The Petty Demon (10 page)

“You hardly need a chub of spaces, your own chubby belly takes up enough space for an ace,” Rutilov laughingly rejoined.

“The future inspector is getting his tongue all twisted up—chubby bellies with spaces for aces.”

Rutilov nattered on incessantly, gossiping and relating anecdotes that at times were of a rather delicate nature. In order
to tease Peredonov he started to insist that the students at the gymnasium behaved themselves badly, particularly those who
were living in lodgings: they smoked, drank vodka and chased after girls. Peredonov believed him. And Grushina supported it.
These stories afforded her particular satisfaction. After the death of her husband she had wanted at one time to lodge three
or four students from the gymnasium in her own home, but the headmaster hadn’t given her permission despite. Peredonov’s intercession
on her behalf. Grushina had a bad reputation in the town. Now she had taken to abusing the landladies in the lodgings where
the students were living.

“They bribed the headmaster,” she declared.

“Landladies are all bitches,” Volodin said with conviction. “Even mine. She and I had an agreement when I took the room that
she would give me three glasses of milk every evening. It was fine for the first month or two, she did give me the milk.”

“And you didn’t drink yourself sick?” Rutilov asked laughingly.

“Why would I drink myself sick!” Volodin protested, taking offense. “Milk is a beneficial substance. I had become used to
drinking three glasses for the night. Suddenly I see that I’m being brought only two glasses. Why is that, I asked? The maid
said that Anna Mikhailovna begs my pardon that that their cow is giving little milk now. And what does that have to do with
me! An agreement is more precious than money. If their cow were to stop giving milk altogether, is that supposed to mean that
I’m not given anything to drink? Well, I said to her, I did, tell Anna Mikhailovna that I’m asking her to give me a glass
of water as well. I’ve gotten used to having three glasses, two glasses are too little for me.”

“Our Pavlushka is a real hero,” Peredonov said. “Tell us, brother, how you grappled with the general.”

Volodin repeated his story willingly. But this time it was held up to ridicule. He puffed out his lower lip and took offense.

Everyone drank themselves drunk at dinner, even the women. Volodin suggested that they mess up the walls some more. Everyone
was overjoyed! Immediately, without having finished eating, they went to work and amused themselves with a frenzy. They spat
on the wallpaper, poured beer over it, threw paper darts with butter-smeared tips at the walls and ceiling, stuck spitballs
of chewed bread on the ceiling. Afterwards they came up with the idea of tearing strips off the wallpaper for the sport of
it, to see who could tear off the longest strip. The Prepolovenskys won an additional rouble and a half at this game.

Volodin lost. Because he had lost and had gotten drunk he started to complain about his mother. He assumed a reproachful expression
and for some reason thrusting his hand downwards, said:

“Why did she have to give birth to me? What was she thinking of at the time? What kind of life have I got now? She’s no mother
to me, just the woman who gave birth to me. Because a real mother cares about her child, but my mother only gave birth to
me and then made a public ward out of me when I was still very young.”

“On the other hand you managed to get a training out of it and made your own way in life,” Prepolovenskaya said.

With his forehead bowed, Volodin was shaking his head back and forth and he said:

“No, what kind of life is this of mine, it’s the very lowest kind of life. And why did she give birth to me? What was she
thinking of at the time?”

Peredonov suddenly recalled the
erly
from the day before. “So,” he turned his thoughts to Volodin, “he’s complaining about the fact that his mother gave birth
to him, he doesn’t want to be Pavlushka. Apparently he
actually is jealous. Perhaps he’s already thinking about marrying Varvara and crawling into my skin,” Peredonov thought and
gazed with melancholy at Volodin.

He’d better marry him to someone else.

That night, in the bedroom, Varvara said to Peredonov:

“You think that all these young wenches that are trailing after you are so young and good-looking? They’re nothing but filth,
I’m more beautiful than all of them.”

She swiftly undressed and with an insolent smirk she showed Peredonov her lightly colored, shapely, attractive and supple
body.

