from wrath; I choked from wrath ...I thought: and here’s the end;
therefore, there’s no more use in pitying, there’s nothing to grieve
about, nothing to expect...The lid! ... But for all that I have
borne—can it be that there’s no paying back for it? Can it be that
there’s no justice in the world? Can it be that I can’t even feast
myself with revenge?—for that I have never known love; that of family
life I know only by hearsay; that, like a disgustin’, nasty little dog,
they call me near, pat me and then with a boot over the head—get
out!—that they made me over, from a human being, equal to all of them,
no more foolish than all those I’ve met; made me over into a floor mop,
some sort of a sewer pipe for their filthy pleasures? ...Ugh! ... Is it
possible that for all of this I must take even such a disease with
gratitude as well? ... Or am I a slave? ... A dumb object? ... A pack
horse? ... And so, Platonov, it was just then that I resolved to infect
them all: young, old, poor, rich, handsome, hideous—all, all, all! ...”
Platonov, who had already long since put his plate away from him, was
looking at her with astonishment, and even more—almost with horror. He,
who had seen in life much of the painful, the filthy, at times even of
the bloody—he grew frightened with an animal fright before this
intensity of enormous, unvented hatred. Coming to himself, he said:
“One great writer tells of such a case. The Prussians conquered the
French and lorded it over them in every possible way: shot the men,
violated the women, pillaged the houses, burned down the fields...And
so one handsome woman—a Frenchwoman, very handsome,—having become
infected, began out of spite to infect all the Germans who happened to
fall into her embraces. She made ill whole hundreds, perhaps even
thousands...And when she was dying in a hospital, she recalled this
with joy and with pride...[25] But then, those were enemies, trampling
upon her fatherland and slaughtering her brothers...But you, you,
Jennechka! ...”
[25] This story is Lit. No. 29, by Guy de Maupassant.—Trans.
“But I—all, just all! Tell me, Sergei Ivanovich, only tell me on your
conscience: if you were to find in the street a child, whom some one
had dishonoured, had abused...well, let’s say, had stuck its eyes out,
cut its ears off—and then you were to find out that this man is at this
minute walking past you, and that only God alone, if only He exists, is
looking at you this minute from heaven—what would you do?”
“Don’t know,” answered Platonov, dully and downcast; but he paled, and
his fingers underneath the table convulsively clenched into fists,
“Perhaps I would kill him...”
“Not ‘perhaps,’ but certainly! I know you, I sense you. Well, and now
think: every one of us has been abused so, when we were children! ...
Children! ...” passionately moaned out Jennka and covered her eyes for
a moment with her palm. “Why, it comes to me, you also spoke of this at
one time, in our place—wasn’t it on that same evening before the
Trinity? ... Yes, children—foolish, trusting, blind, greedy,
frivolous...And we cannot tear ourselves out of our harness...where are
we to go? what are we to do? ... And please, don’t you think it, Sergei
Ivanovich—that the spite within me is strong only against those who
wronged just me, me personally...No, against all our guests in general;
all these cavaliers, from little to big...Well, and so I have resolved
to avenge myself and my sisters. Is that good or no? ...”
“Jehnechka, really I don’t know...I can’t...I dare not say anything...I
don’t understand.”
“But even that’s not the main thing...For the main thing is this: I
infected them, and did not feel anything—no pity, no remorse, no guilt
before God or my fatherland. Within me was only joy, as in a hungry
wolf that has managed to get at blood...But yesterday something
happened which even I can’t understand. A cadet came to me, altogether
a little bit of a lad, silly, with yellow around his mouth...He used to
come to me from still last winter...And then suddenly I had pity on
him... Not because he was very handsome and very young; and not because
he had always been very polite—even tender, if you will...No, both the
one and the other had come to me, but I did not spare them: with
enjoyment I marked them off, just like cattle, with a red-hot brand
...But this one I suddenly pitied...I myself don’t understand—why? I
can’t make it out. It seemed to me, that it would be all the same as
stealing money from a little simpleton, a little idiot; or hitting a
blind man, or cutting a sleeper’s throat...if he only were some
dried-up marasmus or a nasty little brute, or a lecherous old fellow, I
would not have stopped. But he was healthy, robust, with chest and arms
like a statue’s...and I could not... I gave him his money back, showed
him my disease; in a word, I acted like a fool among fools. He went
away from me...burst into tears...And now since last evening I haven’t
slept. I walk around as in a fog...Therefore—I’m thinking right
now—therefore, that which, I meditated; my dream to infect them all; to
infect their fathers, mothers, sisters, brides—even all the
world—therefore, all this was folly, an empty fantasy, since I have
stopped? ... Once again, I don’t understand anything ...Sergei
Ivanovich, you are so wise, you have seen so much of life—help me,
then, to find myself now!...”
“I don’t know, Jennechka!” quietly pronounced Platonov. “Not that I
fear telling you, or advising you, but I know absolutely nothing. This
is above my reason... above conscience...”
Jennie crossed her fingers and nervously cracked them.
“And I, too, don’t know...Therefore, that which I thought—is not the
truth. Therefore, there is but one thing left me...This thought came
into my head this morning...”
“Don’t, don’t do it, Jennechka! ... Jennie! ...” Platonov quickly
interrupted her.
“There’s one thing: to hang myself...”
“No, no, Jennie, only not that! ... If there were other circumstances,
unsurmountable, I would, believe me, tell you boldly: well, it’s no
use, Jennie; it’s time to close up shop... But what you need isn’t that
at all... If you wish, I can suggest one way out to you, no less
malicious and merciless; but which, perhaps, will satiate your wrath a
hundredfold...”
“What’s that?” asked Jennie, wearily, as though suddenly wilted after
her flare-up.
“Well, this is it ... You’re still young, and I’ll tell you the truth,
you are very handsome; that is, you can be, if you only want to,
unusually stunning ... That’s even more than beauty. But you’ve never
yet known the bounds and the power of your appearance; and, mainly, you
don’t know to what a degree such natures as yours are bewitching, and
how mightily they enchain men to them, and make out of them more than
slaves and brutes ... You are proud, you are brave, you are
independent, you are a clever woman. I know—you have read a great deal,
let’s presuppose even trashy books, but still you have read, you have
an entirely different speech from the others. With a successful turn of
life, you can cure yourself, you can get out of these ‘Yamkas,’ these
‘Little Ditches,’ into freedom. You have only to stir a finger, in
order to see at your feet hundreds of men; submissive, ready for your
sake for vileness, for theft, for embezzlement ... Lord it over them
with tight reins, with a cruel whip in your hands! ... Ruin them, make
them go out of their minds, as long as your desire and energy hold out!
... Look, my dear Jennie, who manages life now if not women!
Yesterday’s chambermaid, laundress, chorus girl goes through estates
worth millions, the way a country-woman of Tver cracks sunflower seeds.
A woman scarcely able to sign her name, at times affects the destiny of
an entire kingdom through a man. Hereditary princes marry the
street-walkers, the kept mistresses of yesterday... Jennechka, there is
the scope for your unbridled vengeance; while I will admire you from a
distance... For you—you are made of this stuff—you are a bird of prey,
a spoliator... Perhaps not with such a broad sweep—but you will cast
them down under your feet.”
“No,” faintly smiled Jennka. “I thought of this before ... But
something of the utmost importance has burned out within me. There are
no forces within me, there is no will within me, no desires ... I am
somehow all empty inside, rotted ... Well, now, you know, there’s a
mushroom like that—white, round,—you squeeze it, and snuff pours out of
it. And the same way with me. This life has eaten out everything within
me save malice. And I am flabby, and my malice is flabby ... I’ll see
some little boy again, will have pity on him, will be punishing myself
again ... No, it’s better ... better so! ...”
She became silent. And Platonov did not know what to say. It became
oppressive and awkward for both. Finally, Jennka got up, and, without
looking at Platonov, extended her cold, feeble hand to him.
“Good-bye, Sergei Ivanovich! Excuse me, that I took up your time ...
Oh, well, I can see myself that you’d help me, if you only could ...
But, evidently, there’s nothing to be done here ... Good-bye!”
“Only don’t do anything foolish, Jennechka! I implore you! ...”
“Oh, that’s all right!” said she and made a tired gesture with her
hand.
Having come out of the square, they parted; but, having gone a few
steps, Jennka suddenly called after him:
“Sergei Ivanovich, oh Sergei Ivanovich! ...”
He stopped, turned around, walked back to her.
“Roly-Poly croaked last evening in our drawing room. He jumped and he
jumped, and then suddenly plumped down ... Oh, well, it’s an easy death
at least! And also I forgot to ask you, Sergei Ivanovich ... This is
the last, now ... Is there a God or no?”
Platonov knit his eyebrows.
“What answer can I make? I don’t know. I think that there is, but not
such as we imagine Him. He is more wise, more just...”
“And future life? There, after death? Is there, now, as they tell us, a
paradise or hell? Is that the truth? Or is there just nothing at all? A
barren void? A sleep without a dream? A dark basement?”
Platonov kept silent, trying not to look at Jennka. He felt oppressed
and frightened.
“I don’t know,” said he, finally, with an effort. “I don’t want to lie
to you.”
Jennka sighed, and smiled with a pitiful, twisted smile.
“Well, thanks, my dear. And thanks for even that much ... I wish you
happiness. With all my soul. Well, good-bye...”
She turned away from him and began slowly, with a wavering walk, to
climb up the hill.
Platonov returned to work just in the nick of time. The gathering of
tramps, scratching, yawning, working out their accustomed dislocations,
were getting into their places. Zavorotny, at a distance, with his keen
eyes caught sight of Platonov and began to yell over the whole port:
“You did manage to get here in time, you round-shouldered devil ... But
I was already wanting to take you by the tail and chase you out of the
gang ... Well, get in your place! ...”
“Well, but I did get a he-dog in you, Serejka! ...” he added, in a
kindly manner. “If only it was night; but no,—look you, he starts in
playing ring-around-a-rosie in broad daylight...”
CHAPTER V.
Saturday was the customary day of the doctor’s inspection, for which
they prepared very carefully and with quaking in all the houses; as,
however, even society ladies prepare themselves, when getting ready for
a visit to a physician-specialist; they diligently made their intimate
toilet and inevitably put on clean underthings, even as dressy as
possible. The windows toward the street were closed with shutters,
while at one of those windows, which gave out upon the yard, was put a
table with a hard bolster to put under the back.
All the girls were agitated ... “And what if there’s a disease, which I
haven’t noticed myself? ... And then the despatch to a hospital;
disgrace; the tedium of hospital life; bad food; the hard course of
treatment...”
Only Big Manka—or otherwise Manka the Crocodile—Zoe, and Henrietta—all
thirty years old, and, therefore, in the reckoning of Yama, already old
prostitutes, who had seen everything, had grown inured to everything,
grown indifferent to their trade, like white, fat circus
horses—remained imperturbably calm. Manka the Crocodile even often said
of herself:
“I have gone through fire and water and pipes of brass ... Nothing will
stick to me any more.”
Jennka, since morning, was meek and pensive. She presented to Little
White Manka a golden bracelet; a medallion upon a thin little chain
with her photograph; and a silver neck crucifix. Tamara she moved
through entreaty into taking two rings for remembrance: one of silver,
in three hoops, that could be moved apart, with a heart in the middle,
and under it two hands that clasped one another when all the three
parts of the ring were joined; while the other was of thin gold wire
with an almandine.
“As for my underwear, Tamarochka—you give it to Annushka, the
chambermaid. Let her wash it out well and wear it in good health, in
memory of me.”
The two of them were sitting in Tamara’s room. Jennka had in the very
morning sent after cognac; and now slowly, as though lazily, was
imbibing wine-glass after wine-glass, eating lemon and a piece of sugar
after drinking. Tamara was observing this for the first time and
wondered, because Jennka had always disliked wine, and drank very
rarely; and then only at the constraint of guests.
“What are you giving stuff away so to-day?” asked Tamara. “Just as
though you’d gotten ready to die, or to go into a convent?”
“Yes, and I will go away,” answered Jennka listlessly. “I am weary,
Tamarochka! ...”
