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

Of all his words Liubka understood exactly not a one. She still felt herself guilty of something and somehow shrank all up, grew sad, bowed her head and became quiet. A little more and she, in all probability, would have burst out crying in the middle of the street; but fortunately, they by this time had driven up to the house where Likhonin was staying.

“Well, here we are at home,” said the student. “Stop, driver!”

And when he had paid him, he could not refrain from declaiming with pathos, his hand extended theatrically straight before him:

“And into my house, calm and fearless,
As its full mistress walk thou in!”

And again the unfathomable, prophetic smile wrinkled the aged brown face of the cabby.

The room in which Likhonin lived was situated on the fifth story and a half. And a half, because there are such five, six, and seven-story profitable houses, packed to overflowing and cheap, on top of which are erected still other sorry bug-breeders of roof iron, something in the nature of mansards; or more exactly, birdhouses, in which it is fearfully cold in winter, while in the summer time it is just as torrid as in the tropics. Liubka with difficulty clambered upward. It seemed to her that now, now, two steps more, and she would drop straight down on the steps and fall into a sleep from which nothing would be able to wake her. But Likhonin was saying all the time:

“My dear! I can see you are tired. But that’s nothing. Lean upon me. We are going upwards all the time! Always higher and higher! Is this not a symbol of all human aspirations? My comrade, my sister, lean upon my arm!”

Here it became still worse for poor Liubka. As it was, she could barely go up alone, but here she also had to drag in tow Likhonin, who had grown extremely heavy. And his weight would not really have mattered; his wordiness, however, was beginning to irritate her little by little. So irritates at times the ceaseless, wearisome crying, like a toothache, of an infant at breast; the piercing whimpering of a canary; or someone whistling without pause and out of tune in an adjoining room.

Finally, they reached Likhonin’s room. There was no key in the door. And, as a rule, it was never even locked with a key. Likhonin pushed the door and they entered. It was dark in the room, because the window curtains were lowered. It smelt of mice, kerosene, yesterday’s vegetable soup, long-used bed linen, stale tobacco smoke. In the half-dusk someone who could not be seen was snoring deafeningly and with variations.

Likhonin raised the shade. There were the usual furnishings of a poor student: a sagging, unmade bed with a crumpled blanket; a lame table, and on it a candlestick without a candle; several books on the floor and on the table; cigarette stubs everywhere; and opposite the bed, along the other wall, an old, old divan, upon which at the present moment was sleeping and snoring, with mouth wide open, some young man with black hair and moustache. The collar of his shirt was unbuttoned and through its opening could be seen his chest covered with black hair, the like of which for thickness and curliness could be found only on Persian lambs.

“Nijeradze! Hey, Nijeradze, get up!” cried Likhonin and prodded the sleeper in the ribs. “Prince!”

“M-m-m⁠ ⁠…”

“May your race be even accursed in the person of your ancestors and descendants! May they even be exiled from the heights of the beauteous Caucasus! May they even never behold Georgia the blessed! Get up, you skunk! Get up you Aravian dromedary! Kintoshka!⁠ ⁠…”

But suddenly, unexpectedly for Likhonin, Liubka intervened. She took him by the arm and said timidly:

“Darling, why torture him? Maybe he wants to sleep, maybe he’s tired? Let him sleep a bit. I’d better go home. Will you give me a half for a cabby? Tomorrow you’ll come to me again. Isn’t that so, sweetie?”

Likhonin was abashed. So strange did the intervention of this silent, apparently sleepy girl, appear to him. Of course, he did not grasp that she was actuated by an instinctive, unconscious pity for a man who had not had enough sleep; or, perhaps, a professional regard for the sleep of other people. But the astonishment was only momentary. For some reason he became offended. He raised the hand of the recumbent man, which hung down to the floor, with the extinguished cigarette still remaining between its fingers, and, shaking it hard, he said in a serious, almost severe voice:

“Listen, now, Nijeradze, I’m asking you seriously. Understand, now, may the devil take you, that I’m not alone, but with a woman. Swine!”

It was as though a miracle had happened: the lying man suddenly jumped up, as though some spring of unusual force had instantaneously unwound under him. He sat down on the divan, rapidly rubbed with his palms his eyes, forehead, temples; saw the woman, became confused at once, and muttered, hastily buttoning his blouse:

“Is that you, Likhonin? And here I was waiting and waiting for you and fell asleep. Request the unknown lady comrade to turn away for just a minute.”

He hastily pulled on his gray, everyday student’s coat, and rumpled up with all the fingers of both his hands his luxuriant black curls. Liubka, with the coquetry natural to all women, no matter in what years or situation they find themselves, walked up to the sliver of a mirror hanging on the wall, to fix her hair-dress. Nijeradze askance, questioningly, only with the movement of his eyes, indicated her to Likhonin.

“Never mind. Don’t pay any attention,” answered the other aloud. “But let’s get out of here, however. I’ll tell you everything right away. Excuse me, Liubochka, it’s only for a minute. I’ll come back at once, fix you up, and then evaporate, like smoke.”

“But don’t trouble yourself,” replied Liubka: “it’ll be all right for me here, right on this