Although Varvara was stumbling about from drunkenness and her face would have provoked disgust in any healthy person with
its flaccidly lewd expression, nevertheless her body was beautiful, like the body of a tender nymph to which the head of a
jaded whore had been affixed by force of some despicable spell. And for those two miserable, drunken and filthy people that
exquisite body represented nothing more than the source of vulgar temptation. Such is often the case—and verily in our age
it is appropriate for beauty to be scorned and desecrated.

Peredonov roared with sullen laughter as he gazed at his naked girlfriend.

All that night he dreams of women of all shapes and sizes, naked and vile.

Varvara believed that rubbing herself with stinging nettles, which she had done on the advice of Prepolovenskaya, had helped
her It seemed to her that she immediately began to put on weight. She kept asking all her acquaintances:

“I’ve really put on weight, haven’t I?”

And she was thinking that now, after Peredonov saw how she was putting on weight and when in addition he had received the
forged letter, he would marry her without fail.

Peredonov’s contemplations were far from being so pleasant. Long ago he had become convinced that the headmaster was hostile
to him—and in actual fact the headmaster of the gymnasium considered Peredonov to be a lazy and incapable teacher. Peredonov
thought that the headmaster was instructing his students not to have any respect for him—which was, understandably, another
nonsensical invention of Peredonov himself. But it implanted the certainty in Peredonov that he had to protect himself against
the headmaster. More than once out of spite towards the headmaster, Peredonov had started to revile him in front of the senior
classes. That kind of talk appealed to many of the students.

Now, when Peredonov’ had taken a fancy to becoming an inspector, the hostile attitudes of the headmaster towards him appeared
particularly unpleasant. One might suppose that if the Princess wished, she could foil the headmaster’s intriguings with her
patronage. Nevertheless, the headmaster still presented a danger.

And there were other people in the town (as Peredonov had noted during recent days) who were hostile towards him and wanted
to interfere with his promotion to an inspector’s post. Volodin, for example. It wasn’t by chance that he kept repeating the
words “future inspector.” After all,
there were cases in which people assumed someone else’s name and enjoyed their lives. Of course it would be a bit difficult
for Volodin to replace Peredonov himself. Still, a fool like Volodin could have the most unseemly designs. Furthermore, there
were the Rutilovs and Vershina with her Marta who were partners in jealousy. They would all be delighted to do him harm. And
how would they do him harm? Quite simply they would discredit him in the eyes of the authorities and represent him as an unreliable
person.

Thus, two concerns arose in Peredonov: to prove his reliability and to make himself secure from Volodin by marrying him off
to a rich girl.

And so on one occasion Peredonov asked Volodin:

“Do you want me to propose you for marriage to the young Adamenko lady? Or are you still pining away for Marta? Haven’t you
been able to console yourself after a whole month?”

“Why should I be pining for Marta!” Volodin retorted. “I proposed to her in good faith and if she doesn’t want to then what
does it matter to me! I’ll find another one—do you think I can’t find any brides for myself? There are as many of those goods
around as you like.”

“Well, but this Marta went and tweaked your nose,” Peredonov teased.

“I don’t know what kind of husband they were expecting,” Volodin said, offended. “If at least there had been a large dowry,
but they were only offering a pittance. It’s you, Ardalyon Borisych, that she’s head over heels in love with.”

Peredonov gave his advice:

“If I were you I’d smear tar all over her gate.”

Volodin giggled, but immediately settled down and said:

“If I were caught, it might cause trouble.”

“Hire someone else to do it. Why do it yourself?” Peredonov said.

“She deserves it, by God, she does,” Volodin said with feeling. “Because if she isn’t willing to enter into a legal marriage,
yet in the meanwhile admits young men into her room through the window, then that’s really something! That means a person
has neither shame nor conscience.”

T
HE FOLLOWING DAY
Peredonov and Volodin set out for the home of the young Adamenko girl. Volodin had dressed himself up. He had put on his
new tight-fitting jacket, a clean starched shirt, a gaudy embroidered neckerchief, oiled his hair with pomade, perfumed himself—and
his spirits soared.

