The Petty Demon

by Sologub, Fyodor

  Suddenly there was a noise in the front hall. Peredonov and Varvara took fright. His eyes were riveted on the door. Varvara crept stealthily up to the door in the living room and opened it a crack, peeked through and then just as quietly, on tip-toe, balancing herself with her arms and smiling distractedly, returned to the table. Shrill cries and a racket were coming from the entry way as though a struggle was underway there. Varvara whispered:

  “It’s that bag, Ershova, drunk as drunk can be. Natashka isn’t letting her in but she’s still trying to barge her way into the living room.”

  “What are we supposed to do?” Peredonov asked fearfully.

  “We have to move into the living room,” Varvara decided, “so that she doesn’t sneak in here.”

  They went into the living room and shut the doors firmly behind them. Varvara went out into the front hall with the faint hope of detaining the landlady there or seating her in the kitchen. But the insolent woman forced her way into the living room anyway. With hands on hips she stopped at the doorway and spouted words of abuse by way of a general greeting. Peredonov and Varvara fussed around her and tried to sit her down on a chair closer to the front hall and as far as possible from the dining room. Varvara brought her out a tray of vodka, beer and pastries from the kitchen. But the landlady wouldn’t sit down, ate nothing and strained to get into the dining room but just couldn’t identify where the door was. She was flushed, bedraggled and filthy, and she smelled of vodka from a long way off. She was screaming:

  “No, you seat me at your table. What do you mean by serving me on a tray! I want it on a table cloth. I’m the landlady, so you give me some respect. Don’t look at me like I’m drunk. I’m still a decent woman, I’m still my husband’s wife.”

  Varvara, with a cowardly and impudent smirk, said:

  “Don’t we know it.”

  Ershova winked at Varvara, burst into a hoarse laughter and snapped her fingers jauntily. She was becoming increasingly impudent.

  “Cousin!” she shouted, “we know what kind of cousin you are. And why doesn’t the headmaster’s wife come to visit you? Eh? Well?”

  “Stop shouting,” Varvara said.

  But Ershova started to shout even more loudly:

  “How dare you give me orders! I’m in my own house and I’ll do what I want. If I feel like it I’ll kick you out of here right this minute so there won’t be hide nor hair of you. Only I’m being very gracious towards you. Live as you will, I don’t mind, just don’t go causing a nuisance.”

  Meanwhile, Volodin and Prepolovenskaya were huddling meekly by the window and keeping as quiet as can be. Prepolovenskaya had the trace of a grin as she kept glancing sideways at the rowdy woman, pretending to look outside. Volodin sat with an expression of offended importance on his face.

  For the moment Ershova had become good-humored and said to Varvara in an amicable fashion while smiling drunkenly and cheerfully and clapping her on the back:

  “No, you just listen to what I’m going to say to you. You sit me down at your table and serve me something grand to drink. And serve me some real spice cakes. Have some respect for your landlady, really, you dear girl of mine.”

  “Here are some pastries for you,” Varvara said.

  “I don’t want pastries, I want some really grand spice cakes,” Ershova started to shout, waving her arms about and smiling blissfully. “The ladies and gents are stuffing themselves with nice tasty spice cakes, real tasty ones!”

  “I don’t have any cakes for you,” Varvara replied, growing bolder from the fact that the landlady was getting more cheerful. “Here, you’re getting pastries, so stuff yourself.”

  Suddenly, Ershova figured out where the door into the dining room was. They were too late to stop her. Bowing her head, her fists clenched, she burst into the dining room after flinging the door open with a crash. There she stopped at the threshold, caught sight of the spattered wallpaper and gave a shrill whistle. She put her hands on her hips, planted one foot ostentatiously and screamed furiously:

  “So, in actual fact, you want to leave town!”

  “Come now, Irina Stepanovna,” Varvara said in a trembling voice. “We weren’t even thinking of it, enough of this tomfoolery.”

  “We aren’t going anywhere,” Peredonov confirmed. “We like it here just fine.”

  The landlady wasn’t listening, she stepped up to a dumbfounded Varvara and shook her fists in her face. Peredonov was standing behind Varvara. He would have run away but he was curious to see how the landlady and Varvara would lay into each other.

