The Petty Demon

by Sologub, Fyodor

  Peredonov was plunged into meditation. Of course, he realized finally that he had to choose the youngest. What was the point of him marrying an old maid!

  “Bring out Valeriya,” he said with determination.

  Rutilov made his way back to the house while Peredonov went into the yard once more.

  Lyudmila was secretly peeking out the window, trying to hear what was being said but she couldn’t catch anything. Then suddenly steps were echoing on the pathway in the yard. The sisters fell silent and sat there, excited and embarrassed. Rutilov came in and announced:

  “He’s chosen Valeriya. He’s waiting, standing by the gate.”

  The sisters began to fuss and laugh. Valeriya turned slightly pale.

  “Well, well,” she repeated, “a lot I want it, a lot I need it.”

  Her hands were trembling. They started to dress her up, All three sisters were bustling around her. As always, she fussed and dallied. The sisters hurried her. Rutilov chattered away incessantly, cheerful and animated.

  He was pleased by the fact that he had organized the whole business so cleverly.

  “Have you got the cab drivers ready?” Darya asked with concern.

  Rutilov replied with annoyance:

  “Are you serious? The whole town would come running. Varvara would drag him off home by the hair.”

  “So what will we do?”

  “This is what. We’ll go as far as the square in pairs and there we’ll hire the cabs. It’s very simple. First you and the bride, then Larisa with the groom, but not all at once, otherwise someone will see you in town. Lyudmila and I will go and get Falastov, they’ll go on together while I go and grab Volodin.”

  The sisters involuntarily showed that they were envious of Valeriya because of the jokes they made at her expense and because they kept pushing her and scolding her fair her finicky ways. Finally she said:

  “Really, now, he’s nothing to boast about. I still don’t want to marry him if you must know.”

  And she burst into tears. The sisters exchanged glances, scurried to console her with kisses and caresses.

  Left by himself, Peredonov plunged into sweet reveries. He dreamed of Valeriya amid the enchantment of the wedding night, undressed, bashful, but joyful. All slender and frail.

  He was dreaming, yet all the while he was pulling out the caramels his pocket was stuffed with and sucking on them.

  Then the recollection came to him that Valeriya was a coquette. He was thinking that she would demand fine clothes and furniture. That would mean, to be sure, that he wouldn’t be able to save money every month and would have to squander what had been saved. This kind of wife would get finicky and wouldn’t to have anything to do with the kitchen. Or What was more, they would slip him poison in the kitchen—Varya would bribe the cook out of spite. “And what’s more,” thought Peredonov, “she’s far too slender a thing, Valeriya is. How would you treat someone like that? How would you bawl her out? How would you push her around? How would you spit on her? She’d dissolve into tears and ruin your name all over town. No, it’d be terrible to have anything to do with her. Now take Lyudmila, she’s simpler. Maybe I should marry her?”

  Peredonov went up to the window and knocked with his walking stick on the frame. In half a minute Rutilov stuck his head out the window.

  “What do you want?” he asked anxiously.

  “I’ve changed my mind,” Peredonov growled.

  “What!” Rutilov shouted with fright.

  “Bring out Lyudmila,” Peredonov said.

  Rutilov left the window.

  “The square-eyed devil,” he grumbled, and went to the sisters.

  Valeriya was overjoyed.

  “Your good fortune, Lyudmila,” she said gaily.

  Lyudmila started to laugh. She dropped into an armchair threw herself back and roared and roared.

  “What should I tell him?” Rutilov asked. “Do you agree then?”

  Lyudmila could not say a single word for laughing and just kept waving her hands.

  “Yes, of course she agrees,” Darya said for her. “Tell him quickly otherwise he’ll be stupid enough to leave without waiting.”

  Rutilov went out into the dining room and said in a whisper through the window:

  “Wait, everything will be ready in a moment.”

  “Be quick about it,” Peredonov said angrily. “What’s all the dawdling there!”

  Lyudmila was being swiftly attired. She was completely ready in about five minutes.