Nadezhda Vasilyevna Adamenko lived together with her brother in their own little red brick house in the town. She had an estate
not far from the town which had been leased out. The year before last she had completed her studies in the local gymnasium
and nowadays she was occupying herself by lying on the sofa, reading books of all sorts and tutoring her brother, an eleven-year-old
student at the gymnasium who escaped her stern ways only by declaring angrily:

“It was better living with Mama. Mama would only make you stand in the corner.”

Only her aunt, a retiring and decrepit creature who had no voice whatsoever in the domestic affairs, was living with Nadezhda
Vasilyevna. Natalya Vasilyevna exercised a stern choice in her acquaintanceships. Peredonov had rarely been in her home and
this slight acquaintanceship with her served as the sole basis for supposing that this young lady might marry Volodin.

Now she was amazed at the unexpected visit, but she greeted her unbidden guests politely. The guests had to be entertained,
and Nadezhda Vasilyevna thought that the most pleasant and comfortable conversation for a teacher of the Russian language
would be a conversation about the state of pedagogy, about the reform of the gymnasia, about the raising of children, about
literature, about Symbolism and about the Russian journals. She touched on all of those topics, but received nothing in response
other than perplexing rebuffs which revealed that her guests were not interested in those questions. She saw that only one
conversation was possible: town gossip. Nevertheless, Nadezhda Vasilyevna made one further attempt.

“Have you read Chekhov’s ‘The Man in the Case’?” she asked. It’s really to the point, isn’t it?”

Since she had addressed Volodin with this question, he grinned pleasantly and asked:

“What is it, an article or a novel?”

“A story,” Nadezhda Vasilyevna explained.

“Pray, did you say Mister Chekhov?” Volodin inquired.

“Yes, Chekhov,” Nadezhda Vasilyevna said with a grin.

“Where did it appear?” Volodin continued to express his interest.

“In the journal
Russian Thought
,” the young lady replied politely.

“In which issue?” Volodin inquired further.

“I can’t quite recall, in one of the summer issues,” Nadezhda Vasilyevna responded with the same politeness but with a certain
amazement at the same time.

The young student from the gymnasium stuck his head through the door.

“It was printed in the May issue,” he said, hanging on to the door with one hand and scanning the guests and his sister with
his cheerful, blue eyes.

“It’s too early for you to be reading novels,” Peredonov said angrily. “You ought to be studying and not reading obscene stories.”

Nadezhda Vasilyevna gave her brother a stern look.

“Very nice that is, standing behind the door and listening,” she said and raising her two hands made a right angle with the
tips of her small fingers.

The student frowned and disappeared. He went to his room, stood in the corner and started to look at the clock. Two small
fingers held at an angle was a sign to stand in the corner for ten minutes. “No,” he thought with annoyance, “it was better
living with Mama. Mama would only stand the umbrella in the corner.”

Meanwhile, back in the living room, Volodin was consoling the hostess with his promise to get hold of the May issue of
Russian Thought
without fail and read the story by Mister Chekhov. Peredonov was listening with an expression of obvious boredom on his face.
Finally he said:

“I haven’t read it either. I don’t read rubbish. All sorts of nonsense is being written in stories and novels.”

Nadezhda Vasilyevna smiled politely and said:

“You have a very stern attitude towards contemporary literature. But good books are being written now as well.”

“I’ve already read all the good books earlier,” Peredonov declared. “I’m not about to read what’s being written now.”

Volodin looked at Peredonov respectfully. Nadezhda Vasilyevna sighed gently and, since there was no other choice, she started
to indulge in idle talk and gossip as best she knew how. Although she had no love for that kind of talk, nevertheless she
held up her end with the cleverness and cheerfulness of a lively and self-possessed young lady.

The guests were revived. It was unbearably boring for her, whereas they thought that she was being exceptionally polite with
them and ascribed it to a fascination with Volodin’s charming appearance.

When they had left, Peredonov congratulated Volodin on the street with his success. Volodin was laughing happily and prancing
about. He had already forgotten all the girls who had rejected him.

