The Little Demon

by Fyodor Sologub

  ‘Marta and Vladya are going into the country today,’ she said, fondly gazing at him through a haze of cigarette smoke. ‘How about joining them? A workman’s come for them in a cart.’

  ‘It would be too cramped,’ Peredonov said sullenly.

  ‘Nonsense,’ Vershina replied, ‘there’s plenty of room. And even if you are a bit cramped it’s not very far – only about four miles.’

  Just then Marta came out of the house to ask Vershina something. The excitement of the trip had stirred her a little from her customary lethargy and her face was livelier and more cheerful than usual. The two of them tried to persuade Peredonov to make the trip.

  ‘You’ll be very comfortable,’ Vershina assured him. ‘You can sit with Marta in the back and Vladya will be in front with Ignaty. Look, the cart’s over there.’

  Peredonov followed Marta and Vershina into the yard where the cart was waiting. Vladya was busy packing some things into it. The cart looked roomy but Peredonov cast a mournful eye over it and said, ‘I’m not going in that. Certainly not enough room for four – and that’s not allowing for Vladya’s things.’

  ‘If you really feel like that,’ Vershina said, ‘Vladya can walk.’

  ‘I don’t mind at all,’ Vladya said with a friendly but forced smile. ‘I can easily walk it in one-and-a-half hours. I’ll start now and I’ll get there before you.’

  Then Peredonov objected that the cart would shake him up and down too much. They returned to the summer-house. Everything was ready, but Ignaty was still gorging himself in the kitchen in the most leisurely fashion.

  ‘How is Vladya getting on at school?’ Marta asked Peredonov.

  If anything annoyed Vershina it was Marta’s complete inability to talk to Peredonov about any other topic except her brother.

  ‘Shocking. He’s lazy and inattentive.’

  Vershina liked a good grumble now and again and she began to give Vladya a good telling-off. Vladya flushed and smiled alternately and shrugged his shoulders as if shivering with cold, raising one shoulder higher than the other, as was his habit.

  ‘But the year’s only just begun,’ he protested. ‘There’s plenty of time yet.’

  ‘You must work from the beginning,’ Marta said, speaking like an elder sister and as a result blushing slightly.

  ‘And he’s mischievous into the bargain. He plays around just like a street urchin and on Thursday he said something very rude to me!’

  Vladya suddenly flared up and hotly retorted, ‘I said nothing of the kind! I only told the truth. He missed everybody else’s mistakes in last week’s homework and gave me the lowest mark for the best work.’

  ‘That doesn’t alter the fact that you were impertinent,’ said Peredonov.

  ‘I wasn’t. I only said I would tell the inspector,’ Vladya said heatedly, ‘that you gave me the lowest mark for nothing!’

  ‘Vladya! You’re forgetting yourself,’ Vershina crossly said. ‘What about apologizing instead of keeping on saying the same thing?’

  It suddenly dawned on Vladya that Peredonov might marry Marta, so it was bad policy to annoy him. He blushed a deeper red, fumbled with his belt and stuttered, ‘I’m sorry, I only wanted you to look at my work again and give me the right marks.’

  ‘Be quiet, please!’ Vershina interrupted. ‘I won’t have this arguing.’ Her whole dried-up body trembled almost imperceptibly. And she proceeded to shower him with many reproaches, puffing at her cigarette and wryly smiling as she always did, whatever the conversation. ‘I shall have to tell your father to punish you,’ she concluded.

  ‘A good thrashing is what he needs,’ said Peredonov with an angry look in the direction of the offending Vladya.

  ‘Exactly,’ Vershina agreed. ‘A real good hiding.’

  ‘Yes, a nice birching,’ said Marta and blushed.

  ‘That’s why I’m coming with you today,’ Peredonov continued. ‘I shall tell your father to thrash you – and I’ll see he does it properly.’

  Vladya said nothing and looked at his tormentors. He shrugged his shoulders and smiled through his tears. His father was very strict and Vladya tried to console himself with the thought that they were only threatening him, nothing more. How could they spoil his holiday for him? After all, a holiday was almost a sacred day, on which nothing connected with school or work could ever happen.

