The Petty Demon

by Sologub, Fyodor

  Meanwhile, still thinking about Pylnikov, Varvara said:

  “Instead of going to play billiards every evening, you ought to drop in on the students at their lodgings sometimes. They know that teachers rarely look in on them and they don’t expect the inspector to come more than once a year, so all kinds of disgraceful things go on there, like card-playing and drunkenness. You ought to drop in on this girl in disguise. Go a little later when they’re getting ready for bed. It wouldn’t take much to catch her out or embarrass her.”

  Peredonov thought about it and guffawed.

  “Varvara is a cunning rascal,” he thought. “She knows a thing or two.”

  XII

  PEREDONOV WENT OFF to vespers in the gymnasium church. There he stood behind the students and kept an attentive eye on how they behaved. Several of them, it seemed to him, were being naughty, poking each other, whispering and laughing. He took note of who they were and tried to memorize their names. There were a lot of them and he was annoyed with himself because he hadn’t thought to take some paper and a pencil from home to write it down. He felt sad that the students were behaving themselves poorly and that no one was paying any attention to that although the headmaster and the inspector were both standing right there in the church with their wives and children.

  In actual fact the students were standing there in a well-behaved and modest manner. Some were unconsciously making the sign of the cross, others were thinking about something unconnected with the church and yet others were praying assiduously. Very rarely did anyone whisper something to his neighbor, only two or three words without turning his head, and the other would reply just as briefly and quietly, or even with just a quick movement, a glance, a shrugging of shoulders or a smile. But these small movements, which went unnoticed by the senior class prefect, produced an illusion of extreme disorderliness on the anxiety-ridden, but dull sensibilities of Peredonov. Even in a calm state Peredonov, like all vulgar people, was incapable of precisely evaluating minor events. Either he did not notice them, or he exaggerated their significance. But now, when he was upset by expectations and fears, his sensibilities served him even more poorly and little by little before his very eyes all of reality was becoming enshrouded in a mist of repulsive and wicked illusions.

  Besides, what had the students meant to Peredonov even earlier? Had they performed any other function than dragging pen and ink across paper and retelling in stilted language what at one time had been said in a human language! In all of his pedagogical activity Peredonov had sincerely not understood or thought about the fact that the students were just like people, just like adults. Only the bearded students at the gymnasium, with their awakening attraction to women, had suddenly become equals in his eyes.

  Having stood in the back for a while and accumulated enough melancholy impressions, Peredonov moved forward to the middle rows. There on the right, at the end of one of the rows, stood Sasha Pylnikov. He was praying modestly and frequently knelt down. Peredonov kept glancing at him and it was particularly pleasant for him to see Sasha on his knees, like someone being punished, and gazing directly in front towards the gleaming altar doors with an anxious and pleading expression on his face, with prayerfulness and sorrow in the dark eyes that were overshadowed with long, almost bluish-black lashes. He was swarthy and shapely and this was particularly noticeable when he was on his knees, calm and erect, as though beneath someone’s stern and observing eye. With his high and broad chest, as far as Peredonov was concerned, he looked completely like a girl.

  Peredonov firmly decided now to pay him a visit at his lodgings that very evening after vespers.

  People started to leave the church. They noticed that Peredonov wasn’t wearing his ordinary hat, as he always had done before, but rather his official cap with the cockade. Rutilov asked with a laugh:

  “What’s this, Ardalyon Borisych, now you’re showing off in fancy dress with your cockade? That’s what it means when a person is aiming for an inspectorship.”

  “Will soldiers have to salute you now?” Valeriya asked with affected naiveté.

  “Come now, what silliness!” Peredonov said angrily.

  “You don’t understand anything, Valerochka,” Darya said. “Soldiers have nothing to do with it! It’s only from the gymnasium students that Ardalyon Borisych will get much more respect than before.”

  Lyudmila laughed. Peredonov hastened to say his farewells to them in order to escape their sarcasm.

