Yama (The Pit)

Yama (The Pit)

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Title: Yama (The Pit)
Author: Alexandra Kuprin
Release Date: December, 2003 [Etext #4706] [Yes, we are more than one year ahead of
schedule] [This file was first posted on March 5, 2002]
Edition: 10
Language: English

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YAMA [THE PIT]
Of this edition, intended for private circulation only, and printed from type on Berkeley
Antique laid paper, 950 copies have been printed for America, and 550 for Great Britain.
Also, 55 unnumbered copies, for the press.
This copy is Number 223

YAMA [THE PIT]
A NOVEL IN THREE PARTS
BY ALEXANDRA KUPRIN
TRANSLATED FROM THE RUSSIAN
BY BERNARD GUILBERT GUERNEY
"All the horror is in just this, that there is no horror ..."

AUTHOR'S DEDICATION
I know that many will find this novel immoral and indecent; nevertheless, I dedicate it
with all my heart to MOTHERS AND YOUTHS--A. K.

TRANSLATOR'S DEDICATION
I dedicate the labour of translation, in all humility and sincerity, to K. ANDRAE. B. G.
G.

INTRODUCTION
"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--and really, by God, altogether well--cleverly, 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--ancient as humanity itself: the prostitute and the moujik. And about them we
know nothing, save some tinsel, gingerbread, debauched depictions in literature..."
Tinsel, gingerbread, debauched depictions... Let us consider some of the ways in which
this monstrous reality has been approached by various writers. There is, first, the purely
sentimental: Prevost's Manon Les caut. Then there is the slobberingly sentimental:
Dumas' Dame aux Camelias. A third is the necrophilically romantic: Louys' Aphrodite.
The fertile Balzac has given us no less than two: the purely romantic, in his fascinating
portraits of the Fair Imperia; and the romantically realistic, in his Splendeurs et Miseres
des Courtisanes. Reade's Peg Woffington may be called the literary parallel of the
costume drama; Defoe's Moll Flanders is honestly realistic; Zola's Nana is rabidly so.
There is one singular fact that must be noted in connection with the vast majority of such
depictions. Punk or bona roba, lorette or drab--put her before an artist in letters, and, lo
and behold ye! such is the strange allure emanating from the hussy, that the resultant
portrait is either that of a martyred Magdalene, or, at the very least, has all the enigmatic
piquancy of a Monna Lisa... Not