“Well, which one of us has a good time?”
“Well, no! ... It isn’t so much that I’m weary; but somehow
everything—everything is all the same ... I look at you, at the table,
at the bottle; at my hands and feet; and I’m thinking, that all this is
alike and everything is to no purpose ... There’s no sense in anything
... Just like on some old, old picture. Look there—there’s a soldier
walking on the street, but it’s all one to me, as though they had wound
up a doll, and it’s moving ... And that he’s wet under the ram, is also
all one to me ... And that he’ll die, and I’ll die, and you, Tamara,
will die—in this also I see nothing frightful, nothing amazing... So
simple and wearisome is everything to me...”
Jennka was silent for a while; drank one more wine-glass; sucked the
sugar, and, still looking out at the street, suddenly asked:
“Tell me, please, Tamara, I’ve never asked you about it—from where did
you get in here, into the house? You don’t at all resemble all of us;
you know everything; for everything that turns up you have a good,
clever remark ... Even French, now—how well you spoke it that time! But
none of us knows anything at all about you ... Who are you?”
“Darling Jennechka, really, it’s not worth while ... A life like any
life ... I went to boarding school; was a governess; sang in a choir;
then kept a shooting gallery in a summer garden; and then got mixed up
with a certain charlatan and taught myself to shoot with a Winchester
... I traveled with circuses—I represented an American Amazon. I used
to shoot splendidly ... Then I found myself in a monastery. There I
passed two years ... I’ve been through a lot ... Can’t recall
everything ... I used to steal...”
“You’ve lived through a great deal ... Checkered-like.”
“But then, my years are not a few. Well, what do you think—how many?”
“Twenty-two, twenty-four? ...”
“No, my angel! It just struck thirty-two a week ago. I, if you like, am
older than all of you here in Anna Markovna’s. Only I didn’t wonder at
anything, didn’t take anything near to heart. As you see, I never drink
... I occupy myself very carefully with the care of my body; and the
main thing, the very main thing—I don’t allow myself ever to be carried
away with men...”
“Well, but what about your Senka? ...”
“Senka—that’s a horse of another colour; the heart of woman is foolish,
inconsistent ... Can it possibly live without love? And even so, I
don’t love him, but just so ... a self-deception ... But, however, I
shall be in very great need of Senka soon.”
Jennka suddenly grew animated and looked at her friend with curiosity.
“But how did you come to get stuck right here, in this hole? So clever,
handsome, sociable...”
“I’d have to take a long time in telling it ... And then I’m too lazy
... I got in here out of love; I got mixed up with a certain young man
and went into a revolution with him. For we always act so, we women:
where the dearie is looking, there we also look; what the dearie sees,
that we also see ... I didn’t believe at soul in his work, but I went.
A flattering man he was; smart, a good talker, a good looker ... Only
he proved to be a skunk and a traitor afterwards. He played at
revolution; while he himself gave his comrades away to the gendarmes. A
stool-pigeon, he was. When they had killed and shown him up, then all
the foolishness left me. However, it was necessary to conceal myself
... I changed my passport. Then they advised me, that the easiest thing
of all was to screen myself with a yellow ticket ... And then the fun
began! ... And even here I’m on a sort of pasture ground; when the time
comes, the successful moment arrives—I’ll go away!”
“Where?” asked Jennie with impatience.
“The world is large ... And I love life! ... There, now, I was the same
way in the convent: I lived on and I lived on; sang antiphonies and
dulias, until I had rested up, and had finally grown weary of it; and
then all at once—hop! and into a cabaret ... Wasn’t that some jump? The
same way out of here ... I’ll get into a theatre, into a circus, into a
corps de ballet ... but do you know, Jennechka, I’m drawn to the
thieving trade the most, after all ... Daring, dangerous, hard, and
somehow intoxicating ... It’s drawing me! ... Don’t you mind that I’m
so respectable and modest, and can appear an educated young lady. I’m
entirely, entirely different.”
Her eyes suddenly blazed up, vividly and gaily.
“There’s a devil dwells in me!”
“It’s all very well for you,” pensively and with weariness pronounced
Jennie. “You at least desire something, but my soul is some sort of
carrion ... I’m twenty-five years old, now; but my soul is like that of
an old woman, shrivelled up, smelling of the earth ... And if I had
only lived sensibly! ... Ugh! ... There was only some sort of slush.”
“Drop it, Jennka; you’re talking foolishly. You’re smart, you’re
original; you have that special power before which men crawl and creep
so willingly. You go away from here, too. Not with me, of course—I’m
always single—but go away all by your own self.”
Jennka shook her head and quietly, without tears, hid her face in her
palms.
“No,” she responded dully, after a long silence, “no, this won’t work
out with me: fate has chewed me all up! ... I’m not a human being any
more, but some sort of dirty cud ... Eh!” she suddenly made a gesture
of despair. ‘Let’s better drink some cognac, Jennechka,’” she addressed
herself, “‘and let’s suck the lemon a little! ...’ Brr ... what nasty
stuff! ... And where does Annushka always get such abominable stuff? If
you smear a dog’s wool with it, it will fall off ... And always, the
low-down thing, she’ll take an extra half. Once I somehow ask her—‘What
are you hoarding money for?’ ‘Well, I,’ she says, ‘am saving it up for
a wedding. What sort,’ she says, ‘of joy will it be for my husband,
that I’ll offer him up my innocence alone! I must earn a few hundreds
in addition.’ She’s happy! ... I have here, Tamara, a little money in
the little box under the mirror; you pass it on to her, please...”
“And what are you about, you fool; do you want to die, or what?”
sharply, with reproach, said Tamara.
“No, I’m saying it just so, if anything happens ... Take it, now, take
the money! Maybe they’ll take me off to the hospital ... And how do you
know what’s going to take place there? I left myself some small change,
if anything happens ... And supposing that I wanted to do something to
myself in downright earnest, Tamarochka—is it possible that you’d
interfere with me?”
Tamara looked at her fixedly, deeply, and calmly. Jennie’s eyes were
sad, and as though vacant. The living fire had become extinguished in
them, and they seemed turbid, just as though faded, with whites like
moonstone.
“No,” Tamara said at last, quietly but firmly. “If it was on account of
love, I’d interfere; if it was on account of money, I’d talk you out of
it: but there are cases where one must not interfere. I wouldn’t help,
of course; but I also wouldn’t seize you and interfere with you.”
At this moment the quick-limbed housekeeper Zociya whirled through the
corridor with an outcry:
“Ladies, get dressed! The doctor has arrived ... Ladies, get dressed!
... Lively, ladies! ...”
“Well, go on, Tamara, go on,” said Jennka tenderly, getting up. “I’ll
run into my room for just a minute—I haven’t changed my dress yet,
although, to tell the truth, this also is all one. When they’ll be
calling out for me, and I don’t come in time, call out, run in after
me.”
And, going out of Tamara’s room, she embraced her by the shoulder, as
though by chance, and stroked it tenderly.
Doctor Klimenko—the official city doctor—was preparing in the parlor
everything indispensable for an inspection—vaseline, a solution of
sublimate, and other things—and was placing them on a separate little
table. Here also were arranged for him the white blanks of the girls,
replacing their passports, as well as a general alphabetical list. The
girls, dressed only in their chemises, stockings, and slippers, were
standing and sitting at a distance. Nearer the table was standing the
proprietress herself—Anna Markovna—while a little behind her were Emma
Edwardovna and Zociya.
The doctor—aged, disheartened, slovenly; a man indifferent to
everything—put the pince-nez crookedly upon his nose, looked at the
list, and called out:
“Alexandra Budzinskaya! ...”
The frowning, little, pug-nosed Nina stepped out. Preserving on her
face an angry expression, and breathing heavily from shame, from the
consciousness of her own awkwardness, and from the exertions, she
clumsily climbed up on the table. The doctor, squinting through his
pince-nez and dropping it every minute, carried out the inspection.
“Go ahead! ... You’re sound.”
And on the reverse side of the blank he marked off: “Twenty-eighth of
August. Sound” and put down a curly-cue. And when he had not even
finished writing called out:
“Voshchenkova, Irene! ...”
Now it was the turn of Liubka. She, during the past month and a half of
comparative freedom, had had time to grow unaccustomed to the
inspections of every week; and when the doctor turned up the chemise
over her breast, she suddenly turned as red as only very bashful women
can—even with her back and breast.
After her was the turn of Zoe; then of Little White Manka; after that
of Tamara and Niurka—the last, the doctor found, had gonorrhoea, and
ordered her to be sent off to a hospital.
The doctor carried out the inspection with amazing rapidity. It was now
nearly twenty years that every week, on Saturdays, he had to inspect in
such a manner several hundred girls; and he had worked out that
habitual technical dexterity and rapidity, a calm carelessness of
movements, which is; frequently to be found in circus artists, in card
sharpers, in furniture movers and packers, and in other professionals.
And he carried out his manipulations with the same calmness with which
a drover or a veterinary inspects several hundred head of cattle in a
day.
Did he ever think that before him were living people; or that he
appeared as the last and most important link of that fearful chain
which is called legalized prostitution?
No! And even if he did experience this, then it must have been in the
very beginning of his career. Now before him were only naked abdomens,
naked backs, and opened mouths. Not one exemplar of all this faceless
herd of every Saturday would he have recognized subsequently on the
street. The main thing was the necessity of finishing as soon as
possible the inspection in one establishment, in order to pass on to
another, to a third, a ninth, a twentieth...
“Susannah Raitzina!” the doctor finally called out.
No one walked up to the table.
All the inmates of the house began to exchange glances and to whisper.
“Jennka ... Where’s Jennka? ...”
But she was not among the girls.
Then Tamara, just released by the doctor, moved a little forward and
said:
“She isn’t here. She hasn’t had a chance to get herself ready yet.
Excuse me, Mr. Doctor, I’ll go right away and call her.”
She ran into the corridor and did not return for a long time. After her
went, at first Emma Edwardovna, then Zociya, several girls, and even
Anna Markovna herself.
“PFUI! What indecency is this! ...” the majestic Emma Edwardovna was
saying in the corridor, making an indignant face. “And eternally this
Jennka! ... Always this Jennka! ... It seems my patience has already
burst ...”
But Jennka was nowhere—neither in her room, nor in Tamara’s. They
looked into other chambers, in all the out-of-the-way corners ... But
she did not prove to be even there.
“We must look in the water-closet ... Perhaps she’s there?” surmised
Zoe.
But this institution was locked from the inside with a bolt. Emma
Edwardovna knocked on the door with her fist.
“Jennie, do come out at last! What foolishness is this?”
And, raising her voice, she cried out impatiently and threateningly:
“Do you hear, you swine? ... Come out this minute—the doctor’s
waiting!”
But there was no answer of any sort.
All exchanged glances with fear in their eyes, with one and the same
thought in mind.
Emma Edwardovna shook the door by the brass knob, but the door did not
yield.
“Go after Simeon!” Anna Markovna directed.
Simeon was called ... He came, sleepy and morose, as was his wont. By
the distracted faces of the girls and the housekeepers, he already saw
that some misunderstanding or other had occurred, in which his
professional cruelty and strength were required. When they explained to
him what the matter was, he silently took the door-knob with both
hands, braced himself against the wall, and gave a yank.
The knob remained in his hands; and he himself, staggering backward,
almost fell to the floor on his back.
“A-a, hell!” he began to growl in a stifled voice. “Give me a table
knife.”
Through the crack of the door he felt the inner bolt with the table
knife; whittled away with the blade the edges of the crack, and widened
it so that he could at last push the end of the knife through it, and
began gradually to scrape back the bolt. Only the grating of metal
against metal could be heard.
Finally Simeon threw the door wide open.
Jennka was hanging in the middle of the water-closet on a tape from her
corset, fastened to the lamphook. Her body, already motionless after an
unprolonged agony, was slowly swinging in the air, and describing
scarcely perceptible turns to the right and left around its vertical
axis. Her face was bluishly-purple, and the tip of the tongue was
thrust out between clenched and bared teeth. The lamp which had been
taken off was also here, sprawling on the floor.
