The Petty Demon

by Sologub, Fyodor

  From time to time Grushina organized parties for young people from whose number she was hoping to catch herself a husband. As a decoy she would invite family friends as well.(f)

  This was one of those kinds of parties. The guests arrived early.

  Paintings that were completely covered over with muslin hung on the walls of Grushina’s sitting room. In any event there was nothing indecent in them. When Grushina lifted the muslin coverings with a sly and immodest little grin, the guests would admire the poorly painted naked women.

  “What’s this, a crooked woman?” Peredonov said sullenly.

  “There’s nothing crooked about her,” Grushina defended the painting vehemently. “She’s just bent over like that.”

  “She’s crooked,” Peredonov repeated. “And her eyes don’t match, like yours.”

  “Well, a lot you understand!” Grushina said in an offended voice. “These paintings are very fine and expensive. Artists have to paint those kind of pictures.”

  Suddenly Peredonov burst into laughter. He had remembered the advice which he had given to Vladya the other day.

  “What are you neighing for?” Grishina asked.

  “Nartanovich, a student at the gymnasium, is going to set fire to his sister Marta’s dress,” he explained. “I advised him to do so.”

  “If he does that, then you’ve found a fool!” Grushina objected.

  “Of course he will,” Peredonov said confidently, “Brothers and sisters are always fighting. When I was little, that’s how I always played nasty tricks on my sisters. I beat up the young ones and I ruined the clothing of the older ones.”

  “Not all of them fight,” Rutilov said. “I don’t fight with my sisters.”

  “What do you do with them, make up to them, or something?” Peredonov asked.

  “You, Ardalyon Borisych, are a swine and a scoundrel, and I’m going to slap your face,” Rutilov said very calmly.

  “Well, I don’t care for those kinds of jokes,” Peredonov replied and moved away from Rutilov.

  “Otherwise,” he thought, “he’ll really do it, there’s something ominous in his face.”

  “She only has the one black dress,” he continued, in reference to Marta.

  “Vershina will sew her a new one,” Varvara said with malicious envy. “She’ll make her entire dowry for her wedding. Some beauty, even horses are spooked,” she grumbled softly and looked maliciously at Murin.

  “It’s time for you to get married,” Prepolovenskaya said. “What are you waiting for, Ardalyon Borisych?”

  The Prepolovenskys had seen by now that after the second letter Peredonov had firmly decided to marry Varvara. They themselves had believed the letter. They had begun to say that they had always been in favor of Varvara. There was nothing for them to gain by embroiling Varvara and Peredonov—it was advantageous for them to go on playing cards. As for Genya, there was nothing to be done, let her wait. They’d have to look for another prospective husband.

  Prepolovensky started to speak:

  “Of course, you have to get married. You’ll be doing the good deed and obliging the Princess. The Princess will be pleased that you’re getting married, so you’ll be obliging her and doing the good deed, and that’ll be good, otherwise, in general, you’ll be doing the good deed and the Princess will be pleased.”

  “That’s what I would say as well,” Prepolovenskaya said.

  But Prepolovensky couldn’t stop and seeing that everyone was already moving away from him, he sat down beside a young official and started to expound on the same topic to him.

  “I’ve made up my mind to get married,” Peredonov said. “Only Varvara and I don’t know what’s necessary to get married. Something has to be done, but I don’t know what.”

  “Well, it’s not a tricky business,” Prepolovenskaya said. “But if you wish, my husband and I will arrange everything for you, you just sit quiet and don’t think about a thing.”

  “Fine,” Peredonov said. “I’m agreed. Only make sure that everything will be nice and decent. I don’t begrudge the money.”

  “Everything will be just fine, don’t you worry,” Prepolovenskaya assured him.

  Peredonov continued to set down his conditions:

  “Out of miserliness others buy thin wedding rings, silver ones with gold plating, but I don’t want that, I want real gold ones. And instead of wedding rings I even want to order wedding bracelets—that would be more expensive and prestigious.”

  Everyone laughed.

  “You can’t have bracelets,” Prepolovenskaya said, grinning slightly. “You have to have rings.”

