten up and accused the officer. My little grandson! It was a hard time, a harsh time. You won't suffer any more. Someone else will do it for you. Remember! I, for example, have suffered these ......" (Gorky's childhood was bitter enough, but his grandfather had been even more bitter - this was Russia at that time! Translator's note) It was dark, and in the twilight Grandfather's body grew strangely tall; his eyes glowed like a cat's. He talked about everything in a low voice, carefully and thoughtfully, but when he talked about himself, he was warm and quick and complacent. I did not like him talking about himself, or his constant and frequent commands: "Remember! You have to remember this!" Many of the things he told me I didn't want to remember, but one by one, even without my grandfather's commands, stuck hard into my memory like pinpricks. He never told fairy tales, only past experiences. I also found that he didn't like to be asked, so I favored him with this and that: "Who was better? The French or the Russian?" "And how do I know? It's not like I've ever seen how the French live in their own country," he said exasperatedly, before adding: "As the saying goes, even weasels behave well in their own nests ......" "So the Russians are good?" "There are all kinds of people. It was better in the time of the landlords, when people had chains on them. Now everyone is free - and there is no bread and no salt! The lords are certainly not charitable, and it is for that reason that they are shrewder than others; one cannot say that all lords are like that. If you meet a good lord, you will appreciate and like him. There are other lords who are as dumb as a rice-bucket, and you can fiddle with them any way you like. We have many characters who are like empty shells; you see them as human beings, and once you understand them, they turn out to be just empty shells, with nothing in them, eaten empty. Those of us who should be educated and sharpened to sharpen their intelligence, but there is no real sharpening stone ......?"?"Are the Russians strong?"
"We have Hercules, but the problem is not strength, but resourcefulness. No matter how strong you are, you are always bigger than a horse." (Without resourcefulness, no matter how strong you are, you can only work as an ox or a horse for someone. Translator's note) "Why are the French fighting us?" "War is a matter for the Tsar, we can't understand it!" I asked what Napoleon was, and my grandfather's answer is still fresh in my mind: "This man is brave and tough, and wants to conquer the whole world, and then let everyone live the same life, without lords or officials, and live a life without hierarchy. People just have different names, but everyone has the same rights. There is also only one faith. This idea is of course stupid. Only lobsters are not easily distinguished from each other, and there are all kinds of fish. Sturgeon don't keep company with catfish, and catfish don't gang up with mackerel. We've also had Napoleonic figures - Racine? Stepan? Timofeyev, Bugach? Yemelyan? Ivanov. (Both were famous leaders of peasant revolts in Russia. In biographies, it is often the first name? Father's name? Surnames are often used in biographies. Grandfather called them "Napoleonic". This contains both praise and blame! (Translator's note) I'll talk about them later ......"Gorky lost his father at the age of 4, lost his mother at the age of 10, and he only went to school for two years, relying entirely on his own hard work to study and struggle to become a great Soviet writer, childhood everyone has experienced. Everyone has their own good times that are worth remembering and cherishing. Childhood is wonderful, childhood is happy, childhood is happy, childhood is worth remembering ...... and Gorky's childhood is horrible, miserable, people do not dare to think back. Gorky wrote the book "Childhood", childhood should be a tragic encounter, a fond memory.
Childhood is the first book in a trilogy about Gorky's childhood when he lost his father at a young age, his mother remarried, and he followed his grandparents, a grumpy and increasingly decrepit little dyer, to live in his childhood.
The main character of the book "Childhood" is Alyosha, and its main content is about poor Alyosha, who lost his father at the age of three, lost his affectionate father's love, and followed his mother and grandmother to one of his grandfather's small dyeing workshop. This is a family full of hatred, shrouded in a thick peasant habits, this is a suffocating family. From then on, darkness fell on Alyosha's head. Grandfather's violent temper often beat Grandmother and Alyosha, which made Alyosha's young heart in the shadow. Alyosha's uncles, in order to compete for the property, abandon the family, temperament, violent, violent, greedy, selfish ...... their home is filled with the hot fog of hatred between people. Alyosha lived a heart-breaking life every day, and only his mother and grandmother loved him. But his mother also died when he was eleven years old ...... Later, Alyosha made a close friend - "little Tzigane", the two talked about everything, and formed a deep friendship. However, the good times didn't last long, and the poor little Tzigane was killed by his two vicious uncles. Alyosha lost his best friend. A few years later, his grandmother, who loved him the most, died, as did his mother, and he was thrown out by his grandfather to collect garbage. In spite of all the horrible tragedies and scandals depicted in the work, the whole work still radiates optimism like sunshine through the clouds. The main character Alyosha is not overwhelmed by the hardship, pain and humiliation of life, he is full of confidence, struggles and fights, breaks through all kinds of obstacles and misfortunes, and constantly explores a new life, and this optimism makes the work take on a positive color in terms of ideological content. This book not only has a rigorous artistic structure, but also has excellent characterization. In "Childhood" Gorky successfully used a variety of artistic techniques to create a series of vivid characters. Cruel and selfish, sinister and cranky grandfather, money-hungry uncle, cold and heartless mother, kind and benevolent grandmother, happy and capable Tzigane, hard-working and capable old smith Grigori, and fastidious and lovely nanny Evgenia. Among the portrayals of these characters, Grandma and Grandpa leave the deepest impression on the reader. The image of Grandmother is one of the most distinctive and poetic images of women in the history of Russian literature; she is a symbol of great motherhood and of the bitter life in Russia. She loved to sing, tell stories and dance. She was loving, kind and strong, and was able to draw people around her even in very noisy and chaotic situations, adding a joyful mood to a hard and suffocating life. The book Gorky through her appearance, language, action, and quote a lot of folk songs, fairy tales, stories and other forms of its image of all aspects of portrayal. It is worthwhile for students to see, so Mr. Lin to recommend to students, I hope that students use after-school time into the "childhood" book.