The Petty Demon

by Sologub, Fyodor

  “Mamochka, mamochka, forgive me, I won’t do anything like that again!”

  “Never mind, sweetheart, never mind,” the mother replied. “Get undressed quickly, it’ll be very good for you. Never mind, don’t worry, it’ll soon heal,” she consoled him and deftly undressed Antosha.

  The half-undressed Antosha resisted, kicked out with his feet and cried.

  “Help me, Ardalyon Borisych,” Yuliya Petrovna said in a loud whisper. “He’s such a little bandit, I really didn’t know whether I could handle him alone.”

  Peredonov took Antosha by the feet while Yuliya Petrovna started to whip him.

  “Don’t be lazy, don’t be lazy!” she kept repeating.

  “Don’t kick, don’t kick” Peredonov repeated after her.

  “Oi, I won’t, oi, I won’t!” Antosha cried.

  Gudaevskaya worked so zealously that she soon tired.

  “Well, that’s enough, darling!” she said, letting Antosha go. “Enough, I can’t do any more, I’m tired.”

  “If you’re tired, then I could whip him some more,” Peredonov said.

  “Antosha, thank him,” Gudaevskaya said. “Thank him, scrape your foot. Ardalyon Borisych is going to whip you some more with the nice little rods. Lay down on my knees, darling.”

  She handed a bundle of whipping rods to Peredonov, pulled Antosha back to herself and buried his head in her knees. Peredonov suddenly took fright: it seemed to him that Antosha might tear free and bite him.

  “Well, that’ll do for this time,” he said.

  “Antosha, do you hear?” Gudaevskaya asked, raising Antosha up by the ears. “Ardalyon Borisych is forgiving you. Thank him, scrape your foot, scrape it. Scrape your foot and get dressed.”

  Sobbing, Antosha scraped his foot, got dressed and his mother led him out into the corridor by the hand.

  “Wait,” she whispered to Peredonov. “I still have to have a talk with you.”

  She took Antosha off to the nursery where the nurse had already put Liza to bed and ordered him to go to bed. Then she returned to the bedroom. Peredonov was sitting sullenly on the chair in the middle of the room. Gudaevskaya said:

  “I am so thankful to you, so thankful, I can’t possibly say. You have acted so nobly, so nobly. It ought to have been my husband who did it, but you took my husband’s place. He deserves to be cuckolded by me. If he lets other people fulfill his responsibilities, then let others have his rights as well.”

  She impetuously flung herself around Peredonov’s neck and whispered:

  “Kiss me, darling!”

  And then she said a few other unprintable words. Peredonov was dully amazed. However, he grabbed her in his hands, kissed her on the lips and she fastened on his lips with a long voracious kiss. Then she tore free from his hands, dashed to the door, locked it with a key and quickly started to undress.

  11. Antosha Gudaevsky was already asleep when his father returned from the club. In the morning when Antosha Gudaevsky was leaving for the gymnasium, his father was still asleep. Antosha saw his father only later in the day. He stole quietly away from his mother into his father’s study and complained about being whipped. Gudaevsky became furious, started to run around his study, threw several books from his desk onto the floor and shouted in a terrifying voice:

  “Vile! Foul! Base! Abominable! Curses! Villainy! Guards!”

  Then he rushed to Antosha, pulled his trousers down, examined his slender little body mottled with pink narrow stripes, and he screamed in a piercing voice:

  “Geography of Europe, seventeenth edition!”

  He swept Antosha up in his arms and ran off to his wife. Antosha felt embarrassed and ashamed and he whined dolefully.

  Yuliya Petrovna was immersed in reading a novel. Hearing from afar her husband’s cries, she guessed what the matter was, leapt up, threw the book down on the floor and started to run around the room, clenching her dry fists and making her gaudy ribbons flutter.

  Gudaevsky burst stormily in on her, kicking open the door with his foot.

  “What’s this?” he cried, setting Antosha on the floor and showing her his uncovered body. “Where did this painting come from!”

  Yuliya Petrovna started to shake with spite and stamped her feet.

  “I whipped him, I whipped him!” she cried. “There, I whipped him!”

