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

that Likhonin is a fine fellow and a splendid man; and I’m ready to do everything, for my part. And I repeat, that knowledge of reading and writing is a secondary matter. It is easy to attain it in play. For such an untouched mind to learn reading, writing, counting, and especially without school, of one’s free will, is like biting a nut in two. And as far as a manual trade is concerned, through which it would be possible to live and earn one’s keep, then there are hundreds of trades, which can be easily mastered in two weeks.”

“For instance?” asked the Prince.

“Well, for instance⁠ ⁠… for instance⁠ ⁠… well, now, for instance, making artificial flowers. Yes, and still better, to get a place as a flower clerk. A charming business, clean and nice.”

“Taste is necessary,” Simanovsky dropped carelessly.

“There are no inborn tastes, as well as abilities. Otherwise talents would be born only in refined, highly educated society; while artists would be born only to artists, and singers to singers; but we don’t see this. However, I won’t argue. Well, if not a flower girl, then something else. I, for instance, saw not long ago in a store show window a miss sitting, and some sort of a little machine with foot-power before her.”

“V-va! Again a little machine!” said the Prince, smiling and looking at Likhonin.

“Stop it, Nijeradze,” answered Likhonin, quietly but sternly. “You ought to be ashamed.”

“Blockhead!” Soloviev threw at him, and continued.

“So, then, the machine moves back and forth, while upon it, on a square frame, is stretched a thin canvas, and really, I don’t know how it’s contrived⁠—I didn’t grasp it: only the miss guides some metallic thingamajig over the screen, and there comes out a fine drawing in varicoloured silks. Just imagine, a lake, all grown over with pond-lilies with their white corollas and yellow stamens, and great green leaves all around. And on the water two white swans are floating toward each other, and in the background is a dark park with an alley; and all this shows finely, distinctly, as on a picture from life. And I became so interested that I went in on purpose to find out how much it costs. It proved to be just the least bit dearer than an ordinary sewing machine, and it’s sold on terms. And anyone who can sew a little on a common machine can learn this art in an hour. And there’s a great number of charming original designs. And the main thing is that such work is very readily taken for fire-screens, albums, lampshades, curtains and other rubbish, and the pay is decent.”

“After all, that’s a sort of a trade, too,” agreed Likhonin, and stroked his beard in meditation. “But, to confess, here’s what I wanted to do. I wanted to open up for her⁠ ⁠… to open up a little cook-shop or dining room, the very tiniest to start with, of course, but one in which all the food is cheap, clean and tasty. For it’s absolutely all the same to many students where they dine and what they eat. There are almost never enough places to go round in the students’ dining room. And so we may succeed, perhaps, in pulling in all our acquaintances and friends, somehow.”

“That’s true,” said the Prince, “but impractical as well; we’ll begin to board on credit. And you know what accurate payers we are. A practical man, a knave, is needed for such an undertaking; and if a woman, then one with a pike’s teeth; and even then a man must absolutely stick right at her back. Really, it’s not for Likhonin to stand at the counter and to watch that somebody shouldn’t suddenly slip away, after duly dining and wining.”

Likhonin looked straight at him, insolently, but only set his jaws and let it pass in silence.

Simanovsky began in his measured, incontrovertible tone, toying with the glasses of his pince-nez:

“Your intention is splendid, gentlemen, beyond dispute. But have you turned your attention to a certain shady aspect, so to speak? For to open a dining room, to start some business⁠—all this in the beginning demands money, assistance⁠—somebody else’s back, so to speak. The money is not grudged⁠—that is true, I agree with Likhonin; but then, does not such a beginning of an industrious life, when every step is provided for⁠—does it not lead to inevitable laxity and negligence, and, in the very end, to an indifferent disdain for business? Even a child does not learn to walk until it has flopped down some fifty times. No; if you really want to help this poor girl, you must give her a chance of getting on her feet at once, like a toiling being, and not like a drone. True, there is a great temptation here⁠—the burden of labour, temporary need; but then, if she will surmount this, she will surmount the rest as well.”

“What, then, according to you, is she to become⁠—a dishwasher?” asked Soloviev with unbelief.

“Well, yes,” calmly retorted Simanovsky. “A dishwasher, a laundress, a cook. All toil elevates a human being.”

Likhonin shook his head.

“Words of gold. Wisdom itself speaks with your lips, Simanovsky. Dishwasher, cook, maid, housekeeper⁠ ⁠… but, in the first place, it’s doubtful if she’s capable for that; in the second place, she has already been a maid and has tasted all the sweets of masters’ bawlings out, and masters’ pinches behind doors, in the corridor. Tell me, is it possible you don’t know that ninety percent, of prostitution is recruited from the number of female servants? And, therefore, poor Liuba, at the very first injustice, at the first rebuff, will the more easily and readily go just there where I have gotten her out of; if not even worse, because for her that’s customary and not so frightful; and, perhaps, it will even seem desirable after the masters’ treatment. And besides that, is it worth while for me⁠—that is, I want to say⁠—is it worth while for all of us, to go