The Little Devil and Other Stories

by Alexei Remizov

What could there be to fear and how could they not be merry!

  All they lacked was an airplane, which they dreamed about at the Versenevs, the way in older times students in gymnasiums dreamed about the same old eternal America—to run off to America.

  But if an airplane ever ended up in Krutovrag, that would be the end: the Versenevs would fly up beyond the highest clouds, into the darkest storm clouds, with only one way out—head first.

  Every amusement and every game were undertaken and begun with heat and passion, with too much passion and ridiculously seriously, as if it were a decisive life event without which it was the end—can’t stand, can’t sit, only one way out—head first.

  The adults, infected by merriment, joined the children. The Versenev rambunctious days turned into entertainment.

  It must have been fun in Krutovrag.

  Creating entertainment was costly—it required expenditures and care and many hands. Misfortunes occurred.

  But what is a fortunate undertaking without misfortunes!

  Eduard, the gardener, imported to Krutovrag practically from Riga, hard-working, a philosopher, and with great taste, spent one summer not doing his actual work—caring for the flowers and astonishing people with his artistry—but setting off rockets in the evenings. He got very handy at shooting rockets, but the flowers perished, and what flowers they were!

  There were many other incidents—the entertainments were costly.

  It was a rare evening without a fire.

  In the last few years there were so many fires that even the stars—the dim little Krutovrag stars, sparkling fearfully over the Versenev house—were not frightened by the red blazing.

  Houses were burned in all the villages. They didn’t blame carelessness so much as arson: so much wealth and all sorts of people around.

  You would think they should be more careful—sin is never far!—yet the very first pleasure, the first Versenev amusement was fire.

  Rockets, fireworks, bonfires: they baked potatoes in the woods and set up bonfires—on summer nights the bonfires did not go out until dawn—and in the garden there were fireworks and more bonfires. Without it a game wasn’t a game, an evening wasn’t an evening; they would forget about dinner but not about some Bengal lights, stinking up the garden and setting sparks flying all over the place—they would never forget that.

  The Versenevs burned wherever it was possible, and when it was definitely not, they burned whatever came to hand. In this dangerous game Elizaveta Nikolayevna not only supported and urged on the children, she came up with the ideas and was the main initiator. All the dangerous ideas came out with a childlike recklessness, as if she were not Buba’s mother but her sister, and ceding nothing to the children, she did everything with the same madcap heat and passion, ridiculously seriously.

  Restive and fidgety—theaters and those bonfires in the summer, all kinds of parties and visits to neighbors in the winter—Elizaveta Nikolayevna gave the impression of being an extremely frivolous person.

  But in fact? It turned out that it was all done for the children and all the enormous expenses were for the children.

  She spoke of her duties sincerely and with conviction and with such righteousness that all her cunning, which seemed so obvious, suddenly hid in her frightened eyes.

  The neighboring ladies, who had an extraordinary gift for recounting all kinds of trifles with accuracy in the silliest details, district celebrities on gossip and feuds, with the artfulness of harmless bedbugs hopping into the most secret niches, even they couldn’t get a handle on it and could not make a story of it.

  The children were not very healthy, and because of their rather reserved nature, might have withered away—but she turned the children into bandits, she was the chief bandit, she made it so much fun to be in Krutovrag that you didn’t want to leave.

  The undertakings would not have been taken without her and all the bonfires would have gone out—it was all the work of her hands, small, sneaky, and so tenacious …

  You couldn’t say that Sergei Sergeyevich was inhospitable; on the contrary, he was warm and kind and happy to see every guest and what fragrant cigars he offered, Havanas with Brazilian leaves or Mexican!

  But it just so happened and it seemed that it could be no other way: the guests who readily visited the Versenev house avoided the host.

  The secret was very simple: being with Versenev was intolerably boring.