  But Peredonov liked seeing young boys in tears, especially when he was the one who saw to it that they wept and confessed. Vladya’s confusion, his suppressed tears, his timid, guilty smile – all this delighted him. He decided to go with Marta and Vladya.

  ‘Oh all right, I’ll come then,’ he told Marta.

  Marta was glad but rather apprehensive. Of course, she wanted Peredonov to come along – rather, Vershina had wanted this for her and had instilled this desire in her with her powers of persuasion. But now that he had actually agreed to go with them, she felt ill at ease because of poor Vladya and sorry for him.

  It was painful for Vladya as well. Was Peredonov going just because of him? He thought he might placate him and said, ‘Mr Peredonov, if you think you’re going to be uncomfortable, I’ll go on foot.’

  Peredonov looked at him suspiciously and said, ‘Oh no, not on your life! We don’t want you running off on your own. No, we’ll take you to your father’s and he can give you a good thrashing.’

  Vladya flushed and sighed in despair. He felt so uneasy and miserable, so upset by his stern torturer, that he sank into a deep gloom. In an attempt to please Peredonov he tried to make more room for him. ‘I’ll arrange your seat so that you have a nice comfortable journey,’ he said and he hurried off to the cart.

  Vershina watched him, still smiling and still smoking. ‘They’re all scared of their father, he’s terribly strict with them,’ she told Peredonov quietly.

  Marta blushed.

  Vladya dearly wanted to take his new English fishing-rod, for which he had saved up all his money. And there was something else too, but all this would have taken up a lot of room so he took everything back into the house.

  It was a warm day but the heat was not oppressive. The sun was just setting and the road, still wet from the morning rain, bore very few traces of dust. The cart rolled its way smoothly over the small cobblestones, carrying its four passengers out of town. The well-fed little grey mare trotted as if she had no weight at all to pull. With a barely perceptible movement of the reins, so delicate that only the expert eye would have noticed it, the silent, lethargic Ignaty put her into a fast trot.

  Peredonov had taken his place next to Marta. Vladya had made so much room for him that it was extremely uncomfortable for her. But Peredonov was quite blind to her discomfort, and even if he had noticed he wouldn’t have done a thing about it – after all, he was the guest.

  Peredonov was in the best of moods and decided he would have a friendly chat with Marta and amuse her with a few jokes. He began: ‘Well now, isn’t it time you had a rebellion?’

  ‘A rebellion?’ Marta asked.

  ‘Yes, you Poles are always having them but they never succeed.’

  ‘Nothing could be further from my mind,’ Marta said. ‘None of us wants to rebel.’

  ‘Aha! You only say that. In fact you hate the Russians.’

  ‘Not at all,’ Vladya said, turning round from the front where he was sitting with Ignaty.

  ‘We know how you’re plotting the whole time. We’re not going to give you Poland back. We defeated you and at the same time brought you many benefits. No matter how well you feed a wolf he’ll still hanker after the forest.’

  Marta didn’t attempt to contradict him. Peredonov said nothing for a moment and then he suddenly remarked, ‘The Poles are a lot of brainless nitwits.’

  Marta went very red in the face. ‘Every country has its share of idiots,’ she said.

  ‘What I’m telling you is true,’ insisted Peredonov. ‘The Poles are stupid. All they can do is show off. Now take the Jews – they’re a clever lot.’
r />   ‘Jews are swindlers and not at all clever,’ Vladya said.

  ‘On the contrary, the Jews are very clever. A Jew will always fool a Russian, but never the other way round,’ Peredonov retorted.

  ‘But one shouldn’t swindle,’ Vladya said. ‘Is that what you call clever, being able to cheat and swindle?’

  Peredonov looked angrily at him. ‘Cleverness consists in studying hard – which you don’t!’

  Vladya sighed, turned round and watched the mare’s even trot.

  Peredonov continued, ‘Jews are clever at everything, including studying at school. If Jews were allowed to become professors, then all professors would be Jews. Polish women are all sluts.’

  With much pleasure he watched Marta blush furiously and said, out of kindness, ‘Don’t think I mean you. I know for a fact you’d make a good housewife.’

