Yama, Aleksandr Kuprin [grave mercy TXT] 📗

a century. What a scoundrel! Twenty-five roubles and some small change besides. Well, the small change, of course, I won’t count up to him. God be with him! This, you see, is a billiard debt. I must say that he’s a blackguard, plays crookedly⁠ ⁠… And so, young man, dig up fifteen more.”

“Well, but you are a knave, Mr. Inspector!” said Likhonin, getting out the money.

“Oh, mercy!” by now altogether good-naturedly retorted Berkesh. “A wife, children⁠ ⁠… You know yourself what our salary is⁠ ⁠… Receive the little passport, young man. Sign your receipt. Best wishes.”

A queer thing! The consciousness that the passport was, finally, in his pocket, for some reason suddenly calmed and again braced up and elevated Likhonin’s nerves.

“Oh, well!” he thought, walking quickly along the street, “the very beginning has been laid down, the most difficult part has been done. Hold fast, now, Likhonin, and don’t fall in spirit! What you’ve done is splendid and lofty. Let me be even a victim of this deed⁠—it’s all one! It’s a shame, having done a good deed, to expect rewards for it right away. I’m not a little circus dog, and not a trained camel, and not the first pupil of a young ladies’ genteel institute. Only it was useless for me to let loose yesterday before these bearers of enlightenment. It all turned out to be silly, tactless, and, in any case, premature. But everything in life is reparable. A person will sustain the heaviest, most disgraceful things; but, time passes, and they are recalled as trifles⁠ ⁠…”

To his amazement, Liubka was not especially struck, and did not at all become overjoyed when he triumphantly showed her the passport. She was only glad to see Likhonin again. Perhaps, this primitive, naive soul had already contrived to cleave to its protector? She did throw herself upon his neck, but he stopped her, and quietly, almost in her ear, asked her:

“Liubka, tell me⁠ ⁠… don’t be afraid to tell the truth, no matter what it may be⁠ ⁠… They told me just now, there in the house, that you’re sick with a certain disease⁠ ⁠… you know, that which is called the evil sickness. If you believe in me even to some extent, tell me, my darling, tell me, is that so or not?”

She turned red, covered her face with her hands, fell down on the divan and burst into tears.

“My dearie! Vassil Vassilich! Vassinka! Honest to God! Honest to God, now, there never was anything of the kind! I always was so careful! I was awfully afraid of this. I love you so! I would have told you without fail.” She caught his hands, pressed them to her wet face and continued to assure him with the absurd and touching sincerity of an unjustly accused child.

And he at once believed her in his soul.

“I believe you, my child,” he said quietly, stroking her hair. “Don’t excite yourself, don’t cry. Only let us not again give in to our weakness. Well, it has happened⁠—let it have happened; but let us not repeat it any more.’

“As you wish,” prattled the girl, kissing now his hands, now the cloth of his coat. “If I displease you so, then, of course, let it be as you wish.”

However, this evening also the temptation was again repeated, and kept on repeating until the falls from grace ceased to arouse a burning shame in Likhonin, and turned into a habit, swallowing and extinguishing remorse.

XVI

Justice must be rendered to Likhonin; he did everything to create for Liubka a quiet and secure existence. Since he knew that they would have to leave their mansard anyway⁠—this bird house, rearing above the whole city⁠—leave it not so much on account of its inconvenience and lack of space as on account of the old woman Alexandra, who with every day became more ferocious, captious and scolding, he resolved to rent a little bit of a flat, consisting of two rooms and a kitchen, on the Borshchagovka, at the edge of the town. He came upon an inexpensive one, for nine roubles a month, without fuel. True, Likhonin had to run very far from there to his pupils, but he relied firmly upon his endurance and health, and would often say:

“My legs are my own. I don’t have to be sparing of them.”

And, truly, he was a great master at walking. Once, for the sake of a joke, having put a pedometer in his vest pocket, he towards evening counted up twenty versts; which, taking into consideration the unusual length of his legs, equalled some twenty-five versts.27 And he did have to run about quite a bit, because the fuss about Liubka’s passport and the acquisition of household furnishings of a sort had eaten up all his accidental winnings at cards. He did try to take up playing again, on a small scale at first, but was soon convinced that his star at cards had now entered upon a run of fatal ill luck.

By now, of course, the real character of his relations with Liubka was a mystery to none of his comrades; but he still continued in their presence to act out the comedy of friendly and brotherly relations with the girl. For some reason he could not, or did not want to, realize that it would have been far wiser and more advantageous for him not to lie, not to be false, and not to pretend. Or, perhaps, although he did know this, he still could not change the established tone. As for the intimate relations, he inevitably played a secondary, passive role. The initiative, in the form of tenderness, caressing, always had to come from Liubka (she had remained Liubka, after all, and Likhonin had somehow entirely forgotten that he himself had read her real name⁠—Irene⁠—in the passport).

She, who had so recently given her body up impassively⁠—or, on the contrary, with an imitation of burning passion⁠—to tens of people in a day, to hundreds in a month, had become attached