Yama (The Pit) by Aleksandr Ivanovich Kuprin
PART ONE
CHAPTER VI
The elderly guest in the uniform of the Department of Charity
walked in with slow, undecided steps, at each step bending his
body a little forward and rubbing his palms with a circular
motion, as though washing them. Since all the women were pompously
silent, as though not noticing him, he traversed the drawing room
and let himself down on a chair alongside of Liuba, who, in
accordance with etiquette, only gathered up her skirt a little,
preserving the abstracted and independent air of a girl from a
respectable house.
"How do you do, miss?" he said.
"How do you do?" answered Liuba abruptly.
"How are you getting along?"
"Thanks—thank you. Treat me to a smoke."
"Pardon me—I don't smoke."
"So that's how. A man—and he doesn't smoke, just like that. Well,
then, treat me to some Lafitte with lemonade. I am terribly fond
of Lafitte with lemonade."
He let that pass in silence.
"Ooh, what a stingy daddy! Where do you work, now? Are you one of
the government clerks?"
"No, I'm a teacher. I teach the German language."
"But I have seen you somewhere, daddy. Your physiognomy is
familiar to me. Where have I met you before?"
"Well, now, I don't know, really. Unless it was on the street."
"It might have been on the street, likely as not... You ought to
treat me to an orange, at least. May I ask for an orange?"
He again grew quiet, looking about him. His face began to glisten
and the pimples on his forehead became red. He was mentally
appraising all the women, choosing a likely one for himself, and
was at the same time embarrassed by his silence. There was nothing
at all to talk about; besides that the indifferent importunity of
Liuba irritated him. Fat Katie pleased him with her large, bovine
body, but she must be—he decided in his mind—very frigid in
love, like all stout women, and in addition to that not handsome
of face. Vera also excited him, with her appearance of a little
boy, and her firm thighs, closely enveloped by the white tights;
and Little White Manya, looking so like an innocent school-girl;
and Jennie with her energetic, swarthy, handsome face. For one
minute he was all ready to stop at Jennie, but only started in his
chair and did not venture—by her easy, inaccessible and negligent
air, and because she in all sincerity did not pay him the least
attention, he surmised that she was the most spoilt of all the
girls in the establishment, accustomed to having the visitors
spend more money on her than on the others. But the pedagogue was
a calculating man, burthened with a large family and an exhausted
wife, destroyed by his masculine demands and suffering from a
multiplicity of female ills. Teaching in a female high school and
in an institute, he lived constantly in a sort of secret sensual
delirium, and only his German training, stinginess and cowardice
helped him to hold his constantly aroused desires in check. But
two or three times a year, with incredible privations, he would
cut five or ten roubles out of his beggarly budget, denying
himself in his beloved evening mug of beer and contriving to save
on the street cars, which necessitated his making enormous
distances on foot through the town. This money he set aside for
women and spent it slowly, with gusto, trying to prolong and
cheapen down the enjoyment as much as possible. And for his money
he wanted a very great deal, almost the impossible; his German
sentimental soul dimly thirsted after innocence, timidity, poesy,
in the flaxen image of Gretchen; but as a man he dreamt, desired,
and demanded that his caresses should bring a woman into rapture
and palpitation and into a sweet exhaustion.
However, all the men strove for the very same thing—even the most
wretched, monstrous, misshapen and impotent of them—and ancient
experience had long ago taught the women to imitate with voice and
movements the most flaming passion, retaining in the most
tempestuous minutes the fullest sang froid.
"You might at least order the musicians to play a polka. Let the
girls dance a little," asked Liuba grumblingly.
That suited him. Under cover of the music, amid the jostling of
the dances, it was far more convenient to get up courage, arise,
and lead one of the girls out of the drawing room, than to do it
amid the general silence and the finical immobility.
"And how much does that cost?" he asked cautiously.
"A quadrille is half a rouble; but ordinary dances are thirty
kopecks. Is it all right then?"
"Well, of course...if you please...I don't begrudge it," he
agreed, pretending to be generous...
"Whom do you speak to?"
"Why, over there—to the musicians."
"Why not? ... I'll do it with pleasure...Mister musician,
something in the light dances, if you please," he said, laying
down his silver on the pianoforte.
"What will you order?" asked Isaiah Savvich, putting the money
away in his pocket. "Waltz, polka, polka-mazourka?"
"Well...Something sort of..."
"A waltz, a waltz!" Vera, a great lover of dancing, shouted from
her place.
"No, a polka! ... A waltz! ... A vengerka! ... A waltz!" demanded
others.
"Let them play a polka," decided Liuba in a capricious tone.
