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 meant it as a brother … I meant it without that …” mumbled Likhonin in confusion.
“I know that kind of brothers. Until the first night … Leave off and don’t talk nonsense to me! It makes me tired to listen to it!”
“Wait, Likhonin!” began the reporter seriously. “Why, you will pile a load beyond your strength upon yourself as well. I’ve known idealists, among the populists, who married peasant girls out of principle. This is just the way they thought—nature, black-loam, untapped forces. … But this black-loam after a year turned into the fattest of women, who lies the whole day in bed and chews cookies, or studs her fingers with penny rings, spreads them out and admires them. Or else sits in the kitchen, drinks sweet liquor with the coachman and carries on a natural romance with him. Look out, here it will be worse!”
All three became silent. Likhonin was pale and was wiping his moist forehead with a handkerchief.
“No, the devil take it!” he cried out suddenly with obstinacy. “I don’t believe you! I don’t want to believe! Liuba,” he called loudly the girl who had fallen asleep. “Liubochka!”
The girl awoke, passed her palm over her lips, first to one side, then the other, yawned, and smiled, in a funny, childlike manner.
“I wasn’t sleeping, I heard everything,” she said. “I only dozed off for a teeny-weeny bit.”
“Liuba, do you want to go away from here with me?” asked Likhonin and took her by the hand. “But entirely, forever, to go away so’s never to return either to a brothel or the street?”
Liuba questioningly, with perplexity, looked at Jennie, as though seeking from her an explanation of this jest.
“That’ll do you,” she said slyly. “You’re still studying yourself. Where do you come in, then, to take a girl and set her up?”
“Not to set you up, Liuba … I simply want to help you … For it isn’t very sweet for you in a brothel, is it now!”
“Naturally, it isn’t all sugar! If I was as proud as Jennechka, or so enticing like Pasha … but I won’t get used to things here for anything …”
“Well, then, let’s go, let’s go! …” entreated Likhonin. “Surely, you know some manual work—well, now, sewing something, embroidering, cutting?”
“I don’t know anything!” answered Liuba bashfully and started laughing and turned red, covering her mouth with the elbow of her free arm. “What’s asked of us in the village, that I know, but anything more I don’t know. I can cook a little … I lived at the priest’s—cooked for him.”
“That’s splendid! That’s excellent!” Likhonin grew joyous. “I will assist you, you’ll open a dining room … A cheap dining room, you understand … I’ll advertise it for you … The students will come! That’s magnificent! …”
“That’s enough of making fun of me!” retorted Liuba, a bit offended, and again looked askance and questioningly at Jennie.
“He’s not joking,” answered Jennie with a voice which quavered strangely. “He’s in earnest, and serious.”
“Here’s my word of honour that I’m serious! Honest to God, now,” the student caught her up with warmth and for some reason even made the sign of the cross in the direction of the empty corner.
“And really,” said Jennie, “take Liubka. That’s not the same thing as taking me. I’m like an old dragoon’s nag, and used to it. You can’t make me over, neither with hay nor a stick. But Liubka is a simple girl and a kind one. And she hasn’t grown used to our life yet. What are you popping your eyes out at me for, you ninny? Answer when you’re asked. Well? Do you want to or don’t you want to?”
“And why not? If they ain’t laughing, but for real … And you, Jennechka, what would you advise me …”
“Oh, you’re such wood!” Jennie grew angry. “What’s better according to you—to rot on straw with a nose fallen through? To croak under the fence like a dog? Or to turn honest? Fool! You ought to kiss his hands; but no, you’re getting particular.”
The naive Liuba did, in fact, extend her lips toward Likhonin’s hand, and this movement made everybody laugh, and touched them just the least trifle.
“And that’s very good! It’s like magic!” bustled the overjoyed Likhonin. “Go and notify the proprietress at once that you’re going away from here forever. And take the most necessary things; it isn’t as it used to be; now a girl can go away from a brothel whenever she wants to.”
“No, it can’t be done that way,” Jennie stopped him; “she can go away, that’s so, but you’ll have no end of unpleasantness and hullabaloo. Here’s what you do, student. You won’t regret ten roubles?”
“Of course, of course … if you please.”
“Let Liuba tell the housekeeper that you’re taking her to your rooms for today. That’s the fixed rate—ten roubles. And afterwards, well, even tomorrow—come after the ticket and things. That’s nothing; we’ll work this thing roundly. And after that you must go to the police with her ticket and declare, that Liubka So-and-so has hired herself to you as chambermaid, and that you desire to exchange her blank for a real passport. Well, Liubka, lively! Take the money and march. And, look out, be as quick as possible with the housekeeper, or else she, the bitch, will read it in your eyes. And also don’t forget,” she cried, now after Liuba, “wipe the rouge off your puss, now. Or else the drivers will be pointing their fingers at you.”
After half an hour Liuba and Likhonin were getting on a cab at the entrance. Jennie and the reporter were standing on the sidewalk.
“You’re committing a great folly, Likhonin,” Platonov was saying listlessly, “but I honour and respect the fine impulse within you. Here’s the thought—and here’s the deed. You’re a brave and a splendid
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