The Petty Demon

by Sologub, Fyodor

  The nedotykomka must be considered a feature of the cosmos of The Petty Demon and not just the hallucination of a madman. It is perhaps best understood as a symbolization of evil. The creature’s eerie laughter hints at a diabolical nature, and the attributive “faceless” may link it to the devil who is also faceless. Some of the forms which the Spirit assumes, such as that of a dog and column of dust, are linked to beliefs about the devil in folk superstition.27 Particularly meaningful is the guise of the serpent which it assumes at the masquerade. As the form of the devil in the Biblical story of the Fall, this guise connects the spirit with primordial evil. Yet, while the nedotykomka is no doubt a manifestation of the evil which pervades the cosmos of The Petty Demon, it should not be understood as a gradiose symbol of denial. Rather, the spirit embodies petty evil—poshlost’ and spite raised to cosmic dimensions. The grayness, dirtiness, and dustiness of the spirit point clearly to this.

  A recent critic has suggested that the real import of the nedotykomka is that it signals Peredonov’s contact wit another reality.”28 His vision of the spirit can in fact be understood as a sort of self-transcendence. He is initiated into a truth beyond himself and beyond the limits of visual reality—for the other characters do not see it. Of all the characters in the novel, Peredonov seems the most total in his devotion to petty evil. If, as an emodiment of this evil, the nedotykomka can be considered his “god,” then, in religious terms, Peredonov is a fully integrated man. He has reached a stage of “transfiguration,” albeit in a negative sense, and his vision of this dirty, gray spirit can possibly be construed as the converse of the vision of light of Orthodox mysticism.29

  THE COSMOS

  Implicit in the delineations of most of the strange creatures of The Petty Demon is the motif of the mask; in most cases a human identity veils a perhaps truer identity within a demonology. The idea of the mask was, in fact, basic to Sologub’s conception of art. He believed that the purpose of art is to remove appearances or masks (lichiny) and to reveal the true Countenance of things (Lik).30 In The Petty Demon the tension between appearance and reality is basic not only to the depictions of individual characters, but to the presentation of the cosmos as a whole.

  The aggregate of dual-natured creatures in the novel presents a picture of an utterly bizarre society, and the physical environment in which these strange characters are placed intensifies this impression. Among the more important places of action are Peredonov’s dirty, stifling apartment and Grushina’s dusty house; the unpaved dusty and muddy streets of a provincial town; Vershina’s lush, enchanted garden; a billiard hall filled with smoke; the pleasant home of the Rutilov girls; and a splendidly colorful seventeenth-century Russian church. These settings are too lush and too disparate to be typical of a normal, drab Russian provincial town. Rather, this is typical scenery for the grotesque. The visual world of people and places which emerges is an amalgamation of the ugly and the beautiful, the everyday and the exotic, the vulgar and the supernatural.

  The activities of the town as a whole are significant in suggesting the true nature of the cosmos. Scandalmongering is a basic preoccupationn of this society, and it is also a sign of poshlost’ and spitefulness. Rumor has it that the Marshall of the Nobility Veriga wears a corset; Grushina and Rutilov taunt Peredonov with stories that his students drink, smoke, and chase girls; Peredonov’s visits to the town functionaries are prompted by fear of scandal, and the content of the conversations during these visits is largely gossip. Probably the most significant rumors are those concerned with Sasha. He is introduced through a story tha the is a girl. This rumor prompts Peredonov to visit Sasha and then to report the scandal to the headmaster and to spread the story throughout the school. Lyudmila, who is loved in the town for her charming, lively way of relating gossip, hears this rumor and, curious, goes to visit Sasha. Preposterous as it may seem; this rumor contains a glimmer of truth, for Sasha’s characterization turns on the suggestion that he has the ability to change into a girl. Later in the novel Peredonov spreads a story that Lyudmila has perverted Sasha. Grushina and Varvara write letters about this to the headmaster, and he resolves to investigate. Lyudmila, however, enchants him into believing an outright lie—that her relationship with Sasha is perfectly innocent. Although Peredonov is telling the truth, he is vulgar, coarse, and obviously insane; Lyudmila is believed because she is attractive, sweet-smelling, and well-dressed. Rumor thus serves as a means of confusing appearance and reality. Moreover, in the strange world of the novel, the most believable tales seem to contain a hint of truth.