Some one began to squeal hysterically, and all the girls, like a
stampeded herd, crowding and jostling each other in the narrow
corridor, vociferating and choking with hysterical sobbings, started in
to run.
The doctor came upon hearing the outcries... Came, precisely, and not
ran. Seeing what the matter was, he did not become amazed or excited;
during his practice as an official city doctor, he had had his fill of
seeing such things, so that he had already grown benumbed and hardened
to human sufferings, wounds and death. He ordered Simeon to lift the
corpse of Jennka a bit upward, and himself getting up on the seat, cut
through the tape. Proforma, he ordered Jennka’s body to be borne away
into the room that had been hers, and tried with the help of the same
Simeon to produce artificial respiration; but after five minutes gave
it up as a bad job, fixed the pince-nez, which had become crooked, on
his nose, and said:
“Call the police in to make a protocol.”
Again Kerbesh came, again whispered for a long time with the
proprietress in her little bit of a cabinet, and again crunched in his
pocket a new hundred-rouble bill.
The protocol was made in five minutes; and Jennka, just as half-naked
as she had hung herself, was carted away in a hired wagon into an
anatomical theatre, wrapped up in and covered with two straw mats.
Emma Edwardovna was the first to find the note that Jennka had left on
her night table. On a sheet, torn out of the income-expense book,
compulsory for every prostitute, in pencil, in a naive, rounded,
childish handwriting—by which, however, it could be judged that the
hands of the suicide had not trembled during the last minutes—was
written:
“I beg that no one be blamed for my death. I am dying because I have
become infected, and also because all people are scoundrels and it is
very disgusting to live. How to divide my things—Tamara knows about
that. I told her in detail.”
Emma Edwardovna turned around upon Tamara, who was right on the spot
among a number of other girls, and with eyes filled with a cold, green
hatred, hissed out:
“Then you knew, you low-down thing, what she was preparing to do? ...
You knew, you vermin? ... You knew and didn’t tell? ...”
She already had swung back, in order, as was her wont, to hit Tamara
cruelly and calculatingly; but suddenly stopped just as she was, with
gaping mouth and with eyes wide open. It was just as though she was
seeing, for the first time, Tamara, who was looking at her with a firm,
wrathful, unbearable gaze, and slowly, slowly was raising from below,
and at last brought up to the level of the housekeeper’s face, a small
object, glistening with white metal.
CHAPTER VI.
That very same day, at evening, a very important event took place in
the house of Anna Markovna: the whole institution—with land and house,
with live and inanimate stock—passed into the hands of Emma Edwardovna.
They had been speaking of this, on and off, for a long time in the
establishment; but when the rumours so unexpectedly, immediately right
after the death of Jennka, turned into realities, the misses could not
for a long time come to themselves for amazement and fear. They knew
well, having experienced the sway of the German upon themselves, her
cruel, implacable pedantism; her greed, arrogance, and, finally, her
perverted, exacting, repulsive love, now for one, now for another
favorite. Besides that, it was no mystery to any one, that out of the
fifteen thousand which Emma Edwardovna had to pay the former
proprietress for the firm and for the property, one third belonged to
Kerbesh, who had, for a long time already, been carrying on
half-friendly, half-business relations with the fat housekeeper. From
the union of two such people, shameless, pitiless, and covetous, the
girls could expect all sorts of disasters for themselves.
Anna Markovna had to let the house go so cheaply not simply because
Kerbesh, even if he had not known about certain shady little
transactions to her credit, could still at any time he liked trip her
up and eat her up without leaving anything. Of pretexts and cavils for
this even a hundred could be found every day; and certain ones of them
not merely threatened the shutting down of the house alone, but, if you
like, even with the court.
But, dissembling, oh-ing and sighing, bewailing her poverty, her
maladies and orphanhood, Anna Markovna at soul was glad of even such a
settlement. And then it must be said: she was already for a long time
feeling the approach of senile infirmity, together with all sorts of
ailments and the thirst for complete, benevolent rest, undisturbed by
anything. All, of which she had not even dared dream in her early
youth, when she herself had yet been a prostitute of the rank and
file—all had now come to her of itself, one in addition to the other:
peaceful old age, a house—a brimming cup on one of the quiet, cozy
streets, almost in the centre of the city,—the adored daughter Birdie,
who—if not to-day then tomorrow—must marry a respected man, an
engineer, a house-owner, and member of the city-council; provided for
as she was with a respectable dowry and magnificent valuables ... Now
it was possible peacefully, without hurrying, with gusto, to dine and
sup on sweet things, for which Anna Markovna had always nourished a
great weakness; to drink after dinner good, home-made, strong
cherry-brandy; and of evenings to play a bit at “preference,” for
kopeck stakes, with esteemed elderly ladies of her acquaintance, who,
even although they never as much as let it appear that they knew the
real trade of the little old woman, did in reality know it very well;
and not only did not condemn her business but even bore themselves with
respect toward those enormous percentages which she earned upon her
capital. And these charming friends, the joy and consolation of an
untroubled old age, were: one—the keeper of a loan office; another—the
proprietress of a lively hotel near the railroad; the third—the owner
of a jewelry shop, not large, but all the go and well known among the
big thieves, &c. And about them, in her turn, Anna Markovna knew and
could tell several shady and not especially flattering anecdotes; but
in their society it was not customary to talk of the sources of the
family well-being—only cleverness, daring, success, and decent manners
were esteemed.
But, even besides that, Anna Markovna, sufficiently limited in mind and
not especially developed, had some sort of an amazing inner intuition,
which during all her life permitted her instinctively but
irreproachably to avoid unpleasantnesses, and to find prudent paths in
time. And so now, after the sudden death of Roly-Poly, and the suicide
of Jennka which followed the next day, she, with her
unconsciously—penetrating soul foreguessed that fate—which had been
favouring her house of ill-fame, sending her good fortunes, turning
away all under-water shoals—was now getting ready to turn its back upon
her. And she was the first to retreat.
They say, that not long before a fire in a house, or before the wreck
of a ship, the wise, nervous rats in droves make their way into another
place. And Anna Markovna was directed by the same rat-like, animal,
prophetic intuition. And she was right: immediately right after the
death of Jennka some fearful curse seemed to hang over the house,
formerly Anna Markovna Shaibes’, but now Emma Edwardovna Titzner’s:
deaths, misfortunes, scandals just simply descended upon it
ceaselessly, becoming constantly more frequent, on the manner of bloody
events in Shakespeare’s tragedies; as, however, was the case at all the
remaining houses of the Yamas as well.
And one of the first to die, a week after the liquidation of the
business, was Anna Markovna herself. However, this frequently happens
with people put out of their accustomed rut of thirty years: so die war
heroes, who have gone into retirement—people of insuperable health and
iron will; so quickly go off the stage former stock brokers, who have
happily gone away to rest, but have been deprived of the burning
allurement of risk and hazard; so, too, age rapidly, droop, and grow
decrepit, the great artists who leave the stage ... Her death was the
death of the just. Once at a game of cards she felt herself unwell;
begged them to wait a while for her; said that she would lie down for
just a minute; lay down in the bedroom on a bed; sighed deeply, and
passed on into another world—with a calm face, with a peaceful, senile
smile upon her lips. Isaiah Savvich—her faithful comrade on the path of
life, a trifle downtrodden, who had always played a secondary,
subordinate role—survived her only a month.
Birdie was left sole heiress. She very successfully turned the cozy
house into money, as well as the land somewheres at the edge of the
town; married, as it had been presupposed, very happily; and up to this
time is convinced that her father carried on a great commercial
business in the export of wheat through Odessa and Novorossiysk into
Asia Minor.
On the evening of the day when Jennie’s corpse had been carried away to
an anatomical theatre; at an hour when not even a chance guest appears
on Yamskaya Street, all the girls, at the insistence of Emma
Edwardovna, assembled in the drawing room. Not one of them dared murmur
against the fact that on this distressing day, when they had not yet
recovered from the impression of Jennka’s horrible death, they would be
compelled to dress up, as usual, in wildly festive finery, and to go
into the brightly illuminated drawing room, in order to dance, sing,
and to entice lecherous men with their denuded bodies.
And at last into the drawing room walked Emma Edwardovna herself. She
was more majestic than she had ever been—clad in a black silk gown,
from which, just like battlements, her enormous breasts jutted out,
upon which descended two fat chins; in black silk mittens; with an
enormous gold chain wound thrice around her neck, and terminating in a
ponderous medallion hanging upon the very abdomen.
“Ladies! ...” she began impressively, “I must ... Stand up!” she
suddenly called out commandingly. “When I speak, you must hear me out
standing.”
They all exchanged glances with perplexity: such an order was a novelty
in the establishment. However, the girls got up one after another,
irresolutely, with eyes and mouths gasping.
“Sie sollen ... you must from this day show me that respect which you
are bound to show to your mistress,” importantly and weightily began
Emma Edwardovna. “Beginning from to-day, the establishment in a legal
manner has passed from our good and respected Anna Markovna to me, Emma
Edwardovna Titzner. I hope that we will not quarrel, and that you will
behave yourselves like sensible, obedient, and well-brought-up girls. I
will be to you like in place of your own mother, but only remember,
that I will not stand for laziness, or drunkenness, or notions of any
sort; or any kind of disorder. The kind Madam Shaibes, it must be said,
held you in too loose reins. O—o, I will be far more strict. Discipline
uber alles ... before everything. It’s a great pity, that the Russian
people are lazy, dirty and stoopid, do not understand this rule; but
don’t you trouble yourself, I will teach you this for your own good. I
say ‘for your own good,’ because my main thought is to kill the
competition of Treppel. I want that my client should be a man of
substance, and not some charlatan and ragamuffin, some kind of student,
now, or ham actor. I want that my ladies should be the most beautiful,
best brought-up, the healthiest and gayest in the whole city. I won’t
spare any money in order to set up swell furnishings; and you will have
rooms with silk furniture and with genuine, beautiful rugs. Your guests
will no longer be demanding beer, but only genteel Bordeaux and
Burgundy wines and champagne. Remember, that a rich, substantial,
elderly man never likes your common, ordinary, coarse love. He requires
Cayenne pepper; he requires not a trade, but an art, and you will soon
acquire this. At Treppel’s they take three roubles for a visit and ten
roubles for a night ... I will establish it so, that you will receive
five roubles for a visit and twenty-five for a night. They will present
you with gold and diamonds. I will contrive it so, that you won’t have
to pass on into establishments of a lower sort, und so weiter ... right
down to the soldiers’ filthy den. No! Deposits will be put away and
saved with me for each one of you every month; and will be put away in
your name in a banker’s office, where there will increase interest upon
them, and interest upon interest. And then, if a girl feels herself
tired, or wants to marry a respectable man, there will always be at her
disposal not a large, but a sure capital. So is it done in the best
establishments in Riga, and everywhere abroad. Let no one say about me,
that Emma Edwardovna is a spider, a vixen, a cupping glass. But for
disobedience, for laziness, for notions, for lovers on the side, I will
punish cruelly and, like nasty weeds, will throw out—on the street, or
still worse. Now I have said all that I had to. Nina, come near me. And
all the rest of you come up in turn.”
Ninka irresolutely walked right up to Emma Edwardovna—and even
staggered back in amazement: Emma Edwardovna was extending her right
hand to her, with the fingers lowered downward, and slowly nearing it
to Ninka’s lips.
“Kiss it! ...” impressively and firmly pronounced Emma Edwardovna,
narrowing her eyes and with head thrown back, in the magnificent pose
of a princess ascending her throne.
Ninka was so bewildered that her right arm gave a jerk in order to make
the sign of the cross; but she corrected herself, loudly smacked the
extended hand, and stepped aside. Following her Zoe, Henrietta, Vanda
and others stepped up also. Tamara alone continued to stand near the
wall with her back to the mirror; that mirror into which Jennka so
loved to gaze, in gone-by times, admiring herself as she walked back
and forth through the drawing room.
Emma Edwardovna let the imperious, obstinate gaze of a boa-constrictor
rest upon her; but the hypnosis did not work. Tamara bore this gaze
without turning away, without flinching; but without any expression on
her face. Then the new proprietress put down her hand, produced on her
face something resembling a smile, and said hoarsely:
“And with you, Tamara, I must have a little talk separately, eye to
eye. Let’s go!”
