Earlier Peredonov had kept these books on display in order to show that he held liberal opinions even though in actual fact he held no opinions whatsoever, nor even possessed any inclination for reflection. Moreover, he merely kept the books, he didn’t read them. It had been a long time since he had read a single book. He said that formerly he hadn’t subscribed to any newspaper, but had learned his news through conversations. It wasn’t that there wasn’t anything for him to learn about, it was simply that nothing in the external world interested him. He even made fun of those who subscribed to the newspapers as being people who squandered money and time. His time, one would think, was a precious thing for him!
He went to the shelf grumbling:
“We have the kind of town here where people might denounce you right away. Lend me a hand, Pavel Vasilyevich,” he said to Volodin.
Volodin went up to him with a serious and understanding look on his face and carefully held the books that Peredonov handed to him. Peredonov took a smaller packet of books for himself and gave Volodin a larger one and then he went off into the living room with Volodin following behind.
“Where are you going to hide them, Ardalyon Borisych?” he asked.
“Just wait and see,” Peredonov said with his customary sullenness.
“What are you carting off there, Ardalyon Borisych?” Prepolovenskaya asked.
“Strictly forbidden books,” Peredonov replied without stopping. “People will denounce me if they see them.”
In the living room Peredonov squatted down in front of the stove and dumped the books on the iron grating. Volodin did the same. Then Peredonov started forcefully to stuff one book after the other into the small opening. Volodin squatted beside him, a little to the rear, and handed him the books while maintaining an expression of profound concentration and understanding on his sheeplike face, lips puffed out with importance and his steep forehead bowed in a surfeit of understanding. Varvara peeked in on them through the door. She said laughingly:
“He’s into his tomfoolery!”
But Grushina stopped her:
“Oh, Varvara Dmitrievna, sweetheart, you mustn’t talk like that, this could cause serious trouble if people found out. Particularly if it’s a teacher. The authorities are terribly afraid that the teachers will teach the young kids to revolt.”
They drank tea and sat down to play cards, all seven of them around the card table in the living room. Peredonov played recklessly but badly. At the end of each twenty points he had to pay what he owed to his fellow-players, particularly to Prepolovensky. The latter accepted the money for both himself and his wife. The Prepolovenskys won most of the time. They had fixed signals—knocking or coughing—by means of which they exchanged information on their cards. That day Peredonov was unlucky from the start. He was in a hurry to recoup his losses, whereas Volodin was slow in dealing the cards and shuffled them painstakingly.
“Pavlushka, deal,” Peredonov shouted impatiently.
Feeling like an important person in the game, Volodin assumed an important expression and asked:
“What do you mean by calling me Pavlushka? Is it on the basis of friendship or what?”
“Friendship, friendship,” Peredonov retorted carelessly. “Just deal the cards more quickly.”
“Well, if it’s on the basis of friendship, then I’m delighted, I’m very delighted,” Volodin said with a delighted and silly laugh as he dealt the cards. “You’re a fine fellow, Ardasha, and I even love you a great deal. But if it hadn’t been on the basis of friendship, then it would have been another matter. But if it is on the basis of friendship then I am delighted. For that I have given you an ace,” Volodin said and led with trump.
In actual fact an ace did turn up in Peredonov’s hand, but not a trump ace and he had to forfeit it.
“He did deal one!” Peredonov growled angrily. “An ace, but the wrong one. You were fooling me. You should have given me a trump card, but what did you deal? What do I need a chub of spaces for?”
“You hardly need a chub of spaces, your own chubby belly takes up enough space for an ace,” Rutilov laughingly rejoined.
“The future inspector is getting his tongue all twisted up—chubby bellies with spaces for aces.”
