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 filthy and
poor-the floor in the parlor is crooked, warped, and full of splinters,
the windows are hung with pieces of red fustian; the bedrooms, just
like stalls, are separated by thin partitions, which do not reach to
the ceiling, and on the beds, on top of the shaken down hay-mattresses,
are scattered torn, spotted bed-sheets and flannel blankets, dark from
time, crumpled any old way, full of holes; the air is sour and full of
fumes, with a mixture of alcohol vapours and the smell of human
emanations; the women, dressed in rags of coloured printed calico or in
sailor costumes, are for the greater part hoarse or snuffling, with
noses half fallen through, with faces preserving traces of yesterday's
blows and scratches and naively bepainted with the aid of a red
cigarette box moistened with spit.

All the year round, every evening--with the exception of the last three
days of Holy Week and the night before Annunciation, when no bird
builds its nest and a shorn wench does not plait her braid--when it
barely grows dark out of doors, hanging red lanterns are lit before
every house, above the tented, carved street doors. It is just like a
holiday out on the street--like Easter. All the windows are brightly
lit up, the gay music of violins and pianos floats out through the
panes, cabmen drive up and drive off without cease. In all the houses
the entrance doors are opened wide, and through them one may see from
the street a steep staircase with a narrow corridor on top, and the
white flashing of the many-facetted reflector of the lamp, and the
green walls of the front hall, painted over with Swiss landscapes. Till
the very morning hundreds and thousands of men ascend and descend these
staircases. Here everybody frequents: half-shattered, slavering
ancients, seeking artificial excitements, and boys-military cadets and
high-school lads--almost children; bearded paterfamiliases; honourable
pillars of society, in golden spectacles; and newly-weds, and enamoured
bridegrooms, and honourable professors with renowned names; and
thieves, and murderers, and liberal lawyers; and strict guardians of
morals--pedagogues, and foremost writers--the authors of fervent,
impas