"Isaiah Savvich, play a little polka, please. This is my husband,
and he is ordering fox me," she added, embracing the pedagogue by
the neck. "Isn't that true, daddy?"
But he freed himself from under her arm, drawing his head in like
a turtle, and she without the least offence went to dance with
Niura. Three other couples were also whirling about. In the dances
all the girls tried to hold the waist as straight as possible, and
the head as immobile as possible, with a complete unconcern in
their faces, which constituted one of the conditions of the good
taste of the establishment. Under cover of the slight noise the
teacher walked up to Little Manka.
"Let's go?" he said, offering her his bent arm.
"Let's go," answered she, laughing.
She brought him into her room, gotten up with all the
coquettishness of a bedroom in a brothel of the medium sort, with
a bureau, covered with a knit scarf, and upon it a mirror, a
bouquet of paper flowers, a few empty bonbonierres, a powder box,
a faded photograph of a young man with white eyebrows and
eyelashes and a haughtily astonished face, as well as several
visiting cards. Above the bed, which is covered with a pink pique
blanket, along the wall, is nailed up a rug with a representation
of a Turkish sultan luxuriating in his harem, a narghili in his
mouth; on the walls, several more photographs of dashing men of
the waiter and actor type; a pink lantern hangs down from the
ceiling by chains; there are also a round table under a carpet
cover, three vienna chairs, and an enameled bowl with a pitcher of
the same sort in the corner on a tabouret, behind the bed.
"Darling, treat me to Lafitte with lemonade," in accordance with
established usage asked Little Manka, unbuttoning her corsage.
"Afterwards," austerely answered the pedagogue. "It will all
depend upon yourself. And then—what sort of Lafitte can you have
here? Some muddy brew or other?"
"We have good Lafitte," contradicted the girl touchily. "Two
roubles a bottle. But if you are so stingy, then buy me beer at
least. All right?"
"Well, beer is all right..."
"And for me lemonade and oranges. Yes?"
"A bottle of lemonade, yes; but oranges, no. Later, maybe, I will
treat you to champagne even. It will all depend on you. If you'll
exert yourself."
"Then, daddy, I'll ask for four bottles of beer and two bottles of
lemonade? Yes? And for me just a little cake of chocolate. All
right? Yes?"
"Two bottles of beer, a bottle of lemonade, and nothing more. I
don't like when I'm bargained with. If need be, I'll order
myself."
"And may I invite a friend of mine?"
"No, let it be without any friends, if you please."
Manka leaned out of the door into the corridor and called out
resoundingly:
"Housekeeper, dear! Two bottles of beer and a bottle of lemonade
for me."
Simeon came with a tray and began with an accustomed rapidity to
uncork the bottles. Following him came Zociya, the housekeeper.
"There, now, how well you've made yourself at home here. Here's to
your lawful marriage!" she congratulated them.
"Daddy, treat the little housekeeper with beer," begged Manka.
"Drink, housekeeper dear."
"Well, in that case here's to your health, mister. Somehow, your
face seems kind of familiar to me?"
The German drank his beer, sucking and licking his moustache, and
impatiently waited for the housekeeper to go away. But she, having
put down her glass and thanked him, said:
"Let me get the money coming from you, mister. As much as is
coming for the beer and the time. That's both better for you and
more convenient for us."
The demand for the money went against the grain of the teacher,
because it completely destroyed the sentimental part of his
intentions. He became angry:
"What sort of boorishness is this, anyway! It doesn't look as if I
were preparing to run away from here. And besides, can't you
discriminate between people at all? You can see that a man of
respectability, in a uniform, has come to you, and not some tramp.
What sort of importunity is this!"
The housekeeper gave in a little.
"Now, don't get offended, mister. Of course, you'll pay the young
lady yourself for the visit. I don't think you will do her any
wrong, she's a fine girl among us. But I must trouble you to pay
for the beer and lemonade. I, too, have to give an account to the
proprietress. Two bottles at fifty is a rouble and the lemonade
thirty—a rouble thirty."
"Good Lord, a bottle of beer fifty kopecks!" the German waxed
indignant. "Why, I will get it in any beer-shop for twelve
kopecks."
"Well, then, go to a beer-shop if it's cheaper there," Zociya
became offended. "But if you've come to a respectable
establishment, the regular price is half a rouble. We don't take
anything extra. There, that's better. Twenty kopecks change coming
to you?"
"Yes, change, without fail," firmly emphasized the German teacher.
"And I would request of you that nobody else should enter."
"No, no, no, what are you saying," Zociya began to bustle near the
door. "Dispose yourself as you please, to your heart's content. A
pleasant appetite to you."
Manka locked the door on a hook after her and sat down on the
German's knee, embracing him with her bare arm.
"Are you here long?" he asked, sipping his beer. He felt dimly
that that imitation of love which must immediately take place
demanded some sort of psychic propinquity, a more intimate
acquaintance, and on that account, despite his impatience, began
the usual conversation, which is carried on by almost all men—
when alone with prostitutes, and which compels the latter to lie
almost mechanically, to lie without mortification, enthusiasm or
malice, according to a single, very ancient stencil.
"Not long, only the third month."
"And how old are you?"
"Sixteen," fibbed Little Manka, taking five years off her age.
"O, such a young one!" the German wondered, and began, bending
down and grunting, to take off his boots. "Then how did you get
here?"
"Well, a certain officer deprived me of my innocence there...near
his birthplace. And it's terrible how strict my mamma is. If she
was to find out, she'd strangle me with her own hands. Well, so
then I ran away from home and got in here..."
"And did you love that same officer, the one who was the first
one, now?"
"If I hadn't loved him, I wouldn't have gone to him. He promised
to marry me, the scoundrel, but then managed to get what he was
after, and abandoned me."
"Well, and were you ashamed the first time?"
"Of course, you'd be ashamed...How do you like it, daddy, with
light or without light? I'll turn, down the lantern a little. All
right?"
"Well, and aren't you bored here? What do they call you?"
"Manya. To be sure I'm bored. What sort of a life is ours!"
The German kissed her hard on her lips and again asked:
"And do you love the men? Are there men who please you? Who afford
you pleasure?"
"How shouldn't there be?" Manka started laughing. "I love the ones
like you especially, such nice little fatties."
"You love them? Eh? Why do you love them?"
"Oh, I love them just so. You're nice, too."
The German meditated for a few seconds, pensively sipping away at
his beer. Then he said that which every man tells a prostitute in
these moments preceding the casual possession of her body:
"Do you know, Marichen, you also please me very much. I would
willingly take you and set you up."
"You're married," the girl objected, touching his ring.
"Yes, but, you understand, I don't live with my wife; she isn't
well, she can't fulfill her conjugal duties."
"The poor thing! If she were to find out where you go, daddy, she
would cry for sure."
"Let's drop that. So, you know, Mary, I am always looking out for
such a girl as you for myself, so modest and pretty. I am a man of
means, I would find a flat with board for you, with fuel and
light. And forty roubles a month pin money. Would you go?"
"Why not go—I'd go."
He kissed her violently, but a secret apprehension glided swiftly
through his cowardly heart.
"But are you healthy?" he asked in an inimical, quavering voice.
"Why, yes, I am healthy. There's a doctor's inspection every
Saturday in our place."
After five minutes she went away from him, as she walked putting
away in her stocking the earned money, on which, as on the first
handsel, she had first spat, after a superstitious custom. There
had been no further speech either about maintenance or natural
liking. The German was left unsatisfied with the frigidity of
Manka and ordered the housekeeper to be summoned to him.
"Housekeeper dear, my husband demands your presence!" said Manya,
coming into the drawing room and fixing her hair before a mirror.
Zociya went away, then returned afterwards and called Pasha out
into the corridor. Later she came back into the drawing room, but
alone.
"How is it, Manka, that you haven't pleased your cavalier?" she
asked with laughter. "He complains about you: 'This,' he says, 'is
no woman, but some log of wood, a piece of ice.' I sent him
Pashka."
"Eh, what a disgusting man!" Manka puckered up her face and spat
aside. "Butts in with his conversations. Asks: 'Do you feel when I
kiss you? Do you feel a pleasant excitement?' An old hound. 'I'll
take you,' he says, 'and set you up!'"
"They all say that," remarked Zoe indifferently.
But Jennie, who since morning has been in an evil mood, suddenly
flared up.
"Oh, the sneak, the big, miserable sneak that he is!" she
exclaimed, turning red and energetically putting her hands to her
sides. "Why, I would take him, the old, dirty little beast, by the
ear, then lead him up to the mirror and show him his disgusting
snout. What? Good-looking, aren't you? And how much better you'll
be when the spit will be running out of your mouth, and you'll
cross your eyes, and begin to choke and rattle in the throat, and
to snort right in the face of the woman. And for your damned
rouble you want me to go all to pieces before you like a pancake,
and that from your nasty love my eyes should pop out onto my
forehead? Why, hit him in the snout, the skunk, in the snout!
Until there's blood!"
"O, Jennie! Stop it now! PFUI!" the susceptible Emma Edwardovna,
made indignant by her tone, stopped her.
"I won't stop!" she cut her short abruptly. But she grew quiet by
herself and wrathfully walked away with distending nostrils and
with fire in the darkened, handsome eyes.