“I hear you, Emma Edwardovna!” calmly answered Tamara.
Emma Edwardovna came to the little bit of a cabinet, where formerly
Anna Markovna loved to drink coffee with clotted cream; sat down on the
divan and pointed out a place opposite her to Tamara. For some time the
women kept silent; searchingly, mistrustfully eyeing each other.
“You acted rightly, Tamara,” said Emma Edwardovna finally. “You did
wisely in not stepping up, on the manner of those sheep, to kiss my
hand. But just the same, I would not have let you come to that. I
wanted right there, in the presence of all, when you walked up to me,
to press your hand and to offer you the place of first housekeeper—you
understand?—my chief assistant—and on terms very advantageous to
you...”
“I thank you ...”
“No, wait a while, don’t interrupt me. I will have my say to the end,
and then you will express your pros and cons. But will you explain to
me, please, when yesterday you were aiming at me out of a revolver,
what did you want? Can it possibly be, to kill me?”
“On the contrary, Emma Edwardovna,” retorted Tamara respectfully, “on
the contrary; it seemed to me that you wanted to strike me.”
“PJUI! What do you mean, Tamarochka! ... Have you paid no attention to
the fact that during all the time of our acquaintance I never permitted
myself, not only to hit you, but even to address you with a rude word?
... What do you mean, what do you mean? ... I don’t confuse you with
this poor Russian trash ... Glory be to God, I am an experienced person
and one who knows people well. I can very well see that you are a
genuinely cultured young lady; far more educated, for example, than I
myself. You are refined, elegant, smart. I am convinced of the fact
that you even know music not at all badly. Finally, if I were to
confess, I was a little ... how shall I put it to you? ... I always was
a little in love with you. And now you wanted to shoot me! Me, a person
who could be a very good friend to you! Well, what will you say to
that?”
“Well ... nothing at all, Emma Edwardovna,” retorted Tamara in the
meekest and most plausible tone. “Everything was very simple. Even
before that I found the revolver under Jennka’s pillow and brought it,
in order to give it over to you. I did not want to interfere, when you
were reading the letter; but then you turned around to me—I stretched
the revolver out to you and wanted to say: ‘See, Emma Edwardovna, what
I found’—for, don’t you see, it surprised me awfully how the late
Jennie, having a revolver at her disposal, preferred such a horrible
death as hanging? And that’s all.”
The bushy, frightful eyebrows of Emma Edwardovna rose upward; the eyes
widened joyously; and a real, uncounterfeited smile spread over her
cheeks of a behemoth. She quickly extended both hands to Tamara.
“And is this all? O, MEIN KIND? And I thought ... God knows what I
imagined! Give me your hands, Tamara, your little charming white hands,
and allow me to press them auf mein Herz, upon my heart, and to kiss
you.”
The kiss was so long, that Tamara with great difficulty and with
aversion barely freed herself from the embraces of Emma Edwardovna.
“Well, and now to business. And so, here are my terms: you will be
housekeeper, I give you fifteen percent, out of the clear gain. Mind
you, Tamara, fifteen percent. And, besides that, a small salary—thirty,
forty, well, if you like, fifty roubles a month. Splendid terms—isn’t
that the truth? I am deeply convinced, that none other than just you
will help me to raise the house to a real height, and make it the
swellest not only in our city, but in all the south of Russia as well.
You have taste, and an understanding of things! ... Besides that, you
will always be able to entertain, and to stir up the most exacting, the
most unyielding guests. In rare instances, when a very rich and
distinguished gentleman—in Russian they call it one “sun-fish,” while
with us, ein Freier,[26]—when he becomes infatuated with you—for you
are so handsome, Tamarochka,” (the proprietress looked at her with
misty, humid eyes), “then I do not at all forbid you to pass the time
with him gaily; only to bear down always upon the fact that you have no
right, owing to your duty, your position, Und so weiter, und so weiter
... aber sagen sie bitte, do you easily make yourself understood in
German?”
[26] In English, a “toff”; in American, a “swell.”—trans.
“Die Deutsche Sprache beherrsche ich in geringerem Grade als die
franzosische; indes kann ich stets in einer Salon-Plauderei
mitmachen.”[27]
[27] “My mastery of the German language is a trifle worse than that of
the French, but I can always keep up my end in parlor small talk.”
“O, wunderbar! sie haben eine entzuckende Rigaer Aussprache, die beste
alter deutschen Aussprachen. Und also—fahren wir in unserer Sprache
fort. Sie klingt viel susser meinem Ohr, die Muttersprache. Schon?”[28]
[28] O, splendid! ... You have a bewitching Riga enunciation, the most
correct of all the German ones. And so, let us continue in my tongue.
That is far sweeter to my ear—my mother tongue. All right?”
“SCHON.”[29]
[29] “All right.”
“Zuletzt werden Sie nachgeben, dem Anschein nach ungern, unwillkurlich,
van der Laune des Augenblicks hingerissen—und, was die Hauptsache ist,
lautlos, heimlich vor mir. Sie verstehen? Dafur zahlen Narren ein
schweres Geld. Ubrigens brauche ich Sie wohl nicht zu lernen.”[30]
[30] “In the very end you will give in, as though unwillingly, as
though against your will, as though from infatuation, a momentary
caprice, and—which is the main thing—as though on the sly from me. You
understand? For this the fools pay enormous money. However, it seems I
will not have to teach you.”
“Ja, gnadige Frau. Sie sprechen gar kluge Dinge. Doch das ist schon
keine Plauderei mehr, sondern eine ernste unterhaltung. Yes, my dear
madam. You say very wise things. But this is no longer small talk; it
is, rather, serious conversation ... And for that reason it is more
convenient for me, if you will revert to the Russian language ... I am
ready to obey you.”
“Furthermore! ... I was just now talking about a lover. I dare not
forbid you this pleasure, but let us be prudent: let him not appear
here, or appear as rarely as possible. I will give you days for going
out, when you will be perfectly free. But it’s best if you would get
along without him entirely. It will serve your benefit too. This is
only a drag and a yoke. I am telling you this from my own personal
experience. Wait a while; after three or four years we will expand this
business so, that you will have substantial money already, and then I
vill take you into the business as a partner with full rights. After
ten years you will still be young and handsome, and then take and buy
men as much as you want to. By that time romantic follies will go out
of your head entirely, and it will not be you who will be chosen
already, but you who will be choosing with sense and with feeling, as a
connoisseur picks out precious stones. Do you agree with me?”
Tamara cast down her eyes, and smiled just the least trifle.
“You speak golden truths, Emma Edwardovna. I will drop mine, but not at
once. For that I will need some two weeks. I will try not to have him
appear here. I accept your proposition.”
“And that’s splendid!” said Emma Edwardovna, get ting up. “Now let us
conclude our agreement with one good, sweet kiss.”
And she again embraced and took to kissing Tamara hard; who, with her
downcast eyes and naive, tender face, seemed now altogether a little
girl. But, having freed herself, finally, from the proprietress, she
asked in Russian:
“You see, Emma Edwardovna, that I agree in everything with you, but for
that I beg you to fulfill one request of mine. It will not cost you
anything. Namely, I hope that you will allow me and the other girls to
escort the late Jennie to the cemetery.”
Emma Edwardovna made a wry face.
“Oh, if you want to, my darling Tamara, I have nothing against your
whim. Only what for? This will not help the dead person and will not
make her alive. Only sentimentalism alone will come out of it ... But
very well! Only, however, you know yourself that in accordance with
your law suicides are not buried, or—I don’t know with certainty—it
seems they throw them into some dirty hole beyond the cemetery.”
“No, do allow me to do as I want to myself. Let it be my whim, but
concede it to me, my darling, dear, bewitching Emma Edwardovna! But
then, I promise you that this will be my last whim. After this I will
be like a wise and obedient soldier at the disposal of a talented
general.”
“IS’ GUT!” Emma Edwardovna gave in with a sigh. “I can not deny you in
anything, my child. Let me press your hand. Let us toil and labour
together for the common good.”
And, having opened the door, she called out across the drawing room
into the entrance-hall: “Simeon!” And when Simeon appeared in the room,
she ordered him weightily and triumphantly:
“Bring us a bottle of champagne here, but the real thing—Rederer demi
sec, and as cool as possible. Step lively!” she ordered the porter, who
was gaping at her with popping eyes. “We will drink with you, Tamara,
to the new business, to our brilliant and beautiful future.”
They say that dead people bring luck. If there is any foundation at all
in this superstition, then on this Saturday it could not have told
plainer: the influx of visitors was out of the ordinary, even for a
Saturday night. True, the girls, passing through the corridor or past
the room that had been Jennka’s increased their steps; timorously
glanced at it sidelong, out of the corner of the eye; while others even
crossed themselves. But late in the night the fear of death somehow
subsided, grew bearable. All the rooms were occupied, while in the
drawing room a new violinist was trilling without cease—a
free-and-easy, clean-shaven young man, whom the pianist with the
cataract had searched out somewhere and brought with him.
The appointment of Tamara as housekeeper was received with cold
perplexity, with taciturn dryness. But, having bided her time, Tamara
managed to whisper to Little White Manka:
“Listen, Manya! You tell them all that they shouldn’t pay any attention
to the fact that I’ve been chosen housekeeper. It’s got to be so. But
let them do as they wish, only don’t let them trip me up. I am as
before—their friend and intercessor ... And further on we’ll see.”
CHAPTER VII.
On the next day, on Sunday, Tamara had a multitude of cares. She had
become possessed by a firm and undeviating thought to bury her friend
despite all circumstances, in the way that nearest friends are
buried—in a Christian manner, with all the sad solemnity of the burial
of secular persons.
She belonged to the number of those strange persons who underneath an
external indolent calmness, careless taciturnity, egotistical
withdrawal into one’s self, conceal within them unusual energy; always
as though slumbering with half an eye, guarding itself from unnecessary
expenditure; but ready in one moment to become animated and to rush
forward without reckoning the obstacles.
At twelve o’clock she descended in a cab into the old town; rode
through it into a little narrow street giving out upon a square where
fairs were held; and stopped near a rather dirty tea-room, having
ordered the cabby to wait. In the room she made inquiries of a boy,
red-haired, with a badger hair-cut and the parting slicked down with
butter, if Senka the Depot had not come here? The serving lad, who,
judging by his refined and gallant readiness, had already known Tamara
for a long time, answered that “Nohow, ma’am; they—Semen Ignatich—had
not been in yet, and probably would not be here soon seein’ as how
yesterday they had the pleasure of going on a spree at the Transvaal,
and had played at billiards until six in the morning; and that now
they, in all probabilities, are at home, in the Half Way House rooms,
and if the young lady will give the word, then it’s possible to hop
over to them this here minute.”
Tamara asked for paper and pencil, and wrote a few words right on the
spot. Then she gave the note to the waiter, together with a half-rouble
piece for a tip, and rode away.
The following visit was to the artiste Rovinskaya, living, as Tamara
had known even before, in the city’s most aristocratic
hotel—Europe—where she occupied several rooms in a consecutive suite.
To obtain an interview with the singer was not very easy: the doorman
below said that it looked as if Ellena Victorovna was not at home;
while her own personal maid, who came out in answer to Tamara’s
knocking, declared that madam had a headache, and that she was not
receiving any one. Again Tamara was compelled to write on a piece of
paper:
“I come to you from her who once, in a house which is not spoken of
loudly, cried, standing before you on her knees, after you had sung the
ballad of Dargomyzhsky. Your kind treatment of her was so splendid. Do
you remember? Do not fear—she has no need of any one’s help now:
yesterday she died. But you can do one very important deed in her
memory, which will be almost no trouble to you at all. While I—am that
very person who permitted herself to say a few bitter truths to the
baroness T—, who was then with you; for which truths I am remorseful
and apologize even now.”
“Hand this over!” she ordered the chambermaid.
She returned after two minutes.
“The madam requests you. They apologize very much that they will
receive you not fully dressed.”
She escorted Tamara, opened a door before her and quietly shut it.
