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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“Die Deutsche Sprache beherrsche ich in geringerem Grade als die französische; indes kann ich stets in einer Salon-Plauderei mitmachen.”34
“O, wunderbar! sie haben eine entzückende Rigaer Aussprache, die beste alter deutschen Aussprachen. Und also—fahren wir in unserer Sprache fort. Sie klingt viel süsser meinem Ohr, die Muttersprache. Schön?”35
“Schön.”36
“Zuletzt werden Sie nachgeben, dem Anschein nach ungern, unwillkürlich, von der Laune des Augenblicks hingerissen—und, was die Hauptsache ist, lautlos, heimlich vor mir. Sie verstehen? Dafürzahlen Narren ein schweres Geld. Ubrigens brauche ich Sie wohl nicht zu lehren.”37
“Ja, gnädige Frau. Sie sprechen gar kluge Dinge. Doch das ist schön keine Plauderei mehr, sondern eine ernste Unterhaltung.38 And for that reason it is more convenient for me, if you will revert to the Russian language … I am ready to obey you.”
“Furthermore! … I was just now talking about a lover. I dare not forbid you this pleasure, but let us be prudent: let him not appear here, or appear as rarely as possible. I will give you days for going out, when you will be perfectly free. But it’s best if you would get along without him entirely. It will serve your benefit too. This is only a drag and a yoke. I am telling you this from my own personal experience. Wait a while; after three or four years we will expand this business so, that you will have substantial money already, and then I will take you into the business as a partner with full rights. After ten years you will still be young and handsome, and then take and buy men as much as you want to. By that time romantic follies will go out of your head entirely, and it will not be you who will be chosen already, but you who will be choosing with sense and with feeling, as a connoisseur picks out precious stones. Do you agree with me?”
Tamara cast down her eyes, and smiled just the least trifle.
“You speak golden truths, Emma Edwardovna. I will drop mine, but not at once. For that I will need some two weeks. I will try not to have him appear here. I accept your proposition.”
“And that’s splendid!” said Emma Edwardovna, getting up. “Now let us conclude our agreement with one good, sweet kiss.”
And she again embraced and took to kissing Tamara hard—who, with her downcast eyes and naive, tender face, seemed now altogether a little girl. But, having freed herself, finally, from the proprietress, she asked in Russian:
“You see, Emma Edwardovna, that I agree in everything with you, but for that I beg you to fulfill one request of mine. It will not cost you anything. Namely, I hope that you will allow me and the other girls to escort the late Jennie to the cemetery.”
Emma Edwardovna made a wry face.
“Oh, if you want to, my darling Tamara, I have nothing against your whim. Only what for? This will not help the dead person and will not make her alive. Only sentimentalism alone will come out of it … But very well! Only, however, you know yourself that in accordance with your law suicides are not buried, or—I don’t know with certainty—it seems they throw them into some dirty hole beyond the cemetery.”
“No, do allow me to do as I want to myself. Let it be my whim, but concede it to me, my darling, dear, bewitching Emma Edwardovna! But then, I promise you that this will be my last whim. After this I will be like a wise and obedient soldier at the disposal of a talented general.”
“Is’ gut!” Emma Edwardovna gave in with a sigh. “I can not deny you in anything, my child. Let me press your hand. Let us toil and labour together for the common good.”
And, having opened the door, she called out across the drawing room into the entrance-hall: “Simeon!” And when Simeon appeared in the room, she ordered him weightily and triumphantly:
“Bring us a bottle of champagne here, but the real thing—Rederer demi sec, and as cool as possible. Step on it!” she ordered the porter, who was gaping at her with popping eyes.
“We will drink with you, Tamara, to the new business, to our brilliant and beautiful future.”
“Willingly, my dear instructress,” answered Tamara. “You, like a genius, have cast light on my path. Why, really, none of us knew how kind and penetrating you are. It is only now that I have at last surmised that, before anything else, you demanded from us only order, only an irreproachable carrying out of our duty. Isn’t that so?”
“Oh, ja!” answered the flattered Emma Edwardovna. “
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