  Otherwise he was fine, neither in looks, manners, nor habits did Sergei Sergeyevich appear strange or bizarre—a man like any other man, really, just like everyone else, and he even really snuffled, perhaps more heavily than Krutovrag’s leader of the nobility Turbeyev but more quietly than retired General Beloyarov. He dressed foppishly, not yielding to the Zemstvo director Pustoroslev, famous for his unprecedented forgetfulness in both personal and business affairs. Well, what else? And even though he was always ready and always thoughtful and those Havana cigars, yet being face to face with Versenev for a minute … it was better to spend an extra night at some abandoned station than be with Sergei Sergeyevich for a minute.

  Interrupting his interlocutor in mid-word, Sergei Sergeyevich began frowning, trying either to remember something or to pick a word that would be clearer than ordinary usual words, while something began squeaking somewhere in his throat. Having held the stunned interlocutor in tense anticipation, he would suddenly wave his hand, accompanying his distress and impotence with his favorite word:

  “The devil!”

  “The devil!” was repeated endlessly at all hours day and night in the house, the garden, the woods, the meadow, and the river, wherever Versenev showed up.

  Versenev, keeping up with the merry company—he was constantly drawn to people, where the noise was highest—snuffling and wheezing, followed like a shadow.

  Shunted aside, remaining in the shadow, he repeated to himself, amidst music, dancing, laughter and screams, the crackle of bonfires, and shattering rockets his sole black word that covered everything, distress and impotence:

  “The devil.”

  Everyone was so used to it, so accustomed to Versenev’s devil that they stopped noticing it.

  Only Nanny Solomovna—Efimiya Avessalomovna, who had nursed Sergei Sergeyevich—made the sign of the cross and shook her head.

  And in the kitchen or the maids’ room, discussing the masters’ affairs, Nanny complained not about the expenses or the Versenevs’ profligacy or the master’s eye—none of that!—but she complained that the devil was constantly on the master’s tongue.

  Everyone knew, and they knew this from Solomovna, how that ends.

  “Mention the devil at a bad time, he’ll come in a black whirlwind, grab the person, and the person will vanish in that whirlwind!” the nanny insisted, making the sign of the cross over her mouth and shaking her head.

  Everyone agreed with Nanny; especially if it was getting late, no one contradicted her. The chef Prokofy Konstantinovich himself did not mock her, the coachman Anton said nothing, and all three maids—Kharitina, Ustya, and Sanya—were there and with them the laundress Matryona Simanovna and the carpenter Terenty, the smith, nicknamed Turkey, shaggy and not believing in any supernatural powers, himself practically a wizard or God knows what, kept silent, the taciturn Zinovy did not laugh nor did his helper, the little servant boy Peter, who cherished his only belief, in the catfish, terrible with whiskers, which ate a calf and appears once every twelve years from the river, God forbid you should ever see it.

  “So,” Solomovna said, “the late master Sergei Petrovich had just one name for everyone. ‘Animal,’ he would say, ‘come here!’ He even called the priest an animal. A great sin, but not as bad as this.”

  Sergei Sergeyevich, shunned by his own, unobtrusively appeared in the kitchen or maids’ room and, snuffling, would stop.

  The startled servants jumped up, expecting orders, ready for any shakeup.

  Sergei Sergeyevich did not move and stared at shaggy Turkey, who was himself a wizard o
r God knows what, and frowned, trying either to remember something or to pick a word that would be clearer than ordinary usual words, while something began squeaking somewhere in his throat.

  And having held the stunned servants in the most tense and oppressive anticipation, he would suddenly wave his hand, accompanying his distress and impotence with his favorite word:

  “The devil!”

  “The devil!” echoed somewhere in the hall, and somewhere under the stove, and somewhere in the cellars, and somewhere near the ceiling, high up in the black attic, louder than the music, dancing, laughter, screams, shattering rockets and crackling bonfires.

  And in the sky the stars—the dim little Krutovrag stars, used even to the red blazing glow—shone rather anxiously over the Versenev house.

  2

  How and why Versenev developed the bad habit of mentioning the devil was known to no one, because no one ever thought about it.

