Gloomys Petersburg

Gloomy Petersburg.

   ******

Late spring evening, St. Petersburg. Near the Winter Palace, dozens of courtesans gathered closer to midnight, looking for counts, princes, landowners, all those with extra rubles in their pockets. A carriage rolled up to one of the courtesans in a white dress and with red hair.

- Are you free?

- Coachman, get out of here, you can't afford it.

"What makes you think I'm a coachman?" I am Akaky, Akaky Vyazemsky, a retired general of His Imperial Highness, the hooded coachman replied.

- General, then why do you drive horses like a coachman, and even in a hood, the red-haired courtesan giggled.

- Even in the service, I used to rule them, to my liking.

- And you know the prices, sir, a night with a courtesan who is taken from the Winter Palace in Petrograd costs as much as seven rubles. Do you have seven rubles?

- You get eight, you recently separated from your spouse, so I imagine that a courtesan replaces her spouse at night. Will you replace your spouse ?

- Well, I'll replace it. But if you cheat, I'll tell the police chief.

"You can't say that, and you were one yourself once," Akaky whispered. Then get into the carriage, my estate is across the Black River.

We reached the manor at night, one moon shone over Akakia manor.

- You don't have a noble manor for a general.

- Too many courtesans are spending on you, so I sold more of the estate, but I bought this one.

In the courtyard, Akaky asked the courtesan, who introduced herself as Marfa, to undress.

"Maybe I'll undress in the room," she replied.

- Undress here, you need to see your breasts in the moonlight.

Marfa took off everything from herself.

- However, they have big breasts, whether they have been touched by many hands.

- A lot.

- I didn't go to bed with many people.

- With many.

- Turn your back.

As soon as Marfa turned around, Akaky hit her, hit her with a heavy metal object. Marfa fell and lay covered in blood.

- These courtesans, they are the ones who infected syphilis, and they infect others with it, that their hair and noses fall off. There will be fewer of you in Petrograd, Akaky whispered.

He dragged the courtesan by her legs and threw her into a previously dug ditch and fell asleep. A week later, the hooded coachman rolled up to another courtesan and did the same with her. Twenty years later, Akaky was wasting away from consumption, called a doctor, the doctor told him that no more than a month remained, Akaky told the secret to the healer that more than a hundred courtesans were buried at his estate. The doctor thought that Akaky was delusional. But when the estate was dug up ten years later, it was confirmed that hundreds of Petrograd courtesans were tortured beyond the Black River. In the vicinity of gloomy Petrograd, there were more than once tales about a ghost taking a courtesan to the estate behind the grove.