The Petty Demon

by Sologub, Fyodor

  A youthful apprentice standing by the door snorted in amusement. The owner gave him a stern look. He had never been obliged to give a Spanish hairdo, and he didn’t know what a Spanish hairdo was or even if there were such a hairdo. But if the gentleman was asking for one, then one had to suppose that he knew what he wanted. The young hairdresser did not wish to reveal his ignorance. He said respectfully:

  “It’s quite impossible to do so with your hair, sir.”

  “And why can’t you?” Peredonov asked in an offended voice.

  “You have poorly nourished hair,” the hairdresser explained.

  “What should I do, soak it in beer or something?” Peredonov grumbled.

  “Gracious me, why beer!” the hairdresser replied politely with a smile. “The only thing is that bearing in mind that a sparse area is already showing up on your head, if any amount is cut off, then there just wouldn’t be sufficient left for a Spanish hairdo.”

  Peredonov felt defeated by the impossibility of having a Spanish haircut. He said despondently:

  “Well, cut it as you will.”

  “They’ve probably already bribed this hairdresser,” he thought, “so that he wouldn’t give me a distinctive haircut. I shouldn’t have said anything at home.” Obviously, while Peredonov was walking properly and gravely along the streets, Volodin had run through the back alleys and connived with the hairdresser.

  “May I spray your hair?” the hairdresser asked after he had finished his work.

  “Spray me with mignonette, and plenty of it,” Peredonov demanded. “Since you’ve gone and chopped up my hair in any old fashion, at least spice it up with mignonette.”

  “Forgive me, we don’t keep mignonette,” the hairdresser said with embarrassment. “Would you care for some balsam?”

  “You can’t do anything right,” Peredonov said woefully. “Go ahead and spray with what you have.”

  He returned home annoyed. The day had become windy. The wind was causing the gates to bang, hang gaping and laugh. Peredonov looked at them with melancholy. How were they supposed to get there? But everything took care of itself.

  Three large carriages had been provided—they just had to get in and go, otherwise the carriages would attract attention and the curious would gather. People might ride up or come running to have a look at the wedding. They arranged themselves in the seats and departed: Peredonov with Varvara, the Prepolovenskys with Rutilov, and Grushina with the rest of the ushers.

  Dust rose on the square. Peredonov could hear the pounding of axes. Barely visible through the dust, a wooden wall rose and grew erect. They were hewing out a fortress. There were glimpses of fierce, taciturn peasants in their red shirts.

  The carriages rolled past—the frightening vision flashed for a moment and then disappeared. Peredonov looked around in terror, but nothing could be seen now and he determined to tell no one about his vision.

  Peredonov was tormented by sorrow the whole day. Everything gazed at him with hostility, threatening omens emanated from everything. The sky was frowning. The wind blew directly into their faces and moaned about something. The trees were unwilling to provide shade—they had gathered it all in for themselves. The dust rose up in a long transparently gray serpent behind them. For some reason the sun kept hiding behind the clouds. Was it spying on him?

  The road was like a camel’s back. Bushes, groves, fields, streams beneath the hollow-sounding wooden tunnel bridges would suddenly arise unexpectedly from behind the low hills.

  “An eyebird flew past,” Peredonov said sullenly, peering into the misty off-white depths of the sky. “One eye and two wings, nothing else.”

  Varvara grinned. She thought that Peredonov was drunk from the morning. But she wasn’t arguing with him—otherwise, she thought, he might get angry and refuse to go through with the wedding ceremony.

  All four Rutilov sisters were already at the church, standing in a corner, hiding behind a column. Peredonov didn’t see them at first, but later, during the actual ceremony itself when they came out of their place of ambush and moved forward, he caught sight of them and took fright. In any event they didn’t do anything bad, and—what he had feared at first—they didn’t demand that he get rid of Varvara and marry one of them. All they did was laugh the whole while. And their laughter, which at first was quiet, resounded more and more loudly and wickedly in his ears, like the laughter of the implacable Furies.

