The Little Devil and Other Stories

by Alexei Remizov

  For some reason they latched on to the mysterious guest, the general and friend of Pyotr Nikolaevich, who God knows why once ran off, leaving Blagodatnoe.

  Everyone immediately decided that the general knew everything, and as soon as he was questioned everything would be clear, as if in the palm of your hand. But where could he be found? Back and forth. People gave up.

  Someone said: “All of St. Petersburg knows Pereverdeyev.”

  “Therefore, he’s in St. Petersburg?”

  “Of course!”

  A request was sent urgently from the governor to St. Petersburg. Practically the same day a response appeared. They reported that there are plenty of generals in St. Petersburg, and there are some with names that it’s not quite proper to use in the society of ladies, but there was no Pereverdeyev. Perhaps Pereverzev?

  And while they asked about Pereverzev, judged, and gossiped up and down, someone made of iron, without asking, reporting to no one, was confidently doing his faithful work, someone ruthless was coming in seven-league boots from far, far away to mete out justice and revenge in his own way.

  Nothing worked without Alexandra Pavlovna, so she forced herself to get involved in the minutiae of life, dropping her heavy thoughts.

  She did not believe she had the right to abandon house, husband, and daughter—the husband for the love of whom she made such an enormous sacrifice, the daughter for the love of whom she would gladly sacrifice all her peace.

  Had she been mistaken when she offered up the three older children as a sacrifice and forgot Sonya?

  She had not forgotten Sonya but purposely did not mention her!

  Why hadn’t she mentioned Sonya then? They would have all survived.

  But what if all four died? But that could not be: if she had given up everything, and who gives up everything …

  Why didn’t she give up all of them?

  That was the question that tormented her without end.

  And what if Sonya dies, too?

  She had just said she would give up everything, and that meant Sonya, too, didn’t it?

  That was the question she ran from, like a madwoman, afraid to think.

  “Sonya, Sonya, where are you?” Alexandra Pavlovna noticed her absence and searched for her daughter, who never left her side.

  To her suffering over her deed and suffering over her only daughter was added worry over her beloved husband, whose life had cost three dear deaths.

  Pyotr Nikolaevich could barely move, he no longer left the study, he had turned blue, his hair stuck to him, and the pallid dead skin, separated from the body precisely, hung off him like a sack.

  The house, all the rooms, were filled with a horrible stench.

  The house was old and many rats lived under the floor—there was an entire generation there and it often happened that an ancient rat died. That must have been the source of the unbearable stink.

  At another time, Pyotr Nikolaevich would have certainly found the place where the carrion lay and had the floor raised and the carrion taken away, but now no one had the energy for it.

  Everyone who happened to be at Blagodatnoe then sensed that life could not go on like this, that sooner or later—it didn’t matter which—a way out had to be found.

  They waited.

  They had another three days and three nights to wait.

  And two days and two nights had already passed.

  On Saturday night Father Ivan performed the vigil service at the house and waved the censer energetically—he did not spare the incense.

  After a snack he left, and everyone went off, not without rushing, to bed.

  “That night,” as Mikhei recounted later, “I hear the master calling me. ‘Mikhei,’ he says, ‘good fellow, bring me a rooster, in the name of Christ, and I’ll never forget you.’ ‘Why do you need a rooster now, master? It’s nighttime.’ He merely winked: you understand what for. I went to the henhouse, caught a fat rooster, brought the rooster and handed him the knife. The master took the rooster, started killing it, but he didn’t have the strength—the rooster was still fluttering. Well, he finished it off somehow. There was a whole puddle of blood on the floor and on him. The master seemed better. ‘It would be good, he says, Mikhei, to look at a corpse!’ ‘Good God,’ I say, ‘what corpse now, as if you haven’t seen one!’ But I felt shivers up my spine—I see that something’s wrong with the master, as if its stifling him, his teeth were chattering and he was shaking. ‘Where’s Sonya?’ he asks and how he looks at me—when my time comes to die I will still remember how he looked at me. ‘In the mistress’s bedroom I say, with the mistress.’ Here the master seemed to calm down, and I went off to rest.”

