Somehow it came about of itself, that on the ruins
of those ancient, long-warmed nests, where of yore
the rosy-cheeked, sprightly wives of the soldiery
and the plump widows of Yama, with their black eyebrows,
had secretly traded in vodka and free love, there
began to spring up wide-open brothels, permitted by
the authorities, regulated by official supervision
and subject to express, strict rules. Towards
the end of the nineteenth century both streets of
Yama—Great Yamskaya and Little Yamskaya—proved
to be entirely occupied, on one side of the street
as well as the other, exclusively with houses of ill-fame.
[Footnote: “Houses of Suffrance”—i.e.,
Houses of the Necessary Evil.—Trans.] Of
the private houses no more than five or six were left,
but even they were taken up by public houses, beer
halls, and general stores, catering to the needs of
Yama prostitution.
The course of life, the manners and customs, are almost
identical in all the thirty-odd establishments; the
difference is only in the charges exacted for the
briefly-timed love, and consequently in certain external
minutiae as well: in the assortment of more or
less handsome women, in the comparative smartness of
the costumes, in the magnificence of the premises
and the luxuriousness of the furnishings.
The most chic establishment is that of Treppel, the
first house to the left upon entering Great Yamskaya.
This is an old firm. Its present owner bears
an entirely different name, and fills the post of
an elector in the city council and is even a member
of the city board. The house is of two stories,
green and white, built in the debauched pseudo-Russian
style a la Ropetovsky, with little horses, carved
facings, roosters, and wooden towels bordered with
lace-also of wood; a carpet with a white runner on
the stairs; in the front hall a stuffed bear, holding
a wooden platter for visiting cards in his out-stretched
paws; a parquet floor in the ballroom, heavy raspberry
silk curtains and tulle on the windows, along the
walls white and gold chairs and mirrors with gilt
frames; there are two private cabinets with carpets,
divans, and soft satin puffs; in the bedrooms blue
and rose lanterns, blankets of raw silk stuff and
clean pillows; the inmates are clad in low-cut ball
gowns, bordered with fur, or in expensive masquerade
costumes of hussars, pages, fisher lasses, school-girls;
and the majority of them are Germans from the Baltic
provinces—large, handsome women, white
of body and with ample breasts. At Treppel’s
three roubles are taken for a visit, and for the whole
night, ten.
Three of the two-rouble establishments—Sophie
Vassilievna’s, The Old Kiev, and Anna Markovna’s—are
somewhat worse, somewhat poorer. The remaining
houses on Great Yamskaya are rouble ones; they are
furnished still worse. While on Little Yamskaya,
which is frequented by soldiers, petty thieves, artisans,
and drab folk In general, and where fifty kopecks
or less are taken for time, things are altogether
