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

so often did her face flare up with an unexpected colour at every tenderness of her husband, even the least. And when she raised her eyelashes to look upon him, her eyes would shine like stars, and grow humid. And her face was as beautiful as only the faces of young Hebrew maidens in love can be beautiful⁠—all tenderly rosy, with rosy lips, rounded out in beautiful innocence, and with eyes so black that their pupils could not be distinguished from the irises.

Unabashed by the presence of three strange people, he showered his caresses upon his companion every minute, and, it must be said, sufficiently coarse ones. With the unceremoniousness of an owner, with that especial egoism of one in love, who, it would seem, is saying to the whole universe: “See, how happy we are⁠—this makes you happy also, isn’t that so?”⁠—he would now pass his hand over her leg, which resiliently and in relief stood out beneath her dress, now pinch her on the cheek, now tickle her neck with his stiff, black, turned-up moustache⁠ ⁠… But, even though he did sparkle with delight, there was still something rapacious, wary, uneasy to be glimpsed in his frequently winking eyes, in the twitching of the upper lip, and in the harsh outline of his shaved, square chin, jutting out, with a scarcely noticeable dent in the middle.

Opposite this infatuated couple were placed three passengers⁠—a retired general, a spare, neat little old man, with pomade on his hair, its locks combed forward to the temples; a stout landowner, who had taken off his starched collar, but was still gasping from the heat and mopping his face every minute with a wet handkerchief; and a young infantry officer. The endless talkativeness of Simon Yakovlevich (the young man had already managed to inform his neighbours that he was called Simon Yakovlevich Horizon) tired and irritated the passengers a trifle, just like the buzzing of a fly, that on a sultry summer day rhythmically beats against a window pane of a closed, stuffy room. But still, he knew how to raise their spirits: he showed tricks of magic; he told Hebrew anecdotes, full of a fine humour of their own. When his wife would go out on the platform to refresh herself, he would tell such things that the general would melt into a beatific smile, the landowner would neigh, rocking his black-loam stomach, while the sublieutenant, a smooth-faced boy, only a year out of school, scarcely controlling his laughter and curiosity, would turn away to one side, that his neighbours might not see him turning red.

His wife tended Horizon with a touching, naive attention; she wiped his face with a handkerchief, waved upon him with a fan, adjusted his cravat every minute. And his face at these times became laughably supercilious and stupidly self-conceited.

“But allow me to ask,” asked the spare little general, coughing politely, “allow me to ask, my dear sir, what occupation might you pursue?”

“Ah, my God!” with a charming frankness retorted Simon Yakovlevich. “Well, what can a poor Jew do in our time? It’s a bit of a travelling salesman and a commission broker by me. At the present time I’m far from business. You⁠—he! he! he!⁠—understand yourselves, gentlemen. A honeymoon⁠—don’t turn red, Sarochka⁠—it don’t repeat itself three times in a year. But afterwards I’ll have to travel and work a great deal. Here we’ll come with Sarochka to town, will pay the visits to her relatives, and then again on the road. On my first trip I’m thinking of taking my wife. You know, sort of a wedding journey. I’m a representative from Sidris and two English firms. Wouldn’t you like to have a look? Here are the samples with me⁠ ⁠…”

He very rapidly took out of a small, elegant case of yellow leather a few long cardboard folding books, and with the dexterity of a tailor began to unfold them, holding one end, from which their folds fell downward with a light crackling.

“Look, what splendid samples: they don’t give in to foreign ones at all. Please notice. Here, for instance, is Russian and here English tricot, or here, cangan and cheviot. Compare, feel it, and you’ll be convinced that the Russian samples almost don’t give in to the foreign. Why, that speaks of progress, of the growth of culture. So it’s absolutely for nothing that Europe counts us Russians such barbarians.

“And so we’ll pay our family visits, will look at the fair, pay a visit to the Château des Fleurs, enjoy ourselves a little, stroll a bit, and then to the Volga down to Tzaritzin, to the Black Sea, and then again home to our native Odessa.”

“That’s a fine journey,” said the sublieutenant modestly.

“I should say it’s fine,” agreed Simon Yakovlevich; “but there are no roses without thorns. The work of a travelling salesman is exceedingly difficult and requires many kinds of knowledge, and not so much the knowledge of business as the knowledge of⁠—how shall I say it?⁠—the knowledge of the human soul. Another man may not even want to give an order, but you must work like an elephant to convince him, and argue until he feels the clearness and justice of your words. Because I take only absolutely clean lines exclusively, of which there can be no doubts. A fake or a bad line I will not take, although they should offer me millions for it. Ask wherever you like, in any store which deals in cloths or suspenders Gloire⁠—I’m also a representative from this firm⁠—or buttons Helios⁠—you just ask who Simon Yakovlevich Horizon is, and everyone will answer you: ‘Simon Yakovlevich is not a man, but gold; this is a disinterested man, as honest as a diamond.’ ” And Horizon was already unpacking long boxes with patented suspenders, and was showing the glistening leaves of cardboard, covered with regular rows of varicoloured buttons.

“There happen great unpleasantnesses, when the place has been worked out, when a lot of travelling salesmen have appeared before you. Here