Yama (The Pit) by Aleksandr Ivanovich Kuprin
PART TWO
CHAPTER III
All the stories of Horizon about his commercial travelling were
simply brazen and glib lying. All the samples of drapers' goods,
suspenders gloire and buttons helios, the artificial teeth and
insertible eyes, served only as a shield, screening his real
activity—to wit, the traffic in the body of woman. True, at one
time, some ten years ago, he had travelled over Russia as the
representative for the dubious wines of some unknown firm; and
this activity had imparted to his tongue that free-and-easy
unconstraint for which, in general, travelling salesmen are
distinguished. This former activity had, as well, brought him up
against his real profession. In some way, while going to Rostov-
on-the-Don, he had contrived to make a very young sempstress fall
in love with him. This girl had not as yet succeeded in getting on
the official lists of the police, but upon love and her body she
looked without any lofty prejudices. Horizon, at that time
altogether a green youth, amorous and light-minded, dragged the
sempstress after him on his wanderings, full of adventures and
unexpected things. After half a year she palled upon him
dreadfully. She, just like a heavy burden, like a millstone, hung
around the neck of this man of energy, motion and aggressiveness.
In addition to that, there were the eternal scenes of jealousy,
mistrust, the constant control and tears ... the inevitable
consequences of long living together ... Then he began little by
little to beat his mate. At the first time she was amazed, but
from the second time quieted down, became tractable. It is known,
that "women of love" never know a mean in love relations. They are
either hysterical liars, deceivers, dissemblers, with a coolly-
perverted mind and a sinuous dark soul; or else unboundedly self-
denying, blindly devoted, foolish, naive animals, who know no
bounds either in concessions or loss of self-esteem. The
sempstress belonged to the second category, and Horizon was soon
successful, without great effort, in persuading her to go out on
the street to traffic in herself. And from that very evening, when
his mistress submitted to him and brought home the first five
roubles earned, Horizon experienced an unbounded loathing toward
her. It is remarkable, that no matter how many women Horizon met
after this—and several hundred of them had passed through his
hands—this feeling of loathing and masculine contempt toward them
would never forsake him. He derided the poor woman in every way,
and tortured her morally, seeking out the most painful spots. She
would only keep silent, sigh, weep, and getting down on her knees
before him, kiss his hands. And this wordless submission irritated
Horizon still more. He drove her away from him. She would not go
away. He would push her out into the street; but she, after an
hour or two, would come back shivering from cold, in a soaked hat,
in the turned-up brims of which the rain-water splashed as in
waterspouts. Finally, some shady friend gave Simon Yakovlevich the
harsh and crafty counsel which laid a mark on all the rest of his
life activity—to sell his mistress into a brothel. To tell the
truth, in going into this enterprise, Horizon almost disbelieved
at soul in its success. But contrary to his expectation, the
business could not have adjusted itself better. The proprietress
of an establishment (this was in Kharkov) willingly met his
proposition half-way. She had known long and well Simon
Yakovlevich, who played amusingly on the piano, danced splendidly,
and set the whole drawing room laughing with his pranks; but
chiefly, could, with unusually unabashed dexterity, make any
carousing party "shell out the coin." It only remained to convince
the mate of his life, and this proved the most difficult of all.
She did not want to detach herself from her beloved for anything;
threatened suicide, swore that she would burn his eyes out with
sulphuric acid, promised to go and complain to the chief of
police—and she really did know a few dirty little transactions of
Simon Yakovlevich's that smacked of capital punishment. Thereupon
Horizon changed his tactics. He suddenly became a tender,
attentive friend, an indefatigable lover. Then suddenly he fell
into black melancholy. The uneasy questionings of the woman he let
pass in silence; at first let drop a word as though by chance;
hinted in passing at some mistake of his life; and then began to
lie desperately and with inspiration. He said that the police were
watching him; that he could not get by the jail, and, perhaps,
even hard labour and the gallows; that it was necessary for him to
disappear abroad for several months. But mainly, what he persisted
in especially strongly, was some tremendous fantastic business, in
which he stood to make several hundred thousands of roubles. The
sempstress believed and became alarmed with that disinterested,
womanly, almost holy alarm, in which, with every woman, there is
so much of something maternal. It was not at all difficult now to
convince her that for Horizon to travel together with her
presented a great danger for him; and that it would be better for
her to remain here and to bide the time until the affairs of her
lover would adjust themselves fortuitously. After that to talk her
into hiding, as in the most trustworthy retreat, in a brothel,
where she would be in full safety from the police and the
detectives, was a mere nothing. One morning Horizon ordered her to
dress a little better, curl her hair, powder herself, put a little
rouge on her cheeks, and carried her off to a den, to his
acquaintance. The girl made a favourable impression there, and
that same day her passport was changed by the police to a so-
called yellow ticket. Having parted with her, after long embraces
and tears, Horizon went into the room of the proprietress and
received his payment, fifty roubles (although he had asked for two
hundred). But he did not grieve especially over the low price; the
main thing was, that he had found his calling at last, all by
himself, and had laid the cornerstone of his future welfare.
Of course, the woman sold by him just remained forever so in the
tenacious hands of the brothel. Horizon forgot her so thoroughly
that after only a year he could not even recall her face. But who
knows ... perhaps he merely pretended?
Now he was one of the chief speculators in the body of woman in
all the south of Russia. He had transactions with Constantinople
and with Argentine; he transported, in whole parties, girls from
the brothels of Odessa into Kiev; those from Kiev he brought over
into Kharkov; and those from Kharkov into Odessa. He it was also
who stuck away over second rate capital cities, and those
districts which were somewhat richer, the goods which had been
rejected or had grown too noticeable in the big cities. He had
struck up an enormous clientele, and in the number of his
consumers Horizon could have counted not a few people with a
prominent social position: lieutenant governors, colonels of the
gendarmerie, eminent advocates, well-known doctors, rich land-
owners, carousing merchants. All the shady world—the
proprietresses of brothels, cocottes solitaires, go-betweens,
madams of houses of assignation, souteneurs, touring actresses and
chorus girls—was as familiar to him as the starry sky to an
astronomer. His amazing memory, which permitted him prudently to
avoid notebooks, held in mind thousands of names, family names,
nicknames, addresses, characteristics. He knew to perfection the
tastes of all his highly placed consumers: some of them liked
unusually odd depravity, others paid mad sums for innocent girls,
for others still it was necessary to seek out girls below age. He
had to satisfy both the sadistic and the masochistic inclinations
of his clients, and at times to cater to altogether unnatural
sexual perversions, although it must be said that the last he
undertook only in rare instances which promised a large, undoubted
profit. Two or three times he had to sit in jail, but these
sessions went to his benefit; he not only did not lose his
rapacious high-handedness and springy energy in his transactions,
but with every year became more daring, inventive, and
enterprising. With the years to his brazen impetuousness was
joined a tremendous worldly business wisdom.
Fifteen times, during this period, he had managed to marry and
every time had contrived to take a decent dowry. Having possessed
himself of his wife's money, he, one fine day, would suddenly
vanish without a trace, and, if there was a possibility, he would
sell his wife profitably into a secret house of depravity or into
a chic public establishment. It would happen that the parents of
the deluded victim would search for him through the police. But
while inquiries would be carried on everywhere about him as
Shperling, he would already be travelling from town to town under
the name of Rosenblum. During the time of his activity, in despite
of an enviable memory, he had changed so many names that he had
not only forgotten what year he had been Nathanielson, and during
what Bakalyar, but even his own name was beginning to seem to him
one of his pseudonyms.
It was remarkable, that he did not find in his profession anything
criminal or reprehensible. He regarded it just as though he were
trading in herrings, lime, flour, beef or lumber. In his own
fashion he was pious. If time permitted, he would with assiduity
visit the synagogue of Fridays. The Day of Atonement, Passover,
and the Feast of the Tabernacles were invariably and reverently
observed by him everywhere wherever fate might have cast him. His
mother, a little old woman, and a hunch-backed sister, were left
to him in Odessa, and he undeviatingly sent them now large, now
small sums of money, not regularly but pretty frequently, from all
towns from Kursk to Odessa and from Warsaw to Samara. Considerable
savings of money had already accumulated to him in the Credit
Lyonnaise, and he gradually increased them, never touching the
interest. But to greed or avarice he was almost a stranger. He was
attracted to the business rather by its tang, risk and a
professional self-conceit. To the women he was perfectly
indifferent, although he understood and could value them, and in
this respect resembled a good chef, who together with a fine
understanding of the business, suffers from a chronic absence of
appetite. To induce, to entice a woman, to compel her to do all
that he wanted, did not require any efforts on his part; they came
of themselves to his call and became in his hands passive,
obedient and yielding. In his treatment of them a certain firm,
unshakable, self-assured aplomb had been worked out, to which they
submitted just as a refractory horse submits instinctively to the
voice, glance, stroking of an experienced horseman.
He drank very moderately, and without company never drank. Toward
eating he was altogether indifferent. But, of course, as with
every man, he had a little weakness of his own: he was
inordinately fond of dress and spent no little money on his
toilet. Modish collars of all possible fashions, cravats, diamond
cuff links, watch charms, the underwear of a dandy, and chic
footwear constituted his main distractions.
From the depot he went straight to The Hermitage. The hotel
porters, in blue blouses and uniform caps, carried his things into
the vestibule. Following them, he too entered, arm in arm with his
wife; both smartly attired, imposing, but he just simply
magnificent, in his wide, bell-shaped English overcoat, in a new
broad-brimmed panama, holding negligently in his hand a small cane
with a silver handle in the form of a naked woman.
"You ain't supposed to be here without a permit for your
residence," said an enormous, stout doorkeeper, looking down upon
him from above and preserving on his face a sleepy and immovably-
frigid expression.
"Ach, Zachar! Again 'you ain't supposed to!'" merrily exclaimed
Horizon, and patted the giant on his shoulder. "What does it mean,
'you ain't supposed to'? Every time you shove this same 'you ain't
supposed to' at me. I must be here for three days in all. Soon as
I conclude the rent agreement with Count Ipatiev, right away I go
away. God be with you! Live even all by yourself in all your
rooms. But you just give a look, Zachar, what a toy I brought you
from Odessa! You'll be just tickled with it!"
With a careful, deft, accustomed movement he thrust a gold piece
into the doorkeeper's hand, who was already holding it behind his
back, ready and folded in the form of a little boat.
The first thing that Horizon did upon installing himself in the
large, spacious room with an alcove, was to put out into the
corridor at the door of the room six pairs of magnificent shoes,
saying to the bell-hop who ran up in answer to the bell:
"Immediately all should be cleaned! So it should shine like a
mirror! They call you Timothy, I think? Then you should know me—
if you work by me it will never go for nothing. So it should shine
like a mirror!"