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"Oh, hush, Liza! How can you talk about being like a book, when it
makes even me, an outsider, feel sick? Though I don't look at it as an
outsider, for, indeed, it touches me to the heart .... Is it possible, is it
possible that you do not feel sick at being here yourself? Evidently habit
does wonders! God knows what habit can do with anyone. Can you
seriously think that you will never grow old, that you will always be good-looking,
and that they will keep you here for ever and ever? I say nothing
of the loathsomeness of the life here .... Though let me tell you this
about it--about your present life, I mean; here though you are young
now, attractive, nice, with soul and feeling, yet you know as soon as I
came to myself just now I felt at once sick at being here with you! One
can only come here when one is drunk. But if you were anywhere else,
living as good people live, I should perhaps be more than attracted by
you, should fall in love with you, should be glad of a look from you, let
alone a word; I should hang about your door, should go down on my
knees to you, should look upon you as my betrothed and think it an
honour to be allowed to. I should not dare to have an impure thought
about you. But here, you see, I know that I have only to whistle and you
have to come with me whether you like it or not. I don't consult your
wishes, but you mine. The lowest labourer hires himself as a workman,
but he doesn't make a slave of himself altogether; besides, he knows that
he will be free again presently. But when are you free? Only think what
you are giving up here? What is it you are making a slave of? It is your
soul, together with your body; you are selling your soul which you have
no right to dispose of! You give your love to be outraged by every
drunkard! Love! But that's everything, you know, it's a priceless diamond,
it's a maiden's treasure, love--why, a man would be ready to give his
soul, to face death to gain that love. But how much is your love worth
now? You are sold, all of you, body and soul, and there is no need to strive
for love when you can have everything without love. And you know there
is no greater insult to a girl than that, do you understand? To be sure, I
have heard that they comfort you, poor fools, they let you have lovers of
your own here. But you know that's simply a farce, that's simply a sham,
it's just laughing at you, and you are taken in by it! Why, do you suppose
he really loves you, that lover of yours? I don't believe it. How can he
love you when he knows you may be called away from him any minute?
He would be a low fellow if he did! Will he have a grain of respect for
you? What have you in common with him? He laughs at you and robs
you--that is all his love amounts to! You are lucky if he does not beat
you. Very likely he does beat you, too. Ask him, if you have got one,
whether he will marry you. He will laugh in your face, if he doesn't spit
in it or give you a blow--though maybe he is not worth a bad halfpenny
himself. And for what have you ruined your life, if you come to think of
it? For the coffee they give you to drink and the plentiful meals? But with
what object are they feeding you up? An honest girl couldn't swallow the
food, for she would know what she was being fed for. You are in debt here,
and, of course, you will always be in debt, and you will go on in debt to
the end, till the visitors here begin to scorn you. And that will soon
happen, don't rely upon your youth--all that flies by express train here,
you know. You will be kicked out. And not simply kicked out; long before
that she'll begin nagging at you, scolding you, abusing you, as though
you had not sacrificed your health for her, had not thrown away your
youth and your soul for her benefit, but as though you had ruined her,
beggared her, robbed her. And don't expect anyone to take your part: the
others, your companions, will attack you, too, win her favour, for all are
in slavery here, and have lost all conscience and pity here long ago. They
have become utterly vile, and nothing on earth is viler, more loathsome,
and more insulting than their abuse. And you are laying down everything
here, unconditionally, youth and health and beauty and hope, and at
twenty-two you will look like a woman of five-and-thirty, and you will be
lucky if you are not diseased, pray to God for that! No doubt you are
thinking now that you have a gay time and no work to do! Yet there is no
work harder or more dreadful in the world or ever has been. One would
think that the heart alone would be worn out with tears. And you won't
dare to say a word, not half a word when they drive you away from here;
you will go away as though you were to blame. You will change to
another house, then to a third, then somewhere else, till you come down
at last to the Haymarket. There you will be beaten at every turn; that is
good manners there, the visitors don't know how to be friendly without
beating you. You don't believe that it is so hateful there? Go and look for
yourself some time, you can see with your own eyes. Once, one New
Year's Day, I saw a woman at a door. They had turned her out as a joke, to
give her a taste of the frost because she had been crying so much, and
they shut the door behind her. At nine o'clock in the morning she was
already quite drunk, dishevelled, half-naked, covered with bruises, her
face was powdered, but she had a black-eye, blood was trickling from her
nose and her teeth; some cabman had just given her a drubbing. She was
sitting on the stone steps, a salt fish of some sort was in her hand; she was
crying, wailing something about her luck and beating with the fish on the
steps, and cabmen and drunken soldiers were crowding in the doorway
taunting her. You don't believe that you will ever be like that? I should be
sorry to believe it, too, but how do you know; maybe ten years, eight
years ago that very woman with the salt fish came here fresh as a cherub,
innocent, pure, knowing no evil, blushing at every word. Perhaps she
was like you, proud, ready to take offence, not like the others; perhaps she
looked like a queen, and knew what happiness was in store for the man
who should love her and whom she should love. Do you see how it
ended? And what if at that very minute when she was beating on the filthy
steps with that fish, drunken and dishevelled--what if at that very
minute she recalled the pure early days in her father's house, when she
used to go to school and the neighbour's son watched for her on the way,
declaring that he would love her as long as he lived, that he would devote
his life to her, and when they vowed to love one another for ever and be
married as soon as they were grown up! No, Liza, it would be happy for
you if you were to die soon of consumption in some corner, in some
cellar like that woman just now. In the hospital, do you say? You will be
lucky if they take you, but what if you are still of use to the madam here?
Consumption is a queer disease, it is not like fever. The patient goes on
hoping till the last minute and says he is all right. He deludes himself
And that just suits your madam. Don't doubt it, that's how it is; you have
sold your soul, and what is more you owe money, so you daren't say a
word. But when you are dying, all will abandon you, all will turn away
from you, for then there will be nothing to get from you. What's more,
they will reproach you for cumbering the place, for being so long over
dying. However you beg you won't get a drink of water without abuse:
'Whenever are you going off, you nasty hussy, you won't let us sleep with
your moaning, you make the gentlemen sick.' That's true, I have heard
such things said myself. They will thrust you dying into the filthiest
corner in the cellar--in the damp and darkness; what will your thoughts
be, lying there alone? When you die, strange hands will lay you out, with
grumbling and impatience; no one will bless you, no one will sigh for
you, they only want to get rid of you as soon as may be; they will buy a
coffin, take you to the grave as they did that poor woman today, and
celebrate your memory at the tavern. In the grave, sleet, filth, wet snow--
no need to put themselves out for you--'Let her down, Vanuha; it's just
like her luck--even here, she is head-foremost, the hussy. Shorten the
cord, you rascal.' 'It's all right as it is.' 'All right, is it? Why, she's
on her side! She was a fellow-creature, after all! But, never mind, throw the
earth on her.' And they won't care to waste much time quarrelling over
you. They will scatter the wet blue clay as quick as they can and go off to
the tavern ... and there your memory on earth will end; other women
have children to go to their graves, fathers, husbands. While for you
neither tear, nor sigh, nor remembrance; no one in the whole world will
ever come to you, your name will vanish from the face of the earth--as
though you had never existed, never been born at all! Nothing but filth
and mud, however you knock at your coffin lid at night, when the dead
arise, however you cry: 'Let me out, kind people, to live in the light of
day! My life was no life at all; my life has been thrown away like a dish-clout;
it was drunk away in the tavern at the Haymarket; let me out, kind
people, to live in the world again.'"
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