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

and started in telling him lots and lots about the life here, which I do not tell you for fear of boring you. I begged him to utilize my material. He heard me out with great attention, and this is what he said, literally: ‘Don’t get offended, Platonov, if I tell you that there’s almost not a single person of those I have met during my life, who wouldn’t thrust themes for novels and stories upon me, or teach me as to what ought to be written up. That material which you have just communicated to me is truly unencompassable in its significance and weightiness. But what shall I do with it? In order to write a colossal book such as the one you have in mind, the words of others do not suffice⁠—even though they be the most exact; even observations, made with a little notebook and a bit of pencil, do not suffice. One must grow accustomed to this life, without being cunningly wise, without any ulterior thoughts of writing. Then a terrific book will result.’

“His words discouraged me and at the same time gave me wings. Since that time I believe, that now, not soon⁠—after fifty years or so⁠—but there will come a writer of genius, and precisely a Russian one, who will absorb within himself all the burdens and all the abominations of this life and will cast them forth to us in the form of simple, fine, and deathlessly-caustic images. And we shall all say: ‘Why, now, we, ourselves, have seen and known all this, but we could not even suppose that this is so horrible!’ In this coming artist I believe with all my heart.”

“Amen!” said Likhonin seriously. “Let us drink to him.”

“But, honest to God,” suddenly declared Little Manka, “If someone would only write the truth about the way we live here, miserable whores that we are⁠ ⁠…”

There was a knock at the door, and at once Jennie entered in her resplendent orange dress.

XI

She greeted all the men without embarrassment, with the independent bearing of the first personage in the house, and sat down near Sergei Ivanich, behind his chair. She had just gotten free from that same German in the uniform of the benevolent organization, who early in the evening had made Little White Manka his choice, but had afterwards changed her, at the recommendation of the housekeeper, for Pasha. But the provoking and self-assured beauty of Jennie must have smitten deeply his lecherous heart, for, having prowled some three hours through certain beer emporiums and restaurants, and having there gathered courage, he had again returned into the house of Anna Markovna, had waited until her time-guest⁠—Karl Karlovich, from the optical store⁠—had gone away from Jennie, and had taken her into a room.

To the silent question in Tamara’s eyes Jennie made a wry face of disgust, shivered with her back and nodded her head affirmatively.

“He’s gone⁠ ⁠… Brrr!⁠ ⁠…”

Platonov was looking at Jennie with extraordinary attentiveness. He distinguished her from the rest of the girls and almost respected her for her abrupt, refractory, and impudently mocking character. And now, turning around occasionally, by her flaming, splendid eyes, by the vividly and unevenly glowing unhealthy red of her cheeks, by the much bitten parched lips, he felt that her great, long ripening rancour was heavily surging within the girl and suffocating her. And it was then that he thought (and subsequently often recalled this) that he had never yet seen Jennie so radiantly beautiful as on this night. He also noticed, that all the men present in the private cabinet, with the exception of Likhonin, were looking at her⁠—some frankly, others by stealth and as though in passing⁠—with curiosity and furtive desire. The beauty of this woman, together with the thought of her altogether easy accessibility, at any minute, agitated their imagination.

“There’s something working upon you, Jennie,” said Platonov quietly.

Caressingly, she just barely drew her fingers over his arm.

“Don’t pay any attention. Just so⁠ ⁠… our womanish affairs⁠ ⁠… It won’t be interesting to you.”

But immediately, turning to Tamara, she passionately and rapidly began saying something in an agreed jargon, which presented a wild mixture out of the Hebrew, Tzigani and Romanian tongues and the cant words of thieves and horse-thieves.

“Don’t try to put anything over on the fly guy, the fly guy is next,” Tamara cut her short and with a smile indicated the reporter with her eyes.

Platonov had, in fact, understood. Jennie was telling with indignation that during this day and night, thanks to the influx of a cheap public, the unhappy Pashka had been taken into a room more than ten times⁠—and all by different men. Only just now she had had a hysterical fit, ending in a faint. And now, scarcely having brought Pashka back to consciousness and braced her up on valerian drops in a glass of spirits, Emma Edwardovna had again sent her into the drawing room. Jennie had attempted to take the part of her comrade, but the housekeeper had cursed the intercessor out and had threatened her with punishment.

“What is it all about?” asked Yarchenko in perplexity, raising high his eyebrows.

“Don’t trouble yourself⁠ ⁠… nothing out of the way⁠ ⁠…” answered Jennie in a still agitated voice. “Just so⁠ ⁠… our little family trifles⁠ ⁠… Sergei Ivanich, may I have some of your wine?”

She poured out half a glass for herself and drank the cognac off at a draught, distending her thin nostrils wide.

Platonov got up in silence and went toward the door.

“It’s not worth while, Sergei Ivanich. Drop it⁠ ⁠…” Jennie stopped him.

“Oh no, why not?” objected the reporter. “I shall do a very simple and innocent thing, take Pasha here, and if need be⁠—pay for her, even. Let her lie down here for a while on the divan and rest, even though a little⁠ ⁠… Niura, run for a pillow quick!”

Scarcely had the door shut behind his broad, ungainly figure in its gray clothes, when Boris Sobashnikov at once commenced speaking with a contemptuous bitterness:

“Gentlemen, what the devil for have