Gray ghosts

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Gorky in 1889

Gray ghosts ( Russian Страсти-мордасти ) is a story by the Russian writer Maxim Gorky from 1913, which was preprinted in the January 1917 issue of Letopis magazine with minor "corrections" by the censor and appeared in the Jeralash Collection and other stories that same year .

content

The 27-year-old tow zupferin Masha Frolikha, a woman with a disfigured face, sings her eleven year old son Ljonka, whose legs are paralyzed, to sleep:

You come, gray ghosts!
Oh, the disaster stares through the window;
And the calamity brings the pain
It tears our hearts apart!
Oh my child, oh my child
Where do I hide you quickly?

Ljonka is a half-orphan. Maschka had been employed by Ljonka's father, an older notary, as a maid.

The first-person narrator, a 20-year-old kvass seller, maneuvers the drunk Mashka home at night - the day before a heavy summer thunderstorm had fallen over the city - and puts her to bed. He remarks: “Ljonka's dwelling was like a rubbish pit; Without pity, every hand's breadth of this hole offended the eye with the unsurpassable ugliness of misery. ”When the narrator wants to say goodbye to Ljonka, who is vegetating in a box because of his mutilated legs, the boy does not understand the behavior of the newcomer. Other men usually lie down with his mother in a similar situation.

The narrator starts a conversation with Ljonka. Ljonka keeps vermin in boxes and has given the little animals names - the spider Drummer, the cockroach Anissim and the fly a civil servant. Unfortunately he doesn't have butterflies .

The narrator promises a visit tomorrow evening. Then "she'll be drunk again," the boy regrets. The narrator keeps his promise and brings little presents for Ljonka. The boy who received the present now thinks the kvass seller is rich. His mother is supposed to marry him.

In addition, Ljonka's heart's desire is that before he dies, his mother should drive him out of town and into the field in a little cart. He would like to see the outside in front of the houses. Since her mother keeps putting off this walk, Ljonka would at least like to take a look through the filthy window pane. But Mashka doesn't like cleaning windows. Ljonka tells the visitor short sequences of images from his fearful dreams .

German-language editions

Used edition
  • Gray ghosts. German by Georg Schwarz. P. 359–378 in: Maxim Gorki: Erzählungen. With a foreword by Edel Mirowa-Florin. Vol. 1 from: Eva Kosing and Edel Mirowa-Florin (eds.): Maxim Gorki: Works in four volumes. Aufbau-Verlag, Berlin 1977.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Russian entry  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. in litmir.info@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.litmir.info  
  2. ↑ Russian Ералаш и другие рассказы , Jeralasch i drugije rasskasy
  3. ↑ Edition used, p. 378, 1. Zvu as well as in the Maxim-Gorki-Bibliography Библиография Максима Горького (Russian)
  4. ↑ Edition used, p. 378, 8th Zvu
  5. ↑ Edition used, p. 372, 2nd Zvo