“Stop kicking up your feet,” Peredonov said to him. “You’re off and prancing about like a sheep. Just you wait, they’ll tweak
your nose.”

But he said it in jest and he himself fully believed in the success of the intended match-making.

Grushina came running to see Varvara practically every day and Varvara was at her place even more frequently so that they
were almost never apart.
Varvara was anxious and Grushina was taking her time, insisting that it was very difficult to copy the letters so that they
would look similar.

Peredonov still didn’t want to name the wedding day. Once more he was demanding that he begiven the inspector’s position first.
Remembering how many potential brides he had, he threatened Varvara more than once as he had done so during the past winter:

“I’m going to get married right this minute. I’ll return in the morning with a wife and out you go. This is the last time
you’re spending the night here.” And with these words he would leave—to play billiards. Sometimes he returned from there by
evening, but more frequently he would go carousing in some squalid hangout with Rutilov and Volodin. On nights like that Varvara
couldn’t fall asleep. For that reason she suffered from migraines. It was good at least if he returned at one or two o’clock
in the morning, then she would breathe freely. But if he showed up only the next morning then Varvara would greet the day
quite sick.

Finally Grushina had prepared the letter and showed it to Varvara. They examined it for a long while, comparing it with the
letter from the Princess the year before. Grushina assured her that it was so similar that the Princess herself would be enable
to detect the forgery. Though in fact there was little similarity, nevertheless Varvara believed her. Moreover she understood
that Peredonov wouldn’t be able to remember the vaguely familiar handwriting of the Princess accurately enough to detect the
forgery.

“Well, finally,” she said happily.” I’d been waiting for so long that I gave up waiting. But what about the envelope? If he
asks, what am I to say?”

“Well it’s impossible to forge the envelope. There are the postmarks,” Grushina said, chuckling and peering at Varvara with
her sly and unmatched eyes: the right one was larger and the left one smaller.

“What can I do?”

“Varvara Dmitrievna, sweetheart, you just tell him that you threw the envelope in the stove. What use did you have for the
envelope?”

Varvara’s hopes were revived. She said to Grushina:

“If only he’d marry me then I wouldn’t be running around for him. No, I’d just sit and make him do the running for me.”

On Saturday after dinner Peredonov went to play billiards. His thoughts were oppressive and sad. He was thinking:

“It’s vile to live in the midst of people who are hostile and envious. But what can I do, they can’t all be inspectors! It’s
a struggle for survival!”

At the intersection of two streets he met the staff police officer. An unpleasant meeting!

Lieutenant-colonel Nikolai Vadimovich Rubovsky, a short solid man with thick eyebrows, cheerful gray eyes and a limping walk
that made his spurs jingle loudly and unevenly, was extremely polite and therefore popular in society. He knew all the people
in town, knew all their affairs and relations, loved to listen to gosip but was himself modest and as silent as the grave
and never caused anyone any Unnecessary trouble.

They stopped, exchanged greetings and chatted. Peredonov scowled, looked round to the sides and said cautiously:

“I’ve heard that our Natasha is living with you, but don’t believe whatever she says about me, she’s lying.”

“I don’t collect gossip from a maid,” Rubovsky said with dignity.

“She’s vile herself,” Peredonov continued, paying no attention to Rubovsky’s objection. “She’s got a lower, a Pole. Perhaps
she went to work for you on purpose in order to filch something secret.”

“Please, don’t worry yourself over that,” the lieutenant-colonel objected. “I don’t keep the plans to the fortresses in my
house.”

The mention of fortresses perplexed Peredonov. It seemed to him that Rubovsky was alluding to the fact that he could imprison
Peredonov in a fortress.

“Well, hardly a fortress,” he murmured. “It’s a far cry from that, I just meant that in general people say all sorts of nonsense
about me, but it’s mostly out of jealousy. Don’t you go believing anything of the sort. They’re denouncing me in order to
deflect suspicion from themselves, but I myself can denounce them.”