  “I’ll stand you on one foot, yank on the other and tear you in half!” Ershova screamed fiercely.

  “Come now, Irina Stepanovna,” Varvara tried to convince her. “Stop, we have guests.”

  “Let’s have your guests here too!” Ershova shouted. “What do I care about your guests anyway!”

  Stumbling, Ershova plunged into the living room and suddenly changing both her speech and her entire behavior completely, mildly addressed Prepolovenskaya as she gave her a deep bow and almost collapsed onto the floor:

  “My dear madam, Sofiya Efimovna, forgive me, drunken woman that I am. Only listen to what I’m going to tell you. Here you are coming to visit them and do you know what she says about your cousin? And to whom? To me, the drunken wife of a shoemaker! Why? So I’ll tell everyone, that’s why?”

  Varvara turned a deep crimson and said:

  “I never said anything to you.”

  “You didn’t? You, a foul libertine?” Ershova started to shout, stepping up to Varvara with clenched fists.

  “Quiet down,” Varvara muttered with embarrassment.

  “No I won’t,” Ershova screamed maliciously and turned to Prepolovenskaya once more. “She told me, the vile woman did, that your cousin is apparently carrying on with your husband.”

  Sofiya flashed an angry and cunning glance at Varvara, stood up and said with feigned laughter:

  “I thank you most humbly I never expected that.”

  “You’re lying!” Varvara shrieked spitefully at Ershova.

  Ershova gave an angry boot, stomped her feet and shook her hand at Varvara and immediately turned to Prepolovenskaya once more:

  “And the things, dear lady, that the gentleman says about you! That apparently earlier you used to gad about and only got married afterwards! That’s the kind they are, the vilest of people! Spit in their mugs, my good madam, don’t have anything to do with these kind of utterly disgusting people.”

  Prepolovenskaya blushed and silently went out into the front hall. Peredonov ran after her trying to make excuses.

  “She’s lying, don’t you believe her. Only once in her presence did I say that you were a fool and that was only out of anger and, by God, I never said anything more. She’s making it up herself.”

  Prepolovenskaya replied calmly:

  “Come now, Ardalyon Borisych! I can see that she’s drunk and she herself doesn’t know what she’s spouting on about. Only why do you allow all this to go on in your home?”

  “Just try to imagine,” replied Peredonov, “what can you do with her!”

  Angry and embarrassed, Prepolovenskaya put on her jacket. Peredonov didn’t think to help her. He muttered a few things more but she was no longer listening to him. Then Peredonov returned to the living room. Ershova started to reproach him noisily. Varvara ran out on the porch and tried to console Prepolovenskaya:

  “You know what a fool he is, he doesn’t know himself what to say.”

  “Enough of your worrying,” Prepolovenskaya replied to her. “A drunken old woman will say all sorts of things.”

  Outside, around the house where the porch fronted, stinging nettles grew thick and high. Prepolovenskaya smiled slightly and the final shadow of displeasure disappeared from her white and plump face. Once more she grew friendly and amiable with Varvara. The insult would be avenged without any quarrel. They walked together into the garden to wait out the landlady’s onslaught.

&
nbsp; Prepolovenskaya kept looking at the nettles that grew along the fences in abundance. She finally said:

  “You have a lot of nettles. Do you need them all?”

  Varvara laughed and replied:

  “Now what would I need them for!”

  “If you don’t mind I should like to gather some from you, we don’t have any,” Prepolovenskaya said.

  “What do you need them for?” Varvara asked in amazement.

  “I’ve got a use for them,” Prepolovenskaya said laughingly.

  “Honey, tell me what for?” Varvara asked with curiosity.

  Leaning over to Varvara’s ear Prepolovenskaya whispered:

  “Rub yourself with nettles and you won’t lose any weight. My Genichka became such a fatty from using nettles.”

