The Petty Demon

by Sologub, Fyodor

  She flicked the ash from her cigarette with a decisive movement as though she were putting an exclamation mark to something.

  “I don’t need just anyone,” Peredonov replied.

  “We’re not talking about just anyone,” Vershina said quickly. “And since you don’t have to go chasing after a dowry there would be a fine girl. Thank goodness you earn enough.”

  “No,” objected Peredonov, “there’s more for me to gain by marrying Varvara. The Princess has promised patronage to her. She’ll give me a good position,” Peredonov said with sullen enthusiasm.

  Vershina smiled slightly. Her entire face, wrinkled, dark and seemingly tobacco cured, expressed a condescending mistrustfulness. She asked:

  “And did the Princess herself tell you that?”

  With the stress on the word “you.”

  “Not me but Varvara,” Peredonov admitted. “But it makes no difference.”

  “You’re relying rather a lot on the words of your cousin,” Vershina said maliciously. “Tell me now, is she much older than you? About fifteen years or so? Or more? She must be close to fifty?”

  “Come now,” Peredonov said with annoyance. “She’s not thirty yet.”

  Vershina laughed.

  “Interesting,” she said with unconcealed derision in her voice. “Yet to look at she’s much older than you. Of course, it’s none of my affair, but it does seem a pity from the point of view that such a fine young person can’t live the way he might have deserved, given his attractiveness and spiritual qualities.”

  Peredonov looked himself over with self-satisfaction. But there was no smile on his ruddy face and it seemed as though he were insulted by the fact that not everyone understood him as well as Vershina did. Vershina continued:

  “You’ll go far even without patronage. How can the authorities not help but value you! Why should you hang on to Varvara! And it’s not worth your while marrying one of the Rutilov ladies. They’re all frivolous and you need a solid wife. You ought to take my Marta here.”

  Peredonov glanced at his watch.

  “Time to go home,” he said and began to take leave.

  Vershina was certain that Peredonov was leaving because she had touched a raw spot and it was only because of his indecisiveness that he didn’t want to talk about Marta right then.

  II

  VARVARA DMITRIEVNA MALOSHINA, Peredonov’s mistress, was waiting for him, slovenly dressed but painstakingly powdered and rouged. Jam pastries had been baked for lunch. Peredonov loved them. Varvara was waddling quickly around the kitchen on her high heels, hurrying all the while to have everything ready for his arrival. Varvara was afraid that the maid, the pock-marked, fat wench, Natalya, would steal a pastry or even more. For that reason Varvara wouldn’t leave the kitchen and as was her habit she was scolding the maid. On a face that preserved some traces of a former attractiveness, she wore an invariable expression of querulous greed.1

  As always, on his return home, Peredonov would be gripped by displeasure and melancholy. He made a noisy entrance into the dining room, flung his hat on the window sill, sat down at the table and shouted:

  “Varya, serve lunch!”

  Varvara carried in the food from the kitchen, hobbling adroitly in the narrow shoes she wore for vanity’s sake and served Peredonov herself. When she brought the coffee, Peredonov bent down over the steaming glass and sniffed. Varvara grew alarmed and asked him with fright:

  “What’s the matter, Ardalyon Borisych? Does the coffee smell of something?”

  Peredonov glanced sullenly at her and said angrily:

  “I’m sniffing it to see whether poison has been put in it.”

  “Really, Ardalyon Borisych!” Varvara said fearfully. “God help you, why ever would you think up such a thing?”

  “You laced it with poison hemlock!” he growled.

  “What have I got to gain by poisoning you?” Varvara tried to convince him. “Enough of your tomfoolery!”

  Peredonov went on sniffing for a long while and finally relaxed and said:

  “If there really is any poison then you can invariably detect it as a heavy odor, just sniff a little closer, right in the steam.”

  He was silent for a while and then suddenly spoke out spitefully and derisively:

  “The Princess!”

  Varvara grew agitated.

  “What about the Princess? What do you mean, the Princess?”

  “The Princess, I’m saying,” Peredonov went on, “let her give me the position first and then I’ll get married afterwards. You write her that.”

  “But, Ardalyon Borisych,” Varvara began in a voice that attempted to be convincing, “you know yourself that the Princess has promised only after I get married. Otherwise it’s awkward for her to ask on your behalf.”