  It was still early to go to Pylnikov’s and he didn’t feel like going home. Peredonov walked along the dark streets, trying to think of where he could spend an hour. There were a lot of houses, lights were burning in many of the windows and at times voices could be heard through opened windows. People who were coming from church walked along the streets and there was the sound of gates and doors being opened and closed. People who were alien and hostile to Peredonov lived everywhere and some of them even now might be plotting ill against him. Perhaps someone was already wondering why Peredonov was alone at that late hour and where he was going. It seemed to Peredonov that someone was trailing him and lurking behind him. He felt melancholy. He hurried along without any purpose.

  He was thinking that every house contained its deceased. And all the people who had lived in these old houses about fifty years before, they had all died. He could still remember some of the deceased.

  “When a person dies, the house should be burned,” Peredonov thought with melancholy. “Otherwise it’s very frightening.”

  Olga Vasilyevna Kokovkina, with whom the gymnasium student Sasha Pylnikov lived, was the widow of a treasury official. Her husband had left her a pension and a small house in which she had enough space that she was able to set aside two or three rooms for lodgers. But she preferred gymnasium students. She was lucky in that she was always given the most modest students who studied properly and finished the gymnasium. In other lodgings a significant portion were made up of those students who wandered from one educational institution to the other and ended up as students with a smattering of subjects.

  Olga Vasilyevna, a skinny old woman, tall and erect, with a kind face that she nevertheless tried to make appear stern, and Sasha Pylnikov, who had been well-fed and sternly controlled by hid aunt, were sitting at tea. It was Sasha’s turn today to provide the jam from the country and for that reason he felt like the host and he was ceremoniously serving Olga Vasilyevna and his dark eyes were gleaming.

  There was a ring, and following that, Peredonov appeared in the dining room. Kokovkina was amazed at such a late visit.

  “I’ve come to have a look at our student,” he said. “To see how he’s getting on here.”

  Kokovkina tried to offer Peredonov some hospitality, but he refused. He wanted them to finish their tea as quickly as possible so that he could be alone with the student. They finished their tea and went to Sasha’s room, but Kokovkina wouldn’t leave them alone and she kept chattering on endlessly. Peredonov looked sullenly at Sasha, and the latter was bashfully silent.

  “Nothing will come of this visit,” Peredonov thought with annoyance.

  The maid called Kokovkina for Something. She left. With a melancholy feeling Sasha watched her leave. His eyes lost their glitter and were partially screened by his eyelashes and it seemed as though these eyelashes, overly long, cast a shadow over his entire face which was swarthy but had suddenly turned pale. He felt awkward in the presence of this sullen person. Peredonov sat down beside him, put his arm clumsily around him and without altering the impassive expression on his face, asked:

  “Well, Sashenka, did you pray to God nicely?”

  Sasha glanced at Peredonov with shame, and fear, then blushed and was silent.

  “Well? What about it? Did you?” Peredonov questioned.

  “I did,” Sasha said finally.

  “Goodness, just look at the blush on those cheeks,” Peredonov said. “Admit it now, you’re really a girl? A girl, you rascal!”

  “No I’m not a girl,” S
asha said and suddenly, getting angry with himself because of his bashfulness, he asked in a ringing voice: “Why do you say I look like a girl? It’s those students of yours at the gymnasium who’ve thought it up in order to tease me because I’m afraid of bad words. I’m not accustomed to saying them and I won’t say them for anything. Besides why should I say such vile things?”

  “Will your mama punish you?” Peredonov asked.

  “I don’t have a mother,” Sasha said. “Mama died a long time ago. I have an aunt.”

  “Well then, will your aunt punish you?”

  “Of course she would if I started to say vile things. What’s so nice about that?”

  “But how will your aunt find out?”

  “I don’t want to say them myself,” Sasha said calmly. “My aunt could hardly find out. Perhaps I would tell on myself.”

  “Who of your comrades says bad words?” Peredonov asked.

  Sasha blushed again and was silent.

  “Come now, tell me,” Peredonov insisted. “You are obliged to tell me, you mustn’t hide it.”

  “No one says them,” Sasha said with embarrassment.

  “But you yourself were just complaining.”