  She was aware that Peredonov gave preference to fat women and disapproved of skinny ones. Varvara was crushed by the fact that she was slender and getting thinner. How could she put some more weight on? That was one of her most important concerns. She had asked everyone whether they knew of any means. Now Prepolovenskaya was certain that Varvara, following her suggestion, would zealously rub herself all over with nettles and in this way punish herself.

  III

  PEREDONOV AND ERSHOVA came outside. He muttered:

  “Well, who would have thought it possible.”

  She was shouting at the top of her voice and was happy. They were going to dance. Prepolovenskaya and Varvara crept back into the rooms through the kitchen and sat down by the window to watch what would happen outside.

  Peredonov and Ershova took hold of each other and started up a dance around the pear tree. Peredonov’s face retained its customary dull expression and displayed nothing. The gold spectacles and the short hair on his head were bobbing up and down mechanically as though on some inanimate thing. Ershova was squealing, shouting and waving her hands while her whole body reeled.

  She shouted to Varvara through the window:

  “Hey, you prig, come on out and dance! You ashamed of our company?”

  Varvara turned away.

  “To hell with you! I’m dead on my feet!” Ershova shouted, collapsed on the grass and pulled Peredonov down with her.

  They sat a while in each other’s arms and then they started dancing again. And so it continued a number of times: first they would dance a while, then rest under the pear tree, on a bench or right on the grass.

  Volodin was genuinely enjoying himself looking out the window at the dancers. He was roaring with laughter, making killingly funny faces, clowning, bending his knees up and screeching:

  “They’re really going at it now! Great fun!”

  “Damned bitch!” Varvara said angrily.

  “Bitch,” Volodin agreed, laughing. “Just you wait, my dear old landlady, I’m going to do you a nice favor. Let’s make a mess in the living room too. It doesn’t matter now, she won’t be back today, she’ll fag herself out there on the grass and then go home to sleep.”

  He dissolved in a bleating laugh and started to prance like a sheep. Prepolovenskaya played the instigator:

  “Of course, go ahead and make a mess, Pavel Vasilyevich, no need to play up to her. If she does come then you can tell her that she did it herself in a drunken state.”

  Jumping up and down and guffawing, Volodin ran off into the living room and started to scrape the wallpaper with the soles of his shoes.

  “Varvara Dmitrievna, give me some rope,” he cried.

  Waddling like a duck, Varvara crossed the living room into the bedroom and brought back the end of a rope that was shredded and knotted. Volodin made a noose, stood a chair in the middle of the room and hung the noose on the lamp hook.

  “That’s for the landlady!” he shouted. “So she’ll have something to hang herself with out of anger when you move out.”

  Both women squealed with laughter.

  “Give me a bit of paper,” Volodin shouted, “and a pencil.”

  Varvara rummaged around in the bedroom again and brought out a scrap of paper and a pencil. Volodin wrote “for the landlady” and fastened the paper to the noose. He accompanied all of this with amusing faces. Then once more he began to jump up and down furiously along the walls, pounding away at them with the soles of his shoes and shaking with laughter the whole time. The entire house was filled with his squealing and bleating laughter. The white cat, its ears laid back in fright, kept peering out of the bedroom and obviously didn’t know where it should flee to.

  Peredonov finally extricated himself from Ershova and returned home alone. Ershova had in fact exhausted herself and had gone home to sleep. Volodin greeted Peredonov with a joyful guffaw and cry:

  “We’ve made a mess in the living room too! Hurray!”

  “Hurray!” Peredonov cried and abruptly burst into a loud laugh just as though he were firing off a salvo of his laughter.

  The women shouted “hurray” as well. A general revelry commenced. Peredonov cried:

  “Pavlushka, let’s dance!”

  “Let’s, Ardalyon, old boy,” Volodin replied with a stupid giggle.

  They danced away beneath the noose, kicking out their feet in a clumsy fashion. The floor was trembling under Peredonov’s heavy stomping.

  “Ardalyon Borisych is dancing his heart out,” Prepolovenskaya noted with a slight smile.

  “You’re telling me, he’s full of quirks,” Varvara replied peevishly, nevertheless admiring Peredonov.

  She sincerely thought that he was a handsome and fine fellow. His most stupid actions seemed only proper to her. He was neither ridiculous nor despicable to her.

