The Petty Demon

by Sologub, Fyodor

  With the assassination of Alexander II in 1881, the reactionaries received fresh impetus to suppress liberal reform in the public school system. Under K. P. Pobedonostsev, the Chief Procurator of the Holy Synod, as well as other reactionary officials chosen by Alexander III (1881–94) and Nicholas II (1894–1917), there was a concerted attempt to exert the authoritarian influence of the Church over public schools. Curiously enough, the zemstvos were largely successful in resisting this move to sectarianize the schools, largely because they contributed the lion’s share of financial support to the rural school system and the Government did not have the funds to wrest control from the councils. To counter this influence of the zemstvos, the Government created a plan to strengthen the parish schools so that they could compete with the secular or rural schools. The revised curriculum proposed for the parish school concentrated particularly on religious subjects (including prayers, the catechism and even singing Church music). Because of large amounts of funding from the Government, the parish schools actually burgeoned for a while through the later 1890s. But that growth quickly declined after 1905 and the zemstvp schools were clearly in the ascendancy. In the early part of the 20th Century the rural councils began to design a scheme whereby education would be accessible to the peasantry not only in theory, but in practice as well. This plan called for the organization and construction of schools that would be strategically located so that no pupils would have to go farther than two miles to attend school. Beginning with various reforms introduced after the aborted revolution of 1905, there was a see-sawing battle between conservatives and liberals to further “deform” or “reform” the educational system. In general, great progress was made towards expanding the educational system and liberalizing the regulations governing education in Russia by the time of the Revolution.19

  Against this schematic background of educational progress and regression throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the reader might better comprehend the social significance of Sologub’s extensive preoccupation with and description of the educational milieu described in the novel. Peredonov, the tireless and tyrannical reactionary, obviously sees the teacher’s role as being that of the moral policeman rather than the purveyor of knowledge. The supreme way of dispensing disciplinary punishment (and simultaneously gratifying his own sadistic lasciviousness) is to become an Inspector who controls the police force of school Prefects. The tension between the champions of the ultra-reactionary educational system of parish schools and rural council schools is portrayed in Peredonov’s confrontations with the Marshal of the Nobility, Veriga, and the local zemstvo chairman, Kirillov. The question of varying social status within the system is reflected at many points throughout the narrative: Peredonov orders a new uniform in anticipation of his future Inspectorship and dons his official cap with the cockade while mocking those teachers in the lower school system who are not allowed to wear such a cap.

  This was the kind of sociological detail that appealed to readers such as Gorky who could appreciate the accuracy of Sologub’s portrayal of the educational milieu in Russia at the turn of the century.20

  It is not by chance that Sologub gave Trirodov, the hero of The Created Legend, his own physical features and aesthetic views. Nor is it any less an accident that Trirodov is both poet and chemist, for who would be better endowed to transform the creative dreams of the poet into reality than such a poet-alchemist? Sologub’s own dreams of transformation were as fervent as those of the other Symbolists. At the same time, however, he saw the impossibility of fulfillment. But not to dream, not to aspire—that would mean denial of the creative fantasy of the poet: “It is impossible to live without faith in a miracle … the miracle of transformation is impossible but it is essential … Only the ecstasy of creativity offers man a solution to this fateful contradiction.”21 Futile, yet beautiful dreams are the most alluring, the most exquisite, just as the love of Sasha and Lyudmila in The Petty Demon is exquisitely sweet, yet impossible. As a number of his poems reveal, Sologub must have readily identified with the hopelessly romantic, the eternally old, but eternally young hero of Cervantes’ novel. Bedevilled by Aldonsa, beguiled by Dulcinea, that ridiculous epigone, Don Quixote, seeks the fulfillment of the impossible dream. Sologub must have caught in himself the wry reflection of that superannuated knight trapped in a time warp when he held the Symbolist’s beloved mirror up to his own unprepossessing visage. Ridiculous as he might have seemed, he was nevertheless unwilling to abandon his beloved, his chaste vision:

  By him alone is love not quit

  Whose love is love immortal,

  Whose passion leaves that love unspoilt,

  Whose heart is proffered to the stars,

  Whose love by death alone is quenched.