  There were almost no outsiders in the church, only two or three old ladies who had appeared from somewhere. And a good thing too because Peredonov behaved stupidly and strangely. He gawked, grumbled, nudged Varvara, complained that it reeked of incense, wax and peasantry.

  XXIV

  PEREDONOV’S CAT WAS turning wild, snorting, not responding when called. It had gotten completely out of hand. It frightened Peredonov.

  Sometimes Peredonov would say a counter-spell against the cat.

  “I wonder if it really helps?” he thought. “That cat has powerful electricity in its fur, that’s the trouble.”

  Then once he came up with the idea that he ought to have the cat cropped. No sooner said than done. Varvara wasn’t at home. She had gone off to Grushina’s after slipping a bottle of cherry brandy into her pocket, so there was no one to interfere. Peredonov tied the cat to a cord after making a collar out of a handkerchief and took it off to the hairdresser’s. The cat was miaowing frantically, darting back and forth and resisting. In desperation it would sometimes attack Peredonov, but Peredonov kept it away with his walking stick. Little boys were running behind him in a mob, hooting and roaring with laughter. Passers-by stopped. People peered out of windows at the racket. Peredonov was sullenly pulling the cat by the cord, undismayed at anything.

  In any event he arrived with the cat and he said to the hairdresser:

  “Sir, shave the cat and as short as possible.”

  The young boys were thronging the door on the outside, roaring with laughter and clowning about. The hairdresser was offended and blushed. He said in a slightly trembling voice:

  “Excuse me, sir, we do not perform that kind of work! Nor have I ever been obliged to see any shaven cats. This must be the very latest style and it hasn’t reached us yet.”

  Peredonov listened to him in dull perplexity. He shouted:

  “Go ahead and say you don’t know how, you charlatan!”

  And he left, dragging the frantically miaowing cat behind. On the way he thought with melancholy that people everywhere were just laughing at him constantly and no one wanted to help him. A melancholy feeling weighed on his heart.

  Together with Volodin and Rutilov, Peredonov arrived at the Gardens to play billiards. An embarrassed billiard-marker announced to them:

  “You can’t play today, gentlemen.”

  “Why is that?” Peredonov asked spitefully. “Why can’t we?”

  “Excuse me, because there aren’t any billiard balls,” the billiard-marker said.

  “He was caught napping, the gawker,” the threatening cry of the bar-tender was heard from behind the partition.

  The billiard-marker shuddered, wriggled his ears which had suddenly turned red—it was almost a rabbit-like movement—and whispered:

  “They were stolen.”

  Peredonov cried out in fright:

  “What! Who stole them?”

  “No one knows,” the billiard-marker informed him. “It was as though no one was there and suddenly, you look, and no balls.”

  Rutilov was giggling and exclaiming:

  “Now there’s a story!”

  Volodin assumed an offended expression and upbraided the billiard-marker:

  “If people are allowed to steal the billiard balls here while you are in a different spot at the time, and the balls are gone, then you have to produce more balls in good time so that we’ll have something to play with. We came here, we wanted to play, but if there aren’t any balls, then how can we play?”

  “Stop whining, Pavlushka,” Peredonov said. “It’s re
volting enough without you. Marker, go and find some balls, we really have to play and in the meantime bring a couple of beers.”

  They started to drink the beer. But it was boring. No balls could be found. They cursed among themselves and scolded the billiard-marker. The latter felt guilty and kept silent.

  Peredonov espied fresh chicanery from his enemies in this theft.

  “Why?” he thought with melancholy and couldn’t understand.

  He went off into the Gardens, sat down on a bench overlooking the pond. He had never sat there before and he stared dully at the expanse of green water. Volodin sat down beside him, shared his mournfulness and gazed at the same pond with his sheep-like eyes.

  “Why is there a dirty mirror here, Pavlushka?” Peredonov asked and pointed his finger in the direction of the pond.

  Volodin bared his teeth and replied:

  “That’s not a mirror; Ardasha, that’s a pond. And since there’s no breeze now, the trees are reflected in it and that’s why it looks as though it’s a mirror.”

