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Yama (The Pit)

Chapter 4 No.4

Word Count: 1228 | Released on: 06/12/2017

, gay port city. To him came the keepers of employment offices for servants, the proprietresses of cheap hotels, and old, experienced go-betweens, grown gray in the trade in women.

ason for him, but the mere thought that competitor Yampolsky w

ke girl Bella, and had pictures taken in various poses together with her; at which for every negati

n; already sufficiently old and rich in order to allow herself the luxury of maintaining a husband (and together with him a cabaret), a handsome and ki

t; another a little one, a blonde, but who, you understand, is ready for everything; the third is

zing at him with mistr

fill my head with? Do you want to do t

the main thing. I'm also offering you a perfectly educated woman. Do

iled artfull

n a w

he's of th

pleasantnesses with

money from you; all the three

; five hundred. I don't w

I won't deceive you and will bring her here right away. Only I beg you not to forget that you'

her breasts, bellies and c

eceive me, nor I you. There's a great demand for women now. What

dam Barsukova,

old friends. Tell me, how

housand, approximately. But think what tremendo

ut away a

es; some two or thr

t ten, tw

that he was beginning to be d

es this int

ed the dressy maid to bring coffee with steamed cream and a bottl

ow Mr. She

mply pounc

Shepsherovich! This is a

ting that he was being dragged into

, madam-count it-of thirty thousand! Do you think Shepsherovich calmed down with this? For this money, in order to repay his expenses on the steamer, he bought several

n his knee. She had been waiting for

Mr.--however, I don't know

n, let'

aying an open hand with you. We won't stop at money. Now it's in fashion. Notice, Horizon, your lady clients will be returned to

his eyes, rubbed h

wife ... You've a

t why a

that she-how shall I say

ily burst in

such a nasty villain! Let's have your wife, it's all th

" asked Hori

d let's say. But tell me, wi

with you. Just imagine, Madam Barsukova, that this woman is in love with me like a cat. And if you'll

name, her father's name, and her last name. The promissory note, of course, was fantastic; but there is a tie, a welding, an honour among thi

some wine, talked a bit about the fair, about the exposition, complained a little about bad business. After that Horizon telephoned to his room in the hotel, and called out his wife. H

Chapter End

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Yama (The Pit)

Alexandra Kuprin Literature

“\"With us, you see,\" Kuprin makes the reporter Platonov, his mouthpiece, say in Yama, \"they write about detectives, about lawyers, about inspectors of the revenue, about pedagogues, about attorneys, about the police, about officers, about sensual ladies, about engineers, about baritones\u2014and really, by God, altogether well\u2014cleverly, with finesse and talent. But, after all, all these people are rubbish, and their life is not life, but some sort of conjured up, spectral, unnecessary delirium of world culture. But there are two singular realities\u2014ancient as humanity itself: the prostitute and the moujik. And about them we know nothing, save some tinsel, gingerbread, debauched depictions in literature...\" And, curiously enough, it is another great Russian, Kuprin, who is supreme\u2014if not unique\u2014as a painter of the universal scourge of prostitution, per se; and not as an incidental background for portraits. True, he may not have entirely escaped the strange allure, aforementioned, of the femininity he paints; for femininity\u2014even though fallen, corrupt, abased, is still femininity, one of the miracles of life, to Kuprin, the lover of life. But, even if he may be said to have used too much of the oil of sentimentality in mixing his colours for the portraits, his portraits are subordinate to the background; and there his eye is true and keen, his hand steady and unflinching, his colours and brushwork unimpeachable.”