Yama by Aleksandr Kuprin (best ereader for pdf TXT) 📕

to such feelings. Or is it because he is a boy? Why, only a little over a year ago I shoved apples in his pocket, when he was going away from me at night. Why have I not told him then that which, I can, and dare, tell him now? Or would he not have believed me, anyway? Would have grown angry? Would have gone to another? For sooner or later this turn awaits every man⁠ ⁠… And that he bought me for money⁠—can that be forgiven? Or did he act just as all of them do⁠—blindly?⁠ ⁠…”

“Kolya!” she said quietly, “Open your eyes.”

He obeyed, opened his eyes, turned to her; entwined her neck with his arm, drew her a little to him, and wanted to kiss her in the opening of her chemise⁠—on the breast. She again tenderly but commandingly repulsed him.

“No, wait a while, wait a while⁠—hear me out⁠ ⁠… One little minute more. Tell me, boy, why do you come here to us⁠—to the women?”

Kolya quietly and hoarsely began laughing.

“How silly you are! Well, what do they all come for? Am I not also a man? For, it seems, I’m at that age when in every man ripens⁠ ⁠… well, a certain need⁠ ⁠… for woman. For I’m not going to occupy myself with all sorts of nastiness!”

“Need? Only need? That means, just as for that chamberpot which stands under my bed?”

“No, why so?” retorted Kolya, with a kindly laugh. “I liked you very much⁠ ⁠… From the very first time⁠ ⁠… If you will, I’m even⁠ ⁠… a little in love with you⁠ ⁠… at least, I never stayed with any of the others.”

“Well, all right! But then, the first time, could it possibly have been need?”

“No, perhaps, it wasn’t need even; but somehow, vaguely, I wanted a woman⁠ ⁠… My friends talked me into it⁠ ⁠… Many had already gone here before me⁠ ⁠… So then, I too⁠ ⁠…”

“But, now, weren’t you ashamed the first time?”

Kolya became confused; all this interrogation was to him unpleasant, oppressive. He felt, that this was not the empty, idle bed talk, so well known to him, out of his small experience; but something else, of more import.

“Let’s say⁠ ⁠… not that I was ashamed⁠ ⁠… well, but still I felt kind of awkward. I drank that time to get up courage.”

Jennie again lay down on her side; leaned upon her elbow, and again looked at him from time to time, near at hand and intently.

“But tell me, sweetie,” she asked, in a barely audible voice, so that the cadet with difficulty made out her words, “tell me one thing more; but the fact of your paying money, these filthy two roubles⁠—do you understand?⁠—paying them for love, so that I might caress, kiss you, give all my body to you⁠—didn’t you feel ashamed to pay for that? Never?”

“Oh, my God! What strange questions you put to me today! But then they all pay money! Not I, then someone else would have paid⁠—isn’t it all the same to you?”

“And have you been in love with anyone, Kolya? Confess! Well, now, if not in real earnest, then just so⁠ ⁠… at soul⁠ ⁠… Have you done any courting? Brought little flowers of some sort⁠ ⁠… Strolled arm-in-arm with her under the moon? Wasn’t that so?”

“Well, yes,” said Koiya in a sedate bass. “What follies don’t happen in one’s youth! It’s a matter anyone can understand⁠ ⁠…”

“Some sort of a little first cousin? An educated young lady? A boarding school miss? A high school girl?⁠ ⁠… There has been, hasn’t there?”

“Well, yes, of course⁠—everybody has them.”

“Why, you wouldn’t have touched her, would you?⁠ ⁠… You’d have spared her? Well, if she had only said to you: ‘Take me, but only give me two roubles’⁠—what would you have said to her?”

“I don’t understand you, Jennka!” Gladishev suddenly grew angry. “What are you putting on airs for! What sort of comedy are you trying to put over! Honest to God, I’ll dress myself at once and go away.”

“Wait a while, wait a while, Kolya! One more, one more, the last, the very, very last question.”

“Oh, you!” growled Kolya displeased.

“And could you never imagine⁠ ⁠… well, imagine it right now, even for a second⁠ ⁠… that your family has suddenly grown poor, become ruined. You’d have to earn your bread by copying papers; or, now, let’s say, through carpenter or blacksmith work; and your sister was to go wrong, like all of us⁠ ⁠… yes, yes, yours, your own sister⁠ ⁠… if some blockhead seduced her and she was to go travelling⁠ ⁠… from hand to hand⁠ ⁠… what would you say then?”

“Bosh!⁠ ⁠… That can’t be⁠ ⁠…” Kolya cut her short curtly. “But, however, that’s enough⁠—I’m going away!”

“Go away, do me that favour! I’ve ten roubles lying there, near the mirror, in a little box from chocolates⁠—take them for yourself. I don’t need them, anyway. Buy with them a tortoise powder box with a gold setting for your mamma; and if you have a little sister, buy her a good doll. Say: in memory from a certain wench that died. Go on, little boy!”

Kolya, with a frown, angry, with one shove of a well-knit body jumped off the bed, almost without touching it. Now he was standing on the little mat near the bed, naked, well-formed, splendid in all the magnificence of his blooming, youthful body.

“Kolya!” Jennka called him quietly, insistently and caressingly. “Kolechka!”

He turned around to her call, and drew in the air in a short, jerky gust, as though he had gasped: he had never yet in his life met anywhere, even in pictures, such a beautiful expression of tenderness, sorrow, and womanly silent reproach, as the one he was just now beholding in the eyes of Jennka, filled with tears. He sat down on the edge of the bed, and impulsively embraced her around the bared, swarthy arms.

“Let’s not quarrel, then, Jennechka,” he said tenderly.

And she twined herself around him, placed her arms on his neck, while her head she pressed against his breast. They kept silent so for several seconds.

“Kolya,” Jennie suddenly asked dully, “but were you never afraid of