Yama, Aleksandr Kuprin [grave mercy TXT] 📗

up, with a wet rag in her hand, with face striped from dirt, answered the bell⁠—she had just been washing the floor.

“I’d like to see Jennka,” timidly requested Likhonin.

“Well, now, Miss Jennie is busy with a guest. They haven’t waked up yet.”

“Well, Tamara then.”

The maid looked at him mistrustfully.

“Miss Tamara⁠—I don’t know⁠ ⁠… I think she’s busy too. But what you want⁠—to pay a visit, or what?”

“Ah, isn’t it all the same! A visit, let’s say.”

“I don’t know. I’ll go and look. Wait a while.”

She went away, leaving Likhonin in the half-dark drawing room. The blue pillars of dust, coming from the openings in the shutters, pierced the heavy obscurity in all directions. Like hideous spots stood out of the gray murkiness the bepainted furniture and the sweetish oleographs on the walls. It smelt of yesterday’s tobacco, of dampness, of sourness; and of something else peculiar, indeterminate, uninhabited, of which places that are lived in only temporarily always smell in the morning⁠—such as empty theatres, dance-halls, auditoria. Far off in the city a droshky rumbled intermittently. A wall-clock monotonously ticked behind a wall. In a strange agitation Likhonin walked back and forth through the drawing room and rubbed and kneaded his trembling hands, and for some reason was hunched-up and felt cold.

“I shouldn’t have started all this false comedy,” he thought with irritation. “It goes without saying that I’ve now become the byword of the entire university. The devil nudged me! And even during the day yesterday it wasn’t too late, when she was saying that she was ready to go back. All I had to do was to give her for a cabby and a little pin money, and she’d have gone, and all would have been fine; and I would be independent now, free, and wouldn’t be undergoing this tormenting and ignominious state of spirits. But it’s too late to retreat now. Tomorrow it’ll be still later, and the day after tomorrow⁠—still more. Having pulled off one fool stunt, it must be immediately put a stop to; but on the other hand, if you don’t do that in time, it draws two others after it, and they⁠—twenty new ones. Or, perhaps, it’s not too late now? Why, she’s silly, undeveloped, and, probably, a hysteric, like the rest of them. She’s an animal, fit only for stuffing herself and for the bed. Oh! The devil!” Likhonin forcefully squeezed his cheeks and his forehead between his hands and shut his eyes. “And if I had but held out against the common, coarse, physical temptation! There, you see for yourself, this has happened twice already; and then it’ll go on and on⁠ ⁠…”

But side by side with these ran other thoughts, opposed to them:

“But then, I’m a man. I am master of my word. For that which urged me on to this deed was splendid, noble, lofty. I remember very well that rapture which seized me when my thought transpired into action! That was a pure, tremendous feeling. Or was it simply an extravagance of the mind, whipped up by alcohol; the consequence of a sleepless night, smoking, and long, abstract conversations?”

And immediately Liubka would appear before him, appear at a distance, as though out of the misty depths of time; awkward, timid, with her homely and endearing face, which had at once come to seem of infinitely close kinship; long, long familiar, and at the same time unpleasant⁠—unjustly, without cause.

“Can it be that I’m a coward and a rag?” cried Likhonin inwardly and wrung his hands. “What am I afraid of, before whom am I embarrassed? Have I not always prided myself upon being sole master of my life? Let’s suppose, even, that the fantasy, the extravagance, of making a psychological experiment upon a human soul⁠—a rare experiment, unsuccessful in ninety-nine percent⁠—has entered my head. Is it possible that I must render anybody an account in this, or fear anybody’s opinion? Likhonin! Look down upon mankind from above!”

Jennie walked into the room, dishevelled, sleepy, in a night jacket on top of a white underskirt.

“A-a!” she yawned, extending her hand to Likhonin. “How d’you do, my dear student! How does your Liubochka feel herself in the new place? Slip me an invite some time. Or are you spending your honeymoon on the quiet? Without any outside witnesses?”

“Drop the silly stuff, Jennechka. I came about the passport.”

“So-o. About the passport,” Jennka went into thought. “That is, there’s no passport here, but you must take a blank from the housekeeper. You understand, our usual prostitute’s blank; and then they’ll exchange it for you for a real book at the station house. Only you see, my dear, I will be but ill help to you in this business. They are as like as not to beat me up if I come near a housekeeper or a porter. But here’s what you do. You’d best send the maid for the housekeeper; tell her to say that a certain guest, now, a steady one, has come on business; that it’s very urgent to see her personally. But you must excuse me⁠—I’m going to back out, and don’t you be angry, please. You know yourself⁠—charity begins at home. But why should you hang around by yourself in this here darkness? You’d better go into the cabinet. If you want to, I’ll send you beer there. Or, perhaps you want coffee? Or else,” and her eyes sparkled slyly, “or else a girlie, perhaps? Tamara is busy, but may be Niura or Verka will do?”

“Stop it, Jennie! I came about a serious and important matter, but you⁠ ⁠…”

“Well, well, I won’t, I won’t! I said it just so. I see that you observe faithfulness. That’s very noble on your part. Let’s go, then.”

She led him into the cabinet, and, opening the inner bolt of the shutter, threw it wide open. The daylight softly and sadly splashed against the red and gold walls, over the candelabra, over the soft red velveteen furniture.

“Right here it began,” reflected Likhonin with sad regret.

“I am going,” said