The great artiste was lying upon an enormous ottoman, covered with a
beautiful Tekin rug and a multitude of little silk pillows, and soft
cylindrical bolsters of tapestry. Her feet were wrapped up in silvery,
soft fur. Her fingers, as usual, were adorned by a multiplicity of
rings with emeralds, attracting the eyes by their deep and tender
green.
The artiste was having one of her evil, black days to-day. Yesterday
morning some misunderstandings with the management had arisen; while in
the evening the public had received her not as triumphantly as she
would have desired, or, perhaps, this had simply appeared so to her;
while to-day in the newspaper the fool of a reviewer, who understood
just as much of art as a cow does of astronomy, had praised up her
rival, Titanova, in a big article. And so Ellena Victorovna had
persuaded herself that her head was aching; that there was a nervous
tic in her temples; and that her heart, time and again, seemed suddenly
to fall through somewheres.
“How do you do, my dear!” she said, a trifle nasally, in a weak, wan
voice, with pauses, as heroines on the stage speak when dying from love
and from consumption. “Sit down here ... I am glad to see you ... Only
don’t be angry—I am almost dying from migraine, and from my miserable
heart. Pardon my speaking with difficulty. I think I sang too much and
tired my voice ...”
Rovinskaya, of course, had recalled both the mad escapade of that
evening; and the striking, unforgettable face of Tamara; but now, in a
bad mood, in the wearisome, prosaic light of an autumn day, this
adventure appeared to her as unnecessary bravado; something artificial,
imagined, and poignantly shameful. But she was equally sincere on that
strange, night-marish evening when she, through the might of talent,
had prostrated the proud Jennka at her feet, as well as now, when she
recalled it with fatigue, indolence, and artistic disdain. She, as well
as many distinguished artists, was always playing a role; was always
not her own self, and always regarded her words, movements, actions, as
though looking at herself from a distance with the eyes and feelings of
the spectators.
She languidly raised from the pillow her narrow, slender, beautiful
hand, and applied it to her forehead; and the mysterious, deep emeralds
stirred as though alive and began to flash with a warm, deep sparkle.
“I just read in your note that this poor ... pardon me, her name has
vanished out of my head...”
“Jennie.”
“Yes, yes, thank you! I recall it now. She died? But from what?”
“She hanged herself ... yesterday morning, during the doctor’s
inspection...”
The eyes of the artiste, so listless, seemingly faded, suddenly opened,
and, as through a miracle, grew animated and became shining and green,
just like her emeralds; and in them were reflected curiosity, fear and
aversion.
“Oh, my God! Such a dear, so original, handsome, so fiery ... Oh, the
poor, poor soul! ... And the reason for this was? ...”
“You know ... the disease. She told you.”
“Yes, yes ... I remember, I remember ... But to hang one’s self! ...
What horror! ... Why, I advised her to treat herself then. Medicine
works miracles now. I myself know several people who absolutely ...
well, absolutely cured themselves. Everybody in society knows this and
receives them ... Ah, the poor little thing, the poor little thing!
...”
“And so I’ve come to you, Ellena Victorovna. I wouldn’t have dared to
disturb you, but I seem to be in a forest, and have no one to turn to.
You were so kind then, so touchingly attentive, so tender to us ... I
need only your advice and, perhaps, a little of your influence, your
protection...”
“Oh, please, my dear! ... All I can do, I will ... Oh, my poor head!
And then this horrible news. Tell me, in what way can I be of
assistance to you?”
“To confess, I don’t know even myself yet,” answered Tamara. “You see,
they carried her away to an anatomical theatre ... But until they had
made the protocol, until they made the journey—then the time for
receiving had gone by also—in general I think that they have not had a
chance to dissect her yet ... I’d like, if it’s only possible, that she
should not be touched. To-day is Sunday; perhaps they’ll postpone it
until to-morrow, and in the meanwhile something may be done for her...”
“I can’t tell you, dear ... Wait! ... Haven’t I some friend among the
professors, in the medical world? ... I will look later in my
memo-books. Perhaps we will succeed in doing something.”
“Besides that,” continued Tamara, “I want to bury her ... At my expense
... I was attached to her with all my heart during her life.”
“I will help you with pleasure in this, materially...”
“No, no! ... A thousand thanks! ... I’ll do everything myself. I would
not hesitate to have recourse to your kind heart, but this ... —you
will understand me— ... this is something in the nature of a vow, that
a person gives to one’s self and to the memory of a friend. The main
difficulty is in how we may manage to bury her with Christian rites.
She was, it seems, an unbeliever, or believed altogether poorly. And
it’s only by chance that I, also, will cross my forehead. But I don’t
want them to bury her just like a dog, somewhere beyond the enclosure
of the cemetery; in silence, without words, without singing ... I don’t
know, will they permit burying her properly—with choristers, with
priests? For that reason I’m asking you to assist me with your advice.
Or, perhaps, you will direct me somewhere? ...”
Now the artiste had little by little become interested and was already
beginning to forget about her fatigue, and migraine, and the
consumptive heroine dying in the fourth act. She was already picturing
the role of an intercessor, the beautiful figure of genius merciful to
a fallen woman. This was original, extravagant, and at the same time so
theatrically touching! Rovinskaya, like many of her confreres, did not
let one day pass by—and, if it were possible, she would not have let
pass even one hour—without standing out from the crowd, without
compelling people to talk about her: to-day she would participate in a
pseudo-patriotic manifestation, while to-morrow she would read from a
platform, for the benefit of revolutionaries exiled to Siberia,
inciting verses, full of fire and vengeance. She loved to sell flowers
at carnivals, in riding academies; and to sell champagne at large
balls. She would think up her little bon mots beforehand, which on the
morrow would be caught up by the whole town. She desired that
everywhere and always the crowd should look only at her, repeat her
name, love her Egyptian, green eyes, her rapacious and sensuous mouth;
her emeralds on the slender and nervous hands.
“I can’t grasp it all properly at once,” said she after a silence. “But
if a person wants anything hard, he will attain it, and I want to
fulfill your wish with all my soul. Stay, stay! ... I think a glorious
thought is coming into my head ... For then, on that evening, if I
mistake not, there was with us, beside the baroness and me...”
“I don’t know them ... One of them walked out of the cabinet later than
all of you. He kissed Jennie’s hand and said, that if she should ever
need him, he was always at her service; and gave her his card, but
asked her not to show it to any strangers. But later all this passed
off somehow and was forgotten. In some way I never found the time to
ask Jennie who this man was; while yesterday I searched for the card
but couldn’t find it...”
“Allow me, allow me! ... I have recalled it!” the artiste suddenly
became animated. “Aha!” exclaimed she, rapidly getting off the ottoman.
“It was Ryazanov... Yes, yes, yes... The advocate Ernst Andreievich
Ryazanov. We will arrange everything right away. That’s a splendid
thought!”
She turned to the little table upon which the telephone apparatus was
standing, and rang:
“Central—18-35 please ... Thank you ... Hello! ... Ask Ernst
Andreievich to the telephone ... The artiste Rovinskaya ... Thank you
... Hello! ... Is this you, Ernst Andreievich? Very well, very well,
but now it isn’t a matter of little hands. Are you free? ... Drop the
nonsense! ... The matter is serious. Couldn’t you come up to me for a
quarter of an hour? ...No, no ... Yes ... Only as a kind and a clever
man. You slander yourself ... Well, that’s splendid, really ... Well, I
am not especially well-dressed, but I have a justification—a fearful
headache. No, a lady, a girl ... You will see for yourself, come as
soon as possible ... Thanks! Au revior! ...”
“He will come right away,” said Rovinskaya, hanging up the receiver.
“He is a charming and awfully clever man. Everything is possible to
him, even the almost impossible to man ... But in the meantime ...
pardon me—your name?”
Tamara was abashed, but then smiled at herself:
“Oh, it isn’t worth your disturbing yourself, Ellena Victorovna! Mon
nomme de guerre is Tamara but just so—Anastasia Nikolaevna. It’s all
the same—call me even Tamara ... I am more used to it...”
“Tamara! ... That is so beautiful! ... So now, Mile. Tamara, perhaps
you will not refuse to breakfast with me? Perhaps Ryazanov will also do
so with us...”
“I have no time, forgive me.”
“That’s a great pity! ... I hope, some other time ... But, perhaps you
smoke,” and she moved toward her a gold case, adorned with an enormous
letter E out of the same emeralds she adored.
Ryazanov came very soon.
Tamara, who had not examined him properly on that evening, was struck
by his appearance. Tall of stature, almost of an athletic build, with a
broad brow, like Beethoven’s, tangled with artistically negligent
black, grizzled hair; with the large fleshy mouth of the passionate
orator; with clear, expressive, clever, mocking eyes—he had such an
appearance as catches one’s eyes among thousands—the appearance of a
vanquisher of souls and a conqueror of hearts; deeply ambitious, not
yet oversated with life; still fiery in love and never retreating
before a beautiful indiscretion ... “If fate had not broken me up so,”
reflected Tamara, watching his movements with enjoyment, “then here’s a
man to whom I’d throw my life; jestingly, with delight, with a smile,
as a plucked rose is thrown to the beloved...”
Ryazanov kissed Rovinskaya’s hand, then with unconstrained simplicity
exchanged greetings with Tamara and said:
“We are acquainted even from that mad evening, when you dumbfounded all
of us with your knowledge of the French language, and when you spoke.
That which you said was, between us, paradoxical; but then, how it was
said! ... To this day I remember the tone of your voice, so warm,
expressive ... And so, Ellena Victorovna,” he turned to Rovinskaya
again, sitting down on a small, low chair without a back, “in what can
I be of use to you? I am at your disposal.”
Rovinskaya, with a languid air, again applied the tips of her fingers
to her temples.
“Ah, really, I am so upset, my dear Ryazanov,” said she, intentionally
extinguishing the sparkle of her magnificent eyes, “and then, my
miserable head ... May I trouble you to pass me the pyramidon what-not
from that table ... Let Mile. Tamara tell you everything ... I can not,
I am not able to ... This is so horrible! ...”
Tamara briefly, lucidly, narrated to Ryazanov all the sad history of
Jennka’s death; recalled also about the card left with Jennie; and also
how the deceased had reverently preserved this card; and—in
passing—about his promise to help in case of need.
“Of course, of course!” exclaimed Ryanzanov, when she had finished; and
at once began pacing the room back and forth with big steps, ruffling
and tossing back his picturesque hair through habit. “You are
performing a magnificent, sincere, comradely action! That is good! ...
That is very good! ... I am yours ... You say—a permit for the funeral
... Hm ... God grant me memory!...”
He rubbed his forehead with his palm.
“Hm ... hm ... If I’m not mistaken—Monocanon, rule one hundred seventy
... one hundred seventy ... eight ... Pardon me, I think I remember it
by heart ... Pardon me! ... Yes, so! ‘If a man slayeth himself, he
shall not be chanted over, nor shall a mass be said for him, unless he
were greatly astonied, that is, to wit, out of his mind’... Hm ... See
St. Timothy Alexandrine ... And so, my dear miss, the first thing ...
You say, that she was taken down from the noose by your doctor—i.e.,
the official city doctor ... His name? ...”
“Klimenko.”
“It seems I’ve met him somewheres ... All right ... Who is the district
inspector in your precinct station?”
“Kerbesh.”
“Aha, I know ... Such a strong, virile fellow, with a red beard in a
fan ... Yes?”
“Yes, that is he.”
“I know him very well! There, now, is somebody that a sentence to hard
labour is hankering after ... Some ten times he fell into my hands; and
always, the skunk, gave me the slip somehow. Slippery, just like an
eel-pout ... We will have to slip him a little present. Well, now! And
then the anatomical theatre ... When do you want to bury her?”
“Really, I don’t know ... I would like to do it as soon as possible ...
if possible, to-day.”
“Hm ... To-day ... I don’t vouch for it—we will hardly manage it ...
But here is my memorandum book. Well, take even this page, where are my
friends under the letter T—just write the very same way: Tamara, and
your address. In two hours I will give you an answer. Does that suit
you? But I repeat again, that probably you will have to postpone the
burial till to-morrow ... Then—pardon my unceremoniousness—is money
needed, perhaps?”
