The Petty Demon (13 page)

Skuchaev pushed the button on the electric bell near the hanging lamp.

“A handy thing,” he said to Peredonov. “Perhaps you ought to transfer into a different department. Dashenka,” he said to the
comely girl of athletic build who had entered in response to the bell, “bring us something to eat and some hot coffee, understand?”

“Yes, sir,” Dashenka replied, smiled and left, walking with amazing lightness, considering her build.

“Go into another department,” Skuchaev turned to Peredonov. “Perhaps even the church, for example. If you took holy vows,
then you would make a serious, reliable priest. I could lend my aid. I have some very good acquaintances who are bishops.”

Skuchaev named seveal diocesan and suffragan bishops.

“No, I don’t want to join the priesthood,” Peredonov replied. “I’m afraid of the incense. Incense turns my stomach and makes
my head ache.”

“In that case it might also be a good idea to join the police,” Skuchaev advised. “For example, join the district police force.
What rank do you hold, if I may ask?”

“I am a State Councillor,” Peredonov said pompously.

“Indeed!” Skuchaev exclaimed, “I say, what important ranks you’ve been given! And is it for teaching children? I say, knowledge
really is important! Anyway, even if in our day some gentleman attacks knowledge, nevertheless, you can’t manage without knowledge.
Even though I myself only studied in a country school, I’m sending my son to university. As you know, you have to lead them
by stick and carrot through the gymnasium, but once he gets there everything will be fine. You know, I never give him a whipping.
Whenever he gets lazy or slips up, I take him by the shoulders, lead him to the window—we have birch trees standing there
in the garden. I show him a birch tree. I say to him, do you see that? Yes, I do, papa, he says, I won’t do it any more. And
really, it helps, the lad straighten out as though he had actually been whipped. Oh, children, children!” Skuchaev finished
with a sigh.

Peredonov sat at Skuchaev’s for two hours. After their business conversation came abundant
zakuski
.

Skuchaev’s hospitality, like everything that he did, was carried out with gravity, as though he were engaged in some important
matter. Moreover, he attempted to do so with some cunning twists. Mulled wine was served in large glasses, just like coffee,
and the host called it coffee. The vodka glasses came with the bases broken off and rounded so that it was impossible to set
them down on the table.

“I call these glasses ‘pour more, drink more’,” the host explained.

Another merchant, Tishkov, arrived. He was grayheaded, short, cheerful and sprightly, and wore a long frock coat and boots
like barrels. He drank a lot of vodka, spoke all kinds of nonsense in rhymes, quickly and cheerfully, and apparently was quite
pleased with himself.

Peredonov finally concluded that it was time to go home and he started to say goodbye.

“Don’t be in a rush,” the host said, “sit a while.”

“Sit down, stay around,” Tishkov said.

“No, I have to go,” Peredonov replied anxiously.

“He’s not to be late, his cousin can’t wait,” Tishkov said and winked at Skuchaev.

“I have things to do,” Peredonov said.

“We’ll make much ado for people with things to do,” Tishkov retorted instantly.

Skuchaev accompanied Peredonov to the front hall. They embraced and kissed when they parted. Peredonov was pleased with this
visit.

“The mayor is for me,” he thought confidently.

Returning to Tishkov, Skuchaev said:

“They’re gossiping about the fellow for nothing.”

“If they gossip forsooth, they don’t know the truth,” Tishkov rejoined at once as he poured himself a glass of English bitters
with a spritely movement.

It was apparent that he didn’t think about what people said to him but only caught the words for the sake of rhyme.

“He’s alright, a sincere fellow and a good drinker,” Skuchaev continued, pouring himself a drink and paying no attention to
Tishkov’s rhymes.

“If he’s a good drinker, he must be a real thinker,” Tishkov cried boisterously and tossed the glass off.

“And if he is passing the time with a mam’selle, so what does it matter!” Skuchaev said.

“Bugs in the covers with mam’selles as lovers,” Tishkov replied.

“Whosever has not transgressed in the eyes of the Lord is not guilty in those of the Tsar!”

“We always fall into transgression whenever we seek affection.”

“But he wants to erase his sin before the altar.”

“They who erase their sin before the altar are doomed to fight and falter.”

