Yama

A long, long time ago, long before the railroads, the stage-drivers⁠—both government and private⁠—used to live, from generation to generation, at the very farthest confine of a large southern city. And that is why the entire region was called the Yamskaya Sloboda⁠—the Stage-drivers’ Borough; or simply Yamskaya, or Yamkas⁠—Little Ditches, or, shorter still, Yama⁠—The Pit. In the course of time, when hauling by steam killed off transportation by horses, the mettlesome tribe of the stage-drivers little by little lost its boisterous ways and its brave customs, went over into other occupations, fell apart and scattered. But for many years⁠—even up to this time⁠—a shady renown has remained to Yama, as of a place exceedingly gay, tipsy, brawling, and in the nighttime not without danger.

Somehow it came about of itself, that on the ruins of those ancient, long-warmed nests, where of yore the rosy-cheeked, sprightly wives of the soldiery and the plump widows of Yama, with their black eyebrows, had secretly traded in vodka and free love, there began to spring up wide-open brothels, permitted by the authorities, regulated by official supervision and subject to express, strict rules. Towards the end of the nineteenth century both streets of Yama⁠—Great Yamskaya and Little Yamskaya⁠—proved to be entirely occupied, on one side of the street as well as the other, exclusively with houses of ill-fame. Of the private houses no more than five or six were left, but even they were taken up by public houses, beer halls, and general stores, catering to the needs of Yama prostitution.

Two in the afternoon. In the second-rate, two-rouble establishment of Anna Markovna everything is plunged in sleep. The large square parlor with mirrors in gilt frames, with a score of plush chairs placed decorously along the walls, with oleograph pictures of Makovsky’s Feast of the Russian Noblemen, and Bathing, with a crystal lustre in the middle, is also sleeping, and in the quiet and semidarkness it seems unwontedly pensive, austere, strangely sad. Yesterday here, as on every evening, lights burned, the most rollicking of music rang out, blue tobacco smoke swirled, men and women careered in couples, shaking their hips and throwing their legs on high. And the entire street shone on the outside with the red lanterns over the street doors and with the light from the windows, and it seethed with people and carriages until morning.

Now the street is empty. It is glowing triumphantly and joyously in the glare of the summer sun. But in the parlor all the window curtains are lowered, and for that reason it is dark within, cool, and as peculiarly uninviting as the interiors of empty theatres, riding academies and court buildings usually are in the middle of the day.

The pianoforte glimmers dully with its black, bent, glossy side; the yellow, old, time-eaten, broken, gap-toothed keys glisten faintly. The stagnant, motionless air still retains yesterday’s odour; it smells of perfumes, tobacco, the sour dampness of a large uninhabited room, the perspiration of unclean and unhealthy feminine flesh, face-powder, boracic-thymol soap, and the dust of the yellow mastic with which the parquet floor had been polished yesterday. And with a strange charm the smell of withering swamp grass is blended with these smells.

One evening in winter⁠—about six, say⁠—someone rang the bell of the front entrance.

Simeon the doorkeeper, having glanced through the peeper, noticed a feminine figure standing on the front landing, and, having opened the door the least wee bit, asked:

“Who d’you want?”

“The proprietress.”

“And what for?”

“On business. I want to join on.”

“Wait a while⁠—I’ll tell her.”

He closed the door and went to Emma Edwardovna.

The housekeeper at first questioned him in detail as to what sort of lady it was, what her face was like, and her dress; whether the newcomer did not look like a spy in the pay of the police, etc. Then she said:

“Very well⁠—bring her here, and you yourself, in case anything should happen, stay behind the portière and listen. If I need you, I’ll call out.”

The lady came. The housekeeper, with her quick, all-seeing eye, looked her over in a second. One could see at once that this was no professional. She was dressed in a caracul sacque and a black silk dress. There were absolutely no traces or makeup on her face. She was of no great stature, but graceful and well put together. Her face, clever and handsome, was one of those which always remain pale, with a pleasant, subdued yellow tint. The eyes were glisteningly blue, their gaze frequently on the qui vive.

“About twenty, probably,” reflected Emma Edwardovna, and asked:

“Your age, Madame?”

“Twenty-six.”

“However, you look youngish, I must say. Would it be hard for you to undress?”

“Entirely?”

“Entirely⁠—throw off even your chemise. It’s warm in here.”

“D’you remember your Magda? This, I must say, was a bird of the loftiest flight! Big game! She had almost half-a-score of names, and one of them was the very same name that was on the passport which you, Emma Edwardovna, brought personally to the police-station, to exchange for a yellow ticket. According to the passport she then had, she was designated as Olga Lavinskaya⁠—one of the nobility and a teacher of music. But d’you know why she insinuated herself into your house? It’s amazing! It’s over-r-whelming! She was making her first steps in your place, going through the primary class, so to speak, of instruction in the school of prostitution. Don’t upset yourself⁠—don’t ah and oh! That which follows is still more amazing. Having studied up on the trade in your place to such an extent that, calling herself a prostitute, she might deceive even an experienced eye, what did she do? She went South, to Sebastopol. In the beginning she joined on in a sailors’ dive, then in another, then a third and a fourth, and after that took up the same practice in Odessa and Nikolaev. Mark you, now⁠—all naval ports. And everywhere, under cover of the yellow ticket, did she carry on a desperate, anti-government propaganda, summoning everybody to the annihilation of the reigning dynasty and all those in power, as well as to the destruction of the monied interests⁠—especially landowners. Through her, in all these cities, were scattered millions of agitatory appeals and proclamations. They couldn’t catch her, no matter how they tried. She was helped everywhere by her friends, the comrades of the revolution.

“Yes,” she said; “here, now, I understand Tamara. You hear, Tamara, I apologize before you. I’ve often laughed over your being in love with your thief Senka. But here, now, I’ll say that of all the men the most decent is a thief or a murderer. He doesn’t hide the fact that he loves a girlie, and, if need be, will commit a crime for her⁠—a theft or a murder. But these⁠—the rest of them! All lying, falsehood, petty cunning, depravity on the sly. The nasty beast has three families, a wife and five children. A governess and two children abroad. The eldest daughter from the first marriage, and a child by her. And this everybody, everybody in town knows, save his little children. And even they, perhaps, guess it and whisper among themselves. And, just imagine, he’s a respected person, honoured by the whole world⁠ ⁠… My children, it seems we’ve never had occasion to enter into confidences with each other, and yet I’ll tell you, that I when I was ten and a half, was sold by my own mother in the city of Zhitomir to Doctor Tarabukin. I kissed his hands, implored him to spare me, I cried out to him: ‘I’m little!’ But he’d answer me: ‘That’s nothing, that’s nothing: you’ll grow up.’ Well, of course, there was pain, aversion, nastiness⁠ ⁠… And he afterwards spread it around as a current anecdote. The despairing cry of my soul.”

“Well, as long as we do speak, let’s speak to the end,” suddenly and calmly said Zoe, and smiled negligently and sadly. “I was deprived of innocence by a teacher in the ministerial school, Ivan Petrovich Sus.