Yama, Aleksandr Kuprin [grave mercy TXT] 📗

incredible privations, he would cut five or ten roubles out of his beggarly budget, denying himself in his beloved evening mug of beer and contriving to save on the street cars, which necessitated his making enormous distances on foot through the town. This money he set aside for women and spent it slowly, with gusto, trying to prolong and cheapen down the enjoyment as much as possible, at the same time experiencing a dread apprehension of infection. And for his money he wanted a very great deal, almost the impossible; his German sentimental soul dimly thirsted after innocence, timidity, poesy, in the flaxen image of Gretchen; but as a man he dreamt, desired, and demanded that his caresses should bring a woman into rapture and palpitation and into a sweet exhaustion.

However, all the men strove for the very same thing⁠—even the most wretched, monstrous, misshapen and impotent of them⁠—and ancient experience had long ago taught the women to imitate with voice and movements the most flaming passion, retaining in the most tempestuous minutes the fullest sang froid.

“You might at least order the musicians to play a polka. Let the girls dance a little,” asked Liuba grumblingly.

That suited him. Under cover of the music, amid the jostling of the dances, it was far more convenient to get up courage, arise, and lead one of the girls out of the drawing room, than to do it amid the general silence and the finical immobility.

“And how much does that cost?” he asked cautiously.

“A quadrille is half a rouble; but ordinary dances are thirty kopecks. Is it all right then?”

“Well, of course⁠ ⁠… if you please⁠ ⁠… I don’t begrudge it,” he agreed, pretending to be generous. “Whom do you speak to?”

“Why, over there⁠—to the musicians.”

“Why not?⁠ ⁠… I’ll do it with pleasure⁠ ⁠… Mister musician, something in the light dances, if you please,” he said, laying down his silver on the pianoforte.

“What will you order?” asked Isaiah Savvich, putting the money away in his pocket. “Waltz, polka, polka-mazourka?”

“Well⁠ ⁠… Something sort of⁠ ⁠…”

“A waltz, a waltz!” Vera, a great lover of dancing, shouted from her place.

“No, a polka!⁠ ⁠… A waltz!⁠ ⁠… A vengerka!⁠ ⁠… A waltz!” demanded others.

“Let them play a polka,” decided Liuba in a capricious tone. “Isaiah Savvich, play a little polka, please. This is my husband, and he is ordering for me,” she added, embracing the pedagogue’s neck. “Isn’t that so, daddy?”

But he freed himself from under her arm, drawing his head in like a turtle, and she without the least offence went to dance with Niura. Three other couples were also whirling about. In the dances all the girls tried to hold the waist as rigid as possible, and the head as immobile as possible, with a complete unconcern in their faces, which constituted one of the conditions of the good taste of the establishment. Under cover of the slight noise the teacher walked up to Little Manka.

“Let’s go?” he said, offering her his bent arm.

“Let’s go,” answered she, laughing.

She brought him into her room, gotten up with all the coquettishness of a bedroom in a brothel of the medium sort, with a bureau, covered with a knit scarf, and upon it a mirror, a bouquet of paper flowers, a few empty bonbonières, a powder box, a faded photograph of a young man with white eyebrows and eyelashes and a haughtily astonished face, as well as several visiting cards. Above the bed, which is covered with a pink piqué blanket, along the wall, is nailed up a rug with a representation of a Turkish sultan luxuriating in his harem, a narghile in his mouth; on the walls, several more photographs of dashing men of the waiter and actor type; a pink lantern hangs down from the ceiling by chains; there are also a round table under a carpet cover, three vienna chairs, and an enamelled bowl with a pitcher of the same sort in the corner on a tabouret, behind the bed.

“Darling, treat me to Lafitte with lemonade,” in accordance with established usage asked Little Manka, unbuttoning her corsage.

“Afterwards,” austerely answered the pedagogue. “It will all depend upon yourself. And then⁠—what sort of Lafitte can you have here? Some muddy brew or other?”

“We have good Lafitte,” contradicted the girl touchily. “Two roubles a bottle. But if you are so stingy, then buy me beer at least. All right?”

“Well, beer is all right⁠ ⁠…”

“And for me lemonade and oranges. Yes?”

“A bottle of lemonade, yes; but oranges, no. Later, maybe, I will treat you to champagne even. It will all depend on you. If you’ll exert yourself.”

“Then, daddy, I’ll ask for four bottles of beer and two bottles of lemonade? Yes? And for me just a little cake of chocolate. All right? Yes?”

“Two bottles of beer, a bottle of lemonade, and nothing more. I don’t like when I’m bargained with. If need be, I’ll order myself.”

“And may I invite a friend of mine?”

“No, let it be without any friends, if you please.”

Manka leaned out of the door into the corridor and called out resoundingly:

“Housekeeper, dear! Two bottles of beer and a bottle of lemonade for me.”

Simeon came with a tray and began with an accustomed rapidity to uncork the bottles. Following him came Zociya, the housekeeper.

“There, now, how well you’ve made yourself at home here. Here’s to your lawful marriage!” she congratulated them.

“Daddy, treat the little housekeeper with beer,” begged Manka. “Drink, housekeeper dear.”

“Well, in that case here’s to your health, mister. Somehow, your face seems kind of familiar to me?”

The German drank his beer, sucking and licking his moustache, and impatiently waited for the housekeeper to go away. But she, having put down her glass and thanked him, said:

“Let me get the money coming from you, mister. As much as is coming for the beer and the time. That’s both better for you and more convenient for us.”

The demand for the money went against the grain of the teacher, because it completely destroyed the sentimental part of his intentions. He became angry:

“What sort of boorishness