Yama (The Pit) Part 43

"Go away, do me that favour! I've ten roubles lying there, near the mirror, in a little box from chocolates--take them for yourself. I don't need them, anyway. Buy with them a tortoise powder box with a gold setting for your mamma; and if you have a little sister, buy her a good doll. Say: in memory from a certain wench that died. Go on, little boy!"

Kolya, with a frown, angry, with one shove of a well-knit body jumped off the bed, almost without touching it. Now he was standing on the little mat near the bed, naked, well-formed, splendid in all the magnificence of his blooming, youthful body.

"Kolya!" Jennka called him quietly, insistently and caressingly.

"Kolechka!"

He turned around to her call, and drew in the air in a short, jerky gust, as though he had gasped: he had never yet in his life met anywhere, even in pictures, such a beautiful expression of tenderness, sorrow, and womanly silent reproach, as the one he was just now beholding in the eyes of Jennka, filled with tears. He sat down on the edge of the bed, and impulsively embraced her around the bared, swarthy arms.

"Let's not quarrel, then, Jennechka," he said tenderly.

And she twined herself around him, placed her arms on his neck, while her head she pressed against his breast. They kept silent so for several seconds.

"Kolya," Jennie suddenly asked dully, "but were you never afraid of becoming infected?"

Kolya s.h.i.+vered. Some chill, loathsome horror stirred and glided through within his soul. He did not answer at once.

"Of course, that would be horrible... horrible... G.o.d save me! But then I go only to you alone, only to you! You'd surely have told me? ..."

"Yes, I'd have told you," she uttered meditatively. And at once rapidly, consciously, as though having weighed the significance of her words: "Yes, of course, of course, I would have told you! But haven't you ever heard what sort of a thing is that disease called syphilis?"

"Of course, I've heard... The nose falls through..."

"No, Kolya, not only the nose! The person becomes all diseased: his bones, sinews, brains grow diseased... Some doctors say such nonsense as that it's possible to be cured of this disease. Bos.h.!.+ You'll never cure yourself! A person rots ten, twenty, thirty years. Every second paralysis can strike him down, so that the right side of the face, the right arm, the right leg die--it isn't a human being that's living, but some sort of a little half. Half-man-half-corpse. The majority of them go out of their minds. And each understands... every person... each one so infected understands, that if he eats, drinks, kisses, simply even breathes--he can't be sure that he won't immediately infect some one of those around him, the very nearest--sister, wife, son... To all syphilitics the children are born monsters, abortions, goitrous, consumptives, idiots. There, Kolya, is what this disease means. And now," Jennka suddenly straightened up quickly, seized Kolya fast by his bare shoulders, turned his face to her, so that he was almost blinded by the flas.h.i.+ng of her sorrowful, sombre, extraordinary eyes, "and now, Kolya, I will tell you that for more than a month I am sick with this filth. And that's just why I haven't allowed you to kiss me..."

"You're joking! ... You're teasing me on purpose, Jennie!" muttered Gladishev, wrathful, frightened, and out of his wits.

"Joking? ...Come here!"

She abruptly compelled him to get up on his feet, lit a match and said:

"Now look closely at what I'm going to show you..."

She opened her mouth wide and placed the light so that it would illumine her larynx. Kolya looked and staggered back.

"Do you see these white spots? This is syphilis, Kolya! Do you understand?--syphilis in the most fearful, the most serious stage. Now dress yourself and thank G.o.d."

He, silently and without looking around at Jennka, began to dress hurriedly, missing his clothes when he tried to put his legs through.

His hands were shaking, and his under jaw jumped so that the lower teeth knocked against the upper; while Jennka was speaking with bowed head:

"Listen, Kolya, it's your good fortune that you've run across an honest woman; another wouldn't have spared you. Do you hear that? We, whom you deprive of innocence and then drive out of your home, while later you pay us two roubles a visit, we always--do you understand?"--she suddenly raised her head--"we always hate you and never have any pity for you!"

The half-clad Kolya suddenly dropped his dressing, sat down on the bed near Jennka and, covering his face with his palms, burst into tears; sincerely, altogether like a child...

"Lord, Lord," he whispered, "why this is the truth! ... What a vile thing this really is! ... We, also, we had this happen: we had a chambermaid, Niusha...a chambermaid... they also called her signorita Anita...a pretty little girl...and my brother lived with her...my elder brother...an officer...and when he went away, she proved pregnant and mother drove her out...well, yes--drove her out...threw her out of the house, like a floor mop...Where is she now? And father...father...he also with a cham...chambermaid."

And the half-naked Jennka, this Jennka, the atheist, swearer, and brawler, suddenly got up from the bed, stood before the cadet, and slowly, almost solemnly, made the sign of the cross over him.

"And may G.o.d preserve you my boy!" she said with an expression of deep tenderness and grat.i.tude.

And at once she ran to the door, opened it and called out: "Housekeeper!"

"Tell you what, housekeeper dear," Jennka directed, "go and find out, please, which one of them is free--Tamara or Little White Manka. And the one that's free send here."

Kolya growled out something in the back, but Jennka purposely did not listen to him.

"And please make it as quick as possible, housekeeper dear, won't you be so kind?"

"Right away, right away, miss."

"Why, why do you do this, Jennie?" asked Gladishev with anguish. "Well, what's that for? ...Is it possible that you want to tell about it? ..."

"Wait awhile, that's not your business...Wait a while, I won't do anything unpleasant for you."

After a minute Little White Manka came in her brown, smooth, deliberately modest dress of a high school girl.

"What did you call me for, Jennie? Or have you quarreled?"

"No, we haven't quarreled, Mannechka, but my head aches very much,"

answered Jennka calmly, "and for that reason my little friend finds me very cold. Be a friend, Mannechka, stay with him, take my place!"

"That's enough, Jennie, stop it, darling!" in a tone of sincere suffering retorted Kolya. "I understand everything, everything, it's not necessary now ... Don't be finis.h.i.+ng me off, then! ..."

"I don't understand anything of what's happened," the frivolous Manka spread out her hands. "Maybe you'll treat a poor little girl to something?"

"Well, go on, go on!" Jennka sent her away gently. "I'll come right away. We just played a joke."

Already dressed, they stood for long in the open door between the bedroom and the corridor; and without words sadly looked at each other.

And Kolya did not understand, but sensed, that at this moment in his soul was taking place one of those tremendous crises which tell imperiously upon the entire life.

Then he pressed Jennie's hand hard and said:

"Forgive! ... Will you forgive me, Jennie? Will you forgive? ..."

"Yes, my boy! ... Yes, my fine one! ... Yes...yes..."

She tenderly, softly, like a mother, stroked his closely cropped harsh head and gave him, a slight shove into the corridor.

"Where are you bound now?" she sent after him, half opening her door.

"I'll take my comrade right away, and then home."

"As you know best! ... G.o.d bless you, dearie!"

"Forgive me! ... Forgive me! ..." once more repeated Kolya, stretching out his hands to her.

"I've already told you, my splendid boy...And you forgive me too...For we won't see each other anymore!"

And she, having closed the door, was left alone.