The Petty Demon

by Sologub, Fyodor

  36. Kay Louise Robbins notes the satirical import of this costume: “The disguise, as a projection of the individual’s interior, evokes satire as Yulia Gudaevskaya, the notary’s wife, a thin dry woman who engages in promiscuous affairs, comes dressed as an ear of fertile courn….” See “The Artistic Vision of Fedor Sologub: A Study of Five Major Novels” (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Washington, 1975), 73. Annensky mentions that an ear of grain (kolos) played a role in Dionysiac mystery (XCIV).

  37. René Girard, Violence and the Sacred (Baltimore: John’s Hopkins Press, 1977). See especially his interpretation of the Bacchae using this approach, 119–42.

  38. A full explanation of Girard’s terms or his theory is impossible here. In “mimetic competition” each member of a community desires what his neighbor has, and is drawn by this desire into a proliferating process of imitation of the other that culminates in violence.

  39. In The Birth of Tragedy Nietzsche sees this ability at the heart of the Dionysian experience (see 64).

  40. Thurston views Volodin as Peredonov’s scapegoat rather than his double, 42. On the god’s victim as his ritual double in Dionysiac myth, see H.P. Foley, “The Masque of Dionysus,” TAPA 110 (1980), 130, n. 2. The parallels between Sologub’s novel and the Bacchae become very complex here, since Peredonov does not become the god’s victim like Pentheus, but instead adopts Dionysus’ own role as sacrificer. Similarly, in the masquerade the role of Dionysus is split between Sasha and Bengalsky.

  41. In terms of a Girardian analysis, Peredonov’s success in taking the violence of the community on himself, and obscuring its culpability through this action, might imply that he has temporarily succeeded through his sacrifice in establishing his own anti-Dionysiac “religion” in the community.

  42. For the most complete discussion of the essential amorality of Dionysiac religion and its ambiguities, see R.P. Winnington-Ingram, Euripides and Dionysus: An Interpretation of the “Bacchae” (Cambridge, Eng.: The University Press, 1948).

  43. The Birth, 53.

  “PEREDONOV’S LITTLE TEAR”

  — WHY IS IT SHED?1

  (THE SUFFERINGS OF A TORMENTOR)*

  IRENE MASING DELIC

  THE PROTAGONIST OF Sologub’s novel The Petty Demon, 2 the sadistic schoolteacher Peredonov, has evoked diametrically opposed reactions—love and hatred—in two Russian writers: Zinaida Gippius and Evgeny Zamyatin. The latter, in his essay “Fyodor Sologub,”3 sees the Russina Professor Unrath 4 as the epitome of the seemingly indestructible philistine, that “mold” (221) which grows everywhere without being cultivated.5 He notes that the author punishes Peredonov with immortality. To die is the fate of the tragic and romantic hero, Zamyatin argues, to live that of the vulgar man. Peredonov is not worthy of being “killed,” only of being whipped—with the lashes of satire. To Zamyatin the novel is a romantic writer’s satire on the “philistine snout,” Peredonov not qualifying for the name homo erectus as he is a mere wheedling, tail-wagging and cowardly beast. The “Scythian” Zamyatin rejects Chichikov’s famous statement that there is no merit in loving the virtuous and that it is considerably more difficult, thence laudable, to love the wicked. Zamyatin demands hatred for the ugly, common and “immortal” philistine snout which distorts the ideal image of man; he does so in the name of love for the future man who will have overcome the Peredonov within himself.

  Zinaida Gippius in her essay (cf. footnote 1) likewise evaluates Peredonov as a poor specimen of a human being; nevertheless she proposes a different treatment of him than the one Zamyatin was to suggest later. The “vulgar fool” (41) Peredonov deserves sympathy, even love in her view. As a poet of metaphysical anxiety and unceasing unrest, Gippius cannot be accused of taking up a “Chichikovian” position in regard to human deficiencies, in spite of her “love” for the pettily wicked Peredonov.6 But having described his own soul as a dull satiated snake (She, 1905), the poet would feel some sympathy for the spiritual dullard Peredonov.7 This doe not mean that Gippius’s self-critical poet should be seen as “another Peredonov,” their spiritual development obviously being on different levels.8 Still, the problem of spiritual insufficiency, whatever its degree, was one which occupied Gippius. As a religious poet and thinker, she is interested in an aspect of Peredonov‘s existence, which Zamyatin—more concerned with man than God—does not heed: the “injustice” of having been born a petty, shabby, limited creature. Repulsive Peredonov’s morality is of less concern to her than the motivation of Him Who created the “living Peredonovs.” Gippius takes up the stance of a God-fighter to fling out the question: “How did He dare to create this creature? And how will He answer for him?” (43)

  In her critique of the Creator Gippius extends the Ivan Karamazov arguments against the given world order: “It is incumbent upon us to justify ‘the little tear of the tormented child’ because we must know: for what crime? why? for what purpose? But similarly it is incumbent … upon me to justify each of Peredonov’s elephant tears …” (43).

