Yama, Aleksandr Kuprin [grave mercy TXT] 📗

I want to kiss your little hand! No, no, no! I athk, I athk you!⁠ ⁠…”

“Well, now, that’s nonsense, Aunt Glycera!” Linchonin interrupted her, unexpectedly becoming animated. “Let’s best kiss just so, now. Your lips are just too sweet!”

“Ah, my little sweetheart! My little bright sun, my little apple of paradise, you,” Glycera waxed tender, “give me your lips, then! Give me your little lips to buss, then!⁠ ⁠…”

She pressed him warmly to her gigantean bosom and again slavered over him with her moist, warm, Hottentot lips. After that, she seized him by his sleeve, brought him out into the middle of the ring, and began to walk around him with a stately, mincing step, having bent her waist coquettishly and vociferating:

“Oh, each to his taste, I want Paraska more,
For I’ve a divel in my pants
Her skirt holds somethin’ for!”

And then suddenly she passed on, sustained by the musicians, to a most rollicking, Little Russian, thumping hopak dance:

“Oh, Chook, that is too much,
You have soiled your apron too much.
Well, Prisko, don’t you fret,
Wipe it off, then, if you’re wet!
Tralala, tralala⁠ ⁠…

Sleeps, Khima, and won’t stir
That a Kossack sleeps with her,
You feel all, Khima⁠—why deceive?
Just to yourself you make believe.
Tai, tai, tralalai⁠ ⁠…”

Likhonin, thoroughly gay by now, suddenly began jumping like a goat about her, just like a satellite around a whirling planet⁠—long-legged, long-armed, stooping and altogether incongruous. His entrance was greeted by a general but pretty friendly neighing. He was made to sit down at the table, was helped to vodka and sausage. He, for his part, sent a tramp he knew after beer, and, glass in hand, delivered three absurd speeches: one about the self-determination of Ukraine; another about the goodness of Little Russian sausage, in connection with the beauty and domesticity of the women of Little Russia; and the third, for some reason, about trade and industry in the south of Russia. Sitting alongside of Lukeriya, he was all the time trying to embrace her around the waist, and she did not oppose this. But even his long arms could not encompass her amazing waist. However, she clasped his hand powerfully under the table, until it hurt, with her enormous, soft hand, as hot as fire.

At this moment among the huckstresses, who up to now had been tenderly kissing, certain old, unsettled quarrels and grievances flickered up. Two of the wives, bending toward each other just like roosters ready to enter battle, their arms akimbo, were pouring upon each other the most choice, out-of-the-way oaths:

“Fool, stiff, daughter of a dog!” one was yelling. “Youse ain’t fit to kiss me right here.” And, turning her back around to her foe, she loudly slapped herself below the spine. “Right here! Here!”

While the other, infuriated, squealed in answer:

“You lie, you slut, for I am fit, I am fit!”

Likhonin utilized the minute. As though he had just recalled something, he hurriedly jumped up from the bench and called out:

“Wait for me, Aunty Luckeriya, I’ll come in three minutes!” and dived through the living ring of spectators.

“Master! Master!” his neighbour cried after him: “Come back the quickest you can, now! I’ve one little word to say to you.”

Having turned the corner, he for some time racked his head trying to recall what it was that he absolutely had to do, now, this very minute. And again, in the very depths of his soul, he knew just what he had to do, but he procrastinated confessing this to his own self. It was already a clear, bright day, about nine or ten o’clock. Janitors were watering the streets with rubber hose. Flower girls were sitting on the squares and near the gates of the boulevards, with roses, stock-gillyflowers and narcissi. The radiant, gay, rich southern town was beginning to get animated. Over the pavement jolted an iron cage filled with dogs of every possible colour, breed, and age. On the coach box were sitting two dog-catchers, or, as they deferentially style themselves, “the king’s dog-catchers”⁠—i.e., hunters of stray dogs⁠—returning home with this morning’s catch.

“She must be awake by now,” Likhonin’s secret thought finally took form; “but if she isn’t yet awake, then I’ll quietly lie down on the divan and sleep a little.”

In the corridor the dying kerosene lamp emitted a dim light and smoked as before, and the watery, murky half-light penetrated into the narrow, long box. The door of the room had remained unlocked, after all. Likhonin opened it without a sound and entered.

The faint, blue half-light poured in through the interstices between the blinds and the windows. Likhonin stopped in the middle of the room and with an intensified avidity heard the quiet, sleeping breathing of Liubka. His lips became so hot and dry that he had to lick them incessantly. His knees began to tremble.

“Ask if she needs anything,” suddenly darted through his head.

Like a drunkard, breathing hard, with mouth open, staggering on his shaking legs, he walked up to the bed.

Liubka was sleeping on her back, with one bare arm stretched out along the body, and the other on her breast. Likhonin bent nearer, to her very face. She was breathing evenly and deeply. This breathing of her young, healthy body was, despite sleep, pure and almost aromatic. He cautiously ran his fingers over her bare arm and stroked her breast a little below the clavicle. “What am I doing?” his reason suddenly cried out within him in terror; but someone else answered for Likhonin: “But I’m not doing anything. I only want to ask if she’s sleeping comfortably, and whether she doesn’t want some tea.”

But Liubka suddenly awoke, opened her eyes, blinked them for a moment and opened them again. She gave a long, long stretch, and with a kindly, not yet fully reasoning smile, encircled Likhonin’s neck with her warm, strong arm.

“Sweetie! Darling!” caressingly uttered the woman in a crooning voice, somewhat hoarse from sleep. “Why, I was waiting for you and waiting, and even became angry. And after that I fell asleep and all night