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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She was answered with complete incomprehension:
“It would be a sin to say anything bad of this little girl—she’s a darling, she’s kindly, she’s jolly, she’s graceful. … But—how is a chap to put it to you? … In love she’s much too modest and respectable, and doesn’t at all set a fellow on fire. Well, now, if she were but to pretend. … But she can’t, or else she won’t.”
While libertines of wide experience responded simply and succinctly:
“Rather charming, but a fish. She ought to be served up under Provençal sauce.”
Finally Emma Edwardovna decided to have a talk with Magda herself.
“Well, now, Magdochka, how do you find tricks in our place? Are you satisfied?”
“Exceedingly so. If Muhammad had conceived his paradise not for men but for women, I’d say that I’m living in Muhammad’s paradise.”
“But are your guests satisfied with you?”
Magda began laughing.
“Well, that’s something I don’t know, at all, at all. And, to tell the truth, don’t even want to know. I’ve no concern whatsoever for their emotions. I do but carry out honestly my duties—and that’s all.”
The housekeeper retorted with bitterness:
“That is egoism, Magdochka—to think only of one’s own self. Men adore to have a woman sigh, moan, cry out, bite, scratch, utter indecent things. One can’t be a stone image in love. You must really learn to squeal a little, occasionally, at least.”
Magda made a squeamish grimace:
“Thank you! Once in a while I have occasion to hear from the adjacent rooms these pretended wailings of passion—it’s both funny and repulsive. I couldn’t act that way …”
“Well that, already, is your affair,” said the housekeeper, and immediately assumed a more familiar form of address. “If you don’t want to be a general, go and be a soldier. Now all consideration for you is over. No more pamperings for you. From this minute on, no matter who chooses you in the drawing room, that’s the fellow you’ll go with, let it be even a monster among monsters—the most abominable and the stinkiest.”
“But what if I don’t want to?” flared up Magda.
“You’ll be made to—yes, my dearest,” hissed out the housekeeper venomously, “you’ll be made to.”
“Who’ll make me?”
“Why, this same Simeon. You haven’t yet seen his lash made out of ox-sinews? So you’ll try out its taste on yourself. Don’t upset yourself. We’ve subdued not only such as you, but some even more dreadful.”
“I’m going to complain!”
“To whom?”
“To the police—to the governor! …”
“The governor is far away, while our police is all bought up. You won’t succeed in sending out even a letter. You are now under sharp surveillance.”
“I’ll run away!” Magda cried out wrathfully.
“There is no place to go to, my dearie-dear. You’d like to run away, but even to run away is impossible. Kill you we won’t, but we will take the edge off your high spirits. Better—I recommend it in all conscience—better tame down your character, now. ’Twill be better even for you. And now—march to the drawing room!”
Three days later an amazing event took place. Just at noon a tall Adonis of an officer, in the uniform of a captain, appeared in the house of Anna Markovna, and passed on into the drawing room. A pace behind him, all drawn up, as if on parade, tagged Berkesh. Never yet had Yama beheld the ferocious and brazen Berkesh so abased and quaking so.
“I would like to see the mistress of the house,” said the officer politely.
“She’s not here just now,” meekly reported Simeon. “She’ll be here in half an hour.”
Berkesh cautiously approached the captain.
“Your Highness,” said he, in a respectful, high-pitched voice, “give me permission to see to this. It’s far too degrading for you to talk with this trash. With us of the police it’s an entirely different matter; all sorts of horror and filth are a matter of habit to us. All in the day’s work!”
“If you please,” said the officer.
“Fetch the housekeeper here!” Berkesh began yelling, in a voice so loud that the panes in the windows rang, and the crystal pendants of the lustres began to swing, tinkling.
But Emma Edwardovna was already shoving her turtle head out of the half-open door of the cabinet in alarm, while the girls, all upset, in their night clothes, were huddling in another door, peering into the drawing room over one another’s heads.
“Right away, right away,” babbled the housekeeper, covering her neck with her arms. “But you must excuse me—I’m not entirely dressed. I request you to wait just one little minute.”
“Not a second!” Berkesh burst into a roar, and shook his finger at her threateningly. “We haven’t come here for to admire you, you old stiff!”
The officer stopped him with his hand.
“Just a little softer,” said he.
“Your Highness, these cattle don’t understand delicacy. One can’t get along with them without severity. If you please, sir captain,” he added in a lowered whisper, “if you please—into this room.”
They entered that same little cabinet where, upon a time—during Trinity—Berkesh had been regaled with coffee and Benedictine in such intimate company. The housekeeper was still dashing about the room with certain rags and pins. Berkesh quickly set her to rights:
“You’ll never be any handsomer, you worn-out overshoe. Squat! D’you see this thing?” And he thrust under her nose a paper, signed by the mightiest man in all the universe—the head of police of the Lybedskaya Precinct. “D’you know this woman?” he went on, indicating the text of the paper.
“That’s right, sir.”
“In the first place, let’s have the card you use for her here. So. Sir captain, would you like to have it torn up, or would you permit me to hand it to you?”
“Give it to me.”
“In the second place, what name did she use here?”
“Magda, sir.”
“In the third place, which one of your wenches is the most orderly and quick-witted?”
“I think … Tamara.”
“Tamara? Good enough!”
He leaned out of the doorway and shouted:
“Fetch Tamarka here! Instantly! What? You’re not dressed? Come here the way
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