  Gippius claims as her own the discovery that Peredonov’s situation is to be equated with that of the “tormented child” within the context of the theodicy problem. She even denies the author himself, i.e., Sologub, any knowledge of Peredonov’s sufferings, subtitling her essay “What Sologub Doesn’t Know.” But K. Chukovsky rightly pointed out that Sologub “does know”; he sees Peredonov’s “little tear,” and even “positively drowns the novel in the tears of this morose sufferer,” as the critic put it.9 To judge from Chukovsky’s facetious tone he does not take Peredonov’s sufferings much to heart; nevertheless he gives a penetrating explanation of them. Peredonov’s misfortune, the critic declares, is that he lacks the gift of creatively transforming reality and therefore cannot conjure up the wondrous land Ojle where tortured minds may find rest.10 Here is indeed the key to Peredonov’s situation.

  Gippius correctly depicts Peredonov as a being deeply wronged by his creator. But whereas she offers God an opportunity to “explain Himself,” Sologub’s deity is the Demiurge of the Gnostics whose evil intentions are only too clear. The “Satanist” and “Lucifer worshipper” Sologub created a poetic world which would seem to find its best explanation in Gnostic-Manichaean terms. The critique of the Demiurge’s faulty creation—our imperfect world and those clay puppets called human beings–forms the all-dominating thematics of Sologub’s works in any genre. The novel The Petty Demon is no exception, demonstrating in full detail the situation of one of the Demiurge’s victims: the clumsy, gross and particularly unsuccessful creation which was labelled Peredonov.

  The task of this study is to discuss the specific causes and attributes of Peredonov’s sufferings and to link these into a picture of this existential situation in the Demiurge’s evil world. Its aim is to show how Peredonov’s situation may be compared to that of the “tormented child” (in spite of the fact that Peredonov himself is a tormentor of children); it should demonstrate that Peredonov’s life forms a critique of “divine powers,” identified here with the Demiurge. In order to achieve this aim Peredonov’s problematics may be divided into two interlinked categories. His fundamental problem is that his soul is captured in the prisonhouse of his body, so that he cannot attain true knowledge (gnosis) of reality. He attempts to rectify his situation by engaging in a quest for an identity (self-knowledge) during which he becomes a “suffering usurper.”11

  Peredonov’s soul is imprisoned in his body—as is that of most men. In their compact grossness, human bodies cannot but trap the spirit. The Demiurge’s creative work was “presumptuous and blundering” in its entirety but this characterization applies particularly to the creatures called human beings.12 To make them, the Demiurge chose coarse clay as raw material which he shaped into crude and graceless forms. He then “deposited” in these “clay receptacles” a “spark of life.” He himself was not the source of this “life energy” but stole it from the transcendent Spirit, the “living God” of the novel (300). The Living God is the true God Whose image th
e Demiurge has usurped in his pursuit of power. But in vain does the usurper compete with the Spirit—his creative failures give him away. His creatures ought not to be called men as they are but barely animated clay puppets, “golems,” “homunculi,” “Frankenstein monsters.”

  A glance at the outer form of the inhabitants of Peredonov’s symbolic town proves that the Demiurge’s creative talents are indeed limited. Many an “accident” takes place in his “laboratory.” Often the wrong “parts” have been put together, as may be seen from crooked smiles, disproportionate eyes and heads which do not fit their bodies. In some cases the puppets have been daubed with too much “paint,” in others with too little. The result: ruddy and greenish faces.

