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

“Where are you bound now?” she sent after him, half opening her door.

“I’ll take my comrade right away, and then home.”

“As you know best!⁠ ⁠… God bless you, dearie!”

“Forgive me!⁠ ⁠… Forgive me!⁠ ⁠…” once more repeated Kolya, stretching out his hands to her.

“I’ve already told you, my splendid boy⁠ ⁠… And you forgive me too⁠ ⁠… For we won’t see each other any more!”

And she, having closed the door, was left alone.

In the corridor Gladishev hesitated, because he did not know how to find the room to which Petrov had retired with Tamara. But the housekeeper Zociya helped him, running past him very quickly, and with a very anxious, alarmed air.

“Oh, I haven’t time to bother with you now!” she snarled back at Gladishev’s question. “Third door to the left.”

Kolya walked up to the door indicated and knocked. Some sort of bustle and whispering sounded in the room. He knocked once more.

“Kerkovius, open! This is me⁠—Soliterov.”31

Among the cadets, setting out on expeditions of this sort, it was always agreed upon to call each other by fictitious names. It was not so much a conspiracy or a shift against the vigilance of those in authority, or fear of compromising one’s self before a chance acquaintance of the family, but rather a game, of its own kind, at mysteriousness and disguise⁠—a game tracing its beginning from those times when the young people were borne away by Gustave Aimard, Mayne Reid, and the detective Lecocq.

“You can’t come in!” the voice of Tamara came from behind the door. “You can’t come in. We are busy.”

But the bass voice of Petrov immediately cut her short:

“Nonsense! She’s lying. Come in. It’s all right.”

Kolya opened the door.

Petrov was sitting on a chair dressed, but all red, morose, with lips pouting like a child’s, with downcast eyes.

“Well, what a friend you’ve brought⁠—I must say!” Tamara began speaking sneeringly and wrathfully. “I thought he was a man in earnest, but this is only some sort of a little girl! He’s sorry to lose his innocence, if you please. What a treasure you’ve found, to be sure! But take back, take back your two roubles!” she suddenly began yelling at Petrov and tossed two coins on the table. “You’ll give them away to some poor chambermaid or other! Or else save them for gloves for yourself, you marmot!”

“But what are you cursing for?” grumbled Petrov, without raising his eyes. “I’m not cursing you, am I? Then why do you curse first? I have a full right to act as I want to. But I have passed some time with you, and so take them. But to be forced, I don’t want to. And on your part, Gladishev⁠—that is, Soliterov⁠—this isn’t at all nice. I thought she was a nice girl, but she’s trying to kiss all the time, and does God knows what⁠ ⁠…”

Tamara, despite her wrath, burst into laughter.

“Oh, you little stupid, little stupid! Well, don’t be angry⁠—I’ll take your money. Only watch: this very evening you’ll be sorry, you’ll be crying. Well, don’t be angry, don’t be angry, let’s make up. Put your hand out to me, as I’m doing to you.”

“Let’s go, Kerkovius,” said Gladishev. “Au revoir, Tamara!”

Tamara let the money down into her stocking, through the habit of all prostitutes, and went to show the boys the way.

Even at the time that they were passing through the corridor Gladishev was struck by the strange, silent, tense bustle in the drawing room; the trampling of feet and some muffled, low-voiced, rapid conversations.

Near that place where they had just been sitting below the picture, all the inmates of Anna Markovna’s house and several outsiders had gathered. They were standing in a close knot, bending down. Kolya walked up with curiosity, and, wedging his way through a little, looked in between the heads: on the floor, sideways, somehow unnaturally drawn up, was lying Roly-Poly. His face was blue, almost black. He did not move, and was lying strangely small, shrunken, with legs bent. One arm was squeezed in under his breast, while the other was flung back.

“What’s the matter with him?” asked Gladishev in a fright.

Niurka answered him, starting to speak in a rapid, jerky whisper:

“Roly-Poly just came here⁠ ⁠… Gave Manka the candy, and then started in to put Armenian riddles to us⁠ ⁠… ’Of a blue colour, hangs in the parlor and whistles’⁠ ⁠… We couldn’t guess nohow, but he says: ‘A herring’⁠ ⁠… Suddenly he started laughing, had a coughing spell, and began falling sideways; and then⁠—bang on the ground and don’t move⁠ ⁠… They sent for the police⁠ ⁠… Lord, there’s doings for you!⁠ ⁠… I’m horribly afraid of corpseses!”

“Wait!” Gladishev stopped her. “It’s necessary to feel his forehead; he may be alive yet⁠ ⁠…”

He did try to thrust himself forward, but Simeon’s fingers, just like iron pincers, seized him above the elbows and dragged him back.

“There’s nothing, there’s nothing to be inspecting,” sternly ordered Simeon, “go on, now, young gents, out of here! This is no place for you: the police will come, will summon you as witnesses⁠—then it’s scat! to the devil’s dam! for you out of the military high school! Better go while you’re good and healthy!”

He escorted them to the entrance hall, shoved the greatcoats into their hands and added still more sternly:

“Well, now⁠—git, at a run⁠ ⁠… Lively! So’s there won’t be even a whiff of you left. And if you come another time, then I won’t let youse in at all. You are wise guys, you are! You gave the old hound money for whiskey⁠—so now he’s gone and croaked.”

“Well, don’t you get too smart, now!” Gladishev flew at him, all ruffled up.

“What d’you mean, don’t get smart?⁠ ⁠…” Simeon suddenly began to yell infuriatedly, and his black eyes without lashes and brows became so terrible that the cadets shrank back. “I’ll soak you one on the snout so hard you’ll forget how to say papa and mamma! Git, this second! Or else I’ll bust you in the neck!”

The boys went down the steps.

At this time two men were going up,