Yama (The Pit) Part 49

But, even besides that, Anna Markovna, sufficiently limited in mind and not especially developed, had some sort of an amazing inner intuition, which during all her life permitted her instinctively but irreproachably to avoid unpleasantnesses, and to find prudent paths in time. And so now, after the sudden death of Roly-Poly, and the suicide of Jennka which followed the next day, she, with her unconsciously--penetrating soul foreguessed that fate--which had been favouring her house of ill-fame, sending her good fortunes, turning away all under-water shoals--was now getting ready to turn its back upon her. And she was the first to retreat.

They say, that not long before a fire in a house, or before the wreck of a ship, the wise, nervous rats in droves make their way into another place. And Anna Markovna was directed by the same rat-like, animal, prophetic intuition. And she was right: immediately right after the death of Jennka some fearful curse seemed to hang over the house, formerly Anna Markovna Shaibes', but now Emma Edwardovna t.i.tzner's: deaths, misfortunes, scandals just simply descended upon it ceaselessly, becoming constantly more frequent, on the manner of b.l.o.o.d.y events in Shakespeare's tragedies; as, however, was the case at all the remaining houses of the Yamas as well.

And one of the first to die, a week after the liquidation of the business, was Anna Markovna herself. However, this frequently happens with people put out of their accustomed rut of thirty years: so die war heroes, who have gone into retirement--people of insuperable health and iron will; so quickly go off the stage former stock brokers, who have happily gone away to rest, but have been deprived of the burning allurement of risk and hazard; so, too, age rapidly, droop, and grow decrepit, the great artists who leave the stage ... Her death was the death of the just. Once at a game of cards she felt herself unwell; begged them to wait a while for her; said that she would lie down for just a minute; lay down in the bedroom on a bed; sighed deeply, and pa.s.sed on into another world--with a calm face, with a peaceful, senile smile upon her lips. Isaiah Savvich--her faithful comrade on the path of life, a trifle downtrodden, who had always played a secondary, subordinate role--survived her only a month.

Birdie was left sole heiress. She very successfully turned the cozy house into money, as well as the land somewheres at the edge of the town; married, as it had been presupposed, very happily; and up to this time is convinced that her father carried on a great commercial business in the export of wheat through Odessa and Novorossiysk into Asia Minor.

On the evening of the day when Jennie's corpse had been carried away to an anatomical theatre; at an hour when not even a chance guest appears on Yamskaya Street, all the girls, at the insistence of Emma Edwardovna, a.s.sembled in the drawing room. Not one of them dared murmur against the fact that on this distressing day, when they had not yet recovered from the impression of Jennka's horrible death, they would be compelled to dress up, as usual, in wildly festive finery, and to go into the brightly illuminated drawing room, in order to dance, sing, and to entice lecherous men with their denuded bodies.

And at last into the drawing room walked Emma Edwardovna herself. She was more majestic than she had ever been--clad in a black silk gown, from which, just like battlements, her enormous b.r.e.a.s.t.s jutted out, upon which descended two fat chins; in black silk mittens; with an enormous gold chain wound thrice around her neck, and terminating in a ponderous medallion hanging upon the very abdomen.

"Ladies! ..." she began impressively, "I must ... Stand up!" she suddenly called out commandingly. "When I speak, you must hear me out standing."

They all exchanged glances with perplexity: such an order was a novelty in the establishment. However, the girls got up one after another, irresolutely, with eyes and mouths gasping.

"Sie sollen ... you must from this day show me that respect which you are bound to show to your mistress," importantly and weightily began Emma Edwardovna. "Beginning from to-day, the establishment in a legal manner has pa.s.sed from our good and respected Anna Markovna to me, Emma Edwardovna t.i.tzner. I hope that we will not quarrel, and that you will behave yourselves like sensible, obedient, and well-brought-up girls. I will be to you like in place of your own mother, but only remember, that I will not stand for laziness, or drunkenness, or notions of any sort; or any kind of disorder. The kind Madam Shaibes, it must be said, held you in too loose reins. O--o, I will be far more strict.