  “I wasn’t complaining.”

  “Why are you denying it?” Peredonov said angrily.

  Sasha felt caught in some kind of miserable trap. He said:

  “I was just explaining to you why some of my comrades tease me like a girl. But I don’t want to tattle on them.”

  “Now is that really the reason?” Peredonov asked spitefully.

  “It’s not nice,” Sasha said with vexed grin.

  “Well I’ll tell the headmaster so that they’ll make you tell,” Peredonov said maliciously.

  Sasha looked at Peredonov with angrily blazing eyes.

  “No! Please don’t tell, Ardalyon Borisych,” he begged. And it was audible from the impetuous sound of his voice that he was making an effort to beg and that he wanted instead to shout words that were bold and threatening.

  “No, I will tell him. Then you’ll see what you get for covering up vile things. You ought to have complained right away. Just you wait, you’ll get it.”

  Sasha stood up and started to twist his belt in his dismay. Kokovkina came.

  “A fine one your goody-goody is, what can I say,” Peredonov said spitefully.

  Kokovkina was frightened. She went hastily up to Sasha, sat down beside him. Her legs always gave way in the midst of excitement. She asked timidly:

  “But what is it, Ardalyon Borisych? What has he done?”

  “Why don’t you ask him,” Peredonov replied with sullen spite.

  “What is it, Sasha, what did you do wrong?” Kokovkina asked, touching Sasha’s elbow.

  “I don’t know,” Sasha said and burst into tears.

  “But what is it, what’s the matter with you that you’re crying?” Kokovkina asked.

  She laid her hands on the boy’s shoulders, pulled him over towards herself and didn’t notice that he felt awkward. He stood up, hunched over and covered his eyes with a handkerchief. Peredonov explained:

  “They’re teaching him bad words in the gymnasium, but he doesn’t want to say who’s doing it. He mustn’t hide it. Otherwise he’ll learn vile things himself and conceal the others.”

  “Oh, Sashenka, Sashenka, how could you do that! It’s not possible! Aren’t you ashamed!” Kokovkina said in dismay as she released Sasha.

  “I didn’t do anything,” Sasha said, weeping. “I didn’t do anything bad. They tease me because I can’t say bad words.”

  “Who’s saying bad words?” Peredonov asked again.

  “No one is saying them,” Sasha exclaimed desperately.

  “You see how he’s lying,” Peredonov said. “He ought to be properly punished. He should be punished so that he’ll reveal who is saying vile things, otherwise our gymnasium will be censured and we won’t be able to do anything.”

  “But you must forgive him, Ardalyon Borisych!” Kokovkina said. “How can he tell on his comrades? They won’t leave him in peace afterwards.”

  “He is obliged to tell,” Peredonov said angrily. “It can only do him good. We will take measures to punish them.”

  “But they’ll beat him up!” Kokovkina said uncertainly.

  “They won’t dare. If he’s afraid then let him tell in secret.”

  “Well, Sashenka, tell him in secret. No one will find out that you did.”

  Sasha wept in silence. Kokovkina drew him to herself, embraced him and for a long while whispered something in his ear. He shook his head negatively.

  “He doesn’t want to,” said Kokovkina.

  “When he’s reprimanded with a birch rod then he’ll start to talk,” Peredonov said fiercely. “Bring me a rod and I’ll make him talk.”

  “Olga Vasilyevna, what for?” Sasha exclaimed.

  Kokovkina stood up and embraced him.

  “Enough bawling now,” she said tenderly and sternly. “No one’s going to touch you.”

  “As you like,” Peredonov said. “But in that case I’ll have to tell the headmaster. I was thinking it would be better for him to keep it within the family. Perhaps your little Sashenka is the rascal. We still don’t know why they tease him like a girl. Perhaps it’s for a different reason. Perhaps they’re not the ones teaching him but he’s the one who is perverting the others.”

  Peredonov left the room angrily. Kokovkina followed him out. She said reproachfully:

  “Ardalyon Borisych, how can you upset the boy so much for goodness knows what! It’s a good thing that he still doesn’t understand what you’re saying.”

  “Well, goodbye,” Peredonov said angrily. “Only I will tell the headmaster. This must be investigated.”

  He left. Kokovkina went to console Sasha. Sasha was sitting sadly by they window and was looking at the starry sky. His dark eyes were already calm and strangely melancholy. Kokovkina silently caressed him on the head.

  “I’m to blame myself,” he said. “I let it slip why I was being teased and he kept on at me. He’s the most vulgar one. None of the students like him.”

  The following day Peredonov and Varvara were finally moving to a new apartment. Ershova was standing in the gateway and exchanging furious insults with Varvara. Peredonov hid from her behind the carts.

  They held a church service immediately in the new apartment. According to Peredonov’s calculations it was essential to show that he was a religious man. During the service the fragrance of the incense made him dizzy and induced an obscure mood in him that was almost prayerful.

  He was dismayed by one strange circumstance. A small creature of indeterminate profile came running out from somewhere: a small, gray spritely nedotykomka. It was tittering, quivering, and twirling around Peredonov. But when he reached his hand out to it, it quickly slipped away, ran off behind the door or under the cupboard, but a minute later it would reappear—and gray, faceless and spritely, it quivered and teased.

  Finally, as the service was ending, Peredonov bethought himself and whispered a counter-spell. The nedotykomka started to hiss ever so softly, compressed itself into a small ball and rolled away behind the door. Peredonov sighed with relief.

  “It would be nice if it rolled away for good. Maybe it’s living in this apartment, somewhere under the floor and it’ll start to come back again and tease me.”

  Peredonov had a cold and melancholy feeling.

  “Why are there all these unclean spirits in the world?” he thought.

  When the service was finished and when the guests had dispersed, Peredonov thought for a long while about where the nedotykomka could have hidden. Varvara went off to Grushina’s, but Peredonov set out in search and started to rummage through her things.

  “Maybe Varvara took it away in her pocket?” Peredonov thought. ‘Would it need much room? It could hide in her pocket and sit there until it was time to come out.”

  One of Varvara’s dresses drew Peredonov’s attention.
It was all frills, bows and ribbons, as though it had been sewn on purpose in order to hide something. Peredonov examined it for a long while and then, using a knife; forcefully tore out the pocket after partially cutting it free, threw it into the stove and then started to rip and cut the entire dress into tiny pieces. Obscure and strange thoughts were roaming through his mind, and in his heart he had a feeling of melancholy hopelessness.

  Varvara soon returned—Peredonov was still shredding up the remains of the dress. She thought that he was drunk and started to curse. Peredonov listened for a long while and then finally said:

  “What are you baying at, you fool! Maybe you’re carrying a devil around in your pocket. I have to look into what’s going on here.”

  Varvara was stunned. Satisfied with the impression he had created, he hurried off to find his cap and set out to play billiards. Varvara ran out into the front hall and while Peredonov was putting on his coat, she shouted:

  “Maybe it’s you who’s carrying a devil in your pocket, but there’s no devil in mine. Where would I get your devil from? Maybe you want me to order you one from Holland!”*

  The young official, Cherepnin, the same one about whom Vershina had told the story of how he had been peeking through the window, wanted to start courting Vershina after she became a widow. Vershina was not opposed to marrying a second time, but Cherepnin seemed too insignificant to her. Cherepnin became resentful. He happily yielded when Volodin tried to persuade him to smear tar over Vershina’s gates.

  He agreed, but later had afterthoughts. Suppose he was caught? It would be awkward, after all he was an official. He decided to hand the business over to others. Spending twenty-five kopecks to bribe two rowdy youths, he promised them a further fifteen kopecks each if they arranged it. And on one dark night the deed was done.

  If someone in Vershina’s house had opened the window after midnight, they would have heard in the street the light rustle of bare feet on the wooden sidewalk, a quiet whispering, some more soft noises as though someone were brushing the fence, then a gentle clattering, the quick thudding of the same feet going faster and faster, a distant burst of laughter, the alarmed barking of dogs.