  The “spark of life,” without which these clay figures would “crumble to dust,” is too feeble to move their heavy frame. They are therefore provided with a “mechanism” which propels them forward. Consequently their movements are jerky. The puppets are run on “electric batteries” and pulled by “strings.” Their imitation of life is often successful, but at times a battery runs out, or a string snaps. Then it is evident that the Demiurge’s creatures are “automatons.” Prepolovensky, e.g., is a “faulty phonograph” who repeats the same story over and over again, until somebody takes off the “cracked record,” i.e., interrupts him.13 To sum up: the puppets are programmed—not for that complex form of being called “life,” but for the existential mode of “dancing.”

  A dance is a series of formalized step, which are repeated over and over again. Thus it is a movement which puppets may master, whereas the unpredictable movements of life lie beyond their capacity. The frequently recurring dance motif of the novel serves to emphasize the mechanical quality of marionette life. The motif reaches its apogee in the tumultuous scenes of the masked ball, when the puppets run amok, demonstrating yet another creative failure in the Demiurge’s handicraft. When the puppets are overwound, control over their movement is lost.

  Aesthetic and mechanical defects are not the only ones in the Demiurge’s clay creatures. They are also fragile and perishable in spite of their apparent sturdiness. They are easily “broken,” they “crumble” and disintegrate, and, in addition, engage in mutual destruction.

  When the inebriated Ershova threatens to tear Varvara apart by her legs, this seems a real possibility in regard to a puppet (65). In a variant text, describing the Gudaevsky household, the parents think that tugging their child in opposite directions, they have torn him apart! (435) lt is not surprising that Peredonov who agrees that his mistress Varvara should be “pulverized,” fears ending up between the grindstones of a mill (286). This is in any case the “way of all flesh,” as the Demiurge’s “clay” is also termed.] It is bound to disintegrate into dust. Dust envelops the cemetery city of “dead souls” in which Peredonov lives.14

  As may be expected from such primitive creatures, the range of their activities is limited. As mechanisms they ate only capable of feeding, coupling and reproducing themselves. In the grossness of these activities they are “animals.” Thus, in addition to being a “show-booth” where coarse comedies are played, Peredonov’s town is also a “zoological garden,” where (domestic) animals inhabit stuffy, smelly cages—in the manner of the “captured beasts” of Sologub’s poetry (We Are Caged Animals, 1905). In town we find: sheep (Volodin), ducks (Varvara), “scalded puppies” (Grushina’s children), dogs (the Gudaevskys) and “beasts” of various other kinds, as the favourite address in town, skotina, indicates. People do not “agree” but have “sniff contact”; snjuchat’sja is a term Peredonov “borrowed” from Gogol’s Poprishch. Grushina makes no distinction whatsoever between a human being and a dog, on the grounds that neither has a “soul” (338), and she often proves the truth of her words by behaving like a “bitch.” Indeed the difference between humans and animals is minimal in Peredonov’s town—in the Gogolian tradition.

  Superficially Peredonov is no exception in his town. He too is barely illuminated by a “greedy but dull fire” (290), shining through his eyes,—that divine spark which flickers helplessly in the bodily prison. He too is a “wound-up puppet” (289, 290), a marionette pulled by the “strings” of his muscles (72). He too “dances,” as in the scene with Ershova. She is a puppet equipped with a sound mechanism wherefore she emits squeaky noises at regular intervals (povizgivala, pokrikivala, 69)—the morose puppet Peredonov lacks a corresponding sound box. However both are equally subject to the inertia of mechanical laws; they cannot even “unlock” their embraces when they sit down at mechanically regular intervals to be “recharged.” It is made plain in the novel that Peredonov’s actions are never motivated by “will,” but merely by mechanical motor impulses (72).

  Peredonov adds to the zoological variety in the novel by being a “pig.” Varvara calls him “swine” (55), emphasizing that this classification is based on close observation. Indeed it is stressed that Peredonov is not any other animal, e.g., a “bull,” but a “downright swine” (formennaia svin’ia, 91), presumably of the Gogolian “demonic” type. Peredonov himself believes that he is one, laying claim to a “human snout.”

  Thus Peredonov’s situation is that of all the people in town: a feeble spirit is trapped in a heavy, clumsy and inert body. The uneven struggle between spirit and matter inevitably leads to the defeat of the spirit. But there is a difference, nevertheless, between Peredonov and the other townspeople. They are satisfied with their condition, Peredonov is not. He feels uncomfortable in his “cage”; he is terrified of being a “pig,” whereas e.g., Volodin is eminently happy as a “sheep.”15

  The Demiurge is not only a “blunderer”—he is also jealous. Forced to endow these creatures with a “spark of life,” as “batteries” alone cannot maintain their life functions, he ensured that the separate sparks would not fuse into a spiritual fire. The existence of such a force would threaten his security on the usurped throne. Therefore he placed the “sparks” in bodies which were designed to make communication between them, as well as contact with outer reality, difficult.