Discipline uber alles ... before everything. It's a great pity, that the Russian people are lazy, dirty and stoopid, do not understand this rule; but don't you trouble yourself, I will teach you this for your own good. I say 'for your own good,' because my main thought is to kill the compet.i.tion of Treppel. I want that my client should be a man of substance, and not some charlatan and ragam.u.f.fin, some kind of student, now, or ham actor. I want that my ladies should be the most beautiful, best brought-up, the healthiest and gayest in the whole city. I won't spare any money in order to set up swell furnishings; and you will have rooms with silk furniture and with genuine, beautiful rugs. Your guests will no longer be demanding beer, but only genteel Bordeaux and Burgundy wines and champagne. Remember, that a rich, substantial, elderly man never likes your common, ordinary, coa.r.s.e love. He requires Cayenne pepper; he requires not a trade, but an art, and you will soon acquire this. At Treppel's they take three roubles for a visit and ten roubles for a night ... I will establish it so, that you will receive five roubles for a visit and twenty-five for a night. They will present you with gold and diamonds. I will contrive it so, that you won't have to pa.s.s on into establishments of a lower sort, und so weiter ... right down to the soldiers' filthy den. No! Deposits will be put away and saved with me for each one of you every month; and will be put away in your name in a banker's office, where there will increase interest upon them, and interest upon interest. And then, if a girl feels herself tired, or wants to marry a respectable man, there will always be at her disposal not a large, but a sure capital. So is it done in the best establishments in Riga, and everywhere abroad. Let no one say about me, that Emma Edwardovna is a spider, a vixen, a cupping gla.s.s. But for disobedience, for laziness, for notions, for lovers on the side, I will punish cruelly and, like nasty weeds, will throw out--on the street, or still worse. Now I have said all that I had to. Nina, come near me. And all the rest of you come up in turn."

Ninka irresolutely walked right up to Emma Edwardovna--and even staggered back in amazement: Emma Edwardovna was extending her right hand to her, with the fingers lowered downward, and slowly nearing it to Ninka's lips.

"Kiss it! ..." impressively and firmly p.r.o.nounced Emma Edwardovna, narrowing her eyes and with head thrown back, in the magnificent pose of a princess ascending her throne.

Ninka was so bewildered that her right arm gave a jerk in order to make the sign of the cross; but she corrected herself, loudly smacked the extended hand, and stepped aside. Following her Zoe, Henrietta, Vanda and others stepped up also. Tamara alone continued to stand near the wall with her back to the mirror; that mirror into which Jennka so loved to gaze, in gone-by times, admiring herself as she walked back and forth through the drawing room.

Emma Edwardovna let the imperious, obstinate gaze of a boa-constrictor rest upon her; but the hypnosis did not work. Tamara bore this gaze without turning away, without flinching; but without any expression on her face. Then the new proprietress put down her hand, produced on her face something resembling a smile, and said hoa.r.s.ely:

"And with you, Tamara, I must have a little talk separately, eye to eye. Let's go!"

"I hear you, Emma Edwardovna!" calmly answered Tamara.

Emma Edwardovna came to the little bit of a cabinet, where formerly Anna Markovna loved to drink coffee with clotted cream; sat down on the divan and pointed out a place opposite her to Tamara. For some time the women kept silent; searchingly, mistrustfully eyeing each other.

"You acted rightly, Tamara," said Emma Edwardovna finally. "You did wisely in not stepping up, on the manner of those sheep, to kiss my hand. But just the same, I would not have let you come to that. I wanted right there, in the presence of all, when you walked up to me, to press your hand and to offer you the place of first housekeeper--you understand?--my chief a.s.sistant--and on terms very advantageous to you..."

"I thank you ..."

"No, wait a while, don't interrupt me. I will have my say to the end, and then you will express your pros and cons. But will you explain to me, please, when yesterday you were aiming at me out of a revolver, what did you want? Can it possibly be, to kill me?"

"On the contrary, Emma Edwardovna," retorted Tamara respectfully, "on the contrary; it seemed to me that you wanted to strike me."

"PJUI! What do you mean, Tamarochka! ... Have you paid no attention to the fact that during all the time of our acquaintance I never permitted myself, not only to hit you, but even to address you with a rude word?

... What do you mean, what do you mean? ... I don't confuse you with this poor Russian trash ... Glory be to G.o.d, I am an experienced person and one who knows people well. I can very well see that you are a genuinely cultured young lady; far more educated, for example, than I myself. You are refined, elegant, smart. I am convinced of the fact that you even know music not at all badly. Finally, if I were to confess, I was a little ... how shall I put it to you? ... I always was a little in love with you. And now you wanted to shoot me! Me, a person who could be a very good friend to you! Well, what will you say to that?"

"Well ... nothing at all, Emma Edwardovna," retorted Tamara in the meekest and most plausible tone. "Everything was very simple. Even before that I found the revolver under Jennka's pillow and brought it, in order to give it over to you. I did not want to interfere, when you were reading the letter; but then you turned around to me--I stretched the revolver out to you and wanted to say: 'See, Emma Edwardovna, what I found'--for, don't you see, it surprised me awfully how the late Jennie, having a revolver at her disposal, preferred such a horrible death as hanging? And that's all."