  “Why can’t I?” Peredonov asked with annoyance.

  “Because it’s not done like that.”

  “Well maybe it is done,” Peredonov said mistrustfully. “I’m going to ask the priest about it as well. He knows better.”

  Giggling, Rutilov advised:

  “Ardalyon Borisych, better you order wedding belts.”

  “Well, I don’t have enough money for that,” Peredonov replied without noticing the sarcasm. “I’m not a banker.(g) But just the other day I had a dream in which I was getting married. I had a satin dress coat on and Varvara and I were wearing gold bracelets. And two headmasters were standing behind us, holding wedding wreaths over our heads and singing hallelujah.”

  “I had an interesting dream last night,” Volodin declared. “But I don’t know what the meaning of it was. Supposedly I was sitting on a throne and wearing a golden crown. In front of me was grass and there were sheep on the grass, nothing but sheep and more sheep—baa-baa-baa. So all the sheep were walking around doing this with their heads, and going baa-baabaa all the while.”

  Volodin went strolling through the rooms, shaking his forehead, puffing out his lips and bleating. The guests laughed. Volodin sat down on the spot, gazed blissfully at everyone, screwed up his eyes with pleasure and then he gave his sheeplike bleating laugh.

  “Well, what happened next?” Grushina asked, winking at the guests.

  “Well, nothing but sheep and more sheep, and at that point I woke up,” Volodin concluded.

  “Sheep dreams for a sheep,” Peredonov grumbled. “Big deal being king of the sheep.”

  “I had a dream,” Varvara said with an insolent grin. “But I can’t tell it in front of men, I’ll tell it to you alone.”

  “Ach, my dear Varvara Dmitrievna, in a word the same thing happened to me,” Grushina replied, giggling and winking at everyone.

  “Tell us, we’re modest men, sort of like women,” Rutilov said.

  The rest of the men begged Varvara and Grushina to tell their dreams. But the latter exchanged looks, laughed foully and wouldn’t tell.(h)

  They sat down to play cards. Rutilov assured Peredonov that he was playing excellently. Peredonov believed him. But that day, as usual, he was losing. Rutilov was winning. That made him extremely happy and he talked with greater animation than usual.

  The nedotykomka was teasing Peredonov. It was hiding somewhere close by. It would show itself at times, popping out from behind the table or from behind someone’s back and then hiding again. It seemed as though it were waiting for something. It was frightening. The very look of the cards frightened Peredonov. There were two queens together on each card.

  “But where’s the third one?” Peredonov wondered.

  He dully examined the queen of spades, then he turned it over—may be the third one was hiding on the back.

  Rutilov said:

  “Ardalyon Borisych is looking at the backside of his queen.”

  Everyone burst into laughter.

  Meanwhile, two young police officials were playing skat off to the side. They played their hands in a lively fashion. The one who won laughed with joy and made a long nose at the other. The loser got angry.

  It began to smell of food. Grushina invited the guests into the dining room. Everyone went, jostling one another and affecting civilized manners. They distributed themselves at the table in a hapha
zard fashion.(i)

  “Eat, ladies and gentlemen,” Grushina invited. “Eat, my friends, stuff yourselves from nose to toes.”

  “If you fill your plate, the hostess feels great,” Murin cried joyfully. It made him cheerful to look at the vodka and think that he was winning.

  Volodin and the two young officials helped themselves more zealously than all the rest. They selected the better and more expensive items and devoured the caviar greedily. Grushina said with a strained laugh:

  “Our Pavel Vasilyevich is sharp-eyed and high—straight past the bread and directly to the pie.”

  She hadn’t bought the caviar for him! And under the pretext of serving the ladies, she moved all the better things away from him. But Volodin didn’t lose heart and satisfied himself with what was left. He had already managed to eat many of the good things at the very start and now it made no difference to him.

  Peredonov gazed at the people chewing and it seemed to him that they were all laughing at him. Why? What for? He ate everything that came his way with a frenzy, he ate slovenly and greedily.(j)

  After supper they played cards again, But soon Peredonov got fed up. He threw his cards down and said:

  “To hell with you! No luck. I’m fed up! Varvara, let’s go home.” The other guests followed suit.