Rutilov nattered on incessantly, gossiping and relating anecdotes that at times were of a rather delicate nature. In order to tease Peredonov he started to insist that the students at the gymnasium behaved themselves badly, particularly those who were living in lodgings: they smoked, drank vodka and chased after girls. Peredonov believed him. And Grushina supported it. These stories afforded her particular satisfaction. After the death of her husband she had wanted at one time to lodge three or four students from the gymnasium in her own home, but the headmaster hadn’t given her permission despite. Peredonov’s intercession on her behalf. Grushina had a bad reputation in the town. Now she had taken to abusing the landladies in the lodgings where the students were living.
“They bribed the headmaster,” she declared.
“Landladies are all bitches,” Volodin said with conviction. “Even mine. She and I had an agreement when I took the room that she would give me three glasses of milk every evening. It was fine for the first month or two, she did give me the milk.”
“And you didn’t drink yourself sick?” Rutilov asked laughingly.
“Why would I drink myself sick!” Volodin protested, taking offense. “Milk is a beneficial substance. I had become used to drinking three glasses for the night. Suddenly I see that I’m being brought only two glasses. Why is that, I asked? The maid said that Anna Mikhailovna begs my pardon that that their cow is giving little milk now. And what does that have to do with me! An agreement is more precious than money. If their cow were to stop giving milk altogether, is that supposed to mean that I’m not given anything to drink? Well, I said to her, I did, tell Anna Mikhailovna that I’m asking her to give me a glass of water as well. I’ve gotten used to having three glasses, two glasses are too little for me.”
“Our Pavlushka is a real hero,” Peredonov said. “Tell us, brother, how you grappled with the general.”
Volodin repeated his story willingly. But this time it was held up to ridicule. He puffed out his lower lip and took offense.
Everyone drank themselves drunk at dinner, even the women. Volodin suggested that they mess up the walls some more. Everyone was overjoyed! Immediately, without having finished eating, they went to work and amused themselves with a frenzy. They spat on the wallpaper, poured beer over it, threw paper darts with butter-smeared tips at the walls and ceiling, stuck spitballs of chewed bread on the ceiling. Afterwards they came up with the idea of tearing strips off the wallpaper for the sport of it, to see who could tear off the longest strip. The Prepolovenskys won an additional rouble and a half at this game.
Volodin lost. Because he had lost and had gotten drunk he started to complain about his mother. He assumed a reproachful expression and for some reason thrusting his hand downwards, said:
“Why did she have to give birth to me? What was she thinking of at the time? What kind of life have I got now? She’s no mother to me, just the woman who gave birth to me. Because a real mother cares about her child, but my mother only gave birth to me and then made a public ward out of me when I was still very young.”
“On the other hand you managed to get a training out of it and made your own way in life,” Prepolovenskaya said.
With his forehead bowed, Volodin was shaking his head back and forth and he said:
“No, what kind of life is this of mine, it’s the very lowest kind of life. And why did she give birth to me? What was she thinking of at the time?”
Peredonov suddenly recalled the erly from the day before. “So,” he turned his thoughts to Volodin, “he’s complaining about the fact that his mother gave birth to him, he doesn’t want to be Pavlushka. Apparently he actually is jealous. Perhaps he’s already thinking about marrying Varvara and crawling into my skin,” Peredonov thought and gazed wi
th melancholy at Volodin.
He’d better marry him to someone else.
That night, in the bedroom, Varvara said to Peredonov:
“You think that all these young wenches that are trailing after you are so young and good-looking? They’re nothing but filth, I’m more beautiful than all of them.”
She swiftly undressed and with an insolent smirk she showed Peredonov her lightly colored, shapely, attractive and supple body.
Although Varvara was stumbling about from drunkenness and her face would have provoked disgust in any healthy person with its flaccidly lewd expression, nevertheless her body was beautiful, like the body of a tender nymph to which the head of a jaded whore had been affixed by force of some despicable spell. And for those two miserable, drunken and filthy people that exquisite body represented nothing more than the source of vulgar temptation. Such is often the case—and verily in our age it is appropriate for beauty to be scorned and desecrated.
Peredonov roared with sullen laughter as he gazed at his naked girlfriend.
