The Petty Demon

by Sologub, Fyodor

  The most unusual and most seemingly mismatched of the potential fiancées for the dull-witted, gloomy Peredonov are the three lively, attractive, intelligent Rutilov sisters. Even so, the possibility of a match between Peredonov and the Rutilov girls is to be taken seriously within the world of The Petty Demon. While it is repeated many times that the girls are attractive, gay, and lively, they are not drawn through emphasis on significant physical features. The sisters are characterized rather by secondary effects, such as the foods they eat and the atmosphere they create about them and, especially, by literary and folk allusions. The Rutilov home is an example of impeccable neatness and care; it is dust-free, pleasant-smelling, colorful—the very opposite of the Peredonov and Grushina households. The sisters’ home conveys the appearance that those who live there belong to the best circles of local society and are in every way proper. But the foods they eat—fruit, nuts, halvah, and imported liqueurs—suggest something unusual.

  The Rutilov girls are introduced into the novel through a curious scene. Their brother, so he thinks, has persuaded Peredonov to marry one of them. But Peredonov has a condition: he demands that each sister state how she would please him. The oldest Daria says she would bake pancakes; the second Lyudmila that she would collect gossip; and the youngest Valeriya tells Peredonov that he must guess for himself how she would please him. These answers provide a comic touch because, with their reference to appetite (pancakes), scandal, and eroticism (Valeriya’s vague hint), they play directly to the poshlost’ and coarseness in Peredonov. More importantly, this scene is a clear echo of the opening lines of Pushkin’s fairy tale “Tsar Saltan” (“Skazka o Tsare Saltane” …”) in which three fair maidens relate how they would please the tsar if he would marry them: the first would arrange a banquet, the second weave linen, and the third would give birth to a hero.”13 This allusion to “Tsar Saltan” casts the Rutilov girls into the roles of “fair maidens” of the Russian fairy tale, thus suggesting that they are best visualized as the perfect but nondescript beauties of Russian folk art. Peredonov by implication becomes a remolding of the tsar—and in a weirdly perverted way, his ability to choose from almost any of the young girls in town makes him a local autocrat. Of course, in Peredonov the color and splendor of the fairy-tale world have degenerated to poshlost’—appetite, scandal, and vulgar eroticism. Moreover, if the comparison between the scenes in The Petty Demon and “Tsar Saltan” can be sustained, there is the additional hint that at least the two older sisters may have evil powers. In the fairy tale the tsar marries the youngest, and the others, who become the palace cook and the palace weaver, work toward her destruction.

  The suggestion that the fairy-tale beauty of the Rutilov sisters may conceal a sinister nature is borne out by comparisons of the sisters to witches. Peredonov calls them witches immediately after refusing to marry them. Moreover, in their frenzied drinking, singing, and dancing they are likened to witches celebrating their Sabbath on Bald Mountain (181). Perhaps it is in view of their identity within the novel’s demonology, and not of their attractiveness and seeming propriety, that the sisters should be viewed as serious candidates for marriage with Peredonov.

  Lyudmila attains an identity apart from her sisters in her relationship with Sasha Pylnikov, the fourteen-year-old schoolboy with whom she falls in love. The exotically sensuous games of the young couple run counterpoiont to the coarse relationship between Peredonov and Varvara. Yet, aside from clear aesthetic differences, there are suggestions that Lyudmila may in fact be very much like Peredonov.

  In addition to the metaphor of the witch, certain other comparisons play a vital role in Lyudmila’s presentation: she is also called a rusalka and a devil. In Russian folk belief the rusalka was an unclean spirit, often descended from an unbaptized child, who appeared naked, with loose, flowing hair, and who often drowned or tickled her victim to death.”14 Lyudmila is first called a rusalka by Sasha after she wins a mock wrestling match. Later she compares herself to a rusalka and, at the same time, acknowledges her pagan love of bodily beauty and the joy she finds in pain (323). Some of her actions reveal that she, like Peredonov, is sadistic. She pinches Sash’s cheeks until red spots appear; she pulls his ear; and she makes him kiss her knees, during which she has an expression of “triumphant cruelty on her face” (216, 213, 318). Furthermore, she has an erotic-sadistic dream in which she takes pleasure in watching Sasha be whipped (182). Still another link connecting Lyudmila to Peredonov is the metaphor of the devil. Dania, referring to Lyudmila’s relationship with Sasha, repeats the common saying “The devil has bound himself to an infant” (“Chort s mladentsem sviazalsia,” 218) and then specifically identifies Lyudmila as this devil.

