The Little Demon

by Fyodor Sologub

  What Vershina found particularly appealing about Marta and Vladya was that she could order them around, have a good grouse at them and occasionally punish them. Vershina loved power and she was very flattered when Marta, after doing something wrong, would unquestioningly go down on her knees when she was ordered to.

  ‘I do everything for you,’ she said. ‘I’m not an old woman yet. I too could still enjoy life, marry some kind respectable man, instead of running myself off my feet trying to find you a husband. But I care for you more than I do for myself. As you’ve let one chance slip, I shall have to lure another one for you, just as if you were a little child. But again you’ll only turn your nose up and frighten him off.’

  ‘Someone will marry me,’ Marta said bashfully. ‘I’m no freak and I don’t need other people’s fiancés.’

  ‘Be quiet!’ Vershina cried. ‘No freak? Does that make me one then? She’s been punished, yet still she answers back! Clearly the punishment wasn’t enough! Of course, my dear, what you need is a really good talking-to so that you’ll be obedient, do everything you’re told and not try to be clever. How can I expect sense from someone who tries to be clever out of sheer stupidity? You, my dear, must first learn to lead your own life. But as things are, you’re still going around in other people’s clothes, so you must learn to be a little more meek and mild, to do what you’re told, otherwise Vladya won’t be the only one to get a thrashing.’

  Marta trembled as she raised her tear-stained, flushed face and looked with timid, silent entreaty into Vershina’s eyes. In her heart there was a feeling of submissiveness and readiness to do all that was required of her, to endure everything they might want to do with her: if only she could discover, or guess what it was they wanted.

  Vershina was quite aware of her power over the girl and this went to her head. At the same time, a feeling that was both tender and cruel told her that she should treat Marta with the severity of a parent, for her own good. She’s used to thrashings, she thought. It’s the only lesson girls of her type understand. It’s no use just talking. They only respect those who are hard on them.

  ‘Let’s go home, my beauty,’ she told Marta, smiling. ‘I’m going to treat you to some excellent birch-rods.’

  Marta burst into tears, but she was glad that the end of the affair was in sight. She bowed down at Vershina’s feet and said, ‘You’re like a mother to me. I owe you so much.’

  ‘Come on now,’ said Vershina, pushing her in the shoulder.

  Marta obediently stood up and followed Vershina on her bare feet. Vershina stopped under a birch tree and grinned at her.

  ‘Do you want me to break them off?’ Marta asked.

  ‘Yes,’ Vershina said, ‘and make sure they’re good ones.’

  Marta started breaking off some twigs, choosing the longer and tougher ones and stripping the leaves off as Vershina watched and grinned.

  ‘That’ll do,’ she said at length and walked towards the house.

  Marta followed her with a huge bundle of twigs. Vladya came out to greet them and gave Vershina a frightened look.

  ‘I’m going to give your sister a good thrashing right now,’ Vershina told him, ‘and you can hold her for me while I punish her.’

  But once inside the house Vershina changed her mind and sat on a chair in the kitchen. Then she made Marta kneel in front of her and bend over her knees. She lifted her dress from behind, gripped her hands and ordered Vladya to whip her. Although Vladya was very familiar with birch-rods, having seen his father thrash Marta more than once, he felt sorry for his sister, but he thought that if punishment had to be carried out it should be done conscientiously. So he whipped Marta as hard as he could, keeping a careful count of the strokes. The pain was excruciating and she cried out in a voice partly muffled by her own dress and partly by Vershina’s. Marta tried to keep still, but despite herself her bare legs started flailing about more and more on the floor, until she finally began to kick them out in despair. Her body was already covered with weals and splashes of blood. Vershina had great difficulty holding her.

  ‘Wait a moment,’ she told Vladya. ‘Tie her legs tighter.’

  Vladya brought a length of rope from somewhere. Marta was tightly bound, put on the bench and secured to it with the rope. Vershina and Vladya each took a rod and for a long while they thrashed Marta from both sides. As before, Vladya kept an accurate tally of the strokes, counting them under his breath and calling the tens out loud. At first Marta’s screams were loud and shrill, and then she gasped for breath and they became hoarse and intermittent. Finally, when Vladya had counted to a hundred, Vershina said, ‘Well, that’s enough. She won’t forget that in a hurry.’

  They untied Marta and helped her to her bed. All the time she kept whimpering and moaning. For two days she couldn’t get up. On the third she managed it, bowed down with difficulty at Vershina’s feet and moaned and wept when she stood up again.

  ‘It was for your own good,’ Vershina said.

  ‘Oh, I do understand,’ Marta replied, bowing at her feet again. ‘But from now on please don’t leave me. Be like a mother to me. Now you must forgive me and not be angry anymore.’

  ‘It’s all right, I forgive you,’ Vershina said, offering Marta her hand. Marta kissed it.

  THE BEGINNING

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  PENGUIN CLASSICS

  Published by the Penguin Group

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  First published in Russian as Melkii bes in 1907

  This translation first published in Penguin Classics 1994

  Published in Penguin Classics 2013

  Translation © Ronald Wilks, 1994

  Introduction © Pamela Davidson, 2013

  Cover: Costume designs for ‘Misteriya-Buff’, 1919 (pen & ink and w/c on paper), Mayakovsky, Vladimir (1894-1930) / V.V. Mayakovsky State Museum, Moscow, Russia / Alinari / The Bridgeman Art Library

  All rights reserved

  The moral right of the translator and the author of the introduction has been asserted

  Typeset by Jouve (UK), Milton Keynes

  ISBN: 978-0-141-39294-3

  * Greek goddess of necessity.