  “I woke up in the night,” the housekeeper Darya Ivanovna later said. “I heard a sound like a cat mewing. And where, I thought, did a cat come from? I mewed, but it didn’t reply, just hissed.”

  “The rooster really did crow,” others stated.

  But apparently even the rooster did not help.

  And what a fine cockerel it had been!

  The old man had no strength, he was about to croak.

  Pyotr Nikolaevich suddenly rose on the bed:

  “They were all lost—Misha, Liza, Zina, and Sonya, and all were found, only Sonya is missing!”

  There was just one overwhelming thought: find Sonya immediately, this second, and it got him on his feet and led him.

  Holding on to the knife, he crawled from the study to the bedroom.

  The bedroom door was ajar.

  The bedroom was lit by the votive candle.

  Sonya lay on the bed with her mother facing the door.

  “Chicken, my little chick!” the old man whispered, crawling up to the bed.

  Sonya opened her eyes. Sat on the bed.

  Looking at her father, twisted, smeared in blood, in horror she stretched out her swan neck.

  “Chicken, chickie!” whispered the old man, trying to stand.

  And—he did.

  His daughter’s swan neck in the glimmer of the votive light stretched even more beneath the gleaming knife—one instant, and the swan would be felled by a cherry necklace!

  But the old man couldn’t do it, his strength was gone, there was no saving him!

  The knife slipped from his hand and fell with the slimy skin that had separated from his fingers onto the carpet.

  The old man shuddered and crouched, completely emaciated.

  Everything—nose, mouth, ears—everything gathered into fat folds and with a puff began to slough off.

  The slimy mush slid off, cleansing the white bones of vileness.

  A naked, eyeless skull, so funny, grinning, white as sugar, the skull appeared in the votive candle’s light.

  At that moment fire slammed open the bedroom door with flames, its red eye stabbing the mother, the stunned daughter, and the dead head of the dead father, and attacking the ceiling with its tongues, fire fanned open like a red rooster.

  The Borodin house was burning.

  04

  THE LITTLE DEVIL

  IN 1666, PATRIARCH NIKON OF MOSCOW INTRODUCED REFORMS IN CHURCH PRACTICES. THIS PRODUCED A SCHISM WITHIN THE ORTHODOX CHURCH, AND THOSE WHO DID NOT ACCEPT THE REFORMS CAME TO BE KNOWN AS OLD BELIEVERS. SOME OF THE REFORMS WERE AGAINST PRACTICES THAT WERE OF PAGAN ORIGIN OR MARKED BY SUPERSTITION. TO AVOID PERSECUTION, MANY OLD BELIEVERS MOVED OUT OF MOSCOW AND LARGE CITIES TO THE URALS AND SIBERIA, WHERE THEY COULD WORSHIP AS THEY CHOSE. ONE REFORM WAS IN THE WAY THE SIGN OF THE CROSS IS MADE. THE OLD WAY IS WITH TWO FINGERS; THE NEW FORM USES THREE FINGERS, INCLUDING THE THUMB. OLD BELIEVERS CALLED PEOPLE PRACTICING THE THREE-FINGERED FORM “PINCHERS.” ANOTHER TRADITION OLD BELIEVERS RETAINED WAS THE USE OF LEATHER STRAP ROSARIES.

  1

  The Divilin house by the river. Old, gray, dilapidated. Every dog knows it.

  The door to the house has steps leading up to it, and it is narrow, gray, and solid—not a hole, not a crack—and no keyhole visible. At night, your knock won’t be answered. And
why would anyone knock at night?—Maybe a thief?—However, a thief wouldn’t need to, he can get in without a door, that why he’s a thief. But what if there’s something, it’s important … Well, don’t blame me—there’s no bell.

  At one time there used to be a note on the door:

  Entry through the window—

  Whether that was someone’s idea of a joke or it had to be done because of some reconstruction—actually, there were housepainters nearby at that time. But that doesn’t make it any easier.