  In the entry way Volodin saw that Peredonov had a new walking stick. Grinning, he turned it around for examination and asked:

  “Ardasha, why are the fingers curled up here? What does it mean?”

  Peredonov angrily took the stick out of his hand, raised the knob with its carved depiction of a rude gesture in dark wood to Volodin’s nose and said:

  “A fig to you with butter on it.”

  Volodin produced an offended expression.

  “If you please, Ardalyon Borisych,” he said, “I eat my bread with butter and I don’t wish to eat a fig with butter.”

  Without listening to him, Peredonov was assiduously wrapping his neck up in his scarf and buttoning his coat up with all the buttons. Rutilov said laughingly:

  “What are you wrapping yourself up for, Ardalyon Borisych? It’s warm.” “Health is the most precious thing of all,” Peredonov replied.

  Out on the street it was quiet. The street had settled down in the gloom and was softly snoring. It was dark, melancholoy and damp. Heavy clouds were wandering overhead. Peredonov grumbled:

  “Why has it turned dark?”

  But he wasn’t afraid now—he was walking with Varvara and wasn’t alone.

  Soon it started to rain, a fine, rapid and prolonged rain. Everything had turned still and only the rain was babbling something that was insistent, rapid and breathless—inaudible, monotonous and melancholy words.

  Peredonov sensed the reflection Of his melancholy and fear in the guise of nature’s hostility towards him. But that interior life in nature that defied exterior definition, that life which alone could create genuine relations, profound and manifest, between man and nature—no, he had no sense whatsoever of that kind of life. For that reason, all of nature seemed to him to be replete with petty human emotions. Blinded by the delusions of the individual and of separate being, he did not comprehend the Dionysian elemental ecstasies that were exultant and rampant in nature. He was blind and pitiful, like many of us.

  XXIII

  THE PREPOLOVENSKYS ASSUMED the responsibility for organizing the wedding. They decided to have the marriage in a village about six versts from the town—it was awkward for Varvara to appear before the altar in the town after they had been living together for so many years and pretending to be relatives. They concealed the date the wedding was set for. The Prepolovenskys circulated the rumor that the wedding was taking place on a Friday, but in actual fact the wedding was to be on a Wednesday afternoon. They did this so that the curious would not show up from town. More than once Varvara repeated to Peredonov:

  “Ardalyon Borisych, don’t you go blabbing when the wedding’s to take place, otherwise people will get in the way.”

  Peredonov unwillingly produced the money for the wedding expenses, making fun of Varvara. Sometimes he would bring his walking stick with the rude gesture on the knob and say to Varvara:

  “Kiss my fig and I’ll give you the money, if you don’t, then I won’t.”

  Varvara would kiss the fig.

  “So what, my lips won’t split from it,” she would say.

  They kept the date of the wedding secret even from the ushers right up until the very day so that they wouldn’t go blabbing it. First they invited Rutilov and Volodin to be ushers. Both agreed willingly: Rutilov was anticipating an amusing story; Volodin was flattered to play such an important part in such an outstanding event in the life of such a respected person. Then Peredonov got it into his head that he needed another usher. He said:

  “You’ll have one, Varvara, but I need two, one isn’t enough. It’ll be difficult to hold the wreath over my head, I’m a tall person.”

  And Peredonov invited Falastov to be his second usher. Varvara grumbled:

  “Why the devil him, there are two already, why another one?”

  “He’s got golden spectacles, it’ll look more important with him there,” Peredonov said.

  The morning of the wedding day, Peredonov washed in warm water, as always, so that he wouldn’t catch cold and then he asked for some rouge, explaining:

  “Now I have to do myself up every day, otherwise people will think that I’m decrepit and I won’t be appointed inspector.”

  Varvara begrudged her rouge, but she had to give way. And Peredonov rouged his cheeks. He muttered:

  “Veriga himself puts rouge on so that he’ll seem younger. I can’t get married with white cheeks.”