  Sasha is introduced into The Petty Demon through a rumor which Grushina tells Varvara of a boy posing as a girl in order to snare Peredonov and find a husband. Thus, although a connection is not explicitly made, it appears that Sasha too is introduced as a possible bride for Peredonov. He is one of the few genuinely likeable characters in the novel, yet even he has a dual nature. The motif of metamorphosis is basic to his presentation; his physical delineation turns on his attractiveness and his resemblance to a girl. He is slender and dark, with mysteriously sad eyes and long blue-black lashes. His name too suggest a duality: he is almost always called “Sasha,” a diminutive form of both “Alexander” and “Alexandra.” The smoothness of his skin, his rosy cheeks and blushing, and his high cheat cause him to be taken for a girl, and at the same time it is these traits which are the source of sensuous appeal for Lyudmila. The erotic games in which Sasha and Lyudmila engage play on the questionable status of his sex. Lyudmila delights in dressing Sasha in her own clothing, and she collaborates with her sisters in sending Sasha to the town masquerade dressed as a girl—a geisha.

  The ambiguous nature of Sasha’s sex seems to be connected with the metaphor of the werewolf. Varvara calls Sasha a werewolf almost as soon as she hears about him, and within a few pages the same term is applied to Peredonov’s cat (142, 146).15 In a subsequent dream, Peredonov imagines that Sasha and his cat are enticing him somewhere in werewolf-like fashion: “Pylnikov led him along dark and dirty streets, and the cat ran alongside, and its green eyes glimmered … (230).” After Sasha’s landlady surprises the couple and finds Sasha dressed as a girl, she forbids him to visit Lyudmila. Thus, for the fittings for the geisha costume and for the masquerade itself, Sasha must escape through the window of his room at night. These nocturnal ventures which he makes for the purpose of “appearing to be a girl” suggest metamorphosis and hint at his werewolf nature. Lyudmila also alludes to this when, during their erotic games, she puns on the expressions “who wants” (kto zhelaet) and “who bays” (kto zhe laet, 208).16

  Even Sasha, the most appealing creature in the novel, has an identity within the demonology of The Petty Demon. The werewolf, however, has a particular significance in Sologub’s art; it often stands as a symbol of a wistful, nostalgic longing for a primeval existence and an escape from everyday reality (especially poshlost’).17 It is meaningful that Sasha’s nostalgia should reveal itself particularly after a visit from Peredonov, the novel’s prime embodiment of poshlost’(155).

  In addition to the above characters, who play fairly major roles in Peredonov’s life, the novel contains a vast number of minor characters, most of whom are also grotesque. Peredonov’s disheveled and habitually drunk landlady is a striking example of a witch. It is she who has a spell cast on Peredonov’s old hat, and she returns Peredonov’s cat with rattles on its tail. As the town ruffians the Avdeev boys are responsible for the execution of much foul play: they tar Marta’s gates, break Peredonov’s windows, and throw litter into Peredonov’s carriage after his wedding. They seem to “spring from the earth” and be “swallowed up by the earth,” a suggestion that they are best understood as unclean spirits which, in folk superstition, appear and disappear in this fashion (251).18 Even the town functionaries whom Peredonov visits to ward off possible slander are grotesque. Th
ey are drawn through the exaggeration of certain features and through the complementary presentations of their houses.

  As we have seen in several instances, literary and folklore allusions shape the visual images of characters and aid in interpreting their activities. One of the more fantastic personages in The Petty Demon whose creation depends largely on literary allusion is the alleged author of the letters promising Peredonov the inspectorship, Princess Volchanskaya. The Princess never actually appears in the novel, yet, Peredonov suspects that she is nearby spying on him, and in his imagination she assumes the form of a two-hundred-year-old “yellow, wrinkled, hunchbacked, fang-toothed, evil” woman (336). He suspects that she may be hiding in a pack of cards as either the queen of hearts or the queen of spades, and though he attempts to burn the whole pack, the princess rises up out of the flames, hissing and spitting on the fire (314).