  Go ahead, try to get in!—look where the window is: however high you jump, you won’t reach it, you’ll just pull a muscle. If you could reach from the pediment or the lamppost … but the pediment is sinfully crooked: a carter drove past once, didn’t watch where he was going, clipped the pediment, which was knocked over, and it’s been crooked ever since. And there’s no joy with the lamppost, either. If it were just a tiny bit closer, but it’s in the wrong place—just kitty-corner from the Moscow River. So while you climb up and try to jump—it’s not worth climbing: won’t work! All right, there’s no approach from the street.

  So, go over the fence from the embankment?—the spikes will stop you: some are thicker than a finger, this big, and they’re sharper than a needle. No, brother, you won’t get over that!

  If you try the gate … If you try the gate, right in front of you in the yard you’ll see a huge shed; once upon a time it was for a horse, and now there’s only the equine smell, manure, and even that is fading.

  If you get to the shed, make a left and go straight to the dog kennel—there’s no dog in there; there was one, Belka was the name, but it died, so there’s no one to bark.

  From the dog kennel make another left and you’ll hit the door.

  The door is upholstered in soiled oilcloth on a block and tackle. You’ll open it easily, of course, there’s no problem, and you’ll go down the hallway and after stumbling plenty you’ll come, finally, to another door. And that’s where you’ll wait! Until your patience runs out—it’s pointless anyway—and you say the hell with it and leave.

  These people have really sealed themselves in!

  The street is narrow and deserted: the water carrier in the morning, night soil removal in the evening—that’s all the traffic.

  Yet the house is occupied.

  But what goes on in the house is not revealed to a single soul.

  2

  Old man Divilin, who seemed a holy fool, a saint, was highly respected. Even though he lived like a hermit, he showed himself then and again. The old man was called the Drowned Man. Once, soon after his marriage, he fell into an ice hole on Epiphany and drowned. They searched for him, caught him with a boathook and hauled him out, then picked him up and resuscitated him.

  Ever since so it went: drowned man, drowned man, nothing else.

  Ever since so it went: he started drinking hard.

  When the evil moment struck—he immediately threw all his clothes on the floor, and then, naked as he was born, out onto the street he went. Rain, sleet, frost or blizzard—walk on by: he paid no attention.

  In those moments, he thought everyone was a crayfish and he was a head crayfish, like their mother crayfish. The old man would stretch out his arms, make his fingers like claws and start catching. Whoever came by, he’d catch everyone. He’d go straight to the market and first thing he’d take on the horses. He’d wallop a horse, punch its muzzle until he was exhausted, and then he’d quiet down near the stand. He’d lie under the matting immobile, like a corpse, eyes open, enormous and without whites, goggling—like a crayfish, and he’d be all red himself, like a boiled crayfish.

  When the time came, he’d revive, get up and start muttering and groveling. Just listen! And the womenfolk wouldn’t let him go. Everything the drowned man ever said came to pass. He never deceived them. He had the gift, you know.

  The man enjoyed great respect, rarely does any one person get so much respect. But he didn’t care, he didn’t need it. The old man wanted something else.

  Old woman Agrafena lived as she was in a convent, never showing her nose, just sitting and sitting. Anyone who did see her would never say she was an old woman: around forty, no more, and even that was an exaggeration, and those years are not old, you can really move around at that age, another one in her place would spin such twists a young woman would be jealous.

  In a white kerchief, all translucent and immobile, she seemed boneless or seedless. Quiet, no smiles. And always the same: not aging, and not growing younger.

  But there were times, before her marriage, when she performed all kinds of miracles, such wondrous wonders. So loving: she would comfort and succor everyone, and where she found such words, they would grab your soul and enter your soul and quench any heat. Every old man should know what she knew. Sometimes she would start asking questions or in a difficult moment give some advice, and you listened raptly. Blue eyes, flaxen hair. A monk couldn’t resist, much less an ordinary man.