  The earth knows none who love like this.

  Except that madman, Don Quixote.

  Before his eyes, Aldonsa stands.

  That beastly sweat concerns him not

  Which all its earthbound toil

  Doth offer to the blissful sun!

  Aflame with ardor unexpired

  He loves alone with heart so true,

  That wretched madman, Don Quixote.

  That maid of low and common toil

  To Dulcinea he transformed.

  And bowing dawn before her feet

  He sings to her the sweetest hymns.

  Before that constant love of yours

  What means the heat of youthful love,

  Of fleeting love, O, Don Quixote!

  (Don Quixote, 1920)

  —S.D. CIORAN

  NOTES

  1. See Georgette Donchin, The Influence of French Symbolism on Russian Poetry. ’S-Gravenhage, 1958.

  2. Vladimir Solovyov, “Chteniya o Bogochelovechestve,” in Sobranie sochineniy VS. Solovyova, III, 118.

  3. Carl Proffer and Ellendea Proffer (editors), The Silver Age of Russian Culture. Ann Arbor: Ardis, 1971, p. 5.

  4. Ibid., p. 123.

  5. Ibid., p. 4.

  6. Ibid., p. 35.

  7. See M.I. Dikman, “Poeticheskoe tvorchestvo Fyodora Sologuba,” in Fyodor Sologub. Stikhotvoreniya (Biblioteka Poeta, Bolshaya seriya, Izd. 2-oe). Leningrad, 1978.

  8. See the Introduction to the second set of textual variants by S. Rabinowitz.

  9. G. Chulkov, Gody stranstviy. Moscow, 1930, pp. 146–7.

  10. F. Sologub, The Created Legend (Parts I-III). Translated by S.D. Cioran. Ann Arbor: Ardis, 1979.

  11. P. Kogan, Ocherki po istorii noveishey russkoy literatury. Moscow, 1910, III (vypusk I), p. 103.

  12. Maksim Gorky, Sobranie sochineniy v 30 tomakh. Moscow, 1949–55, XXX, p. 44.

  13. Ibid., p. 46.

  14. A.A. Izmailov, Literaturnyi Olimp. Moscow, 1911, p. 316.

  15. Ibid., pp. 309–10.

  16. Quoted by M.I. Dikman, p. 33.

  17. See Opyt oblastnago velikago russkago slovarya (izd. vtorym otdeleniem Imperatorskoy Akademii nauk). Sanktpeterburg, 1852, p. 126.

  18. See the Preface by Andrew Field to Fyodor Sologub, The Petty Demon, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1970.

  19. See W.H.E. Johnson, Russia’s Educational Heritage. Pittsburgh, 1950.

  20. For a more complete discussion of the works of Fyodor Sologub please see: Murl Barker, The Novels of Fyodor Sologub. Knoxville, 1977; Stanley Rabinowitz, Sologub’s Literary Children. Columbus, Ohio. 1980.

  21. Quoted by M.I. Dikman, p. 42.

  AUTHOR’S FOREWORD TO

  THE SECOND EDITION

  THE NOVEL The Petty Demon was begun in 1892 and completed in 1902. It was printed for the first time in the journal Questions of Life in 1905 (Nos. 6–11), but without the concluding chapters. The novel appeared for the fist time in a complete version in an edition by Shipovnik In March of 19107.

  In the printed reviews, as well as the oral ones which I was obliged to listen to, I noticed two contrary opinions.

  Some think that the author, being a very bad fellow, wished to present his own po
rtrait and depicted himself in the model of the teacher Peredonov. Due to his sincerity, the author didn’t wish to justify and embellish himself in any way, and for that reason smeared his visage with the blackest of colors. He embarked upon this amazing enterprise in order to deliver himself up to a kind of Calvary and to suffer for something or other. The result was an interesting and harmless novel.

  Interesting because the novel makes apparent what manner of bad people there are in the world. Harmless because the reader can say: “I’m not the one he’s writing about.”

