Yama, Aleksandr Kuprin [grave mercy TXT] 📗

I, Borya Sobashnikov and Pavlov as jurists, Petrovsky and Tolpygin as medicos. True, Veltman has a distinct specialty⁠—mathematics. But then, he will be a pedagogue, a guide of youth, and, deuce take it, even a father! And if you are going to scare with a bugaboo, it is best to look upon it one’s self first. And finally, you yourself, Gavrila Petrovich⁠—expert of dead languages and future luminary of grave digging⁠—is the comparison, then, of the contemporary brothels, say, with some Pompeian lupanaria, or the institution of sacred prostitution in Thebes and Nineveh, not important and instructive to you?⁠ ⁠…”

“Bravo, Ramses, magnificent!” roared Likhonin. “And what’s there to talk so much about, fellows? Take the professor under the gills and put him in a cab!”

The students, laughing and jostling, surrounded Yarchenko, seized him under the arms, caught him around the waist. All of them were equally drawn to the women, but none, save Likhonin, had enough courage to take the initiative upon himself. But now all this complicated, unpleasant and hypocritical business was happily resolved into a simple, easy joke upon the older comrade. Yarchenko resisted, and was angry, and laughing, trying to break away. But at this moment a tall, black-moustached policeman, who had long been eyeing them keenly and inimically, walked up to the uproarious students.

“I’d ask you stewdent gents not to congregate. It’s not allowed! Keep on goin’!”

They moved on in a throng. Yarchenka was beginning to soften little by little.

“Gentlemen, I am ready to go with you, if you like⁠ ⁠… Do not think, however, that the sophistries of the Egyptian Pharaoh Ramses have convinced me⁠ ⁠… No, I simply would be sorry to break up the party⁠ ⁠… But I make one stipulation: we will drink a little there, gab a little, laugh a little, and so forth⁠ ⁠… but let there be nothing more, no filth of any kind⁠ ⁠… It is shameful and painful to think that we, the flower and glory⁠—of the Russian intelligentsia, will go all to pieces and let our mouths water at the sight of the first skirt that comes our way.”

“I swear it!” said Likhonin, putting up his hand.

“I can vouch for myself,” said Ramses.

“And I! And I! By God, gentlemen, let’s pledge our words⁠ ⁠… Yarchenko is right,” others took up.

They seated themselves in twos and threes in the cabs⁠—the drivers of which had been long since following them in a file, grinning and cursing each other⁠—and rode off. Likhonin, for the sake of assurance, sat down beside the sub-professor, having embraced him around the waist and seated him on his knees and those of his neighbour, the little Tolpygin, a rosy, pleasant-faced boy on whose face, despite his twenty-three years, the childish white down⁠—soft and light⁠—still showed.

“The station is at Doroshenko’s!” called out Likhonin after the cabbies driving off. “The stop is at Doroshenko’s,” he repeated, turning around.

They all stopped at Doroshenko’s restaurant, entered the general room, and crowded about the bar. All were satiated and no one wanted either to drink or to have a bite. But in the soul of each one still remained a dark trace of the consciousness that right now they were getting ready to commit something needlessly shameful, getting ready to take part in some convulsive, artificial, and not at all a merry merriment. And in each one was the yearning to bring himself through intoxication to that misty and rainbow condition when nothing makes any difference, and when the head does not know what the arms and legs are doing, and what the tongue is babbling. And, probably, not the students alone, but all the casual and constant visitors of Yama experienced in greater or lesser degree the friction of this inner psychic heart-sore, because Doroshenko did business only late in the evening and night, and no one lingered long in his place but only turned in in passing, halfway on the journey.

While the students were drinking cognac, beer and vodka, Ramses was constantly and intently looking into the farthest corner of the restaurant hall, where two men were sitting⁠—a tattered, gray, big old man in a long sleeveless jacket, and, opposite him, his back to the bar, with his elbows spread out upon the table and his chin resting on the fists folded upon each other, some hunched up, stout, closely-propped gentleman in a gray suit. The old man was picking upon a dulcimer lying before him and quietly singing, in a hoarse but pleasing voice:

“Oh my valley, my little valley,
Bro-o-o-o-o-oad land of plenty.”

“Excuse me, but that is a co-worker of ours,” said Ramses, and went to greet the gentleman in the gray suit. After a minute he led him up to the bar and introduced him to his comrades.

“Gentlemen, allow me to introduce to you my companion in arms in the newspaper game, Sergei Ivanovich Platonov. The laziest and most talented of newspaper workers.”

They all introduced themselves, indistinctly muttering out their names.

“And therefore, let’s have a drink,” said Likhonin, while Yarchenko asked with the refined amiability which never forsook him:

“Pardon me, pardon me, but I am acquainted with you a little, even though not personally. Wasn’t it you who covered the university when Professor Priklonsky defended his doctor’s dissertation?”

“It was I,” answered the reporter.

“Ah, that’s very nice,” smiled Yarchenko charmingly, and for some reason once more pressed Platonov’s hand vigorously. “I read your report afterwards: very exactly, circumstantially, cleverly and exquisitely written⁠ ⁠… Won’t you favor me?⁠ ⁠… To your health!”

“Then allow me, too,” said Platonov. “Onuphriy Zakharich, pour out for us again⁠ ⁠… one⁠ ⁠… two, three, four⁠ ⁠… nine glasses of cognac⁠ ⁠…”

“Oh no, you can’t do that⁠ ⁠… you are our guest, colleague,” remonstrated Likhonin.

“Well, now, what sort of colleague am I to you?” good-naturedly laughed the reporter. “I was only in the first class and then only for half a year⁠—as an unmatriculated student. Here you are, Onuphriy Zakharich. Gentlemen, I beg you⁠ ⁠…”

The upshot of it was that after half an hour Likhonin and Yarchenko did not under any consideration want to part with the reporter