Tishkov always talked like this if it didn’t concern his own personal business. He would have bored everyone to death, but
they had already grown used to him and no longer took any note of the rhyming patter he uttered so boisterously. It would
only affect a decent person at times. But it made no difference to Tishkov whether people listened to him or not. He couldn’t
help seizing on other people’s words for the sake of rhyme and he operated with the steadiness of a cunningly devised mechanical
bore. After staring for a long while at his abrupt and distinct movements, one might have thought that this was no living
person, that he had already died or had never been alive, and could see nothing in the living world and could hear nothing
other than the deadly ring of his own words.

T
HE FOLLOWING DAY
Peredonov went to the public prosecutor Avinovitsky. Once again the weather was overcast. The wind blew in gusts and swept
up dusty whirlwinds along the streets. Evening was approaching and everything was illuminated with a mournful light filtering
through the murky overcast and seemingly from a source other than the sun.

A melancholy lull hung over the streets and it seemed that the pitiful buildings, hopelessly decrepit, timidly hinting at
the impoverished and boring life lurking within their walls, had originated for nothing. People appeared from time to time
and even they were walking slowly as though without motivation, as though they were barely succeeding in overcoming the somnolence
that was inducing them to stillness. Only the children, those eternal, tireless vessels of God’s delight in the earth, were
lively and ran and played. But sluggishness was even settling over them by now, and some faceless and invisible monster, nestling
at their shoulder, peered from time to time with eyes full of menace into their faces which were suddenly growing listless.

In the midst of this langour in the streets and in the houses, in the grip of this alienation from the sky, through this sullied
and impotent earth strolled Peredonov, languishing from indistinct fears. And for him there was no solace in the heavenly
and no joy in the earthly, because even now, as was always the case, he looked at the world through deathly eyes like some
kind of demon who was languishing in gloomy solitude out of fear and melancholy.

His sensibilities were dull and his consciousness was an apparatus for corruption and destruction. Everything that reached
his consciousness was transformed into something vile and filthy. He was immediately taken with deformities in objects and
he rejoiced over them. Whenever he passed an erect and pure column, he wanted to deform it or deface it. He laughed with joy
when things were spoiled in his presence. He despised the cleanly washed students at the gymnasium and persecuted them. He
called them “goody-goodies.” The slovenly ones were more comprehensible to him. He had no objects that he loved just as there
were no people he loved. And for that reason nature could influence his sensibilities only in one direction—only to suppress
them. It was the same in his encounters with people.
Particularly with strangers and people he didn’t know and to whom he couldn’t utter any vulgarity. Being happy for him meant
doing nothing and, after shutting himself off from the world, gratifying his belly.

“And now,” he thought, “like it or not I have to go and explain myself. What a burden! What a bore!” And even if he might
have been able to spoil things where he was going, not even that would have consoled him.

The public prosecutor’s house strengthened and concentrated in Peredonov those oppressive sentiments into a feeling of melancholy
fear. And it was precisely as though that house possessed an angry and spiteful appearance. The high roof hung frowningly
over the windows and forced them down towards the ground. Both the wooden trim and the roof had been painted a bright and
cheerful color at one time, but time and rain had rendered the paint gloomy and gray. The gates, enormous and heavy, higher
than the house itself, seemed to be installed in order to repulse enemy attacks and were bolted at all times. A chain rattled
behind the gates and a dog barked at every passerby in a deep bass.

Barren lots and gardens stretched out in all directions around the house while a few hovels sat about lopsidedly. Opposite
the public prosecutor’s house was a long six-sided square with a depression in the middle, completely unpaved and overgrown
with grass. Right next to the house towered a lamp standard, the only one in the entire square.

Slowly and reluctantly Peredonov mounted the four sloping steps onto the porch, which was covered with a two-sided planked
roof, and took hold of the darkened bronze handle to the bell. The bell rang somewhere close by, with a piercing and prolonged
jarring sound. In a short while he could hear stealthy footsteps. Someone had tiptoed up to the door and stood as quiet as
quiet could be. They must have been peering through some invisible crack. Then the iron handle rattled, the door opened—and
a dark-haired, sullen, pock-faced girl with suspicious eyes that took everything in was standing on the threshold.

“Whom do you want?” she asked.