  Although a sense of stagnation and inertia pervades the atmosphere of The Petty Demon, the pace of the action is frenzied. Much of the hustle and bustle is centered around getting people married. Most obvious are the attempts to catch Peredonov, but, in addition, Peredonov hopes to find a wife for Volodin, and Grushina and Vershina are looking for husbands. The desire to marry is prompted not by feelings of mutual attraction, but by an apparently rootless conviction that one simply should be married. Many petty abuses are connected with the business of marriage: Volodin is persuaded to have Marta’s gates tarred because he was rejected as her fiance; Vershina tells Peredonov of the forgery largely because her plan to marry him to Marta failed; Grushina arranges for litter to be thrown into the carriage of the newly-wed Peredonovs. Marriage is, of course, a legitimate human concern, and, moreover, the wedding ceremony serves as an excellent reflection of a society’s customs—an embodiment of byt. Yet, within folk superstition, weddings are among the most basic activities of witches and demons.31 It is probable that in the world of the novel byt is a sham and the rage to marry is in reality deviltry.

  The question of motivation is important. The sense of motion out-of-control conveyed by rumor and the instinctiveness of the desire to marry are indications that reflective, rational behavior is somehow absent from the cosmos of the novel. Yet, at least an appearance of cause-and-effect motivation can be found. At the outset, the basic intrigue unfolds as a conflict between Peredonov’s quest for a promotion and the attempts of various townspeople to marry him. Peredonov’s visits to the town officials, his attempts to find Volodin a wife, his frequent attendance at church, as well as Varvara’s arranging for the forgery of the letters and Vershina’s maneuvers to get Peredonov into her garden all fit into the development of this intrigue and are thus provided with a seemingly clear motivation. It is true that these events are at times accompanied by other, seemingly unmotivated acts, such as Peredonov’s molesting his cat, soiling his walls, teasing his students, and, especially, by malicious town gossip—all of which seem to originate in pure spite. But, at least for the first part of the novel, this secondary strain is subordinate to and integrated within the mainline development of Peredonov’s quest and the attempts to marry him. It is possible to say that the image of the cosmos which emerges in this part of the novel is one in which there exists a certain logic to human behavior.

  However, about the time of the appearance of the nedotykomka, the uninterrupted, sequential development of this intrigue is broken, and many small episodes, having very little to do with Peredonov’s quest for promotion or attempts to marry him, are introduced, Just prior to the spirit’s appearance an incident in which Peredonov steals a pound of raisins and blames his servent is related; Sasha is introduced and Peredonov visits his lodgings. Just after the nedotykomka’s appearance the narration shifts to the story of the tarring of Marta’s gates and then to Peredonov’s meeting with the headmaster of the school. Now too the erotic affair between Sasha and Lyudmila gets underway. In a word, the narration becomes fragmented, and events are neither a development of the main intrigue nor are they provided with a clear motivation. The rational ordering of the world of The Petty Demon is revealed as an illusion; chaos, within which the nedotykomka has its existence, replace cosmos.

  The motif of insanity, which often accompanies the presentation of the grotesque, plays a significant role in The Petty Demon. Peredonov suffers from paranoid
schizophrenia, and this affliction is portrayed with clinical accuracy. He lives in suspicion and fear of both people and objects, and his most specific fear is that he will be poisoned. In taking measures to defend himself, Peredonov displays an amazing degree of activity. Serious aberrations in conceptual thinking are evident in Peredonov’s portrayal, and these are perhaps best reflected in his language: words take on a literalness and acquire magic properties. Medically speaking, the central event in Peredonov’s insanity is the appearance of the nedotykomka; this Signals the point at which he enters into a fantasy world and begins to have hallucinations.32 The accuracy of Sologub’s depiction of paranoia caused one of his contemporaries to cite the novel as an example of new, psychological, rather than sociological, realism.33 However, it seems that like byt and motivation, psychological verisimilitude is another mask in the novel. It provides a protective veil and an acceptable explanation for outrageous behavior and fantastic creatures. This is most strongly suggested by the objectivity of the nedotykomka: the spirit is a fact of the world of the novel and not solely of Peredonov’s fantasy. The indication is that Peredonov’s insanity grants him a vision of the truth that the world is chaotic, hostile, destructive, and evil.