  Peredonov was thinking about her. She was cheerful and full-figured. The only thing was that she loved to laugh. To be sure, she would start to laugh. It would be terrible. Darya, for all that she was quite perky, was the more solid and quiet one. And she was attractive as well. Better to take her. He knocked on the window again.

  “He’s knocking again,” Larisa said. “Maybe he wants to marry you now, Darya?”

  “Damnation!” Rutilov swore and ran to the window.

  “What now?” he asked in an angry whisper. “Have you changed your mind again, eh?”

  “Bring out Darya,” Peredonov replied.

  “Well, wait,” Rutilov said furiously.

  Peredonov was standing and thinking about Darya—and once more the short-lived admiration for her in his imagination was replaced with terror. Indeed, she was quick and insolent. She’d pester him to death. Besides, what was the point of standing there and waiting? This is what he was thinking. On top of it all he’d catch a cold. Or maybe someone was hiding in a ditch along the street or in the grass by the fence and they would suddenly leap out and bump him off. A feeling of melancholy overcame Peredonov. After all, they had no dowry, he was thinking. They had no patronage in the Ministry of Education. Varvara would complain to the Princess. Even now the headmaster had it in for Peredonov.

  Peredonov felt annoyed with himself. Why was he getting mixed up with Rutilov? It was as though Rutilov had cast a spell over him. Indeed, perhaps he had actually cast a spell over him. He must counteract that spell as quickly as possible.

  Peredonov started to circle around on the spot, spitting in all directions and muttering:

  “Line to line, circle bright, spirits black, spirits white. Line to line, circle bright, spirits flee, day and night.”

  A stern concentration was mirrored on his face as though he were performing some important ritual. After this essential action he felt safe from Rutilov’s sorcery. He knocked determinedly with his walking stick on the window, muttering angrily:

  “I ought to denounce them, they’re trying to ensnare me. No, I don’t want to get married today,” he declared to Rutilov who had thrust his head out.

  “Come now, Ardalyon Borisych, everything is ready now,” Rutilov tried to convince him.

  “I don’t want to,” Peredonov said with determination. “Let’s go and play cards at my place.”

  “Damnation!” Rutilov swore. “He doesn’t want to get married, he’s got cold feet,” he announced to his sisters. “But I’ll get my way with the fool. He’s inviting me to play cards at his place.”

  The sisters started to shout all at once, heaping abuse on Peredonov.

  “And you’re going to that scoundrel’s place?” Valeriya asked in annoyance.

  “Of course I’m going and I’ll make him pay for it. He’s not going to get away from us that easily,” Rutilov said, trying to maintain a note of assurance but feeling quite awkward.

  The girls’ annoyance at Peredonov quickly changed to laughter. Rutilov left. The sisters ran to the windows.

  “Ardalyon Borisych!” Darya shouted. “Why are you so indecisive? You mustn’t be like that.”

  “Mr. Sourpuss!” Lyudmila shouted and laughed.

  Peredonov felt annoyed. To his mind, the sisters ought to have been weeping from sorrow that he had rejected them. “They’re pretending!” he thought as he silently left the yard. The girls were running from window to window facing the street and shouting words of sarcasm after Peredonov unti
l he disappeared in the darkness.

  V

  PEREDONOV WAS OPPRESSED with melancholy. He no longer had any caramels in his pocket and that saddened and irritated him. Rutilov was talking alone practically the entire way. He went on singing the praises of his sisters. Only once did he join in the conversation. He asked angrily:

  “Does a bull have horns?”

  “Yes, it does, but what is that supposed to mean?” asked an amazed Rutilov.

  “Well, I don’t want to be a bull,” Peredonov explained.

  An irritated Rutilov replied:

  “You, Ardalyon Borisych, are a proper ass.”

  “You’re lying!” Peredonov said sullenly.

  “No, I’m not lying and I can prove it,” Rutilov said with malice.

  “Prove it then,” Peredonov demanded.

  “Just you wait, I’ll prove it,” Rutilov replied, preserving the same malice in his voice.

  Both were silent. Peredonov waited fearfully and he felt oppressed with ill-will towards Rutilov. Suddenly Rutilov asked:

  “Ardalyon Borisych, do you have any assets?”