Rubovsky was puzzled.

“I assure you,” he said, shrugging his shoulders and clinking his spurs, “No one has denounced you to me. Apparently someone
has threatened you for the sake of a joke, indeed, there’s plenty that people will say at times.”

Peredonov didn’t believe him. He thought that the police officer was being secretive, and he became terrified.

Every time Peredonov passed Vershina’s garden, Vershina stopped him and lured him into her garden with her spell-binding movements
and words.

And he would go in, involuntarily submitting to her gentle sorcery. Perhaps she would succeed sooner than the Rutilovs in
achieving her goal. After all, Peredonov was equally distant from all people and why shouldn’t he be joined in holy matrimony
with Marta? But apparently it was a sticky bog that Peredonov had crept into and no spells would succeed in plopping him from
one bog into another.

Thus, even now, when Peredonov had parted with Rubovsky and was walking past, Vershina, dressed as always totally in black,
lured him in.

“Marta and Vladya are going home for the day,” she said, looking tenderly at Peredonov with her brown eyes through the smoke
of her cigarette. “Perhaps you should go and visit with them in the country. A worker has come in the cart for them.”

“Too cramped,” Peredonov said sullenly.

“What do you mean, cramped,” Vershina objected. “You’ll be wonderfully comfortable. And it’s no misfortune if you’re a little
cramped, it’s not far, only about six versts to go.”

Meanwhile Marta had come running out of the house to ask Vershina something. The commotion before leaving had stirred her
indolence somewhat and her face was more lively and cheerful than ordinarily. Once again, Peredonov was invited to the country,
this time by the two of them.

“There’s lots of room for you to be comfortable,” Vershina assured him. “You and Marta on the back seat, and Vladya and Ignaty
on the front. Here, take a look, the cart is in the yard.”

Peredonov followed Vershina and Marta into the yard where the cart stood while Vladya was busy around it packing away something.
The cart was spacious. But examining it sullenly, Peredonov declared:

“I won’t go. Too cramped. With the four of us and the things as well.”

“If you think it’s going to be cramped,” said Vershina,
“then Vladya can go on foot.”

“Sure, I can,” said Vladya, giving a reserved and tender smile. “I can make it easily on foot in an hour and a half. If I
start out right now, then I’ll be there before you.”

Then Peredonov explained that it would be bumpy and he didn’t like bumpiness. They returned to the summer house. Everything
had already been packed away, but the worker, Ignaty, was still eating in the kitchen, eating his fill solidly and without
haste.

“How is Vladya studying?” Marta asked.

She couldn’t think up any other conversation with Peredonov and Vershina had already reproached her more than once for not
knowing how to entertain Peredonov.

“Badly,” Peredonov said. “He’s lazy and doesn’t listen.”

Vershina liked to grumble. She started to lecture Vladya. Vladya blushed and smiled, shrugged his shoulders as though from
cold and, as was his habit, raised one shoulder higher than the other.

“Well, the year has only started,” he said, “I’ve still got time.”

“You have to study right from the very start,” Marta said in the tone of an elder, but blushing slightly at the same time.

“And he’s naughty,” Peredonov complained. “Yesterday he was romping about just like the street urchins. And rude, he was insolent
to me on Thursday.”

Vladya suddenly flushed crimson and spoke heatedly but without ceasing to smile:

“There was nothing insolent, I just said the truth that in other school books you had missed on the average five mistakes
each, but you had underlined every one in my book and had given me a two, yet mine was written better than those whom you
gave a grade of three to.”

“And furthermore you said something insolent to me,” Peredonov insisted.

“There was nothing insolent, I just said that I would tell the inspector,” Vladya said vehemently, “that you gave me a grade
of two for nothing …”

“Vladya, don’t forget yourself,” Vershina said angrily. “You ought to be asking forgiveness and here you are repeating yourself.”

Vladya suddenly recalled that he mustn’t irritate Peredonov, that he might become Marta’s husband. He blushed deeply, tugged
at the belt on his long shirt out of embarrassment and timidly said: