Yama by Aleksandr Kuprin (best ereader for pdf TXT) 📕
Description
Yama (The Pit) recounts the lives of a group of prostitutes living and working in Anna Markovna’s brothel in the town of K⸺. The women, subject to effective slavery through the removal of their papers and onerous debts, act out a scene of easy affability every evening for the part ignorant, part monstrous clients, while keeping secret their own pasts and wished-for futures.
The book was Kuprin’s attempt to denormalize the cultural ambiguity of the legal brothels of the time. His dedication—“to mothers and youths”—expresses his desire that there should no longer be a silent acceptance of the actions of the “fathers, husbands, and brothers.” The novel was notable for portraying the inhabitants of the brothels as living, breathing people with their own hopes and desires, not purely as a plot point or scenario.
The critical response was mixed: many found the subject matter beyond the pale. Kuprin himself placed his hopes on a favourable review from Leo Tolstoy, which didn’t come; but there was praise for Yama as both social commentary and warning, and an appreciation for Kuprin’s attempt to detail the everyday lives of his subjects.
The novel had a troubled genesis, with the first part taking nine years between initial proposal and first publication; the second and third parts followed five years later. It was a victim of the Russian censors who, tellingly, disapproved more of scenes involving officials visiting the brothels, than the brothels themselves. It was only later during preparations for an anthology of his work that an uncensored version was allowed to be released. This edition is based on the translation to English by Bernard Guilbert Guerney of that uncensored version, and was first published in 1922.
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- Author: Aleksandr Kuprin
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Kolya shivered. Some chill, loathsome horror stirred and glided through within his soul. He did not answer at once.
“Of course, that would be horrible … horrible … God save me! But then I go only to you alone, only to you! You’d surely have told me? …”
“Yes, I’d have told you,” she uttered meditatively. And at once rapidly, consciously, as though having weighed the significance of her words: “Yes, of course, of course, I would have told you! But haven’t you ever heard what sort of a thing is that disease called syphilis?”
“Of course, I’ve heard … The nose falls through …”
“No, Kolya, not only the nose! The person becomes all diseased: his bones, sinews, brains grow diseased … Some doctors talk nonsense about it’s possible to be cured of this disease. Bosh! You’ll never cure yourself! A person rots ten, twenty, thirty years. Every second paralysis can strike him down, so that the right side of the face, the right arm, the right leg dies—it isn’t a human being that’s living, but some sort of a little half. Half-man—half-corpse. The majority of them go out of their minds. And each understands … every person … each one so infected understands, that if he eats, drinks, kisses, simply even breathes—he can’t be sure that he won’t immediately infect some one of those around him, the very nearest—sister, wife, son … To all syphilitics the children are born monsters, abortions, goitrous, consumptives, idiots. There, Kolya—that’s what this disease means. And now,” Jennka suddenly straightened up quickly, seized Kolya fast by his bare shoulders, turned his face to her, so that he was almost blinded by the flashing of her sorrowful, sombre, extraordinary eyes, “and now, Kolya, I will tell you that for more than a month I am sick with this filth. And that’s just why I haven’t allowed you to kiss me …”
“You’re joking! … You’re teasing me on purpose, Jennie!” muttered Gladishev, wrathful, frightened, and out of his wits.
“Joking? … Come here!”
She abruptly compelled him to get up on his feet, lit a match and said:
“Now look closely at what I’m going to show you …”
She opened her mouth wide and placed the light so that it would illumine her larynx. Kolya looked and staggered back.
“Do you see these white spots? This—is syphilis, Kolya! Do you understand?—syphilis in the most fearful, the most serious stage. Now dress yourself and thank God.”
He, silently and without looking around at Jennka, began to dress hurriedly, missing his clothes when he tried to put his legs through. His hands were shaking, and his under jaw jumped so that the lower teeth knocked against the upper, while Jennka was speaking with bowed head:
“Listen, Kolya, it’s your good fortune that you’ve run across an honest woman; another wouldn’t have spared you. Do you hear that? We, whom you deprive of innocence and then drive out of your homes, while later you pay us two roubles a visit, we always—do you understand?”—she suddenly raised her head—“we always hate you and never have any pity for you!”
The half-clad Kolya suddenly dropped his dressing, sat down on the bed near Jennka and, covering his face with his palms, burst into tears; sincerely, altogether like a child …
“Lord, Lord,” he whispered, “why this is the truth! … What a vile thing this really is! … We, also, we had this happen: we had a chambermaid, Niusha … a chambermaid … they also called her signorita Anita … a pretty little girl … and my brother lived with her … my elder brother … an officer … and when he went away, she proved pregnant and mother drove her out … well, yes—drove her out … threw her out of the house, like an old floor mop … Where is she now? And father … father … he also with a cham … chambermaid.”
And the half-naked Jennka, this Jennka, the atheist, swearer, and brawler, suddenly got up from the bed, stood before the cadet, and slowly, almost solemnly, made the sign of the cross over him.
“And may God preserve you my boy!” she said with an expression of deep tenderness and gratitude.
And at once she ran to the door, opened it and called out: “Housekeeper!”
“Tell you what, housekeeper dear,” Jennka directed, “go and find out, please, which one of them is free—Tamara or Little White Manka. And the one that’s free send here.”
Kolya growled out something in the back, but Jennka purposely did not listen to him.
“And please make it as quick as possible, housekeeper dear, won’t you be so kind?”
“Right away, right away, miss.”
“Why, why do you do this, Jennie?” asked Gladishev with anguish. “Well, what’s that for? … Is it possible that you want to tell about it? …”
“Wait a while, that’s not your business … Wait a while, I won’t do anything unpleasant for you.”
After a minute Little White Manka came in her brown, smooth, deliberately modest dress of a high school girl.
“What did you call me for, Jennie? Or have you quarreled?”
“No, we haven’t quarreled, Mannechka, but my head aches very much,” answered Jennka calmly, “and for that reason my little friend finds me very boresome. Be a friend, Mannechka, stay with him, take my place!”
“That’s enough, Jennie, stop it, darling!” in a tone of sincere suffering protested Kolya. “I understand everything, everything, it’s not necessary now … Don’t be finishing me off, then! …”
“I don’t understand anything of what’s happened,” the frivolous Manka spread out her hands. “Maybe you’ll treat a poor little girl to something?”
“Well, go on, go on!” Jennka sent her away gently. “I’ll come right away. We just played a joke.”
Already dressed, they stood for long in the open door between the bedroom and the corridor; and without words sadly looked at each other. And Kolya did not understand, but sensed, that at this moment in his soul was taking place one of those tremendous crises which tell imperiously upon one’s entire life.
Then he pressed Jennie’s hand hard and said:
“Forgive! … Will you forgive me, Jennie? Will you forgive? …”
“Yes, my boy! … Yes, my fine one! … Yes … yes …”
She tenderly, softly, like a mother, stroked his closely cropped harsh head and gave him, a slight shove into the
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