  “Vile! Most vile!” Vile beyond all belief of desecration!” Gudaevsky cried. “How could you dare without my permission?”

  “I’ll whip him again, I’ll whip him again to spite you!” Gudaevskaya cried. “I’ll whip him every day!”

  Antosha tore free and buttoned himself up as he ran off, while his father and mother remained behind to abuse each other. Gudaevsky leapt at his wife and slapped her face. Yuliya Petrovna screeched, started to cry and shouted:

  “Monster! Miscreant of the human race! You want to drive me to the grave!”

  She made a deft move, leapt at her husband and whacked him on the cheek.

  “Revolt! Betrayal! Guards!” Gudaevsky shouted.

  And they fought for a long time, attacking each other all the while. Finally they grew tired. Gudaevskaya sat down on the floor and started to cry.

  “Villain! You ruined my youth,” she lamented in a plaintive, extenuated wail.

  Gudaevsky stood in front of her, intending to smack her in the face, but he changed his mind, sat down on the floor as well, facing his wife, and shouted:

  “Fury! Shrew! Tailless witch! You’ve worn out my life!”

  “I’m going to mama’s,” Gudaevskaya said whiningly.

  “Go, by all means,” Gudaevsky replied angrily. “I’d be very happy, I’d even take you. I’ll beat on the pots and pans, I’ll play a Persian march with my lips.”

  Gudaevsky trumpeted a sharp and wild melody through his fist.

  “And I’ll take the children!” Gudaevskaya shouted.

  “I won’t give you the children!” Gudaevsky cried.

  They both leapt simultaneously to their feet and shouted as they waved their arms:

  “I won’t leave you Antosha,” his wife cried.

  “I won’t let you have Antosha,” her husband cried.

  “I’ll take him!”

  “I won’t let you!”

  “You’ll pervert him, spoil him, ruin him!”

  “You’ll tyranize him!”

  They clenched their fists, threatened each other and ran off in different directions: she to the bedroom and he to his study. The sound of two doors being slammed echoed through the entire house.

  Antosha was sitting in his father’s study. It seemed to him to be the most opportune and secure place. Gudaevsky was running around the study and repeating:

  “Antosha, I won’t let your mother have you, I won’t.”

  “Give her Lizochka,” Antosha advised.

  Gudaevsky stopped, slapped himself on the forehead with his palm and cried:

  “A good idea!”

  He ran out of his study. Antosha peeked timidly into the corridor and saw his father run into the nursery. From there he could hear Liza’s weeping and the nurse’s frightened voice. Gudaevsky dragged a violently sobbing, frightened Liza out of the nursery by the hand, took her into the bedroom, threw her at her mother and cried:

  “Here’s your daughter for you, take her, but our son stays with me on the basis of the seven articles of the seven sections of the code of all codices.”

  And he ran off to his study, exclaiming along the way:

  “The joke’s on you! Be satisfied with the little one, whip her a little! Ho-ho-ho!”

  Gudaevskaya seized her daughter, sat her down on her knees and started to soothe her. Then she suddenly leapt up, grabbed Liza by the hand and quickly dragged her off to her father. Liza started to cry again.

  The father and son heard the sound of Liza’s howling approaching along the corridor. They looked at each other in perplexity.

  “What does she want?” the father whispered. “She won’t take her! She’l
l try and get at you!”

  Antosha crawled under the desk. But at that moment Gudaevskaya ran into the study, threw Liza at her father, pulled her son out from under the desk, struck him on the cheek, grabbed him by the hand and pulled him after herself, crying:

  “Let’s go, sweetheart, your father is a tyrant.”

  But the father gathered his wits immediately, grabbed the boy by the other hand, struck him on the other cheek and cried:

  “Darling, don’t be afraid, I won’t give you to anyone.”

  The mother and father pulled Antosha in different directions and ran quickly around in a circle. Antosha whirled like a top between them and cried in terror:

  “Let me go, let me go, you’re tearing my arms off!”

  Somehow or other he managed to free his hands so that his mother and father were left holding only the sleeves to his jacket. But they didn’t notice it and continued to swing Antosha in a furious circle. He shouted all the while in a desperate voice:

  “You’re tearing me apart! It’s cracking in my shoulders! Oi-oi-oi, you’re tearing me, you’re tearing me! You’ve torn me apart!”