  The true face of the cosmos of The Petty Demon is revealed at the masquerade. Most of the weird creatures whom the reader has met one by one in the course of the novel are now gathered together under one roof. The masquerade includes the motif of insanity in two ways: it suggests that the entire town is insane, more like a madhouse than provincial Russia, and it removes the protective veil of “insanity” from what Peredonov perceives and reveals that his vision of the cosmos is accurate. A conflict of appearance and reality is evident in the very announcement of the masquerade. Rumors circulate that the prizes will be a cow for the best female costume and a bicycle for the best male costume. But, as soon as the townspeople have become enthusiastic about the prizes, it is discovered that in reality only a fan and an album will be given. Even so, almost the entire town turns out for the event. The possible gaiety and festivity of the occasion is dampened from the beginning by the knowledge that the hall seems a little dirty and the crowd is already slightly drunk: poshlost’ has invaded the realm of the exotic.

  The costumes are significant. Varvara does not labor over hers; she wears a mask with a stupid face, rouges her elbows, puts on an apron, and goes as a “cook straight from the stove (347).” This slovenly outfit is similar to her usual dress; thus she goes as herself though slightly costumed. Grushina chooses to dress as the goddess Diana. Her costume is immodest, but it has many folds in which she can hide the sweets she steals for her children. The scantiness of this costume reveals that she has flea bites on her body. She is her vulgar, indecent self and, significantly, her costume is interpreted not as the goddess Diana, but the dog Dianka. The Rutilov girls do not fuss over their costumes: Dania goes as a Turkish woman, Lyudmila as a gypsy, and Valeriya as a Spanish dancer. They dress exotically, but not outlandishly, and in this sense they too are themselves. Sasha, of course, goes as a geisha, and the import of this costume is that it plays on the ambiguous status of his sex. Neither Volodin nor Peredonov wears a costume. Volodin displays his ram-like, bestial nature by stomping wildly and by tearing ferociously at Sasha when the crowd attacks him. Peredonov has no need of a costume; he has achieved an inverted sort of integration in his devotion to petty, spiteful evil, and in him mask and face are one. It is at the masquerade that the nedotykomka too is finally attired in its true garb: the evil serpent.

  In all individual instances the costumes worn (or not worn) tend to reveal the identity of the character rather than to hide it. This is also true of the crowd as a whole: it is drunk, vulgar, spiteful, and bestial. This bestiality, to the point of mania, is revealed especially in the savage attack it makes on Sasha after he receives the prize for the best female costume. After the actor Bengalsky has rescued Sasha and taken him from the hall, the final event in the revelation of the true nature of the town occurs. Peredonov, prompted by the nedotykomka in the form of a serpent, sets fire to the clubhouse. The townsfolk have gathered together, their bestial and demonic natures have been revealed, and, with Peredonov’s arson, the suspicion that this is an inferno becomes a visual reality. The masquerade is now vested in its mask—fire, which is really its face.

  The world of The Petty Demon is visually close to that of Bosch’s hell and Bruegel’s proverbs. It is a world in which petty, spiteful evil pervades the atmosphere and swallows up the characters. The nedotykomka is the ruler of this world, and Peredonov is the spirit’s faithful servant. But, he is only the first of many lesser servants, for the entire cosmos of the novel is populated with petty, spiteful beasts, witches, and devils. The artistic means through which poshlost’ and the demonic are integrated is the grotesque.

  In The Petty Demon one can see a continuation of the tradition in Russian literature which perceives evil as petty; Peredonov may legitimately be considered a relative of both Gogol’s Chichikov and Dostoevsky’s Smerdyakov. It is also possible to see in this novel an inversion of attempts in Russian and world literature to depict the totally good man. In this sense a recent critic’s understanding of Peredonov as a fin de siècle redoing of Don Quixote is justified.34 But there is no reason why this comparison cannot be extended to include other saintly figures. Peredonov might also be understood as an inversion of Dostoevsky’s Myshkin. Sologub seems to be attempting to depict the totally evil man in the totally evil society. In the final analysis it may be possible to understand the novel as a reversal of the Christian myth of redemption in which Peredonov is an inversion of Sologub’s conception of Christ.