  “Let’s hold a funeral service for the landlady!” Volodin cried.

  “Give me a pillow!”

  “What won’t they think up!” Varvara said with a laugh.

  She tossed a pillow in a filthy cover out of the bedroom. The pillow was placed on the floor as the landlady and they started to perform her funeral in wild and squealing voices. Afterwards they called in Natalya and made her turn the handle on the music-box While they themselves, all four of them, danced a quadrille, making absurd faces and kicking their feet up high.

  After the dancing Peredonov was overcome with generosity. A gloomy and sullen animation gleamed on his swollen face. An almost mechanical decisiveness took possession of him—perhaps a consequence of the intensified physical activity. He pulled out his wallet, counted off several bank notes and with an arrogant and conceited expression tossed them in Varvara’s direction.

  “Take it, Varvara!” he shouted. “Make yourself a wedding dress.”

  The bank notes scattered over the floor. Varvara gathered them up smartly. She was not in the least offended by this manner of presentation. Prepolovenskaya thought spitefully: “We’ll still see which one gets him.” And she gave a venomous smile. Volodin, of course, never thought to help Varvara pick up the money.

  Prepolovenskaya soon left. In the passage she ran into a new guest, Grushina.

  Marya Osipovna Grushina, a young widow, had a prematurely wasted appearance. She was slender and her dry skin was completely covered in delicate little wrinkles seemingly filled with dust. Her face was not lacking in pleasantness, but her teeth were dirty and black. The hands were slender the fingers long and prehensile with dirt under the fingernails. Superficially it wasn’t that she seemed very dirty. Rather she produced the impression that she never washed and merely shook herself out together with her clothes. One had the feeling that if she were struck several times with a carpet beater, a column of dust would rise to the very heavens. The clothing on her hung in rumpled folds as though it had only just been pulled out of a tightly trussed up bundle where it had lain all crushed together for a long while. Grushina lived on a pension, the income from petty trading in secondhand goods and the interest on property secured loans. For the most part she carried on immodest conversations and attached herself to men with the desire of finding a husband. Unmarried officials were constantly renting a room in her house.

&nbs
p; Varvara gave Grushina a joyful welcome: she had business that concerned her. Grushina and Varvara immediately started to talk about the maid in a whisper. A curious Volodin sat dawn with them and listened. Peredonov sat sullenly at the table by himself and kneaded the edge of the table cloth in his hands.

  Varvara was complaining to Grushina about her Natalya. Grushina told her about a new servant, Klavdiya, and praised her highly. They decided to go for her right away to Samorodina River where she was living in the meanwhile at the home of an excise duty official who had received a transfer to another town a few days before. The only thing that stopped Varvara was the name. She asked in bewilderment:

  “Klavdiya? But what will I call her? Klashka or something?”

  Grushina advised her:

  “You’ll call her Klavdyushka.”

  Varvara liked that. She repeated:

  “Klavdyushka, dyushka.”

  And she gave a screeching laugh. It should be noted that in our town pigs are called dyushkas. Volodin started to make an oinking sound. Everyone burst into laughter.

  “Dyushka, dyushenka,” Volodin prattled between fits of laughter as he screwed up his stupid face and puffed out his lips.

  And he went on oinking and playing the fool until he was told that he was a bore. Then he went off with an offended expression and sat beside Peredonov and lowering his abrupt forehead like a sheep he stared at the stained tablecloth.

  Varvara decided that she would buy the material for her wedding dress at the same time that she went to Samorodina River. She always made the rounds of the stores together with Grushina. The latter would help her to choose and to bargain.

  Behind Peredonov’s back Varvara stuffed Grushina’s deep pockets with various victuals, sweet pastries and candies for her children. Grushina guessed that Varvara was going to be greatly in need of her services that day.

  Varvara could not walk a great deal because of her narrow shoes and high heels. She would quickly tire. For that reason she rode in cabs although the distances were not great in our town. Lately she had become a frequent visitor at Grushina’s. The cabbies had already taken note of that. All in all there were about two dozen of them. After seating her they no longer asked where to take her.