  “Yes, I do, but I won’t give you any,” Peredonov answered spitefully. Rutilov roared with laughter.

  “If you’ve got assets, then you must be an ass!” he shouted joyfully.

  Peredonov seized his head in horror.

  “You’re lying, I haven’t got an ass’s head, this is a human noggin,” he muttered.

  Rutilov was roaring. Gazing at Rutilov with anger and cowardice, Peredonov said:

  “Today you purposely led me past some durman* and drugged me with the smell of it so that you could marry me off to your sisters. As though it weren’t enough for me to marry one witch, just imagine marrying all three at once!”

  “You queer fellow, then how is it that I wasn’t drugged as well?” Rutilov asked.

  “You know some remedy,” Peredonov said. “Perhaps you were breathing through your mouth and didn’t take it in through your nose, or you spoke the right kind of words, whereas I have no knowledge of what to do against magic. I’m no magician. Until I cast a counter-spell I was standing there completely drugged.”

  Rutilov roared.

  “How did you cast a counter-spell?” he asked.

  But Peredonov was no longer saying anything.

  “Why have you latched onto Varvara so firmly?” Rutilov asked. “Do you think everything will be fine for you if you get a position through her? She’ll harness you up good.”

  That was incomprehensible to Peredonov.

  After all, she was exerting herself on her own behalf, he thought. It would be better for her when he became an important official and earned a lot of money. It meant that she ought to be grateful to him and not the other way around. And in any event he felt more comfortable with her than with anyone else.

  Peredonov had grown used to Varvara. He was attracted to her, perhaps as a result of his becoming pleasantly accustomed to making fun of her. He might not be able to find another woman who was made to order as well as she was.

  It was already late. The lamps were burning in Peredonov’s apartment, the windows stood out brilliantly against the darkness outside.

  Guests were seated around the tea table: Grushina (nowadays she had become a daily visitor to Varvara’s), Volodin, Prepolovenskaya, her husband, Konstantin Petrovich, a tall man of close to forty with a dull pallor, dark-haired, and extrordinarily reticent. Varvara was all dressed up, she had put on her white dress. They were drinking tea and chatting. As always, Varvara was upset by the fact that Peredonov hadn’t come home for a long while. With a happy bleating laugh, Volodin was relating how Peredonov had gone off somewhere with Rutilov. That increased Varvara’s anxiety.

  Peredonov finally put in an appearance with Rutilov. They were greeted with shouts, laughter and silly, indecent jokes.

  “Varvara, where’s the vodka?” Peredonov shouted angrily.

  Varvara scurried from the table with a guilty smirk and quickly brought the vodka in a large, ugly cut-glass decanter.

  “Let’s drink,” Peredonov extended the sullen invitation.

  “Wait,” Varvara said. “Klavdyushka will bring some zakuski*. Hustle up, you slowpoke,” she shouted into the kitchen.

  But Peredonov had already filled the glasses with vodka and mumbled:

  “Why wait, time doesn’t.”

  They drank and snacked on the pastries with blackcurrant jam. The only things Peredonov had at his disposal for entertaining guests were cards and vodka. Since they couldn’t sit down to cards yet—tea had to be drunk first—then only vodka was left.

  In the meanwhile, the zakuski were brought in so that it was possible to drink some more. When she went out Klavdiya didn’t close the door tightly and Peredonov began to get upset.

  “Always close the door tight,” he growled.

  He was afraid of a draught: he might catch cold. For that reason it was always stuffy and smelly in the apartment.

  Prepolovenskaya took an egg.

  “Nice eggs,” she said. “Where do you get them?”

  Peredonov said:

  “Those eggs are nothing, on out estate my father had a hen that laid two enormous eggs every day the whole year round.”

  “That’s nothing,” Prepolovenskaya replied, “if you really want to brag about something! There was a hen in our village that laid two eggs and a spoonful of butter every day.”

  “We had the same thing too, we did,” Peredonov said without noticing the mockery. “If others did it then ours did it too. It was really an outstanding hen.”

