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

“The first family quarrel,” thought Likhonin, but thought it without malice, in jest.

The wash-up, the beauty of the gold and blue southern sky, and the naive, partly submissive, partly displeased face of Liubka, as well as the consciousness that after all he was a man, and that he and not she had to answer for the porridge he had cooked⁠—all this together braced up his nerves and compelled him to take himself in hand. He opened the door and roared into the darkness of the stinking corridor:

“Al-lexa-andra! A samova-ar! Two lo-oaves, bu-utter, and sausage! And a small bottle of vo-odka!”

The patter of slippers was heard in the corridor, and an aged voice, even from afar, began to speak thickly:

“What are you bawlin’ for? What are you bawlin’ for, eh? Ho, ho, ho! Like a stallion in a stall. You ain’t little, to look at you; you’re grown up already, yet you carry on like a street boy! Well, what do you want?”

Into the room walked a little old woman, with red-lidded eyes, like little narrow cracks, and with a face amazingly like parchment, upon which a long, sharp nose stuck downward, morosely and ominously. This was Alexandra, the servant of old of the student birdhouses; the friend and creditor of all the students; a woman of sixty-five, argumentative, and a grumbler.

Likhonin repeated his order to her and gave her a rouble note. But the old woman would not go away; shuffled in one place, snorted, chewed with her lips and looked inimically at the girl sitting⁠—with her back to the light.

“What’s the matter with you now, Alexandra, that you seem ossified?” asked Likhonin, laughing. “Or are you lost in admiration? Well, then, know: this is my cousin, my first cousin, that is⁠—Liubov⁠ ⁠…”23 he was confused for only a second, but immediately fired away: “Liubov Vasilievna, but for me⁠—simply Liubochka. I’ve known her when she was only that high,” he showed a quarter of a yard off the table. “And I pulled her ears and slapped her for her caprices over the place where the legs grow from. And then⁠ ⁠… I caught all sorts of bugs for her⁠ ⁠… But, however⁠ ⁠… However, you go on, go on, you Egyptian mummy, you fragment of former ages! Let one leg be here and the other there!”

But the old woman lingered. Stamping all around herself, she barely, barely turned to the door and kept a keen, spiteful, sidelong glance on Liubka. And at the same time she muttered with her sunken mouth:

“First cousin! We know these first cousins! There’s lots of ’em walkin’ around Kashtanovaya Street. There, these he-dogs can never get enough!”

“Well, you old barque! Lively and don’t growl!” Likhonin shouted after her. “Or else, like your friend, the student Triassov, I’ll take and lock you up in the dressing room for twenty-four hours!”

Alexandra went away, and for a long time her aged, flapping steps and indistinct muttering could be heard in the corridor. She was inclined, in her austere, grumbling kindliness, to forgive a great deal to the studying youths, whom she had served for nigh unto forty years. She forgave drunkenness, card playing, scandals, loud singing, debts; but, alas! she was a virgin, and there was only one thing her continent soul could not abide⁠—libertinage.

“And that’s splendid⁠ ⁠… And fine and charming,” Likhonin was saying, bustling about the lame table and without need shifting the tea things from one place to another. “For a long time, like an old crocodile, I haven’t drunk tea as it should be drunk, in a Christian manner, in a domestic setting. Sit down, Liuba, sit down, my dear, right here on the divan, and keep house. Vodka, in all probability, you don’t drink of a morning, but I, with your permission, will drink some⁠ ⁠… This braces up the nerves right off. Make mine a little stronger, please, with a piece of lemon. Ah, what can taste better than a glass of hot tea, poured out by charming feminine hands?”

Liubka listened to his chatter, a trifle too noisy to seem fully natural; and her smile, in the beginning mistrusting, wary, was softening and brightening. But she did not get on with the tea especially well. At home, in the backwoods village, where this beverage was still held a rarity, the dainty luxury of well-to-do families, to be brewed only for honored guests and on great holidays⁠—there over the pouring of the tea officiated the eldest man of the family. Later, when Liubka served with “all found” in the little provincial capital city, in the beginning at a priest’s, and later with an insurance agent (who had been the first to put her on the road of prostitution)⁠—she was usually left some strained, tepid tea, which had already been drunk off, with a bit of gnawn sugar, by the mistress herself⁠—the thin, jaundiced, malicious wife of the priest; or the wife of the agent, a fat, old, wrinkled, malignant, greasy, jealous and stingy common woman. Therefore, the simple business of preparing the tea was now as difficult for her as it is difficult for all of us in childhood to distinguish the left hand from the right, or to tie a rope in a small noose. The bustling Likhonin only hindered her and threw her into confusion.

“My dear, the art of brewing tea is a great art. It ought to be studied at Moscow. At first a dry teapot is slightly warmed up. Then the tea is put into it and is quickly scalded with boiling water. The first liquid must at once be poured off into the slop-bowl⁠—the tea thus becomes purer and more aromatic; and by the way, it’s also known that Chinamen are pagans and prepare their herb very filthily. After that the teapot must be filled anew, up to a quarter of its volume; left on the tray, covered over with a towel and kept so for three