  And, in fact, the father and mother suddenly tumbled in opposite directions on to the floor, each holding a sleeve from Antosha’s jacket in their hands. Antosha ran off with a desperate scream:

  “They’ve torn me apart, what’s happened!”

  The father and mother both imagined that they had torn off Antosha’s arms. They started to wail with fear as they lay on the floor:

  “We tore Antosha apart!”

  Then they leapt up and, shaking the empty sleeves at each other, started to vie with each other in shouting;

  “Get the doctor! He’s run away! Where are his arms! Look for his arms!”

  They both crawled around on all fours on the floor. They couldn’t find the arms. They sat down opposite each other and, wailing from fear and pity for Antosha, they started to flail at each other with the empty sleeves, then they fought and rolled around on the floor. The maid and the nurse came running and separated the gentlefolk.

  12. After dinner Peredonov lay down to sleep, as was his custom if he didn’t go off to play billiards. While asleep he dreamt that he saw nothing but sheep and cats which were walking around him, bleating and miaowing distinctly, but their words were all foul, and everything they did was even more shameless.

  After his sleep, he went off to the merchant Tvorozhkov, the father of two students at the gymnasium, in order to complain about them. He had already whetted his appetite with the success of his previous visits, and it seemed to him that he would again enjoy success. Tvorozhkov was a simple person. Schooled on a pittance, he himself had acquired wealth. He had a stern look, spoke little, conducted himself with severity and gravity. His boys, Vasya and Volodya, feared him like fire. Of course, he would give them the kind of flogging that would turn the devil’s own stomach.

  And when he saw how sternly and taciturnly Tvorozhkov listened to all his complaints, Peredonov grew more and more certain of his own confidence. The boys, the fourteen-year-old Vasya and the twelve-year-old Volodya, stood erect like soldiers in front of their father, but Peredonov was surprised and annoyed by the fact that they were looking on calmly and were displaying no fear. When Peredonov had finished and was silent, Tvorozhkov gave his sons an attentive look. They stood even more erect and looked straight at their father.

  “Go,” Tvorozhkov said.

  The boys bowed to Peredonov and left. Tvorozhkov turned to Peredonov:

  “It’s a great honor for us, my gracious sir, that you have deigned to trouble yourself in regard to my sons. Only we are informed that you have been going to many others and also demanding that the parents whip their boys. Can it be that suddenly in the gymnasium the fellows have gotten into so much mischief that there is no coping with them? Everything was fine, and now all of a sudden, one thrashing after the other.”

  “Well, if they are getting into mischief,” Peredonov muttered distractedly.

  “They do get into mischief,” Tvorozhkov agreed. “Everyone knows how it is. They get into mischief and we punish them. The only thing that surprises me—you must forgive me, gracious sir, if I don’t say it quite right—the thing that surprises me a great deal is that of all the teachers you alone trouble yourself with, forgive me for saying so, such an unsuitable pursuit. As everyone knows, when you whip your own son, then that’s all there is to it if he deserves it, but peeking beneath the undershirts of other people’s boys would seem to he somewhat of a superfluous business for you.”

  “It’s for their own good,” Peredonov said angrily.

  “We are quite familiar with these procedures.” Tvorozhkov objected immediately, without allowing him to continue. “If a student does something wrong, then he will be punished in the gymnasium, according to the rules. If he’s bent on doing it, then the parents are informed or they are summoned to the gymnasium and the class prefect or the inspector will say what his guilt consists of. And the parents certainly know how to deal with him at home, depending on the boy and what his guilt is. But for a teacher to go around the homes on his own and demand that the boys be thrashed, there are no procedures governing that. Today it’s you who come, tomorrow someone else comes, the day after a third person, and each time I’m to give my sons a licking? No, I’m sorry, your most humble servant, that is not acceptable, and you, gracious sir, ought to be ashamed of pursuing such a foolish business. Shameful, sir!”

  Tvorozhkov stood up and said:

  “I suggest that there is nothing more for us to talk about.”

  “Is that all you have to say?” Peredonov said sullenly, getting up distractedly from his chair.

