The Little Demon

by Fyodor Sologub

  The redheaded ‘jack’ handed the letter to Varvara. ‘It’s for you, madam,’ he said politely, thanked her for the vodka, gulped it down, grunted, grabbed a chunk of pie and left.

  Varvara turned the letter over in her hands. But she didn’t open it. She gave it to Peredonov. ‘See what it says. I think it’s from the princess,’ she said, grinning. ‘Another long letter saying absolutely nothing, I suppose. She ought to give you the job, instead of just writing.’

  Peredonov’s hands trembled as he tore open the envelope and quickly read the letter. Then he jumped up from his chair, waved the letter in the air and whooped with delight. ‘Hurrah! I’ve been offered three posts as inspector. I can choose any one I like. Hurrah, Varvara, our luck’s really changed!’ He started to dance and career around the room. With his motionless red face and dull eyes he looked just like a large clockwork doll. Varvara grinned and gleefully watched him.

  ‘It’s settled once and for all, Varvara!’ he shouted. ‘Let’s get married!’

  He grasped Varvara by the shoulders and whirled her around the table, stamping his feet. ‘The trepak, Varvara!’ he shouted.

  Varvara put her hands on her hips and sailed off, while Peredonov danced Cossack style before her.

  At this moment Volodin came in and happily bleated, ‘So the future inspector’s taken up the trepak!’

  ‘Dance, Pavlusha!’ cried Peredonov.

  Claudia looked out from behind a door. Laughing and grimacing, Volodin shouted to her, ‘Come and join us! All together, in honour of the new inspector!’

  Claudia shrieked and joined in the wild dance, wriggling her shoulders. Volodin cut all sorts of capers, flinging his legs out, whirling around, jumping and clapping his hands. He looked particularly dashing when he raised one knee and clapped his hands beneath it. The floor simply shook under their heels. Claudia was delighted at having such a skilful, dashing partner.

  When they were tired they all sat down at the table and Claudia ran back into the kitchen, shrieking with laughter. They drank vodka and beer, smashed the bottles and glasses on the floor, guffawed, gesticulated wildly and embraced each other. Then Peredonov and Volodin went off to the club – Peredonov couldn’t wait to tell everyone about his success.

  In the billiard-room they found the usual players. Peredonov showed his friends the letter. It produced a great impression and no one doubted its authenticity. Rutilov turned pale and mumbled something, sending out a spray of saliva.

  ‘With my own eyes I saw the postman bring it!’ Peredonov exclaimed. ‘And I opened it myself. That proves it’s genuine.’

  His friends looked at him in awe. A letter from a princess!

  From the club Peredonov made haste to Vershina’s. He walked quickly and smoothly, rhythmically swinging his arms and muttering to himself. His face was quite without expression, as motionless as that of a clockwork doll. But a strange, hungry fire burned in his eyes with a deathly glimmer.

  It was a fine, warm day. Marta was sitting in the summer-house, knitting a sock. Her thoughts were vague and pious. First she reflected on sin. Then she turned her thoughts to more pleasant subjects, such as virtue. This only made her feel drowsy, and the sleepier she became, the more her reflections lost their philosophic content and became hazy dreams. The Virtues arrayed themselves before her, like huge beautiful dolls in white dresses, sweetly smelling and radiant. They promised her rewards, keys tinkled in their hands and white wedding veils fluttered from their heads.

  One of them was rather strange and unlike the rest. She promised nothing and looked disdainful, her lips moving in silent menace. It seemed that if she were to say something it would be terrible. Marta guessed that she was Conscience. That awesome visitor was dressed in black, and her eyes and hair were black. She said something rapidly, distinctly – and she seemed just like Vershina. Marta shuddered and answered her questions almost mechanically, until once again she was overcome by drowsiness.