  The comparison of Princess Volchanskaya to the queen of spades is highly significant because it provides a clear reference to Pushkins’s tale “The Queen of Spades.” It is possible to observe a number of parallels in the plots of the two works. In Pushkin’s tale the protagonist Germann relies on an old Countess to reveal a mysterious secret whereby he may win a fortune at cards. This thought becomes an obsession with him, and his entire fate is placed in the hands of the old woman. The vehicle through which he hopes to obtain an audience with the Countess is her poor-relative ward Lizaveta, and he courts her to this purpose. In The Petty Demon Peredonov is obsessed with his inspectorship just as Germann is with the secret of the cards; and he relies on the Princess, who is supposedly Varvara’s patron, to obtain it for him.

  The image of the old Countess of “The Queen of Spades” offers a visual referent for the grotesque image of Princess Volchanskaya. In Pushkin’s tale the Countess appears as (1) a young, beautiful, but frivolous woman of the 1770’s, (2) an ancient, hideous woman of the 1830’s who is trying to preserve her long faded beauty, (3) a corpse, (4) an apparition, and (5) the queen of spades.19 A particularly grotesque image of the Countess is achieved through the incongruity of her puffy, decrepit flesh and the various adornments she grafts on it to make herself younger: a powdered wig, rouge, elegant dresses which are sixty years out of fashion, and, an item from the floral world, roses.

  There is a suggestion that the Countess, like Princess Volchanskaya, may have a witch nature, the last thing Germann calls her before drawing his pistol to force the secret from her is “old witch.”20 But the Countess does not reveal the secret while she is alive, and this leads to another similarity between the Countess and the Princess. Even though Princess Volchanskaya never appears corporally in The Petty Demon, she exercises an overwhelmingly destructive infuence on Peredonov’s fate. His belief that she has turned against him leads him into a deeper terror and suspicion bf others which culminates in the murder of Volodin and his collapse into total senselessness. Similarly, it is not as a living woman, but as a corpse, an apparition, and as the queen of spades that the Countess has her most powerful influence on Germann’s fate. She squints at him from her casket and then appears to him as an apparition to reveal the secret by which he can win his fortune. And, on the final day of gambling, when Germann draws the queen of spades instead of an ace, he perceives in the card figure the old woman mocking him.21 Germann, like Peredonov, collapses into total insanity. The similarities in plot structure between “The Queen of Spades” and The Petty Demon, the image of a decaying witch-like woman, and, above all, the shared metaphor of the queen of spades suggest that Princess Volchanskaya is best understood as a literary reincarnation of Pushkin’s old Countess.

  The Petty Demon also contains a number of grotesque characters whose creations proceed not from the usual image of man, but rather from the nonhuman world. In these characters the grotesque is achieved largely through humanization. These bizarre creatures include card figures, Peredonov’s cat, and the nedotykomka. In his delirium Peredonov sees playing cards strutting before him and assuming the forms of familiar people. The eights become “werewolf-students,” and he recognizes in the postman, who brings the second forged letter, a knave who caused him to lose at cards (255, 310, 256). His cat too becomes an object of terror. Unlike the usual black famulus of witches and sorcerers, it is white and fat; but Peredonov fears that it has the power to bewitch him, and he suspects that it has denounced him to the authorities (242). In his imagination the cat assumes fantastic proportions, now becoming the fairy-tale “puss in boots,” now a young man with a red moustache who cannot stop sniffing (337, 287).

  The most important of the non-human creatures in The Petty Demon is the nedotykomka, a gray spirit which appears in the midst of the incense during the blessing of Peredonov’s new apartment and torments him from this point to the murder of Volodin. The name “nedotykomka” means “not-quite-pokeable-female-creature,” and it points to the spirit’s elusiveness. In contrast to all the other characters, the nedotykomka’s pictorial delineation is not the product of the distortion of a familiar form. It is “faceless,” a creature of “undefined outlines” (156). Therefore, it is difficult to visualize the spirit, although not entirely impossible. An abundance of perceptual criteria is used in the spirit’s delineation: it is smelly; noisy, and extremely active. These traits perhaps indicate that the nedotykomka is primarily a presence to be felt, and only secondarily a creature to be visualized.