  The bodies which the Demiurge gave his creatures are prisonhouses. Their compactness is comparable to that of prisonwalls. The “windows” of the bodily prison, i.e., the five senses, transmit a minimal amount of information which, in addition, is distorted. They are “dirty windows” which allow the prisoner a view of a small and ugly corner of the prisonyard, i.e., the world of realia, whereas the vision of the sky, i.e. the realm of realiora, is blocked.16 The imprisoned “sparks” are thus effectively isolated from reality outside as well as from an exchange of information. Unable to communicate with each other, barred from correct information, they cannot attain gnosis. This is the general human condition, which Peredonov shares (311).

  But, primitive as Peredonov is, he nevertheless, is an exception in his town, yearns for the truth (both Pravda and istina, 345/6). In this regard he is a human amongst “animals.” He even seeks the truth in the right place, i.e., “beyond the world of matter” (366). But there is “noise” in his information channels and his senses delude him, instead of enlightening him. Thus Peredonov is doomed to constant fear, the inevitable result of confusion and ignorance. Fear leads to aggression. In the final analysis, it is ignorance which is the source of Peredonov’s sadistic and criminal acts.

  Peredonov is constantly deceived by his defective senses. His sleepy small eyes which almost drown in his bloated face are “muddy ponds” or “dirty mirrors” (325) which grotesquely distort reality. His nose cannot register aromatic smells, wherefore they seem unpleasant to him. His taste in food is of the grossest kind, and cannot afford him genuine pleasure. Consequently he is doomed to live in a hell of unrelieved ugliness, as one eternally damned.

  To the constant flow of distorted information Peredonov reacts as a frightened animal would: by withdrawing into a dark corner. He attempts to stop the flow of impressions altogether. He puts cotton wool in his ears, in the classical “man in a shell” fashion, and never airs his room, keeping all
“windows” locked. In the language of the gnostics this means that he blocks all his senses. The teacher of literature, Peredonov, refuses to read, thus barring himself from a valuable source of knowledge. All these attempts at withdrawal naturally result in even more distorted notions of reality and Peredonov is trapped in a vicious circle of delusion and fear. Insanity must ensue. But Peredonov’s insanity testifies to the fact that—unlike many others in town—he is still able to react, even if only negatively.

  Grace alone can save the damned. Peredonov could have been saved by a gracious vision of beauty, but, as Chukovsky pointed out, the ability to perceive or create beauty has been denied to Peredonov. Thus he is cut off from the source of life and gnosis. This becomes clear from Peredonov’s reaction to the mystery of transubstantiation.

  When Peredonov visits church—for practical, not spiritual reasons—he is frightened of the beautiful liturgy, the fine priestly vestments and the aromatic incense (as devils are wont, 137). This is so because “the mystery of the eternal transubstantiation of inert matter into a power breaking the fetters of death was forever veiled from him” (299/300). The “walking corpse” (300) Peredonov, i.e., the Demiurge’s lifeless clay puppet cannot understand or believe in the “living God and His Christ,” i.e., the true divinity of the transcendental realm where life eternal resides in ideal forms of imperishable beauty.17 Beauty transubstantiates the mortal flesh.

  Beauty could heal Peredonov, but under the given circumstances, it becomes an additional source of horror. Peredonov feels that “beauty is not for him” and that ugliness “suits” him better. Driven by bitterness he recoils from beauty or destroys it. But his overreaction to it, as well as his strange interest in the beautiful androgynous Sasha Pylnikov testify to his dim awareness of this alternative beyond his grasp.

  In nightmares Peredonov sees how Pylnikov, smiling seductively, beckons him to another realm, but to deluded Peredonov it assumes a sinister aspect (261).18 The windows of his room are transformed into Pylnikov’s eyes, staring at him (363). This symbolic delusion, expresses Peredonov’s simultaneous fear of and yearning for a beautiful word beyond his prison. Peredonov cannot transport himself to this realm of beauty and life everlasting. This failure is Peredonov’s misfortune, but not crime.