“No, thank you!” refused Tamara. “I have money. Thanks for your
interest! ... It’s time for me to be going. I thank you with all my
heart, Ellen Victorovna! ...”
“Then expect it in two hours,” repeated Ryazanov, escorting her to the
door.
Tamara did not at once ride away to the house. She turned into a little
coffee-house on Catholicheskaya Street on the way. There Senka the
Depot was waiting for her—a gay fellow with the appearance of a
handsome Tzigan; not black—but blue-haired; black-eyed, with yellow
whites; resolute and daring in his work; the pride of local thieves—a
great celebrity in their world, the first leader of experience, and a
constant, all-night gamester.
He stretched out his hand to her, without getting up. But in the way in
which he so carefully, with a certain force, seated her in her place
could be seen a broad, good-natured endearment.
“How do you do, Tamarochka! Haven’t seen you in a long time—I grew
weary ... Do you want coffee?”
“No! Business first ... To-morrow we bury Jennka ... She hanged
herself...” “Yes, I read it in a newspaper,” carelessly drawled out
Senka through his teeth. “What’s the odds? ...”
“Get fifty roubles for me at once.”
“Tamarochka, my sweetheart—I haven’t a kopeck! ...”
“I’m telling you—get them!” ordered Tamara, imperiously, but without
getting angry.
“Oh, my Lord! ... Yours, now, I didn’t touch, like I promised; but
then, it’s Sunday ... The savings banks are closed...”
“Let them! ... Hock the savings book! In general, it’s up to you!”
“Why do you need this, my dearie?”
“Isn’t it all the same to you, you fool? ... For the funeral.”
“Oh! Well, all right then!” sighed Senka. “Then I’d best bring it to
you myself in the evening ... Right, Tamarochka? ... It’s so very hard
for me to stand it without you! Oh, my dearie, how I’d kiss and kiss
you; I wouldn’t let you close your eyes! ... Shan’t I come? ...”
“No, no! ... You do as I ask you, Senechka ... Give in to me. But you
mustn’t come—I’m housekeeper now.”
“Well, what d’you know about that! ...” drawled out the astonished
Senka and even whistled.
“Yes. And don’t you come to me in the meantime. But afterwards,
afterwards, sweetheart, whatever you desire ... There will be an end to
everything soon!”
“Oh, if you wouldn’t make me suffer so! Wind things up as soon as you
can!”
“And I will wind ’em up! Wait one little week more, dearie! Did you get
the powders?”
“The powders are a trifle!” discontentedly answered Senka. “And it
isn’t powders at all, but pills.”
“And you’re sure when you say that they’ll dissolve at once in water?”
“Sure, I saw it myself.”
“But he won’t die? Listen, Senya: he won’t die? Is that right?...”
“Nothing will happen to him ... He’ll only snooze for a while ... Oh,
Tamara!” exclaimed he in a passionate whisper; and even suddenly
stretched himself hard from an unbearable emotion, so that his joints
cracked. “Finish it, for God’s sake, as soon as possible! ... Let’s do
the trick and—bye-bye! Wherever you want to go to, sweet-heart! I am
all at your will: if you want to, we start off for Odessa; if you want
to—abroad. Finish it up as soon as possible! ...”
“Soon, soon...”
“You just wink at me, and I’m all ready ... with powders, with
instruments, with passports ... And then—choo-choo! The machine is off!
Tamarochka! My angel! ... My precious, my sparkler! ...”
And he, always restrained, having forgotten that he could be seen by
strangers, already wanted to embrace and hug Tamara to himself.
“Now, now!” ... rapidly and deftly, like a cat, Tamara jumped off the
chair. “Afterwards ... afterwards, Senechka, afterwards, little dearie!
... I’ll be all yours—there won’t be any denial, nor forbiddance. I’ll
myself make you weary of me ... Good-bye, my little silly!”
And with a quick movement of her hand having rumpled up his black
curls, she hastily went out of the coffee-house.
CHAPTER VIII.
On the next day, on Monday, toward ten o’clock in the morning, almost
all the inmates of the house—formerly Madam Shaibes’, but now Emma
Edwardovna Titzner’s—rode off in cabs to the centre of the city, to the
anatomical theatre—all, except the far-sighted, much-experienced
Henrietta; the cowardly and insensible Ninka; and the feeble-minded
Pashka, who for two days now had not gotten up from her bed, kept
silent, and to questions directed at her answered by a beatific,
idiotical smile and with some sort of inarticulate animal lowing. If
she were not given to eat, she would not even ask; but if food were
brought, she would eat with greediness, right with her hands. She
became so slovenly and forgetful, that it was necessary to remind her
of certain necessary functions in order to avoid unpleasantness. Emma
Edwardovna did not send out Pashka to her steady guests, who asked for
Pashka every day. Even before, she had had such periods of a detriment
of consciousness; however, they had not lasted long, and Emma
Edwardovna in any case determined to tide it over: Pashka was a
veritable treasure for the establishment, and its truly horrible
victim.
The anatomical theatre represented a long, one-storied, dark-gray
building, with white frames around the windows and doors. There was in
its very exterior something low, pressed down, receding into the
ground, almost weird. The girls one after the other stopped near the
gates and timidly passed through the yard into the chapel; nestled down
at the other end of the yard, in a corner, painted over in the same
dark gray colour, with white frame-work.
The door was locked. It was necessary to go after the watchman. Tamara
with difficulty sought out a bald, ancient old man, grown over as
though with bog moss by entangled gray bristles; with little rheumy
eyes and an enormous, reddish, dark-blue granulous nose, on the manner
of a cookie.
He unlocked the enormous hanging lock, pushed away the bolt and opened
the rusty, singing door. The cold, damp air together with the mixed
smell of the dampness of stones, frankincense, and dead flesh breathed
upon the girls. They fell back, huddling closely into a timorous flock.
Tamara alone went after the watchman without wavering.
It was almost dark in the chapel. The autumn light penetrated scantily
through the little, narrow prison-like window, barred with an iron
grating. Two or three images without chasubles, dark and without
visages, hung upon the walls. Several common board coffins were
standing right on the floor, upon wooden carrying shafts. One in the
middle was empty, and the taken-off lid was lying alongside.
“What sort is yours, now?” asked the watchman hoarsely and took some
snuff. “Do you know her face or not?”
“I know her.”
“Well, then, look! I’ll show them all to you. Maybe this one? ...”
And he took the lid off one of the coffins, not yet fastened down with
nails. A wrinkled old woman, dressed any old way in her tatters, with a
swollen blue face, was lying there. Her left eye was closed; while the
right was staring and gazing immovably and frightfully, having already
lost its sparkle and resembling mica that had lain for a long time.
“Not this one, you say? Well, look ... Here’s more for you!” said the
watchman; and one after the other, opening the lids, exhibited the
decedents—all, probably, the poorest of the poor: picked up on the
streets, intoxicated, crushed, maimed and mutilated, beginning to
decompose. Certain ones had already begun to show on their hands and
faces bluish-green spots, resembling mould—signs of putrefaction. One
man, without a nose, with an upper hare-lip cloven in two, had worms,
like little white dots, swarming upon his sore-eaten face. A woman who
had died from hydropsy, reared like a whole mountain from her board
couch, bulging out the lid.
All of them had been hastily sewn up after autopsy, repaired, and
washed by the moss-covered watchman and his mates. What affair was it
of theirs if, at times, the brain got into the stomach; while the skull
was stuffed with the liver and rudely joined with the help of sticking
plaster to the head? The watchmen had grown used to everything during
their night-marish, unlikely, drunken life; and, by the bye, almost
never did their voiceless clients prove to have either relatives or
acquaintances...
A heavy odour of carrion—thick, cloying, and so viscid that to Tamara
it seemed as though it was covering all the living pores of her body
just like glue—stood in the chapel.
“Listen, watchman,” asked Tamara, “what’s this crackling under my feet
all the time?”
“Crack-ling?” the watchman questioned her over again, and scratched
himself, “why, lice, it must be,” he said indifferently. “It’s fierce
how these beasties do multiply on the corpseses! ... But who you
lookin’ for—man or woman?”
“A woman,” answered Tamara.
“And that means that all these ain’t yours?”
“No, they’re all strangers.”
“There, now! ... That means I have to go to the morgue. When did they
bring her, now?”
“On Saturday, grandpa,” and Tamara at this got out her purse.
“Saturday, in the daytime. There’s something for tobacco for you, my
dear sir!”
“That’s the way! Saturday, you say in the daytime? And what did she
have on?”
“Well, almost nothing; a little night blouse, an underskirt ... both
the one and the other white.”
“So-o! That must be number two hundred and seventeen ... How is she
called, now? ...”
“Susannah Raitzina.”
“I’ll go and see—maybe she’s there. Well, now, mam’selles,” he turned
to the young ladies, who were dully huddling in the doorway,
obstructing the light. “Which of you are the braver? If your friend
came the day before yesterday, then that means that she’s now lying in
the manner that the Lord God has created all mankind—that is, without
anything ... Well, who of you will be the bolder? Which two of you will
come? She’s got to be dressed...”
“Well, now, you go, Manka,” Tamara ordered her mate, who, grown chill
and pale from horror and aversion, was staring at the dead with widely
open, limpid eyes. “Don’t be afraid, you fool—I’ll go with you! Who’s
to go, if not you?
“Well, am I ... well, am I? ...” babbled Little White Manka with barely
moving lips. “Let’s go. It’s all the same to me...”
The morgue was right here, behind the chapel—a low, already entirely
dark basement, into which one had to descend by six steps.
The watchman ran off somewhere, and returned with a candle-end and a
tattered book. When he had lit the candle, the girls saw a score of
corpses that were lying directly on the stone floor in regular
rows—extended, yellow, with faces distorted by pre-mortal convulsions,
with skulls split open, with clots of blood on their faces, with
grinning teeth.
“Right away ... right away...” the watchman was saying, guiding his
finger over the headings. “The day before yesterday ... that means, on
Saturday ... on Saturday ... What did you say her name was, now?”
“Raitzina, Susannah,” answered Tamara.
“Rai-tzina Susannah ...” said the watchman, just as though he were
singing, “Raitzina, Susannah. Just as I said. Two hundred seventeen.”
Bending over the dead and illuminating them with the guttered and
dripping candle-end, he passed from one to another. Finally he stopped
before a corpse, upon whose foot was written in ink, in large black
figures: 217.
“Here’s the very same one! Let me, I’ll carry her out into the little
corridor and run after her stuff ... Wait a while! ...”
Grunting, but still with an ease amazing in one of his age, he lifted
up the corpse of Jennka by the feet, and threw it upon his back with
the head down, as though it were a carcass of meat, or a bag of
potatoes.
It was a trifle lighter in the corridor; and, when the watchman had
lowered his horrible burden to the floor, Tamara for a moment covered
her face with her hands, while Manka turned away and began to cry.
“If you need anything, say so,” the watchman was instructing them. “If
you want to dress the deceased as is fitting, then we can get
everything that’s required—cloth of gold, a little wreath, a little
image, a shroud, gauze—we keep everything ... You can buy a thing or
two in, clothing ... Slippers, too, now...”
Tamara gave him money and went out into the air, letting Manka go in
front of her.
After some time two wreaths were brought; one from Tamara, of asters
and georginas with an inscription in black letters upon a white ribbon:
“To Jennie from a friend;” the other was from Ryazanov, all of red
flowers; upon its red ribbon stood in gold characters: “Through
suffering shall we be purified.” He also sent a short little note,
expressing commiseration and apologizing for not being able to come, as
he was occupied with an undeferrable business meeting.
Then came the singers who had been invited by Tamara—fifteen men from
the very best choir in the city.
The precentor, in a gray overcoat and a gray hat, all gray, somehow, as
though covered with dust, but with long, straight moustaches, like a
military person’s, recognized Verka; opened his eyes wide in
astonishment, smiled slightly and winked at her. Two or three times a
month, and sometimes even oftener, he visited Yamskaya Street with
ecclesiastical academicians of his acquaintance, just the same
precentors as he, and some psalmists; and having usually made a full
review of all the establishments, always wound up with the house of
Anna Markovna, where he invariably chose Verka.
