Yama, Aleksandr Kuprin [grave mercy TXT] 📗

are told of love every day with various sour, drooling words. Involuntarily one wants pepper in one’s love. One no longer wants words of passion, but tragically-passionate deeds. And for that reason thieves, murderers, souteneurs and other riffraff will always be their lovers.”

“And most important of all,” added Platonov, “that would at once spoil for me all the friendly relations which have been so well built up.”

“Enough of joking!” incredulously retorted Likhonin. “Then what compels you to pass days and nights here? Were you a writer⁠—it would be a different matter. It’s easy to find an explanation; well, you’re gathering types or something⁠ ⁠… observing life⁠ ⁠… After the manner of that German professor who lived for three years with monkeys, in order to study closely their language and manners. But you yourself said that you don’t indulge in writing?”

“It isn’t that I don’t indulge, but I simply don’t know how⁠—I can’t.”

“We’ll write that down. Now let’s suppose another thing⁠—that you come here as an apostle of a better, honest life, in the nature of a, now, saviour of perishing souls. You know, as in the dawn of Christianity certain holy fathers instead of standing on a column for thirty years or living in a cave in the woods, went to the market places, into houses of mirth, to the harlots and scaramuchios. But you aren’t inclined that way.”

“I’m not.”

“Then why, the devil take it, do you hang around here? I can see very well that a great deal here is revolting and oppressive and painful to your own self. For example, this fool quarrel with Boris or this flunky who beats a woman, and⁠—in general, the constant contemplation of every kind of filth, lust, bestiality, vulgarity, drunkenness. Well, now, since you say so⁠—I believe that you don’t give yourself up to lechery. But then, still more incomprehensible to me is your modus vivendi, to express myself in the style of leading articles.”

The reporter did not answer at once:

“You see,” he began speaking slowly, with pauses, as though for the first time lending ear to his thoughts and weighing them. “You see, I’m attracted and interested in this life by its⁠ ⁠… how shall I express it?⁠ ⁠… its fearful, stark truth. Do you understand, it’s as though all the conventional coverings were ripped off it. There is no falsehood, no hypocrisy, no sanctimoniousness, there are no compromises of any sort, neither with public opinion, nor with the importunate authority of our forefathers, nor with one’s own conscience. No illusions of any kind, nor any kind of embellishments! Here she is⁠—‘I! A public woman, a common vessel, a cloaca for the drainage of the city’s surplus lust. Come to me anyone who wills⁠—thou shalt meet no denial, therein is my service. But for a second of this sensuality in haste⁠—thou shalt pay in money, revulsion, disease and ignominy.’ And that is all. There is not a single phase of human life where the basic main truth should shine with such a monstrous, hideous, stark clearness, without any shade of human prevarication or self-whitewashing.”

“Oh, I don’t know! These women lie like the very devil. You just go and talk with her a bit about her first fall. She’ll spin you such a yarn!”

“Well, don’t you ask then. What business is that of yours? But even if they do lie, they lie altogether like children. But then, you know yourself that children are the foremost, the most charming fibsters, and at the same time the sincerest people on earth. And it’s remarkable, that both they and the others⁠—that is, both prostitutes and children⁠—lie only to us⁠—men⁠—and grownups. Among themselves they don’t lie⁠—they only inspiredly improvise. But they lie to us because we ourselves demand this of them, because we clamber into their souls, altogether foreign to us, with our stupid tactics and questionings, because they regard us in secret as great fools and senseless dissemblers. But if you like, I shall right now count off on my fingers all the occasions when a prostitute is sure to lie, and you yourself will be convinced that man incites her to lying.”

“Well, well, we shall see.”

“First: she paints herself mercilessly, at times even in detriment to herself. Why? Because every pimply military cadet, who is so distressed by his sexual maturity that he grows stupid in the spring, like a woodcock on a drumming-log; or some sorry petty government clerk or other from the department of the parish, the husband of a pregnant woman and the father of nine infants⁠—why, they both come here not at all with the prudent and simple purpose of leaving here the surplus of their passion. He, the good for nothing, has come to enjoy himself; he needs beauty, d’you see⁠—aesthete that he is! But all these girls, these daughters of the simple, unpretentious, great Russian people⁠—how do they regard aesthetics? ‘What’s sweet, that’s tasty; what’s red, that’s handsome.’ And so, there you are, receive, if you please, a beauty of antimony, white lead and rouge.

“That’s one. Secondly, his desire for beauty isn’t enough for this resplendent cavalier⁠—no, he must in addition be served with a similitude of love, so that from his caresses there should kindle in the woman this same ‘fa-hire of insane pahass-ssion!’ which is sung about in idiotical ballads. Ah! Then that is what you want? There y’are! And the woman lies to him with countenance, voice, sighs, moans, movements of the body. And even he himself in the depths of his soul knows about this professional deception, but⁠—go along with you!⁠—still deceives himself: ‘Ah, what a handsome man I am! Ah, how the women love me! Ah, into what an ecstasy I bring them⁠ ⁠…’ You know, there are cases when a man with the most desperate brazenness, in the most unlikely manner, is flattered to his face, and he himself sees and knows it very plainly, but⁠—the devil take it!⁠—despite everything a delightful feeling of some sort lubricates his soul. And so here. Query: whose is the initiative