  “If you notice all the phrases, quirks, and jokes and then think about them, your life won’t be long enough, and more importantly, you might end up like them and there will be nothing left of you: there are all kinds of bywords! Now marshal of the nobility Turbeyev always adds as they say to every last trifling word, and everything is well and good with Turbeyev. The Krutovrag shopkeeper Khabin, imitating the leader’s manner, almost went bankrupt. And how could he not? Take the most common shopkeeping term of all the common shopkeeping terms: “It cost this much!”—a clear expression that gives an accurate price in rubles and kopecks—but when Khabin used the leader’s pet phrase it was a different thing completely—not “the goods cost this much” but “as they say, this much.” Or: “Send it, as they say, immediately.” The biggest fool understands “immediately” but even some smarty could be confused by “as they say, immediately.” It was the same with Versenev’s devil: if you start thinking, examining and digging, you’ll immediately pick up the habit, get used to saying it yourself and you’ll be lost. Old Solomovna is right about everything—Solomovna is a serf, she’s seen a lot and heard quite a bit, learned many things through her patience, and Solomovna’s words are right: “Mention the devil at a bad time, he’ll come in a black whirlwind, grab the person, and the person will vanish in that whirlwind.”

  This was the thinking of Krutovragites and non-Krutovragites—of everyone who had come into contact with Sergei Sergeyevich intentionally or not, and moreover these people were not just anybody but well-read and curious folk—homegrown archaeologists and mechanics.

  This was the thinking of the Krutovrag priest Father Astriozov, always looking, in everything, in relations and in deeds, for the connecting link, and not a simple iron one, but the iron connecting one.

  There’s no need or point in talking about other acquaintances of Versenev. They let his devil pass by them, not giving it the slightest importance.

  “So Versenev mentions the devil, and let him! There are expressions that reveal high position and haughtiness—Pustoroslev’s deign to see—and there are religious ones given to people of a rapturous bent—Lord Jesus—and sometimes it happens that people have position and breeding, take retired General Beloyarov for example, yet express themselves in unprintable terms, and not out of confusion or because they have been caught unawares or out of fright, which can happen with anyone, even those most meticulously careful and refined in speech, but no, simply out of habit, just a bad habit.”

  This was the thinking of the indifferent.

  No one dared ask Sergei Sergeyevich about the devil. They teased of course, but never asked straight out. It’s awkward to bring up every trifle.

  Versenev didn’t notice anything off about himself.

  For if he had noticed, then once, by accident, unwittingly, he would have apologized. But he never did, not in a name day toast, nor in any welcome, all of which ended with the devil.

  Not a single speech, not a single conversation, not a single phrase without the devil.

  But still, how did that silly devil get on his tongue and why?

  One thing was clear: there was no Astriozov iron connecting link, not even an ordinary, not iron one—Versenev’s devil hung in the air no higher or lower than the nobility leader’s as they say, and it was also clear that without that devil Sergei Sergeyevich was unimaginable, for take it away from Versenev, and the person in Krutovrag would no longer be Sergei Sergeyevich Versenev but some stranger.

  Versenev remembered his mother.

  Fedosya Alekseyevna—from Moscow, of an Old Believer merchant family.

  Long evening vigils, early liturgies, the possessed at the Simonov Monastery, Maslenitsa sledding in Rogozhskaya, the red Easter candle, the Kremlin bells, the green Sokolniki park on May first, the quiet nocturnal tales of wanderers, walking to Troitse-Sergiev, processions of the cross and her father’s strict rules at home—that was her cradle song, her nannying, tying her first braid with a crimson ribbon, blowing out the first burning flame and in her crestfallen heart and wide-open eyes, her first pain saddening her first smile.

  Morozov’s old Moscow, and then suddenly the Versenev mansion—Krutovrag with its bottomless pond and large vaulted cellar, stained with brown drops, like blood.

  From his vague early recollections, she arose in his confused memory.

