The Petty Demon

by Sologub, Fyodor

  “Come now, three times,” Peredonov objected listlessly, removing his gold spectacles and wiping them.

  “It’s really true!” exclaimed Rutilov. “Mind you don’t dawdle, because as I live, those sisters of mine have their pride—when you feel like it later, then it’ll be too late. But any single one of them would be more than pleased to marry you.”

  “Yes, everyone is in love with me here,” Peredonov boasted sullenly.

  “Now look, you just seize the opportunity,” Rutilov urged him.

  “The main thing for me is that I don’t want her to be scrawny,” Peredonov said with melancholy in his voice. “I prefer one that’s a little plump.”

  “Don’t go worrying yourself on that account,” Rutilov said heatedly. “They’re chubby little ladies right now and if they haven’t quite filled out yet, then it’s just a matter of time. Soon as they get married they’ll put on some flesh like the eldest one. Our Larisa, as you know yourself, has become a proper dumpling.”

  “I would get married,” Peredonov said, “but I’m afraid that Varya would cause a big scandal.”

  “If you’re afraid of a scandal, then this is what you should do,” Rutilov said with a cunning smile. “Get married right away today, or even tomorrow. You show up at home with your young wife and, quick as a wink, it’ll be over. Really, if you want I’ll go and throw it together quick—for tomorrow evening? Which one do you want?”

  Peredonov suddenly burst into loud and fitful laughter.

  “What about it? Is it a deal?” Rutilov asked.

  Peredonov stopped laughing just as suddenly and said sullenly, quietly, almost in a whisper:

  “She’ll inform on me, the shrew.”

  “She won’t inform about anything, there’s nothing to inform about,” Rutilov tried to convince him.

  “Or she’ll poison me,” Peredonov whispered fearfully.

  “You just leave everything to me,” Rutilov pressed him heatedly. “I’ll fix everything up for you just right …”

  “I’m not getting married without a dowry,” Peredonov cried angrily.

  Rutilov was not amazed in the least by the new jump in the thoughts of his sullen companion. Hit protested with the same animation:

  “You queer fellow, do you really think they have no dowry! Well, are you satisfied then? I’ll run along and get everything organized. Only mind you, not so much as a whisper to anyone, you hear!”

  He shook Peredonov’s hand and ran off. Peredonov stared silently after him. He recollected the yang Rutilov ladies, cheerful and derisive. An immodest thought produced the foul likeness of a smile on his lips. It appeared only for an instant and disappeared. A vague anxiety arose inside him.

  “What am I supposed to do about the Princess?” he thought. “There’s not a kopeck or any patron age backing them up, but with Varvara I’ll get to be an inspector and later I’ll be made a headmaster.”

  He glanced after Rutilov who was busily dashing off and thought maliciously:

  “Let him run around.”

  That thought brought a listless and dull pleasure. But he grew bored of being alone. He pushed his hat down over his forehead, knit his light-cooled brows and hastily made off in the direction of home through the unpaved deserted streets that were overgrown with grass that had been trumpled into the dirt, wild radish and pearlwort with its white flowers.

  Someone called him in a quiet and quick voice:

  “Ardalyon Borisych, come in and visit us.”

  Peredonov raised his gloomy eyes and glanced angrily over the hedge. Standing in the garden behind the gate was Natalya Afanasyevna Vershina, a small, thin, dark-skinned woman, dressed all in black, black, browed and black-eyed. She was smoking a cigarette in a dark cherry-wood holder and smiling slightly as though she knew something that couldn’t be said but that was worth smiling over. She was urging Peredonov into her garden not so much with words as with light, quick movements: she opened the gate, stood to the side, smiled entreatingly and at the same time confidently indicated with her hands as though to say: “Come in, why stand there?”

  And Peredonov did enter, submitting to her soundless almost spellbinding movements. But he immediately stopped on the sandy path where he caught sight of the broken pieces of dry twigs and glanced at his watch.

  “It’s time for lunch,” he grumbled.