  ‘All Polish women make good housewives,’ Marta replied.

  ‘Hm, yes. They’re clean on the surface but their petticoats are filthy. But then you had your Mickiewicz.* He’s much better than our Pushkin. I have his portrait in my room. Pushkin used to hang there but I took him down and hung him in the lavatory. Pushkin was nothing but a court flunkey.’

  ‘But you’re Russian yourself,’ Vladya said, ‘so how can you prefer our Mickiewicz to Pushkin? They’re both very good poets.’

  ‘Mickiewicz is superior,’ Peredonov repeated. ‘The Russians are stupid. All they’ve done is invent the samovar.’ Peredonov looked at Marta, blinked and said, ‘You’ve got too many freckles. It doesn’t look nice.’

  ‘What can I do to get rid of them?’ Marta asked, smiling.

  ‘I’ve got them as well,’ said Vladya, turning round and knocking the silent Ignaty with his elbow.

  ‘You’re only a boy,’ Peredonov said. ‘Besides, it doesn’t matter with men. But with women’ (he turned to Marta) ‘it’s positively unsightly. No one will marry you like that. You ought to try some cucumber brine.’

  Marta thanked him for the advice. Vladya smiled at Peredonov.

  ‘What are you smiling about?’ asked Peredonov. ‘You wait, you’re going to get such a thrashing once we get you to your father’s!’

  Vladya didn’t know whether to take him seriously and stared him straight in the face. Peredonov couldn’t bear being stared at and snapped, ‘Why are you gawking at me like that? Do I have pretty patterns on my face? Or are you trying to cast an evil spell over me?’

  Vladya turned his eyes away in fright. ‘I beg your pardon … I didn’t mean to stare on purpose.’

  ‘Do you believe in the evil eye?’ Marta asked.

  ‘That’s nothing but a stupid superstition,’ Peredonov said irately. ‘But it’s terribly rude to stare like that, don’t you think?’

  An awkward silence followed, broken by Peredonov saying, ‘It’s true that you haven’t much money, isn’t it?’

  ‘No, we’re not rich,’ replied Marta. ‘At the same time, we’re not so poor. We all have something put away.’

  Peredonov looked at her disbelievingly and said, ‘I know you’re poor. At home you go around without any shoes the whole time.’

  ‘But that’s not because we’re poor,’ replied Vladya brightly.

  ‘Because you’re rich then?’ Peredonov broke into loud bursts of laughter.

  ‘Not because we’re poor,’ Vladya said, blushing. ‘It’s healthy and toughens us up – and it’s very pleasant in summer.’

  ‘You’re lying,’ said Peredonov gruffly. ‘Rich people don’t go around in bare feet. Your father has lots of children and he earns next to nothing. He can’t afford to buy shoes for everyone.’*

  SEVEN

  Varvara had no idea where Peredonov had gone and as a result spent a night sleepless with worry. When he arrived back in town in the morning Peredonov didn’t go straight home but went to the church instead, where he was just in time for Mass. He thought that he was running a great risk by not appearing every now and then in church – he would be reported for that.

  At the church gates he met a friendly-looking schoolboy with a healthy red face and angelic blue eyes. Peredonov said, ‘Hullo, Mashenka,* bought any nice skirts lately?’

  Misha Kudryatsev blushed to the roots of his hair. It was not the first time that Peredonov had teased him this way and he couldn’t understand why. But he didn’t have the courage to complain. Several of his stupid schoolfriends standing in a crowd near by laughed at Peredonov’s remark. They too found teasing Misha great fun.

  St Elijah’s was an ancient building, dating back to the time of Tsar Mikhail. It stood in the square facing the school. On church holidays and for vespers the boys had to assemble and stand in rows to the left, by the side-chapel of St Katherine; behind them stood an assistant master to keep order. Next to them, and nearer the centre of the church, stood the form masters, the headmaster and the inspector, with their families. Most of the Orthodox boys went to the services, apart from a few who had permission to attend their parish churches with their parents. The choir was noted for its singing and the church was patronized by important merchants, civil servants and landowning families. Very few peasants or labourers worshipped there, especially as Mass was celebrated much later than in other churches, at the headmaster’s special request.