  “Write her that we’re already married,” Peredonov said quickly, rejoicing at his invention. Varvara was almost taken aback but soon regained her wits and said:

  “What’s the use of lying, the Princess will make inquiries. No, better you name the wedding day. And it’s time to have a dress sewn.”

  “What dress?” Peredonov asked sullenly.

  “Do you really expect me to get married in this work dress?” Varvara cried. “Give me some money, Ardalyon Borisych, for the dress.”

  “Are you getting ready to die?” Peredonov asked spitefully.

  “You’re a beast, Ardalyon Borisych!” Varvara exclaimed reproachfully.

  Suddenly Peredonov felt like teasing Varvara. He asked:

  “Varvara, do you know where I was?”

  “Well, where?” Varvara asked anxiously.

  “At Vershina’s,” he said and burst into laughter.

  “You found yourself fine company,” Varvara cried spitefully. “No use saying anything!”

  “I saw Marta,” Peredonov went on.

  “She’s all covered in freckles,” Varvara said with growing spite. “And a mouth that’s ear to ear, you could pin it on a frog.”

  “But she’s prettier than you,” Peredonov said. “Maybe I’ll go ahead and marry her.”

  “Go right ahead,” Varvara shrieked, all red and trembling with malice. “I’ll burn her eyes out with acid!”

  “I want to spit on you,” Peredonov said calmly.

  “No you won’t!” Varvara screamed.

  “I’m going to spit on you right now,” Peredonov said.

  He stood up and with a dull and indifferent expression he spat in her face.

  “Swine!” Varvara said rather calmly as though the spit had refreshed her.

  She started to wipe herself off with a napkin. Peredonov was silent. Lately he had become even cruder than usual with Varvara. Even before he had always treated her poorly. Reassured by his silence she said more loudly:

  “It’s true, you’re a swine. It landed right in my mug.”

  A bleating, almost sheep-like voice was heard in the front hall.

  “Stop yelling,” Peredonov said. “Guests.”

  “It’s Pavlushka,” she replied with a smirk.

  Entering the room with a cheerful loud laugh was Pavel Vasilyevich Volodin, a young man who totally in face and manners bore an amazing resemblance to a sheep. The curly hair was sheep-like, the eyes were dull and protruding—everything was just like a cheerful sheep. In short, a stupid young man. He was a cabinet maker and had studied earlier at a vocational school and now was working as a vocational teacher in the town school.

  “Ardalyon Borisych, my good friend!” he cried out joyfully. “You’re at home, having a nice old coffee and now here I am, sure as can be.”

  “Natashka, bring a third spoon!” Varvara shouted.

  From the kitchen Natalya could be heard clinking the one remaining teaspoon: the rest had been hidden away.

  “Eat, Pavlushka,” Peredonov said and it was apparent that he wanted to feed Volodin. “It won’t be long now, brother, I’ll be stepping into an inspectorship. The Princess has promised Varya.”

  Volodin
rejoiced and burst into laughter.

  “Hey, the future inspector is having a nice old coffee!” he cried, clapping Peredonov on the shoulder.

  “Do you think it’s easy to step into an inspectorship? All they have to do is denounce me—and down comes the lid.”

  “And what’s there to denounce?” Varvara asked with a smirk.

  “Lots. They’ll say that I was reading Pisarev* —and oi-yoi-yoi!”

  “But Ardalyon Borisych, you just put that Pisarev on the back shelf,” Volodin advised with a giggle.

  Peredonov glanced cautiously at Volodin and said:

  “Maybe I never had any Pisarev. Do you want a drink, Pavlushka?”

  Volodin stuck out his lower lip, assumed the important face of a person who knew his own worth and then he said as he nodded his head like a sheep:

  “If it’s for the sake of company, then I’m always ready to have a drink, otherwise, uh-uh.”

  Peredonov, too, was always ready to have a drink. They drank vodka and ate the sweet pastries.

  Suddenly Peredonov splattered the rest of the coffee out of his glass on the wallpaper. Volodin’s eyes goggled and he looked around in amazement. The wallpaper was smeared and shredded. Volodin asked:

  “What’s wrong with the wallpaper here?”