He was a merry and sprightly man; danced in a lively manner, in a
frenzy; and executed such figures during the dances that all those
present just melted from laughter.
Following the singers came the two-horsed catafalque, that Tamara had
hired; black, with white plumes, and seven torch-bearers along with it.
They also brought a white, glazed brocade coffin; and a pedestal for
it, stretched over with black calico. Without hurrying, with habitually
deft movements, they put away the deceased into the coffin; covered her
face with gauze; curtained off the corpse with cloth of gold, and lit
the candles—one at the head and two at the feet.
Now, in the yellow, trembling light of the candles, the face of Jennka
became more clearly visible. The lividness had almost gone off it,
remaining only here and there on the temples, on the nose, and between
the eyes, in party-coloured, uneven, serpentine spots. Between the
parted dark lips slightly glimmered the whiteness of the teeth, and the
tip of the bitten tongue was still visible. Out of the open collar of
the neck, which had taken on the colour of old parchment, showed two
stripes: one dark—the mark of the rope; another red—the sign of the
scratch, inflicted by Simeon during the encounter—just like two fearful
necklaces. Tamara approached and with a safety pin pinned together the
lace on the collar, at the very chin.
The clergy came: a little gray priest in gold spectacles, in a
skull-cap; a lanky, tall, thin-haired deacon with a sickly, strangely
dark and yellow face, as though of terra-cotta; and a sprightly,
long-skirted psalmist, animatedly exchanging on his way some gay,
mysterious signs with his friends among the singers.
Tamara walked up to the priest:
“Father,” she asked, “how will you perform the funeral service; all
together or each one separate?”
“We perform the funeral service for all of them conjointly,” answered
the priest, kissing the stole, and extricating his beard and hair out
of its slits. “Usually, that is. But by special request, and by special
agreement, it’s also possible to do it separately. What death did the
deceased undergo?”
“She’s a suicide, father.”
“Hm ... a suicide? ... But do you know, young person, that by the
canons of the church there isn’t supposed to be any funeral service ...
there ought not to be any? Of course, there are exceptions—by special
intercession...”
“Right here, father, I have certificates from the police and from the
doctor ... She wasn’t in her right mind ... in a fit of insanity...”
Tamara extended to the priest two papers, sent her the evening before
by Ryazanov, and on top of them three bank-notes of ten roubles each.
“I would beg of you, father, to do everything fitting—Christian like.
She was a splendid being, and suffered a very great deal. And won’t you
be so kind—go along with her to the cemetery, and there hold one more
little mass...”
“It’s all right for me to go along with her to the cemetery, but in the
cemetery itself I have no right to hold service—there is a clergy of
their own ... And also here’s how, young person; in view of the fact
that I’ll have to return once more after the rest, won’t you, now ...
add another little ten-spot.”
And having taken the money from Tamara’s hand, the priest blessed the
thurible, which had been brought up by the psalmist, and began to walk
around the body of the deceased with thurification. Then, having
stopped at her head, he in a meek, wontedly sad voice, uttered:
“Blessed is our God. As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall
be, world without end!”
The psalmist began pattering: Holy God, Most Holy Trinity and Our
Father poured out like peas.
Quietly, as though confiding some deep, sad, occult mystery, the
singers began in a rapid, sweet recitative: “With Thy blessed saints in
glory everlasting, the soul of this Thy servant save, set at rest;
preserving her in the blessed life, as Thou hast loving kindness for
man.”
The psalmist distributed the candles; and they with warm, soft, living
little flames, one after the other, were lit in the heavy, murky air,
tenderly and transparently illuminating the faces of the women.
Harmoniously the mournful melody flowed forth, and like the sighs of
aggrieved angels sounded the great words:
“Rest, oh God, this Thy servant and establish her in Heaven, wherein
the faces of the just and the saints of the Lord shine like unto
lights; set at rest this Thy servant who hath fallen asleep, contemning
all her trespasses.”
Tamara was listening intently to the long familiar, but now long
unheard words, and was smiling bitterly. The passionate, mad words of
Jennka came back to her, full of such inescapable despair and unbelief
... Would the all-merciful, all-gracious Lord forgive or would He not
forgive her foul, fumy, embittered, unclean life? All-Knowing—can it be
that Thou wouldst repulse her—the pitiful rebel, the involuntary
libertine; a child that had uttered blasphemies against Thy radiant,
holy name? Thou—Benevolence, Thou—our Consolation!
A dull, restrained wailing, suddenly passing into a scream, resounded
in the chapel. “Oh, Jennechka!” This was Little White Manka, standing
on her knees and stuffing her mouth with her handkerchief, beating
about in tears. And the remaining mates, following her, also got down
upon their knees; and the chapel was filled with sighs, stifled
lamentations and sobbings ...
“Thou alone art deathless, Who hast created and made man; out of the
dust of the earth were we made, and unto the same dust shall we return;
as Thou hast ordained me, creating me and saying unto me, dust thou art
and unto dust shalt thou return.”
Tamara was standing motionless and with an austere face that seemed
turned to stone. The light of the candle in thin gold spirals shone in
her bronze-chestnut hair; while she could not tear her eyes away from
the lines of Jennka’s moist, yellow forehead and the tip of her nose,
which were visible to Tamara from her place.
“Dust thou art and unto dust shalt thou return ...” she was mentally
repeating the words of the canticles. “Could it be that that would be
all; only earth alone and nothing more? And which is better: nothing,
or even anything at all—even the most execrable—but merely to be
existing?”
And the choir, as though affirming her thoughts, as though taking away
from her the last consolation, was uttering forlornly:
“And all mankind may go...”
They sang Eternal Memory through, blew out the candles, and the little
blue streams spread in the air, blue from frankincense. The priest read
through the farewell prayer; and afterwards, in the general silence,
scooped up some sand with the little shovel handed to him by the
psalmist, and cast it cross-wise upon the corpse, on top of the gauze.
And at this he was uttering great words, filled with the austere, sad
inevitability of a mysterious universal law: “The world is the Lord’s,
and its fulfillment the universe, and all that dwelleth therein.”
The girls escorted their dead mate to the very cemetery. The road
thither intersected the very entrance to Yamskaya Street. It would have
been possible to turn to the left through it, and that would have been
almost half as short; but dead people were not usually carried through
Yamskaya.
Nevertheless, out of almost all the doors their inmates poured out
towards the cross roads, in whatever they had on: in slippers upon bare
feet, in night gowns, with kerchiefs upon their heads; they crossed
themselves, sighed, wiped their eyes with their handkerchiefs and the
edges of their jackets.
The weather cleared up ... The cold sun shone brightly from a cold sky
of radiant blue enamel; the last grass showed its green, the withered
leaves on the trees glowed, showing their pink and gold ... And in the
crystal clear, cold air solemnly, and mournfully reverberated the
sonorous sounds: “Holy God, Holy Almighty, Holy Everliving, have mercy
upon us!” And with what flaming thirst for life, not to be satiated by
aught; with what longing for the momentary—transient like unto a
dream—joy and beauty of being; with what horror before the eternal
silence of death, sounded the ancient refrain of John Damascene!
Then a brief requiem at the grave, the dull thud of the earth against
the lid of the coffin ... a small fresh hillock ...
“And here’s the end!” said Tamara to her comrades, when they were left
alone. “Oh, well, girls—an hour earlier, an hour later! ... I’m sorry
for Jennka! ... Horribly sorry! ... We won’t ever find such another.
And yet, my children, it’s far better for her in her pit than for us in
ours ... Well, let’s cross ourselves for the last time—and home! ...”
And when they all were already nearing their house, Tamara suddenly
uttered pensively the strange, ominous words:
“And we won’t be long together without her: soon we will be scattered,
by the wind far and wide. Life is good! ... Look: there’s the sun, the
blue sky ... How pure the air is ... Cobwebs are floating—it’s Indian
summer ... How good it is in this world! ... Only we alone—we
wenches—are wayside rubbish.”
The girls started off on their journey. But suddenly from somewhere on
the side, from behind a monument, a tall sturdy student detached
himself. He caught up with Liubka and softly touched her sleeve. She
turned around and beheld Soloviev. Her face instantaneously turned
pale, her eyes opened wide and her lips began to tremble.
“Go away!” she said quietly, with infinite hatred.
“Liuba ... Liubochka ...” Soloviev began to mumble. “I searched ...
searched for you ... I ... Honest to God, I’m not like that one ...
like Lichonin ... I’m in earnest ... even right now, even to-day.
“Go away!” still more quietly pronounced Liubka.
“I’m serious ... I’m serious ... I’m not trifling, I want to marry...”
“Oh, you creature!” suddenly squealed out Liubka, and quickly, hard,
peasant-like, hit Soloviev on the cheek with her palm.
Soloviev stood a little while, slightly swaying. His eyes were like
those of a martyr ... The mouth half-open, with mournful creases at the
sides.
“Go away! Go away! I can’t bear to look at all of you!” Liubka was
screaming with rage. “Hangmen, swine!”
Soloviev unexpectedly covered his face with his palms and went back,
without knowing his way, with uncertain steps, like one drunk.
CHAPTER IX.
And in reality, the words of Tamara proved to be prophetic: since the
funeral of Jennie not more than two weeks had passed, but during this
brief space of time so many events burst over the house of Emma
Edwardovna as do not befall sometimes even in half a decade.
On the very next day they had to send off to a charitable
institution—into a lunatic asylum—the unfortunate Pashka, who had
fallen completely into feeble-mindedness. The doctors said that there
was no hope of her ever improving. And in reality, as they had placed
her in the hospital on the floor, upon a straw mattress, so did she
remain upon it without getting up from it to her very death; submerging
more and more into the black, bottomless abyss of quiet
feeble-mindedness; but she died only half a year later, from bed-sores
and infection of the blood.
The next turn was Tamara’s.
For about half a month she fulfilled the duties of a housekeeper, was
all the time unusually active, energetic; and somehow unwontedly wound
up with that inner something of her own, which was so strongly
fomenting within her. On a certain evening she vanished, and did not
return at all to the establishment...
The matter of fact was, that in the city she had carried on a
protracted romance with a certain notary—an elderly man, sufficiently
rich, but exceedingly niggardly. Their acquaintance had been scraped up
yet a year back, when they had been by chance travelling together on
the same steamer to a suburban monastery, and had begun a conversation.
The clever, handsome Tamara; her enigmatic, depraved smile; her
entertaining conversation; her modest manner of deporting herself, had
captivated the notary. She had even then marked down for herself this
elderly man with picturesque gray hair, with seigniorial manners; an
erstwhile jurisconsult and a man of good family. She did not tell him
about her profession—it pleased her rather to mystify him. She only
hazily, in a few words, hinted at the fact that she was a married lady
of the middle class; that she was unfortunate in domestic life, since
her husband was a gambler and a despot; and that even by fate she was
denied such a consolation as children. At parting she refused to pass
an evening with the notary, and did not want to meet him; but then she
allowed him to write to her—general delivery, under a fictitious name.
A correspondence commenced between them, in which the notary flaunted
his style and the ardency of his feelings, worthy of the heroes of Paul
Bourget. She maintained the same withdrawn, mysterious tone.
Then, being touched by the entreaties of the notary for a meeting, she
made an appointment in Prince Park; was charming, witty, and
languishing; but refused to go with him anywhere.
So she tortured her adorer and skillfully inflamed within him the last
passion, which at times is stronger and more dangerous than first love.
Finally, this summer, when the family of the notary had gone abroad,
she decided to visit his rooms; and here for the first time gave
herself up to him with tears, with twinges of her conscience, and at
the same time with such ardour and tenderness, that the poor secretary
lost his head completely—was plunged entirely into that senile love,
which no longer knows either reason or retrospect; which compels a man
to lose the last thing—the fear of appearing ridiculous.
Tamara was very sparing of her meetings. This inflamed her impatient
friend still more. She consented to receiving from him bouquets of
flowers, a modest breakfast in a suburban restaurant; but indignantly
refused all expensive presents, and bore herself so skillfully and
subtly, that the notary never got up the courage to offer her money.