  Others, who have a less harsh opinion of the author, think that the Peredonovism described in the novel is a rather widespread phenomenon.

  Several people even think that by peering closely into ourselves, each of us will find the unmistakable characteristics of Peredonov inside.

  Of these two opinions I give preference to the one which pleases me more, namely the second. I was not obliged to contrive and invent on my own. Everything that relates to the narrative incidents, the everyday life and the psychology in my novel is based on very precise observations, and I had sufficient “models” for my novel in my proximity. And if the work on the novel was so drawn out, then it was simply so that stern Ananke could be enthroned where once reigned Aisa, the disseminator of anecdotes.

  True, people love to be loved. They like to have the lofty and noble aspects of their souls depicted. Even in malefactors they like to see glimmerings of goodness, of the “divine spark,” as it was expressed in olden times. Therefore they cannot believe it when they are faced with a depiction that is faithful, precise, gloomy and wicked. They want to say:

  “He’s writing about himself.”

  No, my dear contemporaries, it is about you that I have written my novel about the Petty Demon and its sinister Nedotykomka, about Ardalyon and Varvara Peredonov, Pavel Volodin, Darya, Lyudmila and Valeriya Rutilova, Aleksandr Pylnikov and the others. About you.

  This novel is a mirror, skillfully fashioned. I polished it for a long while and worked zealously over it.

  Smooth is the surface of my mirror and pure its composition. Measured repeatedly and tested painstakingly, it possesses no distortion.

  The deformed and the beautiful are reflected in it with equal precision.

  January 1908

  AUTHOR’S FOREWORD TO

  THE FIFTH EDITION

  AT ONE TIME it seemed to me that Peredonov’s career was finished and that he would no longer emerge from the psychiatric hospital where he was placed after he cut Volodin’s throat. But lately rumors have started to reach me concerning the fact that Peredonov’s mental derangement had proved to be temporary and had not prevented him from finding himself at liberty after a certain time. Rumors, of course, that have little likelihood. I only make mention of them because in our times the unlikely does happen. I even read in one newspaper that I was getting ready to write the second part of The Petty Dimon.

  I heard that supposedly Varvara succeeded in convincing someone that Peredonov had cause for acting as he had, that more than once Volodin had uttered shocking words and had revealed shocking intentions and that before his death he had said something incredibly impertinent that had prompted the fateful denouement. I have been told that Varvara interested Princess Volchanskaya with this story, and the Princess, who earlier had kept forgetting to put in a word on Peredonov’s behalf, apparently now was actively involved in his fate.

  My information is unclear and contradictory on the subject of what happened to Peredonov after he came out of the hospital. Some people have told me that Peredonov joined the police service, as Skuchaev had indeed advised him, and was a councillor in a provincial administration. He somehow distinguished himself in this post and was making a good career.

  From others I have heard that it was not Ardalyon Borisych who was serving with the police, but a different Peredonov, a relative of our Peredonov. Ardalyon Borisych himself had not succeeded in joining the police service, or had not wished to. He took up literary criticism. Those very characteristics that had distinguished him earlier were now evident in his articles.

  This latter rumor seems even less like the truth than the first.

  In any event, if I manage to receive specific information about the subsequent activities of Peredonov I shall pass it on in ample detail.

  AUTHOR’S FOREWORD TO

  THE SEVENTH EDITION

  THE ATTENTIVE READERS of my novel Smoke and Ashes (the fourth part of The Created Legend) already know, of course, the path Ardalyon Borisych is now following.

  May 1913

  DIALOGUES

  (To the seventh edition)

  “My soul, why are you so dismayed?”

  “Because of the hatred that surrounds the name of the author of The Petty Demon. Many people who disagree in all else are agreed in this.”

  “Accept their spite and abuse in peace.”

  “But could it be that our work is not deserving of gratitude? Where does the hatred come from?”

  “This hatred can be likened to fear. You are too outspoken in arousing conscience, you are too frank.”

  “But is there really no benefit from my fidelity?”

  “You expect compliments. But this isn’t Paris here.”