  NOTES

  * This study is a revised version of a much longer study which appeared under the same title in R. Freeborn, R.R. Milner-Gulland, and C.A. Ward, ed., Russian and Slavic Literature (Cambridge, Mass: Slavica Publishers, 1976), pp. 137–74.

  1. Respectively, Victor Erlich, Gogol (New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 1962), p. 5, and Lee Byron Jennings, The Ludicrous Lemon: Aspects of the Grotesque in German Post-Romantic Prose (Berkeley and Los Angeles: Univ. of California Press, 1963), p. 17. In general, Jennings closely approximates what this study understands as the definition of the grotesque.

  2. Jennings (The Ludicrous Demon … p. 10) says that the grotesque object is perceived as simultaneously ludicrous and fearsome.

  3. Wolfgang Kayser, The Grotesque in Art and Literture (New York: McGraw Hill, 1963), pp. 32–33, 181, suggests that the grotesque effect in Bosch may be weakened because his paintings seem to contain a symbology which is decipherable within the usual Christian framework. Kayser postulates a vision of cosmic absurdity as a condition for the grotesque.

  4. Jennings, The Ludicrous Demon, p. 20.

  5. Often in a literary work the creation of the grotesque is accompanied by an uneven narrative style which draws attention to the vocal texture by employing such devices as verbal nonsense and cacophony. Ludmila Foster defines the literary grotesque totally in terms of a style which “employs the devices of distortion and shift to create an effect of absurdity of estrangement,” “The Grotesque: A Method Of Analysis,” Zagadnienia rodzajów literackich, Vol. IX No. 1 (Lódz, 1966), p. 81. She also suggests that in The Petty Demon the grotesque effect is weakened by the absence of this style. “A Configuration of the Non-Absolute: he Structure and Nature of the Grotesque,” Zagadnienia rodzajów literackich, Vol. IX No. 2 (Lódz, 1967), p. 39.

  6. A.A. Izmailov, “F. Sologub o svoikh proizvedeniiakh, Birzhevye vedomosti (Oct. 16, 1906), p. 3. B. Yu. Ulanovskaya maintains that the model for Peredonov was a certain Ivan Ivanovich Strakhov who taught with Sologub in the Velikie Luki district in the late 1880’s. Ulanovskaya also appears to have located prototypes for Varvara and Volodin, “O prototipakh romana F. Sologuba Melkii bes,” Russkaia literatura, Vol. XII, No. 3 (1969), pp. 181–84.

  7. F.K. Sologub, Melkii bes, in Sobranie sochinenii, Vol. VI, S. Peterburg: Shipovnik, 1909–14. All subsequent quo
tations from The Petty Demon will be from this edition and will be indicated by page number in the text.

  8. Gogol is perhaps the best-known Russian author to use the pig in this sense. For a discussion of folk beliefs about common forms of the devil see S.V. Maksimov, Nechistaia sila. Nevedomaia sila, in Sobranie sochieneii, Vol. XVIII (S. Peterburg: Prosveshchenie, 1908–13), p. 11.

  9. Ibid., p. 12

  10. Ibid., p. 8.

  11. Galina Selegen’, Prekhitraia viaz’ (Washington: Victor Kamkin, 1968), pp. 147–76, discusses the language of The Petty Demon at length.

  12. The names “Vershina” and “Grushina” are interesting. The word “vershina” denotes a “summit” and the phonetically similar verb “vershit,” is commonly used in the sense of “to sway destiny” (vershit’ sud’bami). Her name thus suggests that she may be the major witch of the novel, and it points to the influence which she has on Peredonov’s destiny. Grushina’s name is from the Russian word for “pear,” and it adds a comic touch to her delineation.

  13. A.S. Pushkin, Polnoe sobranie sochinenii v desiati tomakh, Vol. IV, (Moskva: AN SSSR, 1963), p. 429.

  14. Vladimir Dal’, Toklovyi slovar’ zhivogo veliko-russkogo iazyka, vol. III (S. Peterburg, Moskva, 1914), p. 1744.

  15. The word “oboroten’ ” is not an exact equivalence of the English “werewolf.” It has a broader meaning and signifies a creature which is able to change from a human to an animal or plant nature at will. See Maksimov, Nechistaia sila, p. 118.