All that night he dreams of women of all shapes and sizes, naked and vile.
Varvara believed that rubbing herself with stinging nettles, which she had done on the advice of Prepolovenskaya, had helped her It seemed to her that she immediately began to put on weight. She kept asking all her acquaintances:
“I’ve really put on weight, haven’t I?”
And she was thinking that now, after Peredonov saw how she was putting on weight and when in addition he had received the forged letter, he would marry her without fail.
Peredonov’s contemplations were far from being so pleasant. Long ago he had become convinced that the headmaster was hostile to him—and in actual fact the headmaster of the gymnasium considered Peredonov to be a lazy and incapable teacher. Peredonov thought that the headmaster was instructing his students not to have any respect for him—which was, understandably, another nonsensical invention of Peredonov himself. But it implanted the certainty in Peredonov that he had to protect himself against the headmaster. More than once out of spite towards the headmaster, Peredonov had started to revile him in front of the senior classes. That kind of talk appealed to many of the students.
Now, when Peredonov’ had taken a fancy to becoming an inspector, the hostile attitudes of the headmaster towards him appeared particularly unpleasant. One might suppose that if the Princess wished, she could foil the headmaster’s intriguings with her patronage. Nevertheless, the headmaster still presented a danger.
And there were other people in the town (as Peredonov had noted during recent days) who were hostile towards him and wanted to interfere with his promotion to an inspector’s post. Volodin, for example. It wasn’t by chance that he kept repeating the words “future inspector.” After all, there were cases in which people assumed someone else’s name and enjoyed their lives. Of course it would be a bit difficult for Volodin to replace Peredonov himself. Still, a fool like Volodin could have the most unseemly designs. Furthermore, there were the Rutilovs and Vershina with her Marta who were partners in jealousy. They would all be delighted to do him harm. And how would they do him harm? Quite simply they would discredit him in the eyes of the authorities and represent him as an unreliable person.
Thus, two concerns arose in Peredonov: to prove his reliability and to make himself secure from Volodin by marrying him off to a rich girl.
And so on one occasion Peredonov asked Volodin:
“Do you want me to propose you for marriage to the young Adamenko lady? Or are you still pining away for Marta? Haven’t you been able to console yourself after a whole month?”
“Why should I be pining for Marta!” Volodin retorted. “I proposed to her in good faith and if she doesn’t want to then what does it matter to me! I’ll find another one—do you think I can’t find any brides for myself? There are as many of those goods around as you like.”
“Well, but this Marta went and tweaked your nose,” Peredonov teased.
“I don’t know what kind of husband they were expecting,” Volodin said, offended. “If at least there had been a large dowry, but they were only offering a pittance. It’s you, Ardalyon Borisych, that she’s head over heels in love with.”
Peredonov gave his advice:
“If I were you I’d smear tar all over her gate.”
Volodin giggled, but immediately settled down and said:
“If I were caught, it might cause trouble.”
“Hire someone else to do it. Why do it yourself?” Peredonov said.
“She deserves it, by God, she does,” Volodin said with feeling. “Because if she isn’t willing to enter into a legal marriage, yet in the meanwhile admits young men into her room through the window, then that’s really something! That means a person has neither shame nor conscience.”
VI
THE FOLLOWING DAY Peredonov and Volodin set out for the home of the young Adamenko girl. Volodin had dressed himself up. He had put on his new tight-fitting jacket, a clean starched shirt, a gaudy embroidered neckerchief, oiled his hair with pomade, perfumed himself—and his spirits soared.
Nadezhda Vasilyevna Adamenko lived together with her brother in their own little red brick house in the town. She had an estate not far from the town which had been leased out. The year before last she had completed her studies in the local gymnasium and nowadays she was occupying herself by lying on the sofa, reading books of all sorts and tutoring her brother, an eleven-year-old student at the gymnasium who escaped her stern ways only by declaring angrily:
“It was better living with Mama. Mama would only make you stand in the corner.”