  And then this happened—she fell head over heels in love with Ivan the drowned, and Ivan couldn’t figure out why she repulsed him and that was that. But then it happened. She took Ivan, she got what she wanted, but not by her own hands.

  This is how it went. Agrafena had long been planning a bad thing—to cast a spell. She was just waiting for Easter.

  On the first day of Easter after the service, when the priest came out with holy water, she noted which sweetened cheese paskha had been sprinkled first and took a pinch of it. She did the same thing with the artos bread that the holy water reached first.

  She wrapped the artos and paskha in a cloth and hung it around her neck and wore it on her chest until the new moon.

  When the young crescent moon appeared, she went to a quiet place, stood facing the moon, took her gold cross from her chest for the moon and started reciting—casting the spell.

  The young moon sees all

  The young moon knows all,

  Sees and knows

  Who kisses whom.

  She, Argefena,

  Kisses Ivan.

  So be it forever

  Kissing and cuddling

  Like doves!

  She rides on a donkey

  Whipping it with an adder,

  Comes to the moon

  With artos and paskha.

  Ivan does not turn away,

  Does not say a bad word to her.

  So be it forever,

  That he never says a bad word,

  But is always gentle.

  Agrafena took off the cloth, removed the artos and paskha, ate them, and saved a few crumbs.

  She ran to Ivan’s house on some excuse and slipped the crumbs into his tea unnoticed.

  She waited for Ivan to finish his tea and then she went home.

  Ivan lost his mind: he couldn’t live without her!

  She was afraid. She could see that things were not good, she could no longer live as before: she was being drawn somewhere, she was having thoughts that froze her blood. It was all happening so imperceptibly, of its own accord, almost a joke.

  She felt an extraordinary power within her and if she wanted even the most incredible thing, it immediately came to pass.

  She was afraid to want anything, afraid to think …

  She took her cross out again, hung it on her neck, began to fast, everything, everything, she followed everything as it was written.

  And she grew still.

  As if she had been struck down. As if the devil had squashed her. The devil gave up on her and went away forever, abandoned her in this world to live in peace, in silence, without fun, without joy, without a single smile, even for an instant.

  She lived serenely, meekly.

  Where did it all go? She did not understand.

  Had there ever been anything? She remembered nothing.

  As if she had been born this way, as if she had never had fun, or joy, or smiled once. Pray and sigh, pray and sigh.

  Pray about what? Sins.

  But wh
at sins?

  3

  Children were born to the Divilins frequently. And died. A sturdy infant is born, lives over a year, already starting to walk and talk, and then for no good reason kicks the bucket and gives up his soul to God.

  Only two lived—two boys.

  The older, Boris, had a great love of study. He covered his part of the house with books. Taciturn, he would sit and read and you couldn’t distract him with anything: not sweets, not games. He graduated from the gymnasium and went to university.

  The old man adored Boris. Never refused him anything. He wanted him to be a doctor.

  Sometimes, at a quiet hour, when he wasn’t on a binge, the old man would sit quietly next to his son and keep asking questions:

  Where did the world come from, where did the earth come from, and man and all the beasts?

  And why did it all happen the way it is and will there be an end to it and will there be something else?

  And what will the something else be?

  And why are there causes and pain and passion?

  And why does death come and people are born and why is his heart shriveling? …

  Did the old man understand what his son told him from books; did the son understand what the old man was asking?

  The old man kept tugging at his thin black beard, clutching it with his fingers as if they were claws, nodding his head.

  And as quietly as he entered, he would go back to his rooms and often in the dark, with the tiny light of the votive candle, he paced back and forth all night muttering to himself, clutching his thin black beard, nodding, and then bugging out his crawfish eyes, black without whites, he stood still. He stood a long time; he was like stone.

  And he would go back quietly to his son and if he found him at his books, he sat down silently, staring at him, and the hollow between his eyebrows grew black, blacker than a deep well.

  “Why does death come and people are born and why is his heart shriveling?”