  Peredonov went to his usual place, from which he could see all the choirboys. He screwed up his eyes and thought that they were standing very raggedly: he would have pulled them up for that if he were an inspector!

  Kramarenko, for example, that small dark-faced frail and fidgety boy, was behaving particularly badly. He was turning this way and that, whispering and smiling. It was most strange that no one stopped him, as if they couldn’t be bothered.

  An absolute disgrace, thought Peredonov. Those choirboys are lazy good-for-nothings. Kramarenko thinks he can smile and talk just because he has a good voice. And he frowned.

  Next to Peredonov stood the inspector of national schools, Sergey Bogdanov, who had arrived late. He was an old man with a stupid dark face. He always gave the impression of wanting to explain something that he didn’t understand himself. No one was easier to shock or intimidate than Bogdanov. Whenever he heard something new or disturbing his forehead would wrinkle up in intense pain and he would let forth a stream of incoherent, confused exclamations.

  Peredonov bowed and whispered, ‘I hear one of your schoolmistresses has taken to wearing a red blouse.’*

  This news frightened Bogdanov and his white goatee bobbed nervously up and down on his chin. ‘What’s that you say?’ he whispered hoarsely. ‘Which one?’

  ‘The fat one with the loud mouth. I can’t remember her name,’ Peredonov whispered back.

  ‘Loud-mouthed, loud-mouthed,’ muttered the perplexed Bogdanov as he tried to remember. ‘Hm, that sounds like Miss Skobochkina.’

  ‘That’s the one,’ said Peredonov.

  ‘In a red blouse! I can’t believe it. Did you see her yourself?’

  ‘I did. And she’s taken to parading it at school. What’s even worse, she wears a peasant tunic, just like a country girl.’

  ‘Go on! I must get to the bottom of this. We can’t have teachers going around in red blouses. She’ll have to be dismissed, that’s certain. I might have expected something like that from her.’

  Mass was over and as they were leaving the church Peredonov stepped up to Kramarenko and said, ‘You black-faced street Arab! Why were you smiling in church? Wait till I tell your father.’

  Kramarenko looked at him in amazement and ran past without saying a word. He was one of the majority of boys at the school who found Peredonov coarse, stupid and unfair. For this they hated and despised him. Peredonov was sure that these were the ones whom the headmaster was inciting against him – if not personally, then through his sons.

  Outside the church Volodin came up to Peredonov, happily chuckling. His face had a blissful expression, as if it were his birthday. He wore a bowler hat and swung his cane dashingly.

  ‘What do you
think, Ardalyon!’ he said gaily. ‘I’ve persuaded Cherepnin to smear Marta’s gates with tar.’

  Peredonov reflected for a moment and then suddenly produced a morose laugh. Just as suddenly, Volodin stopped grinning, looked sheepish and said, gazing up at the sky and swinging his cane, ‘What wonderful weather! But I think it might rain this evening. Well, let it. I shall spend a nice evening at home with the future inspector.’

  ‘I’m too busy right now to stay at home this evening,’ said Peredonov. ‘I’ve things to see to in town.’

  Volodin pretended to understand, although he had no idea what Peredonov suddenly had to see to. Peredonov was quite sure that it was imperative to make several visits. In fact yesterday’s chance encounter with the police officer had convinced him of the need to talk to all the important people in town and make them believe he was trustworthy and above suspicion. If he were successful he would have many defenders in the town who would testify that politically he was beyond reproach, should the need arise.

  ‘Where are you off to, Ardalyon?’ asked Volodin when he saw that Peredonov was turning from his normal route home from church. ‘Aren’t you going home?’

  ‘Yes, but I’m going a different way, I don’t like that street anymore.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘There’s a lot of thorn-apple growing there and it smells very strong. It sends me into a complete daze. My nerves are weak enough as it is. Life is nothing but unpleasantness at the moment.’

  Volodin once more tried to look sympathetic and understanding. On the way Peredonov picked some thistles and stuffed them into his pocket.