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

you can’t do anything; they absolutely won’t listen to you, only wave their arms. But that’s only for others. I am Horizon! I can talk him over, the same like Mr. Faltzfein from New Ascania talks to his trained camel. But it happens still more unpleasant, when two competitors in one and the same line come together in the same town. And it happens even worse when it’s some chimney sweep and can’t do business himself and spoils business for you too. Here you go to all sorts of tricks: let him drink till he’s drunk or let him go off somewhere on a false track. Not an easy trade! Besides that, I have one more line⁠—that’s false eyes and teeth. But it ain’t a profitable line. I want to drop it. And besides I’m thinking of leaving all this business. I understand, it’s all right for a young man, in the bloom of his powers, to flutter around like a moth, but once you have a wife, and may be a whole family even⁠ ⁠…” he playfully patted the woman on the knee, from which she became scarlet and looked uncommonly better. “For the Lord has blessed us Jews with fecundity for all our misfortunes⁠ ⁠… Then you want to have some business of your own, you want, you understand, to become settled in one place, so’s there should be a shack of your own, and your own furniture, and your own bedroom, and kitchen⁠ ⁠… Isn’t that so, your excellency?”

“Yes⁠ ⁠… Yes⁠ ⁠… eh⁠—eh⁠ ⁠… Yes, of course, of course,” condescendingly responded the general.

“And so I took with Sarochka a little dowry. What do I mean, a little dowry? Such money that Rothschild would not even want to look at it are in my hands a whole capital already. But it must be said that there are some savings by me, too. The firms I know will give me credit. If God grant it, we shall still eat a piece of bread and a little butter⁠—and on the Sabbaths the tasty gefilteh fisch.”

“That’s fine fish: pike the way the sheenies make it!” said the gasping landowner.

“We shall open up for ourselves the firm of ‘Horizon and Son.’ Isn’t that true, Sarochka⁠—‘and Son?’ And you, I hope, will honour me with your esteemed orders? When you see the sign, ‘Horizon and Son,’ then straight off recollect that you once rode in a car together with a young man, who had grown as foolish as hell from love and from happiness.”

“Ab-solutely!” said the landowner.

And Simon Yakovlevich at once turned to him:

“But I also work by commission broking. To sell an estate, to buy an estate, to arrange a second mortgage⁠—you won’t find a better specialist than me, and such a cheap one at that. I can be of service to you, should the need arise,” and he extended his visiting card to the landowner with a bow, and, by the way, handed a card each to his two neighbours as well.

The landowner dived into a side pocket and also dragged out a card.

“Joseph Ivanovich Vengjenovski,” Simon Yakovlevich read out loud. “Very, very pleased! And so, should you need me⁠ ⁠…”

“Why not? It’s possible⁠ ⁠…” said the landowner meditatively. “Why, yes: perhaps, indeed, a favourable chance has brought us together! Why, I’m just journeying to K⁠⸺ about the sale of a certain forest lodge. Suppose you do that, then⁠—drop in to see me. I always stop at the Grand Hotel. Perhaps we may be able to strike up a deal.”

“Oh, I’m already almost sure, my dearest Joseph Ivanovich!” exclaimed the rejoicing Horizon, and slightly, with the very tips of his fingers, patted Vengjenovski’s kneecap carefully. “You just rest assured; if Horizon has undertaken anything, then you’ll be thanking him like your own father, no more, no less.”

Half an hour later Simon Yakovlevich and the smooth-faced sublieutenant were standing on the platform of the car and smoking.

“Do you often visit K⁠⸺, mister sublieutenant?” asked Horizon.

“Only for the first time⁠—just imagine! Our regiment is stationed at Chernobob. I was born in Moscow, myself.”

“Ai, ai, ai! How’d you come to get into such a faraway place?”

“Well, it just fell out so. There was no other vacancy when I was let out.”

“But then⁠—Chernobob is a hole! The worst little town in all Podolia.”

“That’s true, but it just fell out so.”

“That means, then, that the young officer gent is going to K⁠⸺ to divert himself a little?”

“Yes. I’m thinking of stopping there for two or three days. I’m travelling to Moscow, really. I have received a two months’ leave, but it would be interesting to look over the city on the way. It’s very beautiful, they say.”

“Oh, what are you trying to tell me? A remarkable city! Well, absolutely a European city. If you only knew, what streets, electricity, trolleys, theatres! And if you only knew what cabarets! You’ll lick your own fingers. Positively, positively, I advise you, young man, to pay a visit to the Château des Fleurs, to the Tivoli, and also to ride out to the island. That’s something special. What women, wha-a-at women!”

The lieutenant turned red, took his eyes away, and asked in a voice that quavered:

“Yes, I’ve happened to hear that. Is it possible that they’re really so handsome?”

“Oi! Strike me God! Believe me, there are no handsome women there at all.”

“But⁠—how’s that?”

“Why, this way: there are only raving beauties there. You understand⁠—what a happy blending of bloods! Polish, Little Russian, and Hebrew. How I envy you, young man, that you’re free and alone. In my time I sure would have shown myself! And what’s most remarkable of all, they’re unusually passionate women! Well, just like fire! And do you know something else?” he asked in a whisper of great significance.

“What?” asked the sublieutenant in a fright.

“It’s remarkable, that nowheres, neither in Paris, nor in London⁠—believe me, this was told me by people who had seen the whole wide world⁠—never, nowhere, will you meet with such exquisite ways of making love as in this town. That’s