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

face distorted, was looking at her with blurred eyes and jabbering whatever came into his head:

“My dear⁠ ⁠… It’s all the same⁠ ⁠… a second of enjoyment!⁠ ⁠… You and I will blend in enjoyment!⁠ ⁠… No one will find out!⁠ ⁠… Be mine!⁠ ⁠…”

It was just at this very minute that Likhonin walked into the room.

Of course, at soul he did not admit to himself that this minute he would commit a vileness; but only somehow from the side, at a distance, reflected that his face was pale, and that his immediate words would be tragic and of great significance.

“Yes!” he said dully, like an actor in the fourth act of a drama; and, letting his hands drop impotently, began to shake his chin, which had fallen upon his breast. “I expected everything, only not this. You I excuse, Liuba⁠—you are a troglodyte; but you, Simanovsky⁠ ⁠… I esteemed you⁠ ⁠… however, I still esteem you a decent man. But I know, from personal experience, that passion is at times stronger than the arguments of reason. Right here are fifty roubles⁠—I am leaving them for Liuba; you, of course, will return them to me later, I have no doubt of that. Arrange her destiny!⁠ ⁠… You are a wise, kind, honest man, while I am⁠ ⁠… (‘A skunk!’ somebody’s distinct, venomously crafty voice flashed through his head.) I am going away, because I will not be able to bear this torture any more. Be happy.”

He snatched out of his pocket and with effect threw his wallet on the table; then clutched his hair and dashed out of the room. In the doorway he managed to cry out:

“Your passport is in my desk!”

Still, this was the best way out for him. And the scene had been played out precisely as he had dreamt of it.

Part III I

All this Liubka told at length and disjointedly, sobbing on Jennka’s shoulder. Of course, in her personal elucidation this tragicomical history proved altogether unlike what it had been in reality.

Likhonin, according to her words, had taken her to him only to entice, to tempt her; to have as much use as possible out of her foolishness, and then to abandon her. But she, the fool, had in truth fallen in love⁠—with him, and since she was very jealous about him and all these tousled girls in leather belts, he had done a low-down thing: had sent up his comrade on purpose, had framed it up with him, and the other had begun to hug Liubka, and Vasska came in, saw it, and kicked up a great row, and chased Liubka out into the street.

Of course, in her version there were two almost equal parts of truth and untruth; but so, at least, all this had appeared to her.

She also told with great details how, having found herself without masculine support or without anybody’s powerful extraneous influence, she had hired a garret room in a rather wretched little hotel, on a retired street; how even from the first day the boots, a tough bird, a hard-boiled egg, had attempted to trade in her, without even having asked her permission thereto; how she had moved from the hotel to a private room, but even there had been overtaken by an experienced old woman, a go-between, with whose like the houses inhabited by poverty swarm.

Therefore, even with quiet living, there was in the face, in the conversation, and in the entire manner of Liubka something peculiar, specific to the casual eye; perhaps even entirely imperceptible, but for the business scent as plain and as irrefutable as the day.

But the chance, brief, sincere love had given her the strength to oppose the inevitability of a second fall. In her heroic courage she even went so far as putting in a few notices in the newspapers, that she was seeking a place with “all found.” However, she had no recommendation of any sort. In addition, she had to do exclusively with women⁠—proprietresses of “employment offices”⁠—when it came to the hiring; and they also, with a professional, inner, infallible instinct, surmised in her their ancient foe⁠—the seductress of their husbands, brothers, fathers, and sons. They did not want to give her a decent place, but shoved under her nose either lonesome little ancients, or stout ladies with a feral gaze, with pudgy, diamond-studded fingers, with rough, hoarse voices⁠—ladies in whom, without difficulty, through experience, Liuba recognised the proprietresses of petty, soldiers’ bordellos, and of low, secret dives.

There was neither sense nor use in going home. Her native Vassilkovsky district is only fifteen versts distant from the state capital; and the rumour that she had entered that sort of an establishment had long since penetrated, by means of her fellow-villagers, into the village. This was written of in letters, and transmitted verbally, by those village neighbours who had seen her both on the street and at Anna Markovna’s place itself⁠—porters and bellhops of hotels, waiters at small restaurants, cabbies, small contractors. She knew what odour this fame would give off if she were to return to her native haunts. It were better to hang one’s self than to endure this.

She was as uneconomical and impractical in money matters as a five-year-old child, and in a short while was left without a kopeck; while to go back to the brothel was fearful and shameful. But the temptations of street prostitution turned up of themselves, and at every step begged to be seized. In the evenings, on the main street, old hardened street prostitutes at once unerringly guessed her former profession. Ever and anon one of them, having come alongside of her, would begin in a sweet, ingratiating voice:

“How is it, young lady, that you’re walking alone? Let’s be mates. Let’s walk together. That’s always more convenient. Whenever men want to pass the time pleasantly with girls, they always love to get up a party of four.

“Yes, and besides that, it’s more profitable also for you to go cruising with me. I know the