Yama (The Pit) by Aleksandr Ivanovich Kuprin
PART TWO
CHAPTER XII
With pain at soul, with malice and repulsion toward himself and
Liubka, and, it would seem, toward all the world, Lichonin without
undressing flung himself upon the wooden, lopsided, sagging divan
and even gnashed his teeth from the smarting shame. Sleep would
not come to him, while his thoughts revolved around this fool
action—as he himself called the carrying off of Liubka,—in which
an atrocious vaudeville had been so disgustingly intertwined with
a deep drama. "It's all one," he stubbornly repeated to himself.
"Once I have given my promise, I'll see the business through to
the end. And, of course, that which has occurred just now will
never, never be repeated! My God, who hasn't fallen, giving in to
a momentary laxity of the nerves? Some philosopher or other has
expressed a deep, remarkable truth, when he affirmed that the
value of the human soul may be known by the depth of its fall and
the height of its flight. But still, the devil take the whole of
this idiotical day and that equivocal reasoner—the reporter
Platonov, and his own—Lichonin's—absurd outburst of chivalry!
Just as though, in reality, this had not taken place in real life,
but in Chernishevski's novel, What's to be done? And how, devil
take it, with what eyes will I look upon her tomorrow?"
His head was on fire; his eyelids were smarting, his lips dry. He
was nervously smoking a cigarette and frequently got up from the
divan to take the decanter of water off the table, and avidly,
straight from its mouth, drink several big draughts. Then, by some
accidental effort of the will, he succeeded in tearing his
thoughts away from the past night, and at once a heavy sleep,
without any visions and images, enveloped him as though in black
cotton.
He awoke long past noon, at two or three o'clock; at first could
not come to himself for a long while; smacked his lips and looked
around the room with glazed, heavy eyes. All that had happened
during the night seemed to have flown out of his memory. But when
he saw Liubka, who was quietly and motionlessly sitting on the
bed, with head lowered and hands crossed on her knees, he began to
groan and grunt from vexation and confusion. Now he recalled
everything. And at that minute he experienced in his own person
how heavy it is to see in the morning, with one's own eyes, the
results of folly committed the night before.
"Are you awake, sweetie?" asked Liubka kindly.
She got up from the bed, walked up to the divan, sat down at
Lichonin's feet, and cautiously patted his blanket-covered leg.
"Why, I woke up long ago and was sitting all the while; I was
afraid to wake you up. You were sleeping so very soundly!"
She stretched toward him and kissed him on the cheek. Lichonin
made a wry face and gently pushed her away from him.
"Wait, Liubochka! Wait; that's not necessary. Do you understand—
absolutely, never necessary. That which took place yesterday—well,
that's an accident. My weakness, let's say. Even more, a momentary
baseness, perhaps. But, by God, believe me, I didn't at all want
to make a mistress out of you. I want to see you my friend, my
sister, my comrade ... Well, that's nothing, then; everything will
adjust itself, grow customary. Only one mustn't fall in spirit.
And in the meanwhile, my dear, go to the window and look out of it
a bit; I just want to put myself in order."
Liubka slightly pouted her lips and walked off to the window,
turning her back on Lichonin. All these words about friendship,
brotherhood and comradeship she could not understand with her
brain of a hen and her simple peasant soul. That a student—after
all, not just anybody, but an educated man, who could learn to be
a doctor, or a lawyer, or a judge—had taken her for maintenance
flattered her imagination far more ... And here, now, it turned
out that he had just fulfilled his caprice, had gotten what he
wanted, and was now trying to back out. They are all like that,
the men!
Lichonin hastily got up, splashed a few handfuls of water in his
face, and dried himself with an old napkin. Then he raised the
blinds and threw open both window shutters. The golden sunlight,
the azure sky, the rumble of the city, the foliage of the thick
linden trees and the chestnuts, the bells of the horse trams, the
dry smell of the hot, dusty street—all this at once burst into the
tiny garret room. Lichonin walked up to Liubka and amicably patted
her on the shoulder.
"Never mind, my joy ... What's done can't be undone, but it's a
lesson for the future. You haven't yet asked tea for yourself,
Liubochka?"
"No, I was waiting for you all the while. Besides, I didn't know
who to ask. And you're all right, too. Why, I heard you, after you
went off with your friend, come back and stand a while near the
door. But you never even said good-bye to me. Is that right?"
"The first family quarrel," thought Lichonin, but thought it
without malice, in jest.
The wash-up, the beauty of the gold and blue southern sky, and the
naive, partly submissive, partly displeased face of Liubka, as
well as the consciousness that after all he was a man, and that he
and not she had to answer for the porridge he had cooked—all this
together braced up his nerves and compelled him to take himself in
hand. He opened the door and roared into the darkness of the
stinking corridor:
"Al-lexa-andra! A samova-ar! Two lo-oaves, bu-utter, and sausage!
And a small bottle of vo-odka!"
The patter of slippers was heard in the corridor, and an aged
voice, even from afar, began to speak thickly:
"What are you bawling for? What are you bawling for, eh? Ho, ho,
ho! Like a stallion in a stall. You ain't little, to look at you;
you're grown up already, yet you carry on like a street boy! Well,
what do you want?"
Into the room walked a little old woman, with red-lidded eyes,
like little narrow cracks, and with a face amazingly like
parchment, upon which a long, sharp nose stuck downward, morosely
and ominously. This was Alexandra, the servant of old of the
student bird-houses; the friend and creditor of all the students;
a woman of sixty-five, argumentative, and a grumbler.
Lichonin repeated his order to her and gave her a rouble note. But
the old woman would not go away; shuffled in one place, snorted,
chewed with her lips and looked inimically at the girl sitting—
with her back to the light.
"What's the matter with you now, Alexandra, that you seem
ossified?" asked Lichonin, laughing. "Or are you lost in
admiration? Well, then, know: this is my cousin, my first cousin,
that is—Liubov..."[Footnote: Love.—Trans.] he was confused for
only a second, but immediately fired away: "Liubov Vasilievna, but
for me—simply Liubochka. I've known her when she was only that
high," he showed a quarter of a yard off the table. "And I pulled
her ears and slapped her for her caprices over the place where the
legs grow from. And then ... I caught all sorts of bugs for her
... But, however ... However, you go on, go on, you Egyptian
mummy, you fragment of former ages! Let one leg be here and the
other there!"
But the old woman lingered. Stamping all around herself, she
barely, barely turned to the door and kept a keen, spiteful,
sidelong glance on Liubka. And at the same time she muttered with
her sunken mouth:
"First cousin! We know these first cousins! There's lots of them
walking around Kashtanovaya Street. There, these he-dogs can never
get enough!"
"Well, you old barque! Lively and don't growl!" Lichonin shouted
after her. "Or else, like your friend, the student Triassov, I'll
take and lock you up in the dressing room for twenty-four hours!"
Alexandra went away, and for a long time her aged, flapping steps
and indistinct muttering could be heard in the corridor. She was
inclined, in her austere, grumbling kindliness, to forgive a great
deal to the studying youths, whom she had served for nigh unto
forty years. She forgave drunkenness, card playing, scandals, loud
singing, debts; but, alas! she was a virgin, and there was only
one thing her continent soul could not abide—libertinage.