  “Yes, that is it,” Tvorozhkov replied. “You will now excuse me.”

  “You want to raise nihilists,” Peredonov said spitefully, backing awkwardly towards the door. “You ought to be denounced.”

  “We are capable of making a denunciation ourselves,” Tvorozhkov replied calmly.

  This response plunged Peredonov into terror. What was Tovorozhkov prepared to make a denunciation about? “Perhaps during the conversation,” Peredonov thought, “I let something slip, blabbed, and he picked it up. Perhaps he has the kind of apparatus under his divan that records all the dangerous words.” Peredonov threw a terrified glance under the divan—and there, it seemed to him, something shifted, something small, grayish, pulsating, trembling, jeering. He started to shake. “Just don’t give yourself away,” the quick thought flitted through his head.

  “You won’t catch me, not on your life!” he cried to Tvorozhkov and hastily left the room.

  13. Of course, Peredonov hadn’t noticed this. He was entirely absorbed in his own happiness.

  Marta returned to the summer house after Peredonov had already left. She entered it with a certain fear: Vershina would say something.

  Vershina was annoyed. Up until then she still hadn’t lost hope of fixing Marta up with Peredonov and then marrying Murin herself. And now it was all ruined. She quickly and quietly heaped words of reproach, rapidly emitting puffs of tobacco smoke and glancing angrily at Marta.

  Vershina loved to grumble. Her languid caprices, her fading, languid lust supported this feeling of dull displeasure, and it was expressed most comfortably in grumbling. If she expressed it aloud, it would come out as obvious nonsense, but if she were to grumble, all the absurdity would slip past her tongue—and neither she nor others would notice the incoherence, the contradictions, the uselessness of all these words.

  It was perhaps only now that Marta understood how repulsive she found Peredonov after all that had happened with him and because of him. Marta gave little thought to love. She dreamt about how she would get married and would keep a good household. Of course, in order to do so she needed someone to fall in love with her and it was pleasant for her to think about that at the time but it wasn’t the main thing.

  When Marta was dreaming about her household, she would imagine that she would have pre
cisely the kind of home, garden and orchard that Vershina had. At times she had sweet dreams that Vershina would make a present of it all to her and Vershina herself would stay on there to live with her, smoke her cigarettes and rebuke her for her indolence.

  “You didn’t know how to make him interested,” Vershina said angrily and quickly. “You were always sitting there like a bump on a log. What more could you need! A fine young man, the picture of health. Here I am taking pains with you, trying, you might have at least appreciated and understood that. It was for you, you know, so you might have at least tried for your part to attract him somehow.”

  “I couldn’t just foist myself on him,” Marta said quietly. “I’m not one of those Rutilov girls.”

  “A lot of honor, this threadbare Polish gentry!” Vershina grumbled.

  “I’m afraid of him, better I marry Murin,” Marta said.

  “Murin! Do tell, please! You have some grand ideas about yourself! Murin! As though he’d take you. The fact that he sometimes said some affectionate words to you, that doesn’t mean perhaps that they were actually intended for you. You’re still not worth a husband like that—a solid, serious man. You like to eat, but it makes your head hurt to think.”

  Marta turned a brilliant red. She did love to eat and could eat frequently and a lot. Raised in the country air, amid simple and rough work, Marta considered abundant and nourishing food one of the main conditions for human well-being.

  Vershina suddenly rushed up to Marta, struck her on the cheek with her small dry hand and cried:

  “On your knees, you good-for-nothing!”

  Marta, sobbing quietly, got down on her knees and said:

  “Forgive me, N [atalya] A [fanasyevna].”

  “I’ll make you stay the whole day on your knees,” Vershina cried. “Don’t fray the dress, if you please, it costs money, stand on your bare knees, raise your dress up and take your shoes off. You’re no grand lady. Just you wait, I’m still going to thrash you with the rod.”

  Marta, obediently sitting down on the very edge of the bench, quickly took her shoes off, uncovered her knees and got down on the bare boards. It was as though she liked to subjugate herself and to know that her part in this oppressive matter was coming to an end. She would be punished, kept on her knees, perhaps even whipped. It would be painful, but afterwards everything would be forgiven. All this would happen soon, that very day.