  Afterwards, when he had locked himself in the bedroom, he determined to mark himself up so that Volodin couldn’t change places with him. He smeared the letter “P” in ink on his chest, his stomach, his elbows and on various other parts.

  “I ought to have marked up Volodin as well, but how could I do it? If he saw it he’d wipe it off,” Peredonov thought with melancholy.

  Then the thought entered his head that it wouldn’t be a bad idea to put on a corset, otherwise he might be taken for an old man if by chance he had to bend over. He asked Varvara for a corset. But Varvara’s corsets proved to be too tight, no one would do up.

  “Should have bought one earlier,” he grumbled angrily. “No one thinks of anything.”

  “What men wear corsets?” Varvara protested. “No one does.”

  “Veriga wears one,” Peredonov said.

  “So Veriga is an old man, whereas you, Ardalyon Borisych, are a man in his prime, thank God.”

  Peredonov smiled with self-satisfaction, looked in the mirror and said:

  “Of course, I’ll live for another hundred and fifty years.”

  The cat sneezed under the bed. Varvara said with a smirk:

  “There’s the cat sneezing, it means it’s true.”

  But Peredonov suddenly frowned. He had already grown frightened of the cat and its sneezing seemed a wicked ruse to him.

  “It’ll go sneezing out something here it shouldn’t,” he thought, crawled under the bed and started to chase the cat. The cat miaowed frantically, crouched against the wall and suddenly with a loud and sharp miaow, darted through Peredonov’s hands and scampered out of the room.

  “The Dutch devil!” Peredonov cursed it angrily.

  “It certainly is a devil,” Varvara agreed, “That cat has become completely wild, it won’t let you stroke it, just as though the devil has settled in it.”

  The Prepolovenskys sent for the ushers early in the morning. Around about ten o’clock everyone had gathered at Peredonov’s. Grushina came with Sofiya and her husband. Vodka and snacks were served. Peredonov didn’t eat much and was thinking with melancholy of how he could differentiate himself even more from Volodin.

  “He’s curled his hair like a sheep,” he thought spitefully and suddenly had the idea that he could comb his
hair in a special way. He got up from the table and said:

  “You go ahead and eat and drink, I don’t begrudge it, but I’m going to the hairdresser’s to get a Spanish hairdo.”

  “What’s a Spanish hairdo?” Rutilov asked.

  “Just wait, you’ll see.”

  When Peredonov had gone to have his hair cut, Varvara said:

  “He’s always thinking up all kinds of fresh tricks. He fancies he’s seeing devils all the time. He ought to be knocking back less raw brandy, the damned sponge!”

  Prepolovenskaya said with a cunning grin:

  “Soon as you get married, Ardalyon Borisych will get his post and he’ll calm down.”

  Grushina giggled. She was amused by the secretiveness of this marriage and she was incited by an urge to arrange some kind of shameful spectacle, but to do it in a way so that she wouldn’t be implicated. The evening before she had told some of her friends on the sly about the time and place of the wedding. This morning she had summoned the younger of the locksmith’s sons, given him five kopecks and had put him up to waiting outside town for the arrival of the newlyweds towards evening so that rubbish and paper could be thrown into their carriage. The locksmith’s son agreed happily and gave a solemn oath not to betray her. Grushina reminded him:

  “But you betrayed Cherepnin as soon as they started to whip you.”

  “We were fools,” the locksmith’s son said. “But now even if they hanged us it wouldn’t matter.”

  And by way of sealing his oath, the locksmith’s son ate a fistful of earth. Grushina gave him a further three kopecks for that.

  At the hairdresser’s Peredonov asked for the owner himself. The owner, a young man who had finished the town school not long before and who had read books from the rural council library, was just finishing some landowner whom Peredonov didn’t know. He soon finished and came up to Peredonov.

  “First let him go,” Peredonov said angrily.

  The landowner paid up and left. Peredonov sat down in front of the mirror.

  “I need a haircut and I want my hair styled,” he said. “I have some important business today, very special business, so I want you to give me a Spanish hairdo.”