  Peredonov raised his eyes. Beyond the pond the Gardens were set off from the street by a fence. Peredonov asked:

  “But why is there a cat on the fence?”

  Volodin glanced in the same direction and said with a giggle:

  “If there was one it’s disappeared completely.”

  There wasn’t any cat. Peredonov had only fancied he had seen it. A cat with wide green eyes, his cunning and tireless enemy.

  Once again Peredonov started to think about the billiard balls. Who needed them? Had the nedotykomka gobbled them up? To be sure, there had been no sign of it that day, Peredonov thought. It had stuffed itself, had collapsed in bed somewhere and was, he expected, sleeping right then.

  Peredonov meandered homeward in a despondent mood.

  The west was dying out. A cloud wandered across the sky, roaming and stealing along—clouds have soft footwear—and spying. A dark sheen was smiling mysteriously around its dark edges. The shadows of houses and bushes wavered, whispered, sought someone over the river that flowed between the Gardens and the town. Meanwhile on this earth, in this dark and eternally hostile town, all the people he met were wicked and scornful. Everything was united in a general antagonism towards Peredonov. The dogs were roaring with laughter at him while the people greeted him with barking.

  The town ladies began to return Varvara’s visits. It was with a happy curiosity that several of them hastened to see what Varvara was like at home the very next day or the day after. Others put it off for a week or more. Yet others didn’t come at all. For example, Vershina didn’t come.

  Each day the Peredonovs expected return visits with nervous impatience. They would reckon up who hadn’t come yet. It was with particular impatience that they waited for the director and his wife. They waited and grew inordinately anxious. What if suddenly the Khripaches didn’t come?

  A week passed. Still no Khripaches. Varvara began to lose her temper and curse. The waiting plunged Peredonov into a decidedly depressed state. Peredonov’s eyes grew utterly vacant as though they had been extinguished and at times it seemed as though these were the eyes of a dead person. He suffered from absurd fears. Without any obvious pretext he suddenly began to fear objects of one type or another. For some reason or other he got the idea in his head, and was tormented by it for several days, that he was going to have his throat slit. He feared everything that was sharp and hid the knives and forks.

  “Perhaps,” he thought, “they’ve been charmed and had a spell cast over them. A person could cut himself on a knife.”

  “What do we need knives for?” he said to Varvara. “The Chinese eat with sticks.”

  Because of this they didn’t cook meat for a whole week and made do with cabbage soup and buckwheat porridge.

  Taking revenge on Peredonov for the fears she had experienced before their marriage, Varvara sometimes supported and encouraged him in the conviction that his whims were justified. She would tell him that he had many enemies and why shouldn’t they be jealous of him? More than once she teased Peredonov by saying that people had probably already denounced him and defamed him before the authorities and the Princess. And she rejoiced that he was obviously frightened.

  It seemed clear to Peredonov that the Princess was displeased with him. Could she really not have sent him an icon or a cake for the wedding? He thought that he ought to gain her favor, but how? With a falsehood, perhaps? By maligning someone, spreading slander and making denunciations? All women loved gossip, so maybe he ought to make up something amusing and immodest about Varvara and write the Princess. She would laugh and give him a post.

  But Peredonov didn’t know how to write that kind of letter and he grew frightened at the thought of writing to the Princess herself. Afterwards he forgot about this venture.

  Peredonov treated his ordinary guests to vodka and the cheapest port. But he bought madeira at three roubles a bottle for the director. Peredonov considered this wine to be extremely expensive, kept it in the bedroom and would only show it to his guests, saying:

  “This is for the headmaster.”

  Once Rutilov and Volodin were sitting at Peredonov’s. Peredonov showed them the madeira.

  “What’s so nice about looking at the outside!” Rutilov said with a giggle. “Treat us to some of the expensive madeira.”

  “You’re a fine one, what next!” Peredonov replied angrily. “And what will I serve the headmaster?”

  “The headmaster will drink a glass of vodka,” Rutilov said.