The bushy, frightful eyebrows of Emma Edwardovna rose upward; the eyes widened joyously; and a real, uncounterfeited smile spread over her cheeks of a behemoth. She quickly extended both hands to Tamara.

"And is this all? O, MEIN KIND? And I thought ... G.o.d knows what I imagined! Give me your hands, Tamara, your little charming white hands, and allow me to press them auf mein Herz, upon my heart, and to kiss you."

The kiss was so long, that Tamara with great difficulty and with aversion barely freed herself from the embraces of Emma Edwardovna.

"Well, and now to business. And so, here are my terms: you will be housekeeper, I give you fifteen percent, out of the clear gain. Mind you, Tamara, fifteen percent. And, besides that, a small salary--thirty, forty, well, if you like, fifty roubles a month.

Splendid terms--isn't that the truth? I am deeply convinced, that none other than just you will help me to raise the house to a real height, and make it the swellest not only in our city, but in all the south of Russia as well. You have taste, and an understanding of things! ...

Besides that, you will always be able to entertain, and to stir up the most exacting, the most unyielding guests. In rare instances, when a very rich and distinguished gentleman--in Russian they call it one "sun-fish," while with us, ein Freier,[26]--when he becomes infatuated with you--for you are so handsome, Tamarochka," (the proprietress looked at her with misty, humid eyes), "then I do not at all forbid you to pa.s.s the time with him gaily; only to bear down always upon the fact that you have no right, owing to your duty, your position, Und so weiter, und so weiter ... aber sagen sie bitte, do you easily make yourself understood in German?"

[26] In English, a "toff"; in American, a "swell."--trans.

"Die Deutsche Sprache beherrsche ich in geringerem Grade als die franzosische; indes kann ich stets in einer Salon-Plauderei mitmachen."[27]

[27] "My mastery of the German language is a trifle worse than that of the French, but I can always keep up my end in parlor small talk."

"O, wunderbar! sie haben eine entzuckende Rigaer Aussprache, die beste alter deutschen Aussprachen. Und also--fahren wir in unserer Sprache fort. Sie klingt viel susser meinem Ohr, die Muttersprache. Schon?"[28]

[28] O, splendid! ... You have a bewitching Riga enunciation, the most correct of all the German ones. And so, let us continue in my tongue.

That is far sweeter to my ear--my mother tongue. All right?"

"SCHON."[29]

[29] "All right."

"Zuletzt werden Sie nachgeben, dem Anschein nach ungern, unwillkurlich, van der Laune des Augenblicks hingerissen--und, was die Hauptsache ist, lautlos, heimlich vor mir. Sie verstehen? Dafur zahlen Narren ein schweres Geld. Ubrigens brauche ich Sie wohl nicht zu lernen."[30]

[30] "In the very end you will give in, as though unwillingly, as though against your will, as though from infatuation, a momentary caprice, and--which is the main thing--as though on the sly from me.

You understand? For this the fools pay enormous money. However, it seems I will not have to teach you."

"Ja, gnadige Frau. Sie sprechen gar kluge Dinge. Doch das ist schon keine Plauderei mehr, sondern eine ernste unterhaltung. Yes, my dear madam. You say very wise things. But this is no longer small talk; it is, rather, serious conversation ... And for that reason it is more convenient for me, if you will revert to the Russian language ... I am ready to obey you."

"Furthermore! ... I was just now talking about a lover. I dare not forbid you this pleasure, but let us be prudent: let him not appear here, or appear as rarely as possible. I will give you days for going out, when you will be perfectly free. But it's best if you would get along without him entirely. It will serve your benefit too. This is only a drag and a yoke. I am telling you this from my own personal experience. Wait a while; after three or four years we will expand this business so, that you will have substantial money already, and then I vill take you into the business as a partner with full rights. After ten years you will still be young and handsome, and then take and buy men as much as you want to. By that time romantic follies will go out of your head entirely, and it will not be you who will be chosen already, but you who will be choosing with sense and with feeling, as a connoisseur picks out precious stones. Do you agree with me?"

Tamara cast down her eyes, and smiled just the least trifle.

"You speak golden truths, Emma Edwardovna. I will drop mine, but not at once. For that I will need some two weeks. I will try not to have him appear here. I accept your proposition."

"And that's splendid!" said Emma Edwardovna, get ting up. "Now let us conclude our agreement with one good, sweet kiss."

And she again embraced and took to kissing Tamara hard; who, with her downcast eyes and naive, tender face, seemed now altogether a little girl. But, having freed herself, finally, from the proprietress, she asked in Russian:

"You see, Emma Edwardovna, that I agree in everything with you, but for that I beg you to fulfill one request of mine. It will not cost you anything. Namely, I hope that you will allow me and the other girls to escort the late Jennie to the cemetery."