  Whether it was Conscience or Vershina seated opposite – that calm, determined visitor who was telling her something rapidly and lucidly, but nevertheless incomprehensibly, who was smoking exotic cigarettes and demanding that everything should be carried out according to her dictates – Marta could not tell. She wanted to look this importunate visitor straight in the eye, but for some reason she couldn’t. The visitor smiled so strangely, kept grumbling, and her eyes were constantly wandering and then coming to rest on remote, mysterious objects that Marta was afraid to look at …

  The sound of loud voices woke her from her day-dreams. Peredonov was in the summer-house, greeting Vershina in a loud voice. Marta looked around in fear. Her heart was pounding, her eyelids still heavy with sleep and her thoughts still confused. Where was Conscience? Or had she imagined it all?

  ‘You were sitting there dozing,’ Peredonov told her, ‘and snoring your head off. Now you’re a pine tree!’*

  Marta didn’t understand the pun, but she smiled, guessing from the smile on Vershina’s lips that Peredonov had said something that was supposed to be funny.

  Peredonov sat on the bench beside Marta and said, ‘I have some extremely important news for you.’

  ‘Well, don’t keep it from us,’ said Vershina.

  ‘Guess,’ said Peredonov in a triumphant but gloomy voice.

  ‘How do you expect us to guess? Why don’t you just tell us, then we’ll know.’

  Peredonov wasn’t at all pleased that they didn’t want to guess his news. He sat silently, awkwardly hunched up, and looked vacantly in front of him. Vershina smoked and smiled wryly, revealing her dark yellow teeth.

  ‘All right,’ she said after a brief pause, ‘I’ll see what the cards say. Marta, get me a pack from the drawing-room.’

  Marta got up, but Peredonov angrily stopped her.

  ‘Sit down, I don’t want them. Guess how you like, but leave me in peace. You won’t guess my news the way you want, anyway. I’m going to show you a trick now which will make you gasp.’

  Peredonov swiftly produced a wallet from his pocket, took out a letter in an envelope and showed it to Vershina without letting go of it. ‘You can see the envelope. And here’s the letter.’

  He took the letter out and read it slowly with a dull expression of triumphant malice in his eyes. Vershina was stunned. To the very last she had not believed in the princess, but now she realized that it was all over as far as Marta was concerned. With a wry vexed smile she said, ‘It seems your luck’s in!’

  Marta’s face was all astonishment and she smiled in dismay.

  ‘That’ll teach you to think I’m stupid!’ gloated Peredonov. ‘You thought you were clever, but I’ll show you! And you mentioned the envelope – well, here it is. No, it’s all plain sailing for me now.’ He banged the table with his fist, but not very hard and without making much noise. And his movements and the sound of his words were strangely apathetic, as if he were in another world.

  Vershina and Marta exchanged bewildered glances.

  ‘What are you staring at each other for?’ Peredonov said rudely. ‘There’s no point in that, it’s all settled. I’m going to marry Varvara. And to think of the narrow escapes I’ve had.’

  Vershina sent Marta for some cigarettes and she joyfully ran from the summer-house. As she walked down the sandy path strewn with colourful, faded leaves, she felt she could breathe freely. And when she met barefooted Vladya near the house she become even more cheerful.

  ‘He’s going to marry Varvara, it’s all settled,’ she said gaily, lowering her voice as she led her brother into the house.

  Meanwhile Peredonov, without bothering to wait until Marta came back, suddenly got up to leave. ‘I can’t stay here wasting time like this. Getting married is not like tying your shoelaces, you know!’

  Vershina didn’t detain him and bade him an icy farewell.* She was bitterly disappointed – and highly indignant. Up to then she had felt that there was a faint chance of arranging a marriage between Peredonov and Marta, with Murin reserved fo
r herself. And now the last hope had vanished.

  Marta really did catch it from Vershina that day and many tears were shed.

  After he left Vershina, Peredonov thought that he would like a smoke. Suddenly he saw a policeman standing on the corner of the street, shelling sunflower seeds – and his heart sank. He’s a spy, he thought. They’re trying to catch me out one way or the other.

  He didn’t dare smoke his cigarette, but went up to the policeman and timidly asked, ‘Officer, is smoking allowed here?’

  The policeman touched his cap and politely inquired, ‘Smoking what, sir?’

  ‘Just a small cigarette,’ Peredonov replied. ‘Can I smoke one here?’

  ‘There’s no law against it as far as I know, sir,’ the policeman replied.

  ‘No law against it?’ asked Peredonov sadly.