  “Oh, indeed, it’s not Paris.”

  “You, my soul, are a true Parisienne, a child of European civilization. You’ve come in a fine dress and delicate sandals to a place where coarse peasant blouses and greased boots are worn. Don’t be surprised when at times a greased boot stamps rudely on your delicate foot. Its owner is a decent fellow.”

  “But so sullen. And so clumsy.”

  May 1913

  The Petty Demon

  “I wanted to burn her, the wicked witch.”

  I

  AFTER THE HOLIDAY MASS the parishioners headed home. Some lingered in the churchyard behind the white stone walls under the old lindens and maples and chatted. Everyone was attired in holiday dress, exchanging amiable looks, and it seemed as though people were living peacefully and harmoniously in this town. Eva happily. But it only seemed that way.

  Peredonov, a teacher at the gymnasium, stood in a circle of his friends, gazing sullenly at them with small swollen eyes from behind gold-framed spectacles, and said to them:

  “Princess Volchanskaya herself promised Varya, so it must be for certain. She said that as soon as Varya marries me then she will immediately take it upon herself to find me a position as an inspector.”

  “But how can you marry Varvara Dmitrievna?” asked the red-faced Falastov. “After all, she’s your first cousin! Has a new law been issued that allows marriage to first cousins?”

  Everyone burst into laughter. Peredonov’s ruddy and customarily indifferent, sleepy face grew furious.

  “Second cousin …” he growled, peering angrily past his companions.

  “But did the Princess promise you yourself?” asked the pale, tall and foppishly dressed Rutilov.

  “Not me but Varya,” Peredonov replied.

  “Well, there you go, and you believed it,” Rutilov said with animation. “It’s possible to say anything. Why didn’t you go and see the Princess yourself?”

  “Look, Varya and I did go but missed the Princess, we were all of five minutes late,” Peredonov said. “She had gone off to the country and was to return in three weeks, and I couldn’t possibly wait, I had to come back here for the examinations.”

  “There’s something suspicious,” said Rutilov and laughed, showing his rotten-looking teeth.

  Peredonov grew thoughtful. His companions dispersed. Only Rutilov stayed behind with him.

  “Of course,” Peredonov said, “I can marry anyone that I care to. Varvara isn’t the only one.”

  “It goes without saying, Ardalyon Borisych, that anyone would marry you,” confirmed Rutilov.

  They left the churchyard and slowly crossed the unpaved and dusty square. Peredonov said:

  “But what about the Princess? She would get angry if I threw Var
ya over.”

  “Who cares about the Princess!” Rutilov said. “You don’t have to pussy-foot around with her. Let her give you a position first, then you’ll have plenty of time to get hitched. Otherwise you’ll be doing it for nothing, blindly.”

  “That’s true …” Peredonov agreed thoughtfully.

  “You tell Varvara that,” Rutilov pressed him. “First the position, you say to her, otherwise you don’t really believe it. When you do get the position, then you can go ahead and marry whomever you take a fancy to. Best of all, take one of my sisters, there are three, choose any one of them. They’re educated young ladies, clever, and it’s not flattery to say that Varvara is no match for them. She can’t hold a candle to them.”

  “Hm-hm …” Peredonov made a lowing sound.

  “It’s true. What’s your Varvara? Here, take a whiff.”

  Rutilov bent over, broke off a shaggy stalk of henbane, crumpled it together with the leaves and dirty white flowers, and grinding it between his fingers, raised it to Peredonov’s nose. The latter screwed up his face from the unpleasant heavy smell. Rutilov said:

  “Grind her up and throw her away, and that’s your Varvara. She and my sisters, now brother, there’s a real difference for you. My young ladies are perky and full of life, just take any one of them and you won’t be dozing off. And they’re young too, the eldest is three times younger than your Varvara.”

  As was his custom, Rutilov uttered all of this quickly and cheerfully, with a smile, yet he was tall, narrow-chested and seemed consumptive and brittle. Sparse, closely cropped light hair stuck out rather miserably from beneath his new and stylish hat.