Only her aunt, a retiring and decrepit creature who had no voice whatsoever in the domestic affairs, was living with Nadezhda Vasilyevna. Natalya Vasilyevna exercised a stern choice in her acquaintanceships. Peredonov had rarely been in her home and this slight acquaintanceship with her served as the sole basis for supposing that this young lady might marry Volodin.
Now she was amazed at the unexpected visit, but she greeted her unbidden guests politely. The guests had to be entertained, and Nadezhda Vasilyevna thought that the most pleasant and comfortable conversation for a teacher of the Russian language would be a conversation about the state of pedagogy, about the reform of the gymnasia, about the raising of children, about literature, about Symbolism and about the Russian journals. She touched on all of those topics, but received nothing in response other than perplexing rebuffs which revealed that her guests were not interested in those questions. She saw that only one conversation was possible: town gossip. Nevertheless, Nadezhda Vasilyevna made one further attempt.
“Have you read Chekhov’s ‘The Man in the Case’?” she asked. It’s really to the point, isn’t it?”
Since she had addressed Volodin with this question, he grinned pleasantly and asked:
“What is it, an article or a novel?”
“A story,” Nadezhda Vasilyevna explained.
“Pray, did you say Mister Chekhov?” Volodin inquired.
“Yes, Chekhov,” Nadezhda Vasilyevna said with a grin.
“Where did it appear?” Volodin continued to express his interest.
“In the journal Russian Thought,” the young lady replied politely.
“In which issue?” Volodin inquired further.
“I can’t quite recall, in one of the summer issues,” Nadezhda Vasilyevna responded with the same politeness but with a certain amazement at the same time.
The young student from the gymnasium stuck his head through the door.
“It was printed in the May issue,” he said, hanging on to the door with one hand and scanning the guests and his sister with his cheerful, blue eyes.
“It’s too early for you to be reading novels,” Peredonov said angrily. “You ought to be studying and not reading obscene stories.”
Nadezhda Vasilyevna gave her brother a stern look.
“Very nice that is, standing behind the door and listening,” she said and raising her two h
ands made a right angle with the tips of her small fingers.
The student frowned and disappeared. He went to his room, stood in the corner and started to look at the clock. Two small fingers held at an angle was a sign to stand in the corner for ten minutes. “No,” he thought with annoyance, “it was better living with Mama. Mama would only stand the umbrella in the corner.”
Meanwhile, back in the living room, Volodin was consoling the hostess with his promise to get hold of the May issue of Russian Thought without fail and read the story by Mister Chekhov. Peredonov was listening with an expression of obvious boredom on his face. Finally he said:
“I haven’t read it either. I don’t read rubbish. All sorts of nonsense is being written in stories and novels.”
Nadezhda Vasilyevna smiled politely and said:
“You have a very stern attitude towards contemporary literature. But good books are being written now as well.”
“I’ve already read all the good books earlier,” Peredonov declared. “I’m not about to read what’s being written now.”
Volodin looked at Peredonov respectfully. Nadezhda Vasilyevna sighed gently and, since there was no other choice, she started to indulge in idle talk and gossip as best she knew how. Although she had no love for that kind of talk, nevertheless she held up her end with the cleverness and cheerfulness of a lively and self-possessed young lady.
The guests were revived. It was unbearably boring for her, whereas they thought that she was being exceptionally polite with them and ascribed it to a fascination with Volodin’s charming appearance.
When they had left, Peredonov congratulated Volodin on the street with his success. Volodin was laughing happily and prancing about. He had already forgotten all the girls who had rejected him.
“Stop kicking up your feet,” Peredonov said to him. “You’re off and prancing about like a sheep. Just you wait, they’ll tweak your nose.”
But he said it in jest and he himself fully believed in the success of the intended match-making.
Grushina came running to see Varvara practically every day and Varvara was at her place even more frequently so that they were almost never apart. Varvara was anxious and Grushina was taking her time, insisting that it was very difficult to copy the letters so that they would look similar.
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