  ‘None at all. We’ve no orders to stop gentlemen smoking. If any law has been passed, that’s the first I’ve heard of it.’

  ‘In that case I’d better not start,’ Peredonov replied deferentially. ‘I’m a law-abiding citizen. To prove it I’ll throw the cigarette away. After all, I’m a senior civil servant, a councillor of State.’

  Peredonov crumpled up the cigarette and threw it on to the ground. He was already beginning to fear that he’d said one word too many, so he hurried home. The policeman watched him go, uncomprehendingly. He finally concluded that the gentleman was still under the influence from last night and thought no more about it.

  ‘The road’s standing on end,’ muttered Peredonov.

  The road took a sharp turn upwards along the slope of a hill and then descended abruptly the other side. At the top, two hovels stood outlined against the dark blue melancholy evening sky. Life in this squalid part of the town seemed to be withdrawn from the outside world and weighed down by continual misery and sadness. The trees hung their branches over the fences so that they obstructed the paths. There was a strange mockery in their menacing whispers. A sheep stood at the crossroads and eyed Peredonov blankly. Suddenly he heard a bleating laugh. It was Volodin, who appeared from nowhere and came up to greet him. Peredonov looked at him gloomily and thought about the sheep that had been there just a moment ago and had suddenly disappeared. It’s obvious Volodin can turn himself into a sheep whenever he likes. He doesn’t look like one for nothing! Sometimes I can’t tell whether he’s laughing or bleating.

  He was so occupied with these thoughts that he didn’t hear Volodin greet him at all.

  ‘Why do you have to kick me, Pavlusha?’ he asked morosely.

  Volodin smiled and bleated, ‘I’m not kicking you, Ardalyon, I’m merely shaking hands. Where you come from they might kick with their hands, but in my part of the world they do it with their feet. And even then, if I may say so, it’s the horses that kick, not the people.’

  ‘I know you’re just waiting to butt me,’ Peredonov growled.

  Volodin took offence and replied in a trembling voice, ‘My horns haven’t grown yet, Ardalyon. But maybe yours will grow quicker.’

  ‘You’ve a long tongue and you talk a lot of rubbish with it,’ said Peredonov.

  ‘If that’s how you feel, Ardalyon, I’d better keep my mouth shut.’

  His face became the picture of misery and his lips stuck out even further. However, he walked along with Peredonov – he hadn’t had dinner yet and was counting on eating at Peredonov’s, where he’d been invited that morning to celebrate with him.

  Some important news was awaiting Peredonov when he arrived home. Before he had gone far into the hall he could tell something momentous had happened from the commotion and shrieks of anguish. At first he thought dinner wasn’t ready, that they hadn’t been expecting him home so early and now they were panicking. He was delighted to see that they were all so afraid of him! But the cause of the general commotion was something quite different. Varvara ran out into the hall and shouted, ‘They’ve found the cat!’

  In her excitement she didn’t notice that Volodin was with Peredonov. As usual she was looking very scruffy in her grey grease-spotted blouse, filthy skirt and worn-out slippers. Her hair was uncombed and hung over her eyes.

  ‘We have Irishka Yershova to blame for this!’ she excitedly told Peredonov. ‘She’s played a new trick on us, out of spite. A boy came back with the cat and just threw it down. Someone’s tied rattles to its tail and they’re making a terrible racket … It’s under the couch and won’t come out.’

  Peredonov was terrified. ‘What are we going to do now?’ he asked.

  ‘Pavel,’ Varvara said, ‘you’re younger than he is, try and see if you can chase it out.’

  ‘Yes, let’s chase it out,’ Volodin chuckled as he went into the living-room.

  Somehow they managed to drag the cat out and they removed the rattles from its tail. Peredonov found some thistles and began to rub them against the cat, which hissed fiercely and escaped into the kitchen.

  Tired from all this excitement, Peredonov sat in his usual position – elbows on the arms of the chair, fingers clenched, legs crossed and his face motionless and sullen.