  Peredonov and Varvara burst into laughter.

  “It’s to spite the landlady,” Varvara said. “We’re moving out soon. But no blabbing now!”

  “Excellent!” Volodin cried and burst into cheerful laughter.

  Peredonov went up to the wall and started to kick at it with the soles of his shoes. Following his example, Volodin, too, pounded away at the wall. Peredonov said:

  “Whenever we leave any place we always mess up the walls to let them have something to remember us by.”

  “You planted some dandies there!” Volodin exclaimed in ecstasy.

  “Irishka will go out of her mind,” Varvara said with a dry and mean laugh.

  Standing in front of the wall all three of them were spitting on it, tearing the wallpaper and pounding at it with their shoes. Tired and satisfied after a while they turned away.

  Peredonov bent over and picked up the cat. The cat was fat, white and ugly. Peredonov pestered it—he tugged at the ears and the tail and shook it by the neck. Volodin was roaring cheerfully and suggesting other things Peredonov could do.

  “Ardalyon Borisych, blow in its eyes! Rub its fur the wrong way!”

  The cat snorted and tried to tear free but it didn’t dare show its claws—for that it would have been beaten cruelly. Finally Peredonov grew bored with this diversion and he dropped the cat.

  “Listen, Ardalyon Borisych, this is what I wanted to tell you,” Volodin began. “I kept thinking not to forget on the way here and I almost did.”

  “Well?” Peredonov asked sullenly.

  “Now you like sweet things,” Volodin said happily, “and I know a dish that will make you lick your fingers.”

  “I know all the tasty dishes myself,” Peredonov said.

  Volodin gave an offended look.

  “Ardalyon Borisych,” he said, “maybe you know all the tasty dishes that people make where you come from, but how could you possibly know all the tasty dishes that are made where I come from if you’ve never been there?”

  Satisfied with the persuasiveness of his argument, Volodin laughed and bleated.

  “They feed on dead cats where you come from,” Peredonov said angrily.

  “Excuse me, Ardalyon Borisych,” Volodin said in a shrill laughing voice, “it may well be that people eat dead cats where you come from, but we won’t go into that, only you have never eaten erly.”

  “No, I haven’t,” Peredonov admitted.

  “What kind of dish is that?” Varvara asked.

  “This is what it is,” Volodin began to explain. “Do you know the kutiya* they serve at funerals?”

  “Who doesn’t know kutiya,” Varvara replied with a smirk.

  “So you take a kutiya made from millet and add raisins, some sugar and almonds—and there’s your erly.”

  Volodin began to relate in detail how erly was prepared where he came from. Peredonov listened, somberly. Imagine, a funeral kutiya. Was Pavlushka trying to pack him off to the grave or something?

  Volodin made an offer:

  “If you want everything to be just right, give me ingredients and I’ll prepare one for you.”

  “You might as well let a goat into the garden,” Peredonov said sullenly.

  “And he’ll probably slip something else in as well,” he thought.

  Volodin was offended once more.

  “If you’re thinking, Ardalyon Borisych, that I’m about to pinch some sugar from you, then you are mistaken. I have no need of your sugar.”

  “Stop all the tomfoolery,” Varvara interrupted. “You know how touchy he is. Come and prepare it here.”

  “And you’ll eat it all yourself,” Peredonov said.

  “Why is that?” Volodin asked in a voice that reverberated with insult.

  “Because it’s vile.”

  “As you like, Ardalyon Borisych,” Volodin said, shrugging his shoulders. “I merely wanted to please you, but if you don’t want it then have it your way.”

  “Why did the general bawl you out?” Peredonov asked.

  “What general?” Volodin countered with a question, blushed and puffed out his lower lip offendedly.

  “We heard, we did,” Peredonov said.

  Varvara was smirking.

  “If you please, Ardalyon Borisych,” Volodin began heatedly, “you heard, but perhaps you didn’t hear everything. I’ll tell you about the whole affair.”

  “Well, we’re waiting,” Peredonov said.