  “The headmaster mustn’t drink vodka, the director is supposed to have madeira,” Peredonov said earnestly.

  “But what if he likes vodka?” Rutilov insisted.

  “Well, what next, a general* isn’t about to like vodka,” Peredonov said confidently.

  “Treat us to some all the same,” Rutilov insisted.

  But Peredonov hastily carried the bottle off and there was the sound of the lock being snapped in the wardrobe where he hid the wine. Returning to his guests he started to talk about the Princess in order to change the subject. He said sullenly:

  “The Princess! She used to deal in rotten apples in the market, but she seduced a prince.”

  Rutilov roared with laughter and cried:

  “Do princes really go around markets?”

  “She certainly knew how to lure them,” Peredonov said.

  “You’re making up a cock-and-bull story to our faces,” Rutilov argued. “The Princess is a distinguished lady.”

  Peredonov gave him a spiteful look and thought: “He’s defending her, obviously he and the Princess are in it together. Obviously the Princess has bewitched him, it doesn’t matter that she lives far away.” Meanwhile the nedotykomka was bustling about, laughing soundlessly and shaking with laughter all the while. It reminded Peredonov of various frightening circumstances. He looked around timidly and whispered:

  “There’s a secret non-commissioned police officer in every town. He wears civilian dress, sometimes he works in the civil service, sometimes in a business, or does whatever else there is, but during the night, when everyone is asleep, he puts on a pale blue uniform and, presto, he turns into a police officer.”

  “But why the uniform?” Volodin inquired in a serious way.

  “You can’t put in an appearance before the authorities without a uniform, you’d be whipped,” Peredonov explained.

  Volodin started to giggle. Peredonov leaned over closer to him and whispered:

  “Sometimes he even leads the life of a changeling. You think it’s just a cat, but it’s a lie! That’s the policeman running along. No one can hide from a cat, and it can eavesdrop on everything.”

  Finally, after about a week and a half, the headmaster’s wife returned Varvara’s visit. She arrived with her husband on a weekday at four o’clock, all dressed up, gracious and scented with sweet violet. And it was totally unexpected for the Peredonovs. For some reason they had been expecting the Khripaches to come sooner, and on a
holiday. They were in a dither. Varvara had been in the kitchen, half-dressed, filthy. She dashed to change while Peredonov received the guests and he seemed as though he had only just woken up.

  “Varvara will be right here,” he mumbled. “She’s getting dressed. She was cooking. We have a new servant and she doesn’t know how to cook the way we like it, an utter fool.”

  Varvara emerged in a short while with a red frightened face and haphazardly dressed. She stuck a sweaty rather dirty hand at the guests and said in a voice trembling with agitation:

  “Forgive me, for making you wait. We didn’t know that you went visiting on weekdays.”

  “I rarely go out on a holiday,” Mrs. Khripach said. “The drunks are in the streets. Let the servant have that day to herself.”

  Somehow or other the conversation got underway and the politeness of the headmaster’s wife cheered Varvara up somewhat. The headmaster’s wife treated Varvara with a certain amount of disdain, yet was kindly—the way one would treat a repentant sinner to whom one had to show kindness, but with whom one might get soiled by contact. As though in passing she made several critical remarks about clothing and the household.

  Varvara tried to oblige the headmaster’s wife and the fearful trembling never left her red hands and her cracked lips. The headmaster’s wife was embarrassed by this. She tried to be even more polite, but she was overcome with an involuntary loathing. She tried to make Varvara understand by her entire behavior that no close friendship would ever be established between them. But since this was done with utter courtesy, Varvara did not understand and she flattered herself with the thought that she and the headmaster’s wife would be great friends.

  Khripach had the look of a person who was out of place but he concealed it with courage and skill. He refused the madeira. He had not become accustomed to drinking alcohol at that hour. He chatted about town news, about the impending changes in the makeup of the district court. But it was too apparent that he and Peredonov moved in different circles in local society.

  They didn’t stay for long. Varvara was overjoyed when they left. They had come and gone quickly. She said joyfully as she got undressed once more: