Yama, Aleksandr Kuprin [grave mercy TXT] 📗

in a delirium, in a doze, through mechanical habit. This was towards the waning of the night.

Altogether unexpectedly, seven students, a sub-professor, and a local reporter from The Echoes walked into the establishment of Anna Markovna.

IX

They had all, except the reporter, passed the whole day together, from the very morning, celebrating May Day with some young women of their acquaintance. They had rowed in boats on the Dnieper, had cooked field porridge on the other side of the river, in the thick, bitter-smelling underbrush; had bathed⁠—men and women by turns⁠—in the rapid, warm water; had drunk homemade spiced brandy, sung sonorous songs of Little Russia, and had returned to town only late in the evening, when the dark, broad, running river so eerily and merrily plashed against the sides of their boats, playing with the reflections of the stars, the silvery shimmering paths of the electric lamps, and the bowing lights of the can-buoys. And when they had stepped out on the shore, the palms of each burned from the oars, the muscles of the arms and legs ached pleasantly, and suffusing the whole body was a blissful, healthy fatigue.

Then they had escorted the young women to their homes and at the garden-gates and entrances had taken leave of them long and cordially, with laughter and with such swinging handshakes as if they were working the lever of a pump.

The whole day had passed in gaiety and noise, even a trifle clamorously, and just the least wee bit tiresomely, but with youth-like continence; without intoxication, and, which happens especially rarely, without the least shadow of mutual affronts, or jealousy, or unvoiced mortifications. Of course, such a benign mood had been helped by the sun, the fresh river breeze, the sweet exhalations of the grasses and the water, the joyous sensation of the strength and alertness of one’s body while bathing and rowing, and the restraining influence of the clever, kind, pure and handsome girls from families they were acquainted with. But, almost without the knowledge of their consciousness, their sensuousness⁠—not imagination, but the simple, healthy, instinctive sensuousness of young playful males⁠—kindled from chance encounters of their hands with feminine hands and from comradely obliging embraces, when the occasion arose to help the young ladies enter a boat or jump out on shore; from the tender odour of maiden apparel, warmed by the sun; from the feminine cries of coquettish fright on the river; from the sight of feminine figures, negligently half-reclining with a naive immodesty on the green grass around the samovar⁠—from all these innocent liberties, which are so usual and unavoidable on picnics, country outings and river excursions, when within man, in the infinite depth of his soul, secretly awakens from the carefree contact with earth, grasses, water and sun, the beast⁠—ancient, splendid, free, but disfigured and intimidated of men.

And for that reason, at two o’clock in the night, when The Sparrows, a cozy students’ restaurant, had barely closed, and all the eight, excited by alcohol and the plentiful food, had come out of the smoky, fumy underground place into the street, into the sweet, disquieting darkness of the night, with its beckoning fires in the sky and on the earth, with its warm, heady air, from which the nostrils dilate avidly, with its aromas, gliding from unseen gardens and flowerbeds⁠—the head of each one of them was aflame and the heart quietly and languishingly yearning from vague desires. It was joyous and arrogant to sense after the rest the new, fresh strength in all the sinews, the deep breathing of the lungs, the red, resilient blood in the veins, the supple obedience of all the members. And⁠—without words, without thoughts, without consciousness⁠—one was drawn on this night to be running without raiment in the somnolent forest; to be sniffing hurriedly the tracks of someone’s feet on the dewy grass; to be summoning, with a loud call, a female unto one’s self.

But to separate was now very difficult. The whole day, passed together, had shaken them into an accustomed, tenacious herd. It seemed that if even one were to go away from the company, a certain attained equilibrium would be disturbed and could not be restored afterwards. And so they dallied and stamped upon the sidewalk, near the exit of the tavern’s underground vault, interfering with the progress of the infrequent passersby. They discussed hypocritically where else they might go to wind up the night. It proved to be too far to the Tivoli Garden, and in addition to that one also had to pay for admission tickets, and the prices in the buffet were outrageous, and the program had ended long ago. Volodya Pavlov proposed going to him⁠—he had a dozen of beer and a little cognac home. But it seemed a bore to all of them to go in the middle of the night to a family apartment, to enter on tiptoes up the stairs and to talk in whispers all the time.

“Tell you what, brethren⁠ ⁠… Let’s better ride to the girlies, that will be nearer the mark,” said peremptorily Likhonin, an old student, a tall, stooping, morose and bearded fellow. By convictions he was an anarchist-theoretic, but by avocation a passionate gambler at billiards, races and cards⁠—a gambler with a very broad, fatalistic sweep. Only the day before he had won a thousand roubles at macao in the Merchants’ Club, and this money was still burning a hole in his pockets.

“And why not? Right-o!” somebody sustained him. “Let’s go, comrades?”

“Is it worth while? Why, this is an all night affair⁠ ⁠…” spoke another with a false prudence and an insincere fatigue.

And a third said through a feigned yawn:

“Let’s better go home, gentlemen⁠ ⁠… a-a-a⁠ ⁠… go bye-bye⁠ ⁠… That’s enough for today.”

“You won’t work any wonders when you’re asleep,” Likhonin remarked sneeringly. “Herr professor, are you coming?”

But the sub-professor Yarchenko was obstinate and seemed really angered, although, perhaps, he himself did not know what was lurking within him, in some dark cranny of his soul.

“Leave