  He could never forget his mother throughout his life—at the window upstairs, in the corner room, by the window day and night.

  He slept in her room—always inseparable from her. Often, waking up in the middle of the night, he saw her alone at the window.

  When he grew up and learned that he had a father, like the other children, but his father was far away, abroad somewhere, very far from Krutovrag, when he learned that his mother was waiting for his father and that’s why she did not sleep at night, he began waiting for his father, too.

  Letters came from his father.

  The boy would rush over to his mother with such impatience, demanding that she read aloud what his father wrote in the letter.

  The letters were brief and always the same: first about money, then he would set the day of his arrival to Krutovrag.

  The day would come, but his father would not; his father did not return.

  His mother tried to hide her disappointment, she did not weep, she sat at the window as usual, but he could feel with his sensitive child’s essence that heaviness that lay on her heart, tormenting her, making her shiver like frost, and feeling it he wanted to help but did not know how, and he wept quietly and without reason.

  His father’s return to Krutovrag became his dearest dream.

  The letters kept coming.

  The letters spoke of money and set a date for his return.

  The day would pass, but still no father.

  Once, when he seemed to have lost the last of his patience and waiting any more seemed impossible, he ran out onto the road and ran along the road without stopping, without taking a breath, and suddenly narrowing his eyes, raced back to the house.

  “Papa is coming! Papa is coming!” he shouted to his mother with such unfeigned and righteous joy, so confidently, so persistently, he could hear, and his mother heard, a bell ringing far along the road beyond Krutovrag.

  She believed, she ran to the porch, fell on her knees and, holding her son tight, holding onto him as if he were her only protection, her beloved brother, the loyal witness of her painful suffering, sleepless nights, bitterness and hurt.

  No longer restraining laughter or tears, she could not restrain a scream, it tore from her chest, from her heart—from her entire heart.

  Mother and son, they looked at the road—

  And it seemed that that they had the same eyes, with one set of eyes they looked at the world, looked at the road, and they believed and did not believe.

  The bell rang far away along the road.

  Barrels of tar passed by, the wheels squeaking. The dust settled a long time. But then dust rolled away—settled, the road no longer had raised dust.

  The road lay to the very edge, and e
verything around was empty, deserted, no bells rang, it was so deserted and lonely, only the trees rustled in the garden—the poplars rustled.

  A new life began for the boy that day: from that day he began playing Papa’s arrival.

  He came up with this game.

  He was amused at how his mother, hearing his call: Papa is coming!, would jump up from the window and tremble, all pale, without a drop of blood; he was entertained by her scream, each time growing fiercer and shorter, and how her heart froze …

  Playing, he believed it, just as his mother believed him every time.

  Mother and son, they looked at the road—

  This was so long ago and not so long, right here, on this land.

  How the trees rustled in the garden then—poplars!

  Unwittingly to these sad shores …

  “The devil!” Briefly recalling his early impressions, Sergei Sergeyevich waved them away.

  His mother did not see his father; she died by the window, looking at the road.

  Soon after her death his father returned.

  The boy was frightened by his father: it wasn’t that Papa, not the real Papa, about whom he thought so much and awaited so impatiently.

  He hid from his father, screamed at night and wept.

  His father, not known for conciliatory impulses, took his son firmly in hand: he was strict and he punished him—and you’d forget your tears, and go to bed quietly, and stop acting wild.

  In the fall he was taken to the city and entered the cadet corps.

  A new life began for Versenev and it was probably the merriest one.

  Coming back to Krutovrag on vacation, he gradually got accustomed to life there and no longer felt either depressed or alienated.

  His mother was not mentioned at home: Sergei Petrovich never mentioned his mother, and he didn’t dare mention her first.

  The corner room upstairs which, besides holding old family furniture—the wardrobe with dresses—carefully preserved the familiar setting of his mother: her desk, mirror—this cherished room attracted him less and less.

  At first, he would stealthily run upstairs and even wept, sitting by the window where his mother once sat, but then he became interested in horses.