Yama (The Pit) Part 33

And then again imaginary dialogues would run through his head:

"You have no right to hold this girl against her wish."

"Yes, but let her herself give notice about going away."

"I act at her instruction."

"All right; but how can you prove this?" and again he would mentally cut himself short.

The city common began, on which cows were browsing; a board sidewalk along a fence; shaky little bridges over little brooklets and ditches.

Then he turned into the Yamskaya. In the house of Anna Markovna all the windows were closed with shutters, with openings, in the form of hearts, cut out in the middle. And all of the remaining houses on the deserted street, desolated as though after a pestilence, were closed as well. With a contracting heart Lichonin pulled the bell-handle.

A maid, barefooted, with skirt caught up, with a wet rag in her hand, with face striped from dirt, answered the bell--she had just been washing the floor.

"I'd like to see Jennka," timidly requested Lichonin.

"Well, now, the young lady is busy with a guest. They haven't waked up yet."

"Well, Tamara then."

The maid looked at him mistrustfully.

"Miss Tamara--I don't know... I think she's busy too. But what you want--to pay a visit, or what?"

"Ah, isn't it all the same! A visit, let's say."

"I don't know. I'll go and look. Wait a while."

She went away, leaving Lichonin in the half-dark drawing room. The blue pillars of dust, coming from the openings in the shutters, pierced the heavy obscurity in all directions. Like hideous spots stood out of the gray murkiness the bepainted furniture and the sweetish oleographs on the walls. It smelt of yesterday's tobacco, of dampness, sourness; and of something else peculiar, indeterminate, uninhabited, of which places that are lived in only temporarily always smell in the morning--such as empty theatres, dance-halls, auditoriums. Far off in the city a droshky rumbled intermittently. The wall-clock monotonously ticked behind the wall. In a strange agitation Lichonin walked back and forth through the drawing room and rubbed and kneaded his trembling hands, and for some reason was stooping and felt cold.

"I shouldn't have started all this false comedy," he thought with irritation. "It goes without saying that I've now become the by-word of the entire university. The devil nudged me! And even during the day yesterday it wasn't too late, when she was saying that she was ready to go back. All I had to do was to give her for a cabby and a little pin money, and she'd have gone, and all would have been fine; and I would be independent now, free, and wouldn't be undergoing this tormenting and ignominious state of spirits. But it's too late to retreat now.

To-morrow it'll be still later, and the day after to-morrow--still more. Having pulled off one fool stunt, it must be immediately put a stop to; but on the other hand, if you don't do that in time, it draws two others after it, and they--twenty new ones. Or, perhaps, it's not too late now? Why, she's silly, undeveloped, and, probably, a hysteric, like the rest of them. She's an animal, fit only for stuffing herself and for the bed. Oh! The devil!" Lichonin forcefully squeezed his cheeks and his forehead between his hands and shut his eyes. "And if I had but held out against the common, coa.r.s.e, physical temptation!

There, you see for yourself, this has happened twice already; and then it'll go on and on ..."

But side by side with these ran other thoughts, opposed to them:

"But then, I'm a man. I am master of my word. For that which urged me on to this deed was splendid, n.o.ble, lofty. I remember very well that rapture which seized me when my thought transpired into action! That was a pure, tremendous feeling. Or was it simply an extravagance of the mind, whipped up by alcohol; the consequence of a sleepless night, smoking, and long, abstract conversations?"

And immediately Liubka would appear before him, appear at a distance, as though out of the misty depths of time; awkward, timid, with her homely and endearing face, which had at once come to seem of infinitely close kinship; long, long familiar, and at the same time unpleasant--unjustly, without cause.

"Can it be that I'm a coward and a rag?" cried Lichonin inwardly and wrung his hands. "What am I afraid of, before whom am I embarra.s.sed?

Have I not always prided myself upon being sole master of my life?

Let's suppose, even, that the phantasy, the extravagance, of making a psychological experiment upon a human soul--a rare experiment, unsuccessful in ninety-nine percent--has entered my head. Is it possible that I must render anybody an account in this, or fear anybody's opinion? Lichonin! Look down upon mankind from above!"

Jennie walked into the room, dishevelled, sleepy, in a night jacket on top of a white underskirt.

"A-a!" she yawned, extending her hand to Lichonin. "How d'you do, my dear student! How does your Liubochka feel herself in the new place?

Call me in as a guest some time. Or are you spending your honeymoon on the quiet? Without any outside witnesses?"

"Drop the silly stuff, Jennechka. I came about the pa.s.sport."

"So-o. About the pa.s.sport," Jennka went into thought. "That is, there's no pa.s.sport here, but you must take a blank from the housekeeper. You understand, our usual prost.i.tute's blank; and then they'll exchange it for you for a real book at the station house. Only you see, my dear, I will be but ill help to you in this business. They are as like as not to beat me up if I come near a housekeeper or a porter. But here's what you do. You'd best send the maid for the housekeeper; tell her to say that a certain guest, now, a steady one, has come on business; that it's very urgent to see her personally. But you must excuse me--I'm going to back out, and don't you be angry, please. You know yourself--charity begins at home. But why should you hang around by yourself in this here darkness? You'd better go into the cabinet. If you want to, I'll send you beer there. Or, perhaps you want coffee? Or else," and her eyes sparkled slyly, "or else a girlie, perhaps? Tamara is busy, but may be Niura or Verka will do?"

"Stop it, Jennie! I came about a serious and important matter, but you ..."

"Well, well, I won't, I won't! I said it just so. I see that you observe faithfulness. That's very n.o.ble on your part. Let's go, then."

She led him into the cabinet, and, opening the inner bolt of the shutter, threw it wide open. The daylight softly and sadly splashed against the red and gold walls, over the candelabra, over the soft red velveteen furniture.

"Right here it began," reflected Lichonin with sad regret.

"I am going," said Jennka. "Don't you knuckle down too much before her, and Simeon too. Abuse them for all you're worth. It's daytime now, and they won't dare do anything to you. If anything happens, tell them straight that, now, you're going to the governor immediately and are going to tell on them. Tell 'em, that they'll be closed up and put out of town in twenty-four hours. Bawl 'em out and they get like silk.

Well, now, I wish you success."

She went away. After ten minutes had pa.s.sed, into the cabinet floated Emma Edwardovna, the housekeeper, in a blue satin PEGNOIR; corpulent, with an important face, broadening from the forehead down to the cheeks, just like a monstrous squash; with all her ma.s.sive chins and b.r.e.a.s.t.s; with small, keen eyes, without eyelashes; with thin, malicious, compressed lips. Lichonin, arising, pressed the puffy hand extended to him, studded with rings, and suddenly thought with aversion:

"The devil take it! If this vermin had a soul, if it were possible to read this soul--then how many direct and indirect murders are lurking hidden within it!"

It must be said, that in starting out for the Yamkas, Lichonin, besides money, had fetched a revolver along with him; and on the road, while walking, he had frequently shoved his hand into his pocket and had there felt the chill contact of the metal. He expected affront, violence, and was prepared to meet them in a suitable manner. But, to his amazement, all that he had presupposed and had feared proved a timorous, fantastic fiction. The business was far more simple, more wearisome and more prosaic, and at the same time more unpleasant.

"JA, MEIN HERR," said the housekeeper indifferently and somewhat loftily, settling into a low chair and lighting a cigarette. "You pay for one night and instead of that took already the girl for one more night and one more day. ALSO, you owe twenty-five more roubles yet.

When we let off a girlie for a night we take ten roubles, and for the twenty-four hours twenty-five roubles. That's a tax, like. Don't you want a smoke, young man?" she stretched out her case, and Lichonin, without himself knowing why, took a cigarette.

"I wanted to talk with you about something else entirely."

"O! Don't trouble yourself to speak: I understand everything very well.

Probably the young man wants to take these girl, those Liubka, altogether to himself to set her up, or in order to--how do you Russians call it?--in order to safe her? Yes, yes, yes, that happens.

Twenty-two years I live in a brothel, and I know, that this happens with very foolish young peoples. But only I a.s.sure you, that from this will come nothing out."

"Whether it will come out or whether it won't come out--that is already my affair," answered Lichonin dully, looking down at his fingers, trembling on his knees.

"O, of course, it's your affair, my young student," and the flabby cheeks and majestic chins of Emma Edwardovna began to jump from inaudible laughter. "From my soul I wish for you love and friendship; but only trouble yourself to tell this nasty creature, this Liubka, that she shouldn't dare to show even her nose here, when you throw her out into the street like a little doggie. Let her croak from hunger under a fence, or go into a half-rouble establishment for the soldiers!"

"Believe me, she won't return. I ask you merely to give me her certificate, without delay."

"The certificate? ACH, if you please! Even this very minute. Only I will first trouble you to pay for everything that she took here on credit. Have a look, here is her account book. I took it along with me on purpose. I knew already with what our conversation would end." She took out of the slit of her PEGNOIR--showing Lichonin for just a minute her fat, full-fleshed, yellow, enormous breast--a little book in a black cover, with the heading: ACCOUNT OF MISS IRENE VOSCHHENKOVA IN THE HOUSE OF ILL-FAME, MAINTAINED BY ANNA MARKOVNA SHAIBES, ON YAM-SKAYA STREET, NO. SO-AND-SO, and extended it to him across the table. Lichonin turned over the first page and read through four or five paragraphs of the printed rules. There dryly and briefly it was stated that the account book consists of two copies, of which one is kept by the proprietress while the other remains with the prost.i.tute; that all income and expense were entered into both books; that by agreement the prost.i.tute receives board, quarters, heat, light, bed linen, baths and so forth, and for this pays out to the proprietress in no case more than two-thirds of her earnings; while out of the remaining money she is bound to dress neatly and decently, having no less than two dresses for going out. Further, mention was made of the fact that payment was made with the help of stamps, which the proprietress gives out to the prost.i.tute upon receipt of money from her; while the account is drawn up at the end of every month. And, finally, that the prost.i.tute can at any time leave the house of prost.i.tution, even if there does remain a debt of hers, which, however, she binds herself to cancel on the basis of general civil laws.

Lichonin prodded the last point with his finger, and, having turned the face of the book to the housekeeper, said triumphantly:

"Aha! There, you see: she has the right to leave the house at any time.

Consequently, she can at any time quit your abominable dive of violence, baseness, and depravity, in which you ..." Lichonin began rattling off, but the housekeeper calmly cut him short:

"O! I have no doubt of this. Let her go away. Let her only pay the money."

"What about promissory notes? She can give promissory notes."

"Pst! Promissory notes! In the first place, she's illiterate; while in the second, what are her promissory notes worth? A spit and no more.

Let her find a surety who would be worthy of trust, and then I have nothing against it."