Yama, Aleksandr Kuprin [grave mercy TXT] 📗

m-me la baronne de⁠ ⁠…20 However, let’s drop the French tongue⁠ ⁠… You were a common chorus girl and served together with me.”

“Mais, dites-moi, au nom de dieu, comment vous trouvez vous ici, Mademoiselle Marguerite.”21

“Oh, they ask us about that every day. I just up and came to be here⁠ ⁠…”

And with an inimitable cynicism she asked:

“I trust you will pay for the time which we have passed with you?”

“No, may the devil take you!” suddenly shouted out Little White Manka, quickly getting up from the rug.

And suddenly, pulling two gold pieces out of her stocking, she flung them upon the table.

“There, you!⁠ ⁠… I’m giving you that for a cab. Go away right now, otherwise I’ll break up all the mirrors and bottles here⁠ ⁠…”

Rovinskaya got up and said with sincere, warm tears in her eyes:

“Of course, we’ll go away, and the lesson of Mlle. Marguerite will prove of benefit to us. Your time will be paid for⁠—take care of it, Volodya. Still, you sang so much for us, that you must allow me to sing for you as well.”

Rovinskaya went up to the piano, took a few chords, and suddenly began to sing the splendid ballad of Dargomyzhsky:

“We parted then with pride⁠—
Neither with sighs nor words
Proffered I thee reproach of jealousy⁠ ⁠…
We went apart for aye,
Yet only if with thee
I might but chance to meet!⁠ ⁠…
Ah, that with thee I might but chance to meet!

“I weep not nor complain⁠—
To fate I bend my knee⁠ ⁠…
I know not, if you loved,
So greatly wronging me?
Yet only if with thee
I might but chance to meet!⁠ ⁠…
Ah, that with thee I might but chance to meet!”

This tender and passionate ballad, executed by a great artiste, suddenly reminded all these women of their first love; of their first fall; of a late leave-taking at a dawn in the spring, in the chill of the morning, when the grass is gray from the dew, while the red sky paints the tips of the birches a rosy colour; of last embraces, so closely entwined, and of the unerring heart’s mournful whispers: “No, this will not be repeated, this will not be repeated!” And the lips were then cold and dry, while the damp mist of the morning lay upon the hair.

Silence seized Tamara; silence seized Manka the Scandaliste; and suddenly Jennka, the most untamable of all the girls, ran up to the artiste, fell down on her knees, and began to sob at her feet.

And Rovinskaya, touched herself, put her arms around her head and said:

“My sister, let me kiss you!”

Jennka whispered something into her ear.

“Why, that’s a silly trifle,” said Rovinskaya. “A few months of treatment and it will all go away.”

“No, no, no⁠ ⁠… I want to make all of them diseased. Let them all rot and croak.”

“Ah, my dear,” said Rovinskaya, “I would not do that in your place.”

And now Jennka, the proud Jennka, fell to kissing the knees and hands of the artiste and was saying:

“Then why have people wronged me so?⁠ ⁠… Why have they wronged me so? Why? Why? Why?”

Such is the might of genius!

The only might which takes into its beautiful hands not the abject reason, but the warm soul of man! The self-respecting Jennka was hiding her face in Rovinskaya’s dress; Little White Manka was sitting meekly on a chair, her face covered with a handkerchief; Tamara, with elbow propped on her knee and head bowed on the palm of her hand, was intently looking down, while Simeon the porter, who had been looking in against any emergency, only opened his eyes wide in amazement.

Rovinskaya was quietly whispering into Jennka’s very ear:

“Never despair. Sometimes things fall out so badly that there’s nothing for it but to hang one’s self⁠—but, just look, tomorrow life has changed abruptly. My dear, my sister, I am now a world celebrity. But if you only knew what seas of humiliation and vileness I have had to wade through! Be well, then, my dear, and believe in your star.”

She bent down to Jennka and kissed her on the forehead. And never afterwards could Volodya Chaplinsky, who had been watching this scene with a painful tension, forget those warm and beautiful rays, which at this moment kindled in the green, long, Egyptian eyes of the artiste.

The party departed gloomily, but Ryazanov lingered behind for a minute.

He walked up to Jennka, respectfully and gently kissed her hand, and said:

“If possible, forgive our prank⁠ ⁠… This, of course, will not be repeated. But if you ever have need of me, I am always at your service. Here is my visiting card. Don’t stick it out on your bureau; but remember, that from this evening on I am your friend.”

And, having kissed Jennka’s hand once more, he was the last to go down the stairs.

VIII

On Thursday, since very morning, a ceaseless, fine drizzle had begun to fall, and so the leaves of the chestnuts, acacias, and poplars had at once turned green. And, suddenly, it became somehow dreamily quiet and protractedly tedious. Pensive and monotonous.

During this all the girls had gathered, as usual, in Jennka’s room. But something strange was going on within her. She did not utter witticisms, did not laugh, did not read, as always, her usual yellow-back novel which was now lying aimlessly either on her breast or stomach; but was vicious, wrapped up in sadness, and in her eyes blazed a yellow fire that spoke of hatred. In vain did Little White Manka, Manka the Scandaliste, who adored her, try to turn her attention to herself⁠—Jennka seemed not to notice her, and the conversation did not at all get on. It was depressing. But it may have been that the August drizzle, which had steadily set in for several weeks running, reacted upon all of them. Tamara sat down on Jennka’s bed, gently embraced her, and, having put her mouth near her very ear, said in a whisper:

“What’s the matter, Jennechka? I’ve seen for a long time that something