  The spirit is gray, and the repetition of this color suggests that it is to be understood as a characterizing epithet. As a color gray conveys a feeling of drabness—colorlessness—rather than of pigmentation and thus is of limited value in attempting to picture the nedotykomka. Other attributives point to the sense in which the spirit’s grayness is to be understood: it is also “dirty” and “dusty” (286, 308). Probably the main function of the color “gray” is to link the nedotykomka and Peredonov to each other; gray is indicative of the boredom, squalor, and poshlost’ of his existence. One of the most highly sensual traits used in the depiction of the nedotykomka is smell. The spirit is called “stinking” (voniuchaia, 308). Although smell provides an obvious feeling of the spirit’s presence, the use of this particular word, which is vulgar and characteristic of Peredonov, suggests that it may be a way he perceives it, rather than an actual attribute of the creature. This trait too joins the nedotykomka to Peredonov’s soul and to his apartment, which is foul smelling and which is, in its way, a mirror of his soul.

  Sound and motion are other essential ingredients in the creation of the nedotykomka. The spirit continually laughs and jeers at Peredonov, and it is this mockery which more than anything else instills horror into him and drives him to such acts as chopping the table under which the spirit is sitting (310). The nedotykomka is continually quivering, fidgeting, rolling about on the floor, and jumping. Both the spirit’s tremendous noise and its quivering, whirling motion connect it with Peredonov’s psychic state. They provide an index of the restlessness and agitation in his soul. These traits also suggest a possibility for visualizing the nedotykomka.

  Although the nedotykomka does not smile (image), but laughs (sound), one may construe the visual representation of this laughter as a taunting smile, a smirk, or a leer. The spirit can perhaps best be pictured as a leer implanted on a small, amorphous grayish mass, which is continually whirling about Peredonov, yet which is impossible to touch or approach. If this is correct, then the leer adds a human element to the delineation of the nedotykomka and renders it grotesque.22 Moreover the spirit’s motion may be understood as an uninterrupted dance of death.

  Peredonov is the only character in the novel who sees the nedotykomka, and he, of course, is insane. Yet, while there can be no doubt that the spirit reflects his soul and is symptomatic of his insanity, there is reason to believe that the nedotykomka has a broader meaning than would be possible if it were merely the projection of a madman’s fantasy. Rather, this gray spirit is integral to the total vision of the world in The Petty Demon and, possibly, in Sologub’s work in general
. This is suggested partly by the spirit’s presence outside the novel; the nedotykomka is the subject of an earlier lyric.23 However, the most convincing evidence that the spirit is a reality existing beyond the confines of Peredonov’s consciousness is the particular way in which it is presented in the novel itself. Although Peredonov is the only character who sees the nedotykomka, nevertheless, it is never presented totally through his vision. Unlike the other fantasy creatures, the spirit never occurs in a dream; and, it is never presented through interior monologue, which would bring the reader directly into Peredonov’s consciousness without the obvious presence of the narrator’s voice. Rather, the nedotykomka is always presented as a statement of fact within the narration, and this signifies that the narrator shares in the vision of the spirit.

  Here one must consider the particular nature of the narrator. In The Petty Demon there is minimal distance between the implied author and the narrator who retains almost absolute control over the telling of the story. We can term this narrator “reliable”: his testimony is to be considered true and his judgment is valid.24 When the nedotykomka is introduced, the narrator’s voice is totally dominant. The language is highly poetic and thus uncharacteristic of the dull-witted, vulgar Peredonov; rather, it is close to that of the earlier lyric: “An amazing creature of indefinite features ran out from somewhere—a small, gray, lively, nimble nedotykomka. It chuckled, and quivered, and whirled around Peredonov…. It quivered and teased—gray, faceless, nimble (156).”25 In later passages the device of narrated perception is often in evidence.26 Here, though the spirit’s presence is narrated, Peredonov’s experiencing consciousness is brought in through the use of modal words characteristic of him and of the present tense: “The nedotykomka ran about … and squealed. It was dirty, smelly, repulsive, and terrifying…. If only someone would deliver him with some word or sweep it away. But there are no friends here … (308–9).”