  Varvara laughed.

  “That’s just some tomfoolery,” She said.

  “You talk enough nonsense to make a person’s ears wilt,” Grushina said.

  Peredonov gave her a furious look and replied harshly:

  “Well if they’re going to wilt then they ought to be plucked off!”

  Grushina was dismayed.

  “Really, Ardalyon Borisych, you’re always saying things like that!” she said plaintively.

  The rest of the guests laughed sympathetically. Screwing up his eyes and wagging his head, Volodin explained amusingly:

  “If your ears are going to wilt, then you must pluck them off, otherwise it wouldn’t be nice if they do wilt away and just start drooping back and forth, back and forth.”

  Volodin used his fingers to show how limp ears would be drooping. Grushina raised her voice at him:

  “Really, you just don’t know how to make up anything yourself, you’re always latching on to something ready-made!”

  Volodin was offended and said with dignity:

  “I can too, Marya Osipovna, it’s just that since we’re spending a good time in company then why shouldn’t we pick up on someone else’s joke! And if you don’t care for that, then have it your own way. Just as you bear with us so we’ll bear with you.”

  “Very reasonable, Pavel Vasilyevich,” Rutilov gave his laughing approval.

  “Pavel Vasliyevich is standing up for himself now,” Prepolovenskaya said with a sly grin.

  Varvara cut off a piece of bread and while enjoying Volodin’s fanciful speeches, went on holding the knife in her hand. The point glistened. Peredonov had a frightening sensation; what if she suddenly slit his throat? He cried:

  “Varvara, put the knife down!”

  Varvara gave a start.

  “What are you shouting for, you afraid?” she said and laid the knife down. “He’s so touchy, you know,” she explained to the taciturn Prepolovensky, seeing that he was stroking his beard and getting ready to say something.

  “It happens,” Prepolovensky said in a sweet and sorrowful voice. “I had an acquaintance and he was afraid of needles, constantly afraid that he would be pricked and the needle would disappear into his insides. And he was terribly afraid, you can imagine, whenever he saw a needle …”

  And once he had started to talk he could no longer stop and kept retelling the very same thing in a variety of ways u
ntil someone interrupted him by talking about something else. Then he lapsed once more into silence.

  Grushina brought the conversation around to erotic themes. She told the story of how her deceased husband had been jealous of her and how she had been unfaithful to him. Afterwards she told a story that she had heard from a friend living in the capital about the mistress of a certain highly placed person and how she had been riding along the street and had met her benefactor.

  “And she just shouted out to him: ‘Hello there, mon petit Jean!’ And it was right there on the street!” Grushina said.

  “And I’m going to denounce you,” Peredonov said angrily. “How dare you spread such stupid gossip about those kind of distinguished people?”

  Grushina babbled fearfully:

  “I didn’t mean anything, it’s what I was told. I’m just passing it on for what it’s worth.”

  Peredonov was angrily silent and drank tea from his saucer, leaning on the table with his elbows. He was thinking that it was unfitting to speak disrespectfully about the nobility in the house of a future inspector. At one point Peredonov even said to Volodin:

  “Well, brother, I expect you’re jealous! You’ll never be an inspector but I will.”

  Lending his face an inspired expression, Volodin protested:

  “To each his own, Ardalyon Borisych. You are a specialist in your work and I in mine.”

  “Our Natasha,” Varvara informed them, “went straight from us to work for a police official.”

  Peredonov gave a shudder and terror was expressed in his face.

  “Are you lying?” he asked her questioningly.

  “And why should I be lying?” Varvara answered. “Why don’t you go and ask him yourself.”

  This unpleasant piece of news was confirmed by Grushina. Peredonov was stunned. Natasha would say something untrue, the police official would fasten on it and likely write to the Ministry. A foul business.

  At that very moment Peredonov’s eyes came to rest on the shelf above the commode. Several bound books were standing there: the slender ones were by Pisarev and the somewhat thicker ones were Notes of the Fatherland.* Peredonov turned pale and said:

  “These books must be hidden, otherwise people will denounce me.”