  He guarded the princess’s second letter even more closely than the first. He always kept it in his wallet and would show it with a mysterious air. He watched it with an eagle eye, in case someone should want to steal it, and he never let anyone hold it – each time he showed it he would put it straight back into his wallet, which he stuffed into a side pocket of his jacket, buttoned it up very carefully and then surveyed his audience with a solemn, grave expression.

  Sometimes Rutilov would ask as a joke, ‘Why do you always carry it around with you?’

  And back would come the grim reply, ‘Just a precaution: why, you might try and filch it!’

  ‘You’d get sent to Siberia for that, no doubt,’ laughed Rutilov as he slapped Peredonov’s back.

  But he did not ruffle Peredonov’s rock-like solemnity. Recently everyone had noticed that he was behaving more pompously than usual. ‘I’m going to be an inspector,’ he would often boast. ‘While you’re stagnating here I’ll have two districts – or even three – under my control. Ha! Ha!’

  He was quite convinced that within a very short time he would be appointed inspector and more than once told his fellow teacher Falastov, ‘I’ll see you get out of this dead-and-alive hole, my friend.’

  And from that time onwards Falastov treated Peredonov with the greatest respect.

  TWENTY-TWO

  Peredonov’s visits to church became more and more frequent. He stood where everyone could see him, crossed himself far more often than was necessary and then stiffened up and looked vaguely towards the altar. Behind every pillar, so it seemed, lurked spies who kept peeping out, trying to make him laugh out loud. But he wouldn’t give in.

  He could hear the soft laughter and whispers of the Rutilov sisters in his ears. At times the noise swelled and became almost overwhelming: it was just as if those cunning girls were giggling right in his ears to make him laugh and get him thrown out of church. But he wouldn’t give in.

  And sometimes, between the thick clouds of incense, he could see a bluish demon, like a wisp of smoke. Its eyes seemed to be giving off sparks. At times it flitted through the air with a tinkling sound, but not for long: most often it would dart about among the feet of the congregation, mocking him and persistently tormenting him. Obviously it wanted to frighten him out of church before Mass had been celebrated. But he saw through its evil designs – and would not give in.

  The church service, which for its mystique rather than for its liturgy and ritual has so much attraction for churchgoers, was quite incomprehensible to Peredonov and therefore it frightened him. The censing horrified him, like a mysterious magic spell.

  What’s he waving that thing about for? he wondered. The robes of the celebrants, in his eyes, were annoyingly gaudy bits of coarse rags. Whenever he looked at the priest’s vestments he felt like ripping them to pieces and smashing the holy vessels. To him the church rituals and mysteries were a form
of evil witchcraft, a means of enslaving and stupefying the masses. Now he’s crumbled the wafer into the wine, he thought angrily about the priest. It’s cheap wine and they cheat the congregation into giving them more money for their ceremonies. The mystery of the eternal transubstantiation of inert matter into a force capable of surviving putrefaction he was never to know. He was no more than a walking corpse. And how absurd that he felt he could reconcile his belief in Christ and a living God with his belief in witchcraft!

  The congregation began to leave the church. The village schoolmaster Machigin, a simple-minded young man, came up to the girls, smiled and chatted away with them. Peredonov thought that this overfamiliar behaviour was quite improper in the presence of a future inspector. Machigin was wearing a straw hat, but Peredonov remembered that he’d seen him wear a cap with a badge during the summer, just outside the town. He decided to complain about it.

  Inspector Bogdanov happened to be near by and Peredonov took the opportunity of going up to him and saying, ‘Did you know that Machigin’s been wearing a cap with a badge? He’s obviously trying to look like a gentleman!’

  Bogdanov jumped in terror and his little grey goatee trembled. ‘He has no right, none whatsoever, to wear a badge,’ he said anxiously, blinking with his small red eyes.

  ‘Of course he hasn’t. And yet he persists in wearing one,’ Peredonov complained. ‘He needs a severe reprimand, as I told you long ago. We’ll soon have any oafish peasant wearing a badge at this rate!’

  Bogdanov, who had been frightened enough at first by Peredonov, now felt even more terrified. ‘The impudence!’ he said dolefully. ‘I’ll summon him at once – yes, at once – and give him a severe talking-to.’ He then said farewell to Peredonov and hastily trotted off home.