  “This affair took place the day before yesterday,” Volodin related, “about this very time. As you are aware, repairs are underway in the workshop. And, lo and behold, Veriga arrived with our inspector to look things over while we were working in the back room. Fine. I didn’t concern myself with the reason for Veriga’s appearance or what he wanted there, that was none of my affair. We will assume that I know that he is marshal of the nobility and has no connection to our school—but I won’t go into that. He came, and fine, we weren’t in the way, we were working away by ourselves. Suddenly they came into our room and Veriga, if you please, is wearing his hat.”

  “He was showing disrespect for you,” Peredonov said sullenly.

  “And, if you please,” Volodin took up this line joyfully, “there was even an icon hanging in that room and there we all were without hats when suddenly he puts in an appearance like some kind of mameluke. I gave myself leave to say to him, quietly and nobly: Your Excellency, I said, please take the trouble to remove your hat because, I said to him, there is an icon here. Was I right in what I said?” Volodin asked and his eyes goggled questioningly.

  “Smart fellow, Pavlushka,” Peredonov cried, “that’s telling him.”

  “Of course, why should they get away with it,” Varvara threw in her support as well. “Good work, Pavel Vasilyevich.”

  With the look of a person who had been wrongly offended, Volodin continued:

  “And suddenly, by his leave, he said to me: the cobbler should stick to his last. He turned and left. And that is what the whole affair was about and there’s nothing more to it.”

  Volodin felt like a hero nevertheless. Peredonov gave him a caramel by way of consolation.

  Another guest arrived, Sofiya Efimovna Prepolovenskaya, wife of the forest warden, a plump woman with a goodnaturedly devious face and smooth movements. They sat her down to lunch. She questioned Volodin slyly:

  “Really, Pavel Vasilyevich, have you become a regular visitor to Varvara Dmitrievna?”

  “It’s not Varvara Dmitrievna that I’ve come to see, if you please,” Volodin answered modestly, “it’s Ardalyon Borisych.”

  “Haven’t you fallen in love with anyone by now?” Prepolovenskaya asked laughingly.

  Everyone was aware
of the fact that Volodin was looking for a bride with a dowry, he had proposed to many and had always been refused. Prepolovenskaya’s joke seemed out of place to him. With his entire manner reminiscent of a deeply offended sheep, he said in a trembling voice:

  “If I have fallen in love, Sofiya Efimovna, then it would be no one’s concern but my own and the other person’s. And you are just doing this to make fun.”

  But Prepolovenskaya was irrepressible:

  “Look,” she said, “if you get Varvara Dmitrievna to fall in love with you, who then is going to bake sweet pastries for Ardalyon Borisych?”

  Volodin puffed out his lips, raised his brows and no longer knew what to say.

  “And don’t be modest, Pavel Vasilyevich,” Prepolovenskaya continued. “You’d make a good husband! You’re young and handsome.”

  “Perhaps Varvara Dmitrievna doesn’t care to,” Volodin said, giggling.

  “What do you mean, doesn’t care to.” Prepolovenskaya replied, “You’re being painfully modest for nothing.”

  “And maybe I don’t cane to,” Volodin said, clowning around. “Perhaps I don’t want to marry other people’s cousins. Perhaps where I come from I have a niece of my own who’s growing up.”

  By now he had begun to believe that Varvara wouldn’t be adverse to marrying him. Varvara grew angry. She considered Volodin a fool. He earned only a quarter of Peredonov’s salary. But Prepolovenskaya wanted to marry Peredonov off to her own cousin, the buxom daughter of a priest. For that reason she was trying to embroil Peredonov and Varvara.

  “Why are you proposing me for marriage,” Varvara asked in annoyance. “Better you offer your little cousin to Pavel Vasilyevich in marriage.”

  “Why should I be about to take him away from you!” Prepolovenskaya protested jokingly.

  Prepolovenskaya’s jokes added a new turn to Peredonov’s slow thoughts. And the erly had become firmly seated in his mind. Why had Volodin invented that particular dish? Peredonov didn’t like to spend time reflecting. He always believed straightaway what people told him. So he had believed that Volodin was in love with Varvara. He thought that no sooner would he be hitched to Varvara than he would be poisoned with the erly on the road to his new inspector’s position, Volodin would take his place, he would be buried under Volodin’s name and Volodin would be the inspector. A clever plan they had hatched!