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.
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