“Let Liuba tell the housekeeper that you’re
taking her to your rooms for to-day. That’s
the fixed rate—ten roubles. And afterwards,
well, even to-morrow—come after the ticket
and things. That’s nothing; we’ll
work this thing roundly. And after that you must
go to the police with her ticket and declare, that
Liubka So-and-so has hired herself to you as chambermaid,
and that you desire to exchange her blank for a real
passport. Well, Liubka, lively! Take the
money and march. And, look out, be as quick as
possible with the housekeeper, or else she, the bitch,
will read it in your eyes. And also don’t
forget,” she cried, now after Liuba, “wipe
the rouge off your puss, now. Or else the drivers
will be pointing their fingers at you.”
After half an hour Liuba and Lichonin were getting
on a cab at the entrance. Jennie and the reporter
were standing on the sidewalk.
“You’re committing a great folly, Lichonin,”
Platonov was saying listlessly, “but I honour
and respect the fine impulse within you. Here’s
the thought—and here’s the deed.
You’re a brave and a splendid fellow.”
“Here’s to your commencement!” laughed
Jennie. “Look out, don’t forget to
send for me to the christening.”
“You won’t see it, no matter how long
you wait for it!” laughed Lichonin, waving his
cap about.
They rode off. The reporter looked at Jennie,
and with astonishment saw tears in her softened eyes.
“God grant it, God grant it,” she was
whispering.
“What has been the matter with you to-day, Jennie?”
he asked kindly. “What? Are you oppressed?
Can’t I do anything?”
She turned her back to him and leaned over the bent
balustrade of the stoop.
“How shall I write to you, if need be?”
she asked in a stifled voice.
“Why, it’s simple. Editorial rooms
of Echoes. So-and-so. They’ll pass
it on to me pretty fast.”
“I ... I ... I ...” Jennie
just began, but suddenly burst into loud, passionate
sobs and covered her face with her hands, “I’ll
write you ...”
And without taking her hands away from her face, her
shoulders quivering, she ran up the stoop and disappeared
in the house, loudly banging the door after her.
Even to this day, after a lapse of ten years, the
erstwhile inhabitants of the Yamkas recall that year,
abounding in unhappy, foul, bloody events, which began
with a series of trifling, small affrays, but terminated
in the administration’s, one fine day, taking
and destroying completely the ancient, long-warmed
nest of legalized prostitution, which nest it had
itself created— scattering its remains
over the hospitals, jails and streets of the big city.
Even to this day a few of the former proprietresses
who have remained alive and have reached the limit
of decrepitude, and quondam housekeepers, fat and
hoarse, like pug-dogs grown old, recall this common
destruction with sorrow, horror, and stolid perplexity.