Peredonov said that he had come to see Alexander Alexeevich on business. The girl let him in. Peredonov muttered a counter-spell
under his breath as he crossed the threshold. And a good thing that he was quick about it—he hadn’t managed to take his coat
off before Avinovitsky’s sharp, angry voice sounded in the living room. The public prosecutor’s voice had always been frightening—he
never spoke any differently. Such was the case now when from the sitting room in an argumentative and angry voice he shouted
out words of greeting and his expression of pleasure that Peredonov had finally come to visit him.

Alexander Alexeevich Avinovitsky was a man of a gloomy exterior, as though he had already been adapted from nature to administer
a proper scolding and dressing-down. He was a man of invincible health—he went from one ice-cold bath to the next. However,
he seemed rather lean given the fact that he had such a vigorous black beard with a bluish hue. He inspired at the very least
a feeling of awkwardness, if not outright fear in everyone because he was tirelessly fulminating against someone or threatening
someone with Siberia and penal servitude.
⁶

“I’ve come on business,” Peredonov said with embarrassment.

“With a confession? Did you kill a person? Commit arson? Rob the post office?” Avinovitsky shouted angrily, guiding Peredonov
into the sitting room. “Or have you yourself become a victim of persecution, which is more than likely in our town? Our town
is vile and the police here are even worse. I’m still amazed that dead bodies aren’t lying all about on this square every
morning. Well, sir, I beg you to sit down. So what is your business? Are you a criminal or a victim?”

“No,” said Peredonov, “I haven’t done anything of the sort. It’s the headmaster who would be happy to put me on trial, but
I haven’t done anything of that sort.”

“So you haven’t brought me a confession?” Avinovitsky asked.

“No, nothing of the sort,” Peredonov muttered fearfully.

“Well, if you haven’t done anything of the sort,” the procurator said with fierce stress on the words, “then I can offer you
something.”

He took a bell from the table and rang. No one came. Avinovitsky grabbed the bell in both hands, raised a furious pealing,
then threw the bell on the floor, started to stamp his feet and shout in a wild voice.

“Malanya! Malanya! The devils, the demons, the goblins!”

Unhurried steps were heard and a student from the gymnasium, the son of Avinovitsky, entered, He was a dark-haired, thickset
boy of about thirteen with a completely confident and independent manner. He bowed to Peredonov, picked up the bell, put it
on the table and only then did he say calmly:

“Malanya has gone to the garden.”

Avinovitsky relaxed instantly and looking at his son with an affection that did not in the least suit his heavily bearded
and angry face, said:

“Well, my son, you run out to her and tell her to get something for us to eat and drink.”

The boy left the room without haste. The father watched him go with a proud and joyful smile. But when the boy had reached
the doorway, Avinovitsky suddenly frowned fiercely and shouted in a frightening voice that made Peredonov start:

“And quick!”

The gymnasium student ran off and they could then hear the impetuous opening and slamming of doors. The father listened for
a bit, smiled happily with his thick red lips and then once more said in an angry voice:

“My heir. Good, eh? What will become of him, eh? What do you think? A fool, perhaps, but a scoundrel, a coward or a milksop—never!”

“Of course,” Peredonov muttered.

“Nowadays people are a parody of the human race,” Avinovitsky thundered. “They think that health is a trivial matter. A German
devised the undershirt. I would have sent that German off to penal labor. Just imagine an undershirt on my Vladimir! He never
once put any boots on the whole summertime at my place in the country, and him in an undershirt! A hundred lashes for that
accursed German!”

Avinovitsky switched from the German who had devised the undershirt to other criminals.

“The death sentence, my kind sir, is no barbarity!” he shouted. “Science has recognized the existence of born criminals. And
that, old boy, says all. They must be exterminated and not fed at the expense of the state. Here he is a malefactor, yet he
will be provided with a warm corner in a penal institution for his entire life. He has committed murder, arson, rape, yet
the taxpayer is answerable with his pocket for his upkeep. No sir, hanging is much more fair and inexpensive.”

The table was laid in the dining room with a red-bordered white table-cloth and plates with fat sausages and other foods,
pickled, smoked and marinaded, as well as decanters and bottles of various sizes and forms with all manner of vodkas, liqueurs
and brandies. Everything was to Peredonov’s liking and he even found it appealing that there was a certain amount of disorder
in the furnishings.

The host continued to fulminate, Using the food as a pretext he attacked the shopkeepers and then started for some reason
to talk about heredity.

