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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“I can’t grasp it all properly at once,” said she after a silence. “But if a person wants anything hard, he will attain it, and I want to fulfill your wish with all my soul. Stay, stay! … I think a glorious thought is coming into my head … For then, on that evening, if I mistake not, there was with us, beside the baroness and me …”
“I don’t know them … One of them walked out of the cabinet later than all of you. He kissed Jennie’s hand and said, that if she should ever need him, he was always at her service; and gave her his card, but asked her not to show it to any strangers. But later all this passed off somehow and was forgotten. In some way I never found the time to ask Jennie who this man was; while yesterday I searched for the card but couldn’t find it …”
“Allow me, allow me! … I have recalled it!” the artiste suddenly became animated. “Aha!” exclaimed she, rapidly getting off the ottoman. “It was Ryazanov … Yes, yes, yes … The advocate Ernst Andreievich Ryazanov. We will arrange everything right away. That’s a splendid thought!”
She turned to the little table upon which the telephone apparatus was standing, and rang:
“Central—18‒35 please … Thank you … Hello! … Ask Ernst Andreievich to the telephone … The artiste Rovinskaya … Thank you … Hello! … Is this you, Ernst Andreievich? Very well, very well, but now it isn’t a matter of little hands. Are you free? … Drop the nonsense! … The matter is serious. Couldn’t you come up to me for a quarter of an hour? … No, no … Yes … Only as a kind and a clever man. You slander yourself … Well, that’s splendid, really … Well, I am not especially well-dressed, but I have a justification—a fearful headache. No, a lady, a girl … You will see for yourself, come as soon as possible … Thanks! Au revoir! …”
“He will come right away,” said Rovinskaya, hanging up the receiver. “He is a charming and awfully clever man. Everything is possible to him, even the almost impossible to man … But in the meantime … pardon me—your name?”
Tamara was abashed, but then smiled at herself:
“Oh, it isn’t worth your disturbing yourself, Ellena Victorovna! Mon nomme de guerre is Tamara but just so—Anastasia Nikolaevna. It’s all the same—call me even Tamara … I am more used to it …”
“Tamara! … That is so beautiful! … So now, Mlle. Tamara, perhaps you will not refuse to breakfast with me? Perhaps Ryazanov will also do so with us …”
“I have no time, forgive me.”
“That’s a great pity! … I hope, some other time … But, perhaps you smoke,” and she moved toward her a gold case, adorned with an enormous letter E out of the same emeralds she adored.
Ryazanov came very soon.
Tamara, who had not examined him properly on that evening, was struck by his appearance. Tall of stature, almost of an athletic build, with a broad brow, like Beethoven’s, tangled with artistically negligent black, grizzled hair; with the large fleshy mouth of the passionate orator; with clear, expressive, clever, mocking eyes—he had such an appearance as catches one’s eyes among thousands—the appearance of a vanquisher of souls and a conqueror of hearts; deeply ambitious, not yet oversated with life; still fiery in love and never retreating before a beautiful indiscretion … “If fate had not broken me up so,” reflected Tamara, watching his movements with enjoyment, “then here’s a man to whom I’d throw my life; jestingly, with delight, with a smile, as a plucked rose is thrown to the beloved …”
Ryazanov kissed Rovinskaya’s hand, then with unconstrained simplicity exchanged greetings with Tamara and said:
“We are acquainted even from that mad evening, when you dumbfounded all of us with your knowledge of the French language, and when you spoke. That which you said was, between us, paradoxical; but then, how it was said! … To this day I remember the tone of your voice, so warm, expressive … And so, Ellena Victorovna,” he turned to Rovinskaya again, sitting down on a small, low chair without a back, “in what can I be of use to you? I am at your disposal.”
Rovinskaya, with a languid air, again applied the tips of her fingers to her temples.
“Ah, really, I am so upset, my dear Ryazanov,” said she, intentionally extinguishing the sparkle of her magnificent eyes, “and then, my miserable head … May I trouble you to pass me the pyramidon from that table … Let Mlle. Tamara tell you everything … I can not, I am not able to … This is so horrible! …”
Tamara briefly, lucidly, narrated to Ryazanov all the sad history of Jennka’s death; recalled also about the card left with Jennie; and also how the deceased had reverently preserved this card; and—in passing—about his promise to help in case of need.
“Of course, of course!” exclaimed Ryanzanov, when she had finished; and at once began pacing the room back and forth with big steps, ruffling and tossing back his picturesque hair through habit. “You are performing a magnificent, sincere, comradely action! That is good! … That is very good! … I am yours … You say—a permit for the funeral … Hm … God grant me memory! …”
He rubbed his forehead with his palm.
“Hm … hm … If I’m not mistaken—Monocanon, rule one hundred seventy … one hundred seventy … eight … Pardon me, I think I remember it by heart … Pardon me! … Yes, so! ‘If a man slayeth himself, he shall not be chanted over, nor shall a mass be said for him, unless he were greatly astonied,
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