Yama, Aleksandr Kuprin [grave mercy TXT] 📗

the colour of a cabbage rose, and with an eye which had been replaced by a black circle on an elastic. Pasha, passive in everything save her impersonal sensuality, would go with anybody who might call her, but the administration of the house vigilantly guards its interests in her. A near insanity already flits over her lovely face, in her half-closed eyes, always smiling with some heady, blissful, meek, bashful and unseemly smile, in her languorous, softened, moist lips, which she is constantly licking; in her short, quiet laugh⁠—the laugh of an idiot. Yet at the same time she⁠—this veritable victim of the social temperament⁠—in everyday life is very good-natured, yielding, entirely uncovetous and is very much ashamed of her inordinate passion. Toward her mates she is tender, likes very much to kiss and embrace them and sleep in the same bed with them, but still everybody has a little aversion for her, it would seem.

“Mannechka, sweetie, dearie,” says Pasha lightly touching Manya’s hand with emotion, “tell my fortune, my precious little child.”

“We-ell,” Manya pouts her lips just like a child, “let’s play a little more.”

“Mannechka, my little beauty, you little good-looker, my precious, my own, my dear⁠ ⁠…”

Manya gives in and lays out the pack on her knees. A suit of hearts comes out, a small monetary interest and a meeting in the suit of spades with a large company in the king of clubs.

Pasha claps her hands joyously:

“Ah, it’s my Levanchik! Well, yes, he promised to come today. Of course, it’s Levanchik.”

“That’s your Georgian!”

“Yes, yes, my little Georgian. Oh, how nice he is. I’d just love never to let him go away from me. Do you know what he told me the last time? ‘If you’ll go on living in a sporting house, then I’ll make both you dead, and make me dead.’ And he flashed his eyes at me so!”

Jennie, who had stopped near, listens to her words and asks haughtily:

“Who was it said that?”

“Why, my little Georgian, Levan. ‘Both for you death and for me death.’ ”

“Fool! He isn’t any little Georgian at all, but simply a common Armenian. You’re a crazy fool.”

“Oh no, he isn’t⁠—he’s a Georgian. And it is quite strange on your part⁠ ⁠…”

“I’m telling you⁠—a common Armenian. I can tell better. Fool!”

“What are you cursing for, Jennie? I didn’t start cursing you first off, did I?”

“You just try and be the first to start cursing! Fool! Isn’t it all the same to you what he is? Are you in love with him, or what?”

“Well, I am in love with him!”

“Well, and you’re a fool. And the one with the badge in his cap, the lame one⁠—are you in love with him too?”

“Well, what of it? I respect him very much. He is very respectable.”

“And with Nicky the Bookkeeper? And with the contractor? And with Antoshka-Kartoshka?8 And with the fat actor? Oo-ooh, you shameless creature!” Jennie suddenly cries out. “I can’t look at you without disgust. You’re a bitch! In your place, if I was such a miserable thing, I’d rather lay hands on myself, strangle myself with a cord from my corset. You vermin!”

Pasha silently lowers her eyelashes over her tear-filled eyes. Manya tries to defend her.

“Really, what are you carrying on like that for, Jennechka? What are you down on her like that for⁠ ⁠…”

“Eh, all of you are fine!” Jennie sharply cuts her short. “No self-respect of any sort! Some scum comes along, buys you like a piece of meat, hires you like a cabby, at a fixed rate, for love for an hour, but you go all to pieces: ‘Ah, my little lover! Ah, what unearthly passion!’ Ugh!” she spat in disgust.

She wrathfully turns her back upon them and continues to promenade on a diagonal through the room, swinging her hips and blinking at herself in every mirror.

During this time Isaac Davidovich, the piano player, is still struggling with the refractory violinist.

“Not that way, not that way, Isaiah Savvich. You throw the fiddle away for one little minute. Listen a little to me. Here is the tune.”

He plays with one finger and hums in that horrible goatish voice that all musical directors⁠—for which calling he had been at one time preparing⁠—possess.

“Ess-tam, ess-tam, ess-tiam-tiam. Well, now, repeat after me the first part, first time off.⁠ ⁠… Well⁠ ⁠… ein, zwei⁠ ⁠…”

Their rehearsal is being attentively watched by the grey-eyed, round-faced, arch-browed Zoe, mercilessly bedaubed with cheap rouges and whiteners, leaning with her elbows on the pianoforte, and the slight Vera, with drink-ravaged face, in the costume of a jockey⁠—in a round little cap with straight brim, in a little silk jacket, striped blue and white, in tightly stretched trunks and in little patent leather boots with yellow facings. And really, Vera does resemble a jockey, with her narrow face, in which the exceedingly sparkling blue eyes, under a smart bob coming down on the forehead, are set too near the humped, nervous, very handsome nose. When, at last, after long efforts the musicians agree, the somewhat small Verka walks up to the large Zoe, in that mincing, tethered walk, the hind part sticking out, and elbows spread as though for flight, with which only women in male costume can walk, and makes a comical masculine bow to her, spreading her arms wide and lowering them. And, with great enjoyment, they begin careering over the room.

The nimble Niura, always the first to announce all the news, suddenly jumps down from the window sill, and calls out, spluttering from the excitement and hurry:

“A swell carriage⁠ ⁠… has driven up⁠ ⁠… to Treppel⁠ ⁠… with electricity⁠ ⁠… Oi, goils⁠ ⁠… may I die on the spot⁠ ⁠… there’s electricity on the shafts.”

All the girls, save the proud Jennie, thrust themselves out of the windows. A driver with a fine carriage is indeed standing near the Treppel entrance. His brand-new, dashing victoria glistens with new lacquer; at the ends of the shafts two tiny electric lights burn with a yellow light; the tall white horse, with a bare pink spot on the