the second category, and Horizon was soon successful,
without great effort, in persuading her to go out on the street to
traffic in herself. And from that very evening, when his mistress
submitted to him and brought home the first five roubles earned,
Horizon experienced an unbounded loathing toward her. It is remarkable,
that no matter how many women Horizon met after this--and several
hundred of them had passed through his hands--this feeling of loathing
and masculine contempt toward them would never forsake him. He derided
the poor woman in every way, and tortured her morally, seeking out the
most painful spots. She would only keep silent, sigh, weep, and getting
down on her knees before him, kiss his hands. And this wordless
submission irritated Horizon still more. He drove her away from him.
She would not go away. He would push her out into the street; but she,
after an hour or two, would come back shivering from cold, in a soaked
hat, in the turned-up brims of which the rain-water splashed as in
waterspouts. Finally, some shady friend gave Simon Yakovlevich the
harsh and crafty counsel which laid a mark on all the rest of his life
activity--to sell his mistress into a brothel. To tell the truth, in
going into this enterprise, Horizon almost disbelieved at soul in its
success. But contrary to his expectation, the business could not have
adjusted itself better. The proprietress of an establishment (this was
in Kharkov) willingly met his proposition half-way. She had known long
and well Simon Yakovlevich, who played amusingly on the piano, danced
splendidly, and set the whole drawing room laughing with his pranks;
but chiefly, could, with unusually unabashed dexterity, make any
carousing party "shell out the coin." It only remained to convince the
mate of his life, and this proved the most difficult of all. She did
not want to detach herself from her beloved for anything; threatened
suicide, swore that she would burn his eyes out with sulphuric acid,
promised to go and complain to the chief of police--and she really did
know a few dirty little transactions of Simon Yakovlevich's that
smacked of capital punishment. Thereupon Horizon changed his tactics.
He suddenly became a tender, attentive friend, an indefatigable lover.
Then suddenly he fell into black melancholy. The uneasy questionings of
the woman he let pass in silence; at first let drop a word as though by
chance; hinted in passing at some mistake of his life;