  Although the watch had served him for a long while, he gazed with pleasure at its large gold case just as he always did in the presence of people. It was twenty minutes to twelve. Peredonov decided that he could spend a little time. He sullenly followed Vershina along the paths, past the barren bushes of black and red currant, raspberry and gooseberry.

  The garden had turned yellow and was a colorful profusion of fruit and late flowers. Here were many fruit and ordinary trees as well as bushes: low spreading apple, round-leaved pear, lindens, cherry with smooth shiny leaves, plum, honeysuckle. Red berries glistened on the elder bushes. Siberian geraniums with their delicate purple-veined pale pink buds blossomed thickly along the fence.

  Milk thistle thrust its purple heads out from beneath the bushes. Off to the side stood a small, grayish, single-story dwelling with a wide summer kitchen leading into the garden. It seemed nice and comfortable. A portion of the vegetable garden was visible behind it. Dry poppy pods swayed back and forth together with the enormous white and yellow caps of camomile. Wilting, the yellow heads of sunflower bowed low. Among the herbs towered the white umbrellas of fool’s parsley and the pale purple umbrellas of storks-bill, while pale yellow buttercups and low flowering spurge blossomed.

  “Were you at mass?” Vershina asked.

  “I was,” Peredonov replied sullenly.

  “Marta has only just returned,” Vershina said. “She goes to our church regularly. I laugh about it. I say to her: Marta, on whose account are you going to our church? She blushes and says nothing. Come, let’s sit a while in the summer house,” she said quickly without making any transition from what she had been saying earlier.

  Standing in the midst of the garden in the shade of spreading maples was an old, grayish summer house: three steps up, a moss-covered dais, low walls, six pot-bellied, turned columns and a six-cornered roof.

  Marta was sitting in the summer house, still attired for mass. She was wearing a light-colored dress with small bows but it didn’t suit her. The short sleeves revealed her angular red elbows and her large strong hands. Incidentally, Marta wasn’t really bad looking. The freckles didn’t spoil her looks. Particularly among her own people, the Poles, of whom there were a fair number here, she even had the reputation of being good looking.

  Marta was rolling cigarettes for Vershina. She was eager to have Peredonov look at her and be entranced. That desire betrayed itself on her simple-hearted face in an expression of nervous amiability. Incidentally, whether or not Marta was in love with Peredonov had nothing to do with it. Vershina wished to fix her up with someone (Marta came from a large family) and Marta herself wanted to please Vershina with whom she had been living for several months, since the day Vershina’s old husband had been buried. She wanted to please Vershina on behalf of herself as well as of her brother, a student at the gymnasium, who was also a guest there.

  Vershina and Peredonov went into the summer house. Gloomily, Peredonov exchanged greetings with Marta and sat down. He chose a spot where a column would protect his back from the wind and a draught wouldn’t blow in his ears. He glanced at Marta’s yellow shoes with pink pompons and had the thought that he was the target of their husband hunting. He always thought that when he saw young ladies who were being amiable with him. In Marta he noted only shortcomings: a lot of freckles, large hands and coarse skin. He knew that her father, a Polish gentleman, was leasing a small estate about six versts from the town. The income was small, the number of children large. Marta had completed the pro-gymnasium, one son was studying at the gymnasium and the other children were even younger.

  “May I pour you some beer?” Vershina as
ked quickly.

  On the table stood glasses, two bottles of beer, fine-grained sugar in a tin box, a silver-plated spoon wet with beer.

  “I’ll have a drink,” Penedonov said abruptly.

  Vershina glanced at Matta. Marta poured a glass, and moved it towards Peredonov all the while a strange smile, more fearful than actually happy, played over her face. Vershina said quickly, just as though she were spilling the words:

  “Put some sugar in the beer.”

  Marta moved the tin of sugar towards Peredonov. But Peredonov said with annoyance:

  “No, it’s vile with sugar.”

  “Come now, it tastes good,” Vershina said in a quick, casual monotone.

  “Very tasty,” Marta said.

  “Vile,” Peredonov repeated and cast an angry glance at the sugar.

  “As you wish,” Vershina said and in the same voice began to talk about something else without pausing or making any transition. “Cherepnin is getting to be a bore,” she said and laughed.

  Marta laughed as well. Peredonov looked on with indifference. He never took part in the affairs of others. He didn’t like people, he never thought about them other than in connection with what benefits or pleasures he might derive from them. Vershina smiled complacently and said:

  “He thinks that I’m going to marry him.”

  “Terribly insolent of him,” Marta said, not because she herself thought so but because she wanted to please and flatter Vershina.

  “He was spying at the window yesterday,” Vershina related. “He sneaked into the garden when we were having dinner. There’s a barrel under the window, we put it there to catch the rain and it was completely full. It was covered with a board and you couldn’t see the water He crawled up on the barrel and was looking through the window. The lamp was burning where we were, so he could see us but we couldn’t see him. Suddenly we heard a noise. At first we were frightened, we ran outside. And there he had tumbled into the water. But he crawled out and ran off completely wet. There was a wet trail along the path. But we recognized him from the back.”

  Marta gave a delicate, cheerful laugh, the way well-mannered children laugh. Vershina related everything quickly and casually as though she were simply pouring it out (she always talked that way) and all at once she stopped, sat there and smiled with the corner of her mouth, which made her whole swarthy and dry face fall into wrinkles and slightly revealed teeth that were blackened from smoking. Peredonov thought for a while and suddenly burst into laughter. He never reacted immediately to what seemed amusing to him. His faculties were dull and slow.

  Vershina was smoking one cigarette after the other. She couldn’t live without tobacco smoke before her nose.

  “We’ll soon be neighbors,” Peredonov announced.

  Vershina threw a quick glance at Marta. The latter blushed slightly, looked at Peredonov in timid expectation and immediately averted her eyes once more into the garden.

  “Are you moving?” Vershina asked. “What for?”

  “It’s a long way to the gymnasium,” Peredonov explained.

  Vershina smiled mistrustfully. She thought that it was more likely that he wanted to be closer to Marta.

  “But you’ve been living there for a long while, several years now,” she said.

  “And the landlady is a bitch,” Peredonov said angrily.

  “Really?” Vershina asked mistrustfully and smiled crookedly.

  Peredonov grew somewhat animated.

  “She put up new wallpaper and it’s disgusting,” he explained. “The pieces don’t match. Suddenly in the dining room there’s a completely different pattern above the door, the entire room is done in a free pattern and small flowers and then over the door are stripes and polka dots. And the color is all wrong. We might not have noticed but Falastov came and laughed. And everyone is laughing.”

  “Imagine, what a disgrace,” Vershina agreed.

  “Only we’re not telling her that we’re moving out,” Peredonov said, lowering his voice. “We’ll find an apartment and just go, but we’re not telling her.”

  “Naturally,” Vershina said.

  “Otherwise, to be sure, she’ll cause a scandal,” Peredonov said and a fearful anxiety was mirrored in his eyes. “And on top of it, why pay her for a month, for that kind of vileness?”

  Peredonov burst into laughter over the happy thought that he would move out of the apartment and not pay for it.

  “She’ll demand the money,” Vershina noted.

  “Let her, I won’t pay,” Peredonov said angrily. “We made a trip to St. Petersburg, so we weren’t using the apartment at the time.”

  “Still, the apartment was reserved for you,” Vershina said.

  “Makes no difference! She’s supposed to do the repairs, so why are we obliged to pay for the time when we’re not living there? And the main thing is that she’s terribly insolent.”

  “Well, the landlady is insolent because your um … cousin is a hot-tempered person,” Vershina said, with a slight hesitation over the word “cousin.”

  Peredonov frowned and stared dully in front of himself with half-asleep eyes. Vershina started to talk about something different. Peredonov pulled a caramel out of his pocket, cleaned the paper away and started to chew. By chance he glanced at Marta and had the thought that she was jealous and would also like a caramel.

  “Should I give her one or not?” Peredonov thought. “She’s not worth it. Or maybe I should anyway, I don’t want them to think that I begrudge it. I have lots of them, pocketfuls of caramels.”

  And he pulled out a fistful of caramels.

  “Go ahead,” he said and offered the candy first to Vershina, then to Marta. “They’re good bonbons, expensive, cost thirty kopecks a pound.”

  Each took one. He said:

  “Take more. I have lots, and they’re good bonbons, I’m not about to eat bad stuff.”

  “Thank you, I don’t want any more,” Vershina said quickly and tonelessly.

  Marta repeated the same words after her, but somehow uncertainly. Peredonov looked mistrustfully at Marta and said:

  “What do you mean you don’t want any! Go ahead.”

  From a fistful he took one caramel for himself and laid the rest in front of Marta. Marta smiled in silence and bowed her head.

  “The boor,” Peredondv thought. “Doesn’t know how to thank you nicely.”

  He didn’t know what to talk to Marta about. He didn’t find her interesting—she was like all the objects with which someone else hadn’t established good or bad relations for him.

  The rest of the beer Was poured into Peredonov’s glass. Vershina glanced at Marta.

  “I’ll bring more,” Marta said.

  She always guessed without any words what Vershina wanted.

  “Send Vladya, he’s in the garden,” Vershina said.

  “Vladislav!” Marta shouted.

  “Here,” the boy responded quickly and close by, just as though he were eavesdropping.

  “Bring some beer, two bottles,” Marta said. “Inside the chest in the passage.”

  Vladislav soon came running noiselessly back to the summer house, handed the beer to Marta through a window and bowed to Peredonov.

  “Greetings,” Peredonov said with a frown. “How many bottles have you polished off today?”

  Vladislav gave a strained smile and said:

  “I don’t drink beer.”

  He was a boy of about fourteen, resembling his sister, with freckles like Marta’s, awkward and sluggish in his movements. He was dressed in a long loose shirt of coarse linen.

  Marta spoke with her brother in a whisper. They were both laughing. Peredonov kept giving them suspicious looks. When people were laughing in his presence and he didn’t know about what, he always supposed that they were laughing about him. Vershina grew uneasy. She was about to call Marta. But Peredonov himself asked in a spiteful voice:

  “What are you laughing at?”

  Marta gave a start, turned to him
and didn’t know what to say. Vladislav smiled, stared at Peredonov and blushed slightly.

  “It’s not polite in front of guests,” Peredonov reprimanded them. “Are you laughing at me?” he asked.

  Marta blushed, Vladislav was frightened.

  “Forgive us,” Marta said. “We weren’t talking about you. It was about something that concerned us.”

  “A secret,” Peredonov said angrily. “It’s not polite to chat about secrets in front of guests.”

  “It’s not really a secret at all,” Marta said “We were talking about the fact that Vladya is barefoot and can’t come in here, he’s bashful.”

  Peredonov relaxed, began to make up jokes at Vladya’s expense and then he treated him to a caramel as well.

  “Marta, bring my black shawl,” Vershina said. “And while you’re at it, take a look in the kitchen and see how the pie is doing.”

  Marta left obediently. She understood that Vershina wanted to talk to Peredonov and she was happy, in her indolence, that there was no hurry.

  “And off you go,” said Vershina to Vladya. “There’s no reason for you to hang around here.”

  Vladya ran off and the murmuring sound of sand was audible beneath his feet. Vershina carefully and quickly glanced sideways at Peredonov through the smoke which she was emitting incessantly. Peredonov sat in silence, staring straight ahead with a vague look and chewing on a caramel. He was pleased that the others had left, otherwise, to be sure, they might have started laughing again. Although he knew probably that they weren’t laughing at him, nevertheless, a feeling of annoyance lingered on inside him, just the way the pain lingers on and grows after touching a stinging nettle even though the nettle is long removed.

  “Why aren’t you getting married?” Vershina suddenly said briskly, quickly. “Why are you still waiting, Ardalyon Borisych? Varvara is no match for you, forgive me for being forthright.”

  Peredonov ran his hand through his slightly tousled chestnut-colored hair and said with sullen pomposity:

  “No one’s a match for me here.”

  “Don’t say that,” Vershina objected and smiled crookedly. “There’s a great deal better here than her and anyone would marry you.”