My Childhood (Gorky)
Microsummary
The boy's father died. Together with his mother, they moved in with a cruel, greedy grandfather and a kind grandmother. The mother married and died after giving birth. The grandfather did not want to feed the orphaned grandson and kicked him out of the house.
Short summary
Alyosha's father died and his mother had to move to Nizhny Novgorod.
Alyosha and his mother settle in the big house of his grandfather, the owner of the dye shop.
Besides his grandfather and grandmother, Alesh's uncles with their wives and children lived in the house. Everyone in this big family was feuding. Aleshin's grandfather was stingy and cruel. On Saturdays, he punished his grandchildren for their week's accumulated faults, and once beat Aliosha to within an inch of his life.
One of the few good people who lived in his grandfather's house was a stepchild, but he was ruined by his uncles, too - they made him carry a heavy cross, and the boy overworked himself and died. Aleshu was loved only by his grandmother, she became his outlet in this hopeless life.
In the spring the family separated. Grandfather bought a big house and started renting out rooms. Alyosha's mother also left, and the boy stayed with his grandfather and grandmother. But even in the new place a quiet life did not work out. His sons started showing up at his grandfather's house and demanding money.
After living in a new house for the summer and part of the winter, grandfather moved out again. Then Alyosha's mother moved in and soon married. The stepfather turned out to be a crook, a gambler and a very cruel man. He beat Alyosha's pregnant mother, the boy hated him and once attacked him with a knife.
Alyosha grew up pugnacious and did poorly in school. Grandfather began to eat separately from his grandmother and did not give his grandson a penny. To support himself and help his grandmother, Aliosha collected scrap metal, robbed drunks, and stole firewood. Because of this, his classmates mocked him.
Soon his stepfather disappeared somewhere. Alyosha's seriously ill mother died, leaving her newborn son. His stingy grandfather said he was no longer going to support him and kicked him out of the house.
Chapter-by-chapter summary
The titles of the chapters are conditional.
Chapter 1. Father's death, moving to Nizhny Novgorod, meeting his grandfather
Alyosha's first memory is of his father's death. He did not realize that his father was gone, but he remembered Varvara's cries.
Grandmother Akulina came to help with the funeral and the severely ill Alyosha.
The day her husband died, Varvara went into premature labor and the baby was born weak. After the funeral, the grandmother took everyone to Nizhny Novgorod. On the way, on the steamer, the baby died.
At first, the grandmother seemed strange and funny to Alyosha. She said that she came from Nizhny Novgorod by water, but the very young boy did not understand where the water came from in the city. The grandmother spoke, chanting the words in a peculiar way, and in the boy's imagination they became like flowers. Grandmother's selfless love illuminated Aleshin's life. She became his friend, "the closest to his heart... the most understandable and dearest person.
The trip on the Volga became for Alyosha "the first days of saturation with beauty. His grandmother was admiring the passing shores and repeated, "Look how nice it is."
At Nizhny, they were met by Vasily Kashirin, his two sons, and their children.
The boy did not like the grandfather; he regarded him with wary curiosity and "at once felt an enemy in him."
Chapter 2: Grandfather Kashirin's Unfriendly Family
Grandpa lived in a big house with a dye shop on the ground floor. The family lived unfriendly, and this life Alyosha perceived as a "harsh fairy tale. Varvara had married without a blessing, and now her uncles demanded her dowry from her grandfather, but the greedy grandfather did not want to share.
Grandfather's house was filled with a hot fog of mutual enmity of all against all.
From time to time the uncles fought. The first wild fight between the uncles and his grandfather, Alyosha saw the day he arrived and was very frightened. After the fight, Grandma washed the blood off her sons' faces and called them a "wild tribe.
The arrival of Alyosha and his mother intensified this animosity. It was very hard for the boy, who grew up in a friendly family.
A few days after his arrival, his grandfather made him learn prayers. The boy was helped by the battered wife of one of his uncles. The words of the prayers were so incomprehensible that Alexei never learned the Lord's Prayer.
On Saturdays, the grandfather would eat the grandchildren who had done wrong during the week. On the first Saturday, he punished one of Aliosha's cousins for a "joke" - he slipped a red-hot thimble to a half-blind foreman. Aliosha watched the punishment and his legs trembled with horror.
Alyosha also suffered: he threw his grandmother's white ceremonial tablecloth into the tub of paint. The boy, who had never been whipped, resisted, bit his grandfather, and the latter caught him half to death. From then on, the boy's heart became "sensitive to every insult and pain, his own and another's." The punishment "torn" his attitude toward his mother, who could not protect him.
Soon his mother disappeared from the house, and Aliosha was nursed by his grandmother. When Aliosha was lying in bed, his grandfather came to make peace, telling him about his difficult life. The boy understood that his grandfather was "not evil and not scary," but he could not forgive him.
Ivan-Tsyganok, who held Alyosha during the whipping, astonished the boy by putting his hand under the cane, and part of the strokes went to him.