When he once stammered out something about a separate apartment and
other conveniences, she looked him in the eyes so intently, haughtily,
and sternly, that he, like a boy, turned red in his picturesque gray
hairs, and kissed her hands, babbling incoherent apologies.
So did Tamara play with him, and feel the ground more and more under
her. She already knew now on what days the notary kept in his fireproof
iron safe especially large sums. However, she did not hurry, fearing to
spoil the business through clumsiness or prematurity.
And so right now this long expected day arrived; a great contractors’
fair had just ended, and all the notaries’ offices were transacting
deals for enormous suras every day. Tamara knew that the notary usually
carried off the money to the bank on Saturdays, in order to be
perfectly free on Sunday. And for that reason on Friday the notary
received the following letter:
“My dear, my adored King Solomon! Thy Shoilamite, thy girl of the
vineyard, greets thee with burning kisses ... Dear, to-day is a holiday
for me, and I am infinitely happy. To-day I am free, as well as you. HE
has gone away to Homel for twenty-four hours on business matters, and I
want to pass all the evening and ALL the night in your place. Ah, my
beloved! All my life I am ready to pass on my knees before thee. I do
not want to go anywhere. The suburban road-houses and cabarets have
bored me long ago. I want you, only you ... you ... you alone. Await
me, then, in the evening, my joy, about ten-eleven-o’clock! Prepare a
great quantity of cold white wine, a canteloupe, and sugared chestnuts.
I am burning, I am dying from desire! It seems to me, I will tire you
out! I can not wait! My head is spinning around, my face burning, and
my hands as cold as ice. I embrace you. Thy Valentina.”
That very same evening, about eleven o’clock, she artfully, through
conversation, led the notary into showing her his fireproof safe;
playing upon his odd, pecuniary vanity. Rapidly gliding with her glance
over the shelves and the movable boxes, Tamara turned away with a
skillfully executed yawn and said:
“Fie, what a bore!”
And, having embraced the notary’s neck, she whispered with her lips at
his very ears, burning him with her hot breath:
“Lock up this nastiness, my treasure! Let’s go! .... Let’s go! ...”
And she was the first to go out into the dining room.
“Come here, now, Volodya!” she cried out from there. “Come quicker! I
want wine and after that love, love, love without end! ... No! Drink it
all, to the very bottom! Just as we will drain our love to the very
bottom today!”
The notary clinked glasses with her and at one gulp drank off his
glass. Then he drew in his lips and remarked:
“Strange ... The wine seems to be sort of bitter to-day.”
“Yes!” agreed Tamara and looked attentively at her lover. “This wine is
always the least bit bitter. For such is the nature of Rhine wines...”
“But to-day it’s especially strong,” said the notary. “No, thanks, my
dear—I don’t want any more!”
After five minutes he fell asleep, sitting in his chair; his head
thrown back against its back, and his lower jaw hanging down. Tamara
waited for some time and started to awaken him. He was without motion.
Then she took the lit candle, and, having placed it on the window sill
giving out upon the street, went out into the entrance hall and began
to listen, until she heard light steps on the stairs. Almost without a
sound she opened the door and let in Senka, dressed like a real
gentleman, with a brand new leather hand-bag in his hands.
“Ready?” asked the thief in a whisper.
“He’s sleeping,” answered Tamara, just as quietly. “Look and here are
the keys.”
They passed together into the study with the fireproof safe. Having
looked over the lock with the aid of a flashlight, Senka swore in a low
voice:
“The devil take him, the old animal! ... I just knew that it would be a
lock with a combination. Here you’ve got to know the letters ... It’s
got to be melted with electricity, and the devil knows how much time
it’ll take.”
“It’s not necessary,” retorted Tamara hurriedly. “I know the word ...
Pick it out: m-o-r-t-g-a-g-. Without the e.”
After ten minutes they descended the steps together; went in purposely
broken lines through several streets, hiring a cab to the depot only in
the old city; and rode out of the city with irreproachable passports of
citizens and landed proprietors—the Stavnitzkys, man and wife. For a
long time nothing was heard of them until, a year later, Senka was
caught in Moscow in a large theft, and gave Tamara away during the
interrogation. They were both tried and sentenced to imprisonment.
Following Tamara came the turn of the naive, trusting, and amorous
Verka. For a long time already she had been in love with a
semi-military man, who called himself a civic clerk in the military
department. His name was Dilectorsky. In their relations Verka was the
adoring party; while he, like an important idol, condescendingly
received the worship and the proffered gifts. Even from the end of
summer Verka noticed that her beloved was becoming more and more cold
and negligent; and, talking with her, was dwelling in thought somewhere
far, far away. She tortured herself, was jealous, questioned him, but
always received in answer some indeterminate phrases, some ominous
hints at a near misfortune, at a premature grave ...
In the beginning of September he finally confessed to her, that he had
embezzled official money, big money, something around three thousand;
and that after five days he would be checked up, and that he,
Dilectorsky, was threatened with disgrace, the court, and finally, hard
labour ... Here the civic clerk of the military department burst into
sobs, clasping his head, and exclaimed:
“My poor mother! ... What will become of her? She will not be able to
sustain this degradation ... No! Death is a thousand times better than
these hellish tortures of a being guilty of naught.”
Although he was expressing himself, as always, in the style of the dime
novels (in which way he had mainly enticed the trusting Verka), still,
the theatrical thought of suicide, once arisen, no longer forsook him.
Somehow one day he was promenading for a long time with Verka in Prince
Park. Already greatly devastated by autumn, this wonderful ancient park
glistened and played with the magnificent tones of the foliage,
blossoming out into colours: crimson, purple, lemon, orange and the
deep cherry colour of old, settled wine; and it seemed that the cold
air was diffusing sweet odours, like precious wine. And yet, a fine
impress, a tender aroma of death, was wafted from the bushes, from the
grass, from the trees.
Dilectorsky waxed tender; gave his feelings a free rein, was moved over
himself, and began to weep. Verka wept a bit with him, too.
“To-day I will kill myself!” said Dilectorsky finally. “All is over!
...”
“My own, don’t! ... My precious, don’t! ...”
“It’s impossible,” answered Dilectorsky sombrely. “The cursed money!
... Which is dearer—honour or life?!”
“My dear...”
“Don’t speak, don’t speak, Annetta!” (He, for some reason, preferred to
the common name of Verka the aristocratic Annetta, thought up by
himself.) “Don’t speak. This is decided!”
“Oh, if only I could help you!” exclaimed Verka woefully. “Why, I’d
give my life away ... Every drop of blood! ...”
“What is life?” Dilectorsky shook his head with an actor’s despondence.
“Farewell, Annetta! ... Farewell! ...”
The girl desperately began to shake her head:
“I don’t want it! ... I don’t want it! ... I don’t want it! ... Take
me! ... I’ll go with you too! ...”
Late in the evening Dilectorsky took a room in an expensive hotel. He
knew, that within a few hours, perhaps minutes, he and Verka would be
corpses; and for that reason, although he had in his pocket only eleven
kopecks, all in all, he gave orders sweepingly, like a habitual,
downright prodigal; he ordered sturgeon stew, double snipes, and
fruits; and, in addition to all this, coffee, liqueurs and two bottles
of frosted champagne. And he was in reality convinced that he would
shoot himself; but thought of it somehow affectedly, as though
admiring, a trifle from the side, his tragic role; and enjoying
beforehand the despair of his relatives and the amazement of his fellow
clerks. While Verka, when she had suddenly said that she would commit
suicide with her beloved, had been immediately strengthened in this
thought. And there was nothing fearful to Verka in this impending
death. “Well, now, is it better to croak just so, under a fence? But
here it’s together with your dearie! At least a sweet death! ...” And
she frantically kissed her clerk, laughed, and with dishevelled, curly
hair, with sparkling eyes, was prettier than she had ever been.
The final triumphal moment arrived at last.
“You and I have both enjoyed ourselves, Annetta ... We have drained the
cup to the bottom and now, to use an expression of Pushkin’s, must
shatter the goblet!” said Dilectorsky. “You do not repent, oh, my dear?
...”
“No, no! ...”
“Are you ready?”
“Yes!” whispered she and smiled.
“Then turn away to the wall and shut your eyes!”
“No, no, my dearest, I don’t want it so! ... I don’t want it! Come to
me! There, so! Nearer, nearer.. Give me your eyes, I will be gazing
into them. Give me your lips—I will be kissing you, while you... I am
not afraid! ... Be braver! ... Kiss me harder! ...”
He killed her; and when he looked upon the horrible deed of his hands,
he then suddenly felt a loathsome, abominable, abject fear. The
half-naked body of Verka was still quivering on the bed. The legs of
Dilectorsky gave in from horror; but the reason of a hypocrite, coward
and blackguard kept vigil: he did still have spirit sufficient to
stretch away at his side the skin over his ribs, and to shoot through
it. And when he was falling, frantically crying out from pain, from
fright, and from the thunder of the shot, the last convulsion was
running through the body of Verka.
While two weeks after the death of Verka, the naive, sportful, meek,
brawling Little White Manka perished as well. During one of the
general, clamourous brawls, usual in the Yamkas, in an enormous affray,
some one killed her, hitting her with a heavy empty bottle over the
head. And the murderer remained undiscovered to the last.
So rapidly did events take place in the Yamkas, in the house of Emma
Edwardovna; and well nigh not a one of its inmates escaped a bloody,
foul or disgraceful doom.
The final, most grandiose, and at the same time most bloody calamity
was the devastation committed on the Yamkas by soldiers.
Two dragoons had been short-changed in a rouble establishment, beaten
up, and thrown out at night into the street. Tom to pieces, in blood,
they returned to the barracks, where their comrades, having begun in
the morning, were still finishing up their regimental holiday. And so,
not half an hour passed, when a hundred soldiers burst into the Yamkas
and began to wreck house after house. They were joined by an
innumerable mob that gathered on the run—men of the golden squad[31],
ragamuffins, tramps, crooks, souteneurs. The panes were broken in all
the houses, and the grand pianos smashed to smithereens. The feather
beds were ripped open and the down thrown out into the street; and yet
for a long while after—for some two days—the countless bits of down
flew and whirled over the Yamkas, like flakes of snow. The wenches,
bare-headed, perfectly naked, were driven out into the street. Three
porters were beaten to death. The rabble shattered, befouled, and rent
into pieces all the silk and plush furniture of Treppel. They also
smashed up all the neighbouring taverns and drink-shops, while they
were at it.
[31] Zolotorotzi—a subtle euphemism for cleaners of cesspools and
carters of the wealth contained therein.—trans.
The drunken, bloody, hideous slaughter continued for some three hours;
until the arrayed military authorities, together with the fire company,
finally succeeded in repulsing and scattering the infuriated mob. Two
half-rouble establishments were set on fire, but the fire was soon put
out. However, on the next day the tumult again flared up; this time
already over the whole city and its environs. Altogether unexpectedly
it took on the character of a Jewish pogrom, which lasted for three
days, with all its horrors and miseries.
And a week after followed the order of the governor-general about the
immediate shutting down of houses of prostitution, on the Yamkas as
well as other streets of the city. The proprietresses were given only a
week’s time for the settlement of matters in connection with their
property.
Annihilated, crushed, plundered; having lost all the glamour of their
former grandeur; ludicrous and pitiful, the aged, faded proprietresses
and fat-faced, hoarse housekeepers were hastily packing up their
things. And a month after only the name reminded one of merry Yamskaya
Street; of the riotous, scandalous, horrible Yamkas.
However, even the name of the street was soon replaced by another, more
respectable one, in order to efface even the memory of the former
unpardonable times.
And all these Henriettas-Horses, Fat Kitties, Lelkas-Polecats and other
women—always naive and foolish, often touching and amusing, in the
majority of cases deceived and perverted children,—spread through the
big city, were dissolved within it. Out of them was born a new stratum
of society—a stratum of the strolling, street prostitutes—solitaries.
And about their life, just as pitiful and incongruous, but tinged by
other interests and customs, the author of this novel—which he still
dedicates to youths and mothers—will some time tell.
THE END