  † Greek goddess of chance.

  * See variant 1, p. 300.

  * Dmitry I. Pisarev (1840–68), leading nihilist and radical critic.

  * Dish from the Tula district, made chiefly from millet and raisins; a kind of wheaten gruel.

  † Rice pudding with honey and raisins, eaten at funerals or at Christmas.

  * Low four-wheeled open carriage.

  * See variant 2, p. 302.

  * See variant 3, p. 304.

  * Pun, meani
ng both ‘five-copeck piece’ and ‘pig’s snout’.

  † Durman: the thorn-apple, a poisonous plant of the nightshade family, with narcotic properties.

  * Peredonov has taken Grushina’s remark literally, the idiom for ‘It makes me sick to hear this talk,’ being translatable as ‘It’s enough to make my ears droop.’

  * Leading journal (1839–84) of the Westernizers and progressive writers, numbering among its contributors Belinsky, Herzen and Turgenev. It was closed for political reasons.

  * A spoonerism on Peredonov’s part. He has transposed the initial letters of pikovy tuz (ace of spades), giving tikovy puz (teak belly).

  † Volodin subsequently attempts punning the word puz (belly), making karapuz, a chubby child.

  * ‘Man in a Case’ was first published in the July issue of Russian Thought in 1898.

  * Adam Mickiewicz (1798–1855), Polish national poet. A friend of Pushkin.

  * See variant 4, p. 304.

  * Peredonov has made Misha into a girl’s name.

  * According to a ruling of the Ministry of Education, male teachers had to wear white linen shirts without stripes. Peredonov has extended this to women. In addition, red calico blouses and shirts, very popular among the peasantry at this time, were also looked upon as a symbol of the adoption of the simple life.

  * See variant 5, p. 309.

  * See variant 6, p. 309.

  * See variant 7, p. 310.

  † Reference to the notorious ‘sons of cooks’ White Paper, issued in 1887 by the Minister of Education, where it was stated, ‘… sons of coachmen, footmen, cooks, laundresses, small shopkeepers and so on …’ should not be admitted to high schools.

  * A cap with a badge or cockade was part of the formal dress of civil servants and teachers, and also a distinguishing mark of the nobility. The hat as mentioned (often broad-brimmed) was usually associated with nihilists. Thus Peredonov is paranoid about being seen without a badge on his cap, and wearing a hat.

  † Liberal newspaper published by Alexander Herzen in London and Geneva, 1857–67. It was freely smuggled into Russia and was a major vehicle for liberal intellectual ideas.

  * See variant 8, p. 310.

  * A. Shteven (1865–1933), educational reformer, author of Memoirs of a Country Schoolmistress and founder of a group of primary schools in the Nizhny Novgorod region in the 1890s.

  * See variant 9, p. 310.

  † Baked from husks instead of flour during famines, which were particularly severe in 1891, 1893 and 1899.

  * In popular speech an establishment (the Russian word is pansion, meaning ‘boarding-school’) where they don’t teach Greek and Latin is a brothel.

  * S. Y. Nadson (1862–87), a deeply pessimistic poet who enjoyed great popularity, many of his poems being set to music. His poetry was highly musical, but empty and insipid. He wrote mainly on civic themes.

  † Pun on laskatsya (to cuddle) and poloskatsya (to paddle, puddle).

  * From an early eighteenth-century ballad by an unknown author, very popular at the end of the nineteenth century.

  * Dushit means both ‘to strangle’ and ‘to perfume’.

  * Pun on kto zhelayet? meaning ‘who wants?’ and kto zhe layet? meaning ‘who’s that barking?’

  * Famous nineteenth-century French perfume house.

  † Dryavka: this would appear to be cyclamen hederifolium, the dwarf variety. An odd-sounding word to the Russian ear.

  * Pun, meaning both ‘small roses’ and ‘birch-rods’.

  * Water-nymph who lured her victims and then drowned them. A kind of mermaid.

  * A shrub of the hazel family, with an exquisite scent.

  * See variant 10, p. 311.

  * See variant 11, p. 314.

  * A slight misquotation from Griboyedov’s The Misfortune of Being Clever, one of the most famous Russian comedies.

  † Eighteenth-century satirical poet who wrote in a heavy archaic style.

  * Jams made from wild berries, such as blackberries and cloudberries, were regarded as inferior, which explains Peredonov’s annoyance.

  * See variant 12, p. 317.

  * Pun on so sna, meaning ‘from sleep’ (i.e. awake), and sosna, meaning ‘pine tree’.

  * See variant 13, p. 319.

  * Pun on rubashka, meaning ‘back of a playing-card’ and ‘petticoat’.

  * Peredonov has had a V-sign carved on the knob of his walking-stick. The word here, shish, means ‘fig’, in such expressions as, ‘A fig for you!’ ‘A fig with butter!’ signifies a snub, i.e. ‘Damn-all for you!’ But Volodin has taken the word to mean a fig, literally.

  * This fable features a bridge that allows no liars to cross it, tossing them into the water.

  * From Eugene Onegin, chapter 4.

  * A strongly scented East Indian plant from which perfume is obtained.

  * The word for pot and bowler hat is the same in Russian.

  * Maskarad, normally meaning ‘fancy-dress ball’, is also a jocular term for a bathhouse.

  * From Lermontov’s poem, ‘Tamara’.

  † From Lermontov’s ‘The Demon’, slightly altered.

  * A kind of beer, usually made from bread with malt.