“Heredity is a marvellous business!” he cried fiercely. “To turn the peasants into aristocracy is stupid, ridiculous, wasteful
and immoral. The land is growing impoverished, the towns are filling up with vagrants, there are crop failures, ignorance,
suicide—do you like all of that? Teach the peasant as much as you want but don’t award him any rank for that. Otherwise the
peasantry will lose the best of its members and remain rabble and boodle forever, while the gentry will also suffer damage
from the influx of uncultured elements. In his own village he was better than the rest, whereas he is introducing something
vulgar, unchivalrous and ignoble into the gentry class. Profit and his own belly occupy the foreground for the peasant. No,
sir, old boy, the castes were a clever arrangement.”

“In our gymnasium the headmaster is letting all kinds of rabble in,” Peredonov said angrily. “Even the Children of peasants
are there, and there are even a lot of the petite bourgeoisie.”
⁷

“A fine thing, what can you say!” the host cried.

“There’s a circular saying that just any riff-raff shouldn’t be allowed in, but he goes his own way,” Peredonov complained.
“He refuses almost no one. He says that people don’t have much money in our town and there are so few students for the gymnasium.
What does he mean, so few? He should be letting in even fewer. Otherwise you don’t have time to correct some notebooks. And
there’s no time to read any books. And the students purposely use dubious words in their compositions and you have to keep
referring to the dictionary.”

“Drink some flavored vodka,” Avinovitsky offered. “What’s your business with me?”

“I have enemies,” muttered Peredonov, despondently examining the glass with yellow vodka before drinking it.

“The pig lived without any enemies,” Avinovitsky replied, “and still they went and slaughtered him. Have some, it was a fine
pig.”

Peredonov took a slice of ham and said:

“People are spreading all sorts of rubbish about me.”

“Well, I can certainly say that as far as slander is concerned there is no town worse!” the host cried fiercely. “What a town!
Regardless of whatever foul thing is committed, all the pigs immediately start oinking about it.”

“Princess Volchanskaya promised to help secure me an inspector’s post, and now suddenly everyone is gossiping. It could be
harmful to me. And it’s all out of jealousy. The headmaster as well has corrupted the gymnasium: the students who live in
outside quarters smoke, drink and chase after the girl students. And there are locals who do the same. He himself corrupted
them, but here he’s persecuting me. Perhaps people have been spreading slander about me to him. And they’ll go and spread
it further. It’ll reach the Princess.”

Peredonov’s account about his fears was long and incoherent. Avinovitsky listened angrily and exclaimed wrathfully from time
to time:

“Scoundrels! Rogues! Herod’s offspring!”

“What kind of nihilist am I?” Peredonov said. “That’s ridiculous. I have an official cap with a cockade, only I don’t always
wear it, whereas he only wears an ordinary hat. And if Mickiewicz is hanging on my wall, then it’s because of his verses that
I put him there and not because he was a revolutionary. I haven’t even read his work
The Bell
.
^*

“Well, you’ve got your stories mixed up there,” Avinovitsky said unceremoniously. “
The Bell
was published by Herzen and not Mickiewicz.”

“Then it’s a different
The Bell
,” Peredonov said. “Mickiewicz also published something called
The Bell
.”

“I don’t know about that. You ought to publish that. A scientific discovery. You’ll be famous.”

“It’s impossible to publish that,” Peredonov said angrily. “I’m not allowed to read forbidden books. Furthermore, I don’t
read them. I am a patriot.”

After protracted lamentations in which Peredonov poured out his soul, Avinovitsky concluded that someone was trying to blackmail
Peredonov and to that end was spreading rumors about him with the purpose of frightening him and thereby preparing the groundwork
for the sudden demand of money. Avinovitsky explained the fact that these rumors hadn’t reached him because the blackmailer
very cleverly was operating in the closest proximity to Peredonov, so all Avinovitsky had to do was to bring some influence
to bear on Peredonov. Avinovitsky asked:

“Whom do you suspect?”

Peredonov grew thoughtful. By chance, Grushina came to mind because he vaguely recalled the recent conversation with her when
he had interrupted her story by threatening to denounce her. The fact that he had threatened Grushina with a denunciation
became confused in his mind with a murky conception of denunciation in general. Whether he would
carry out the denunciation or whether he himself would be denounced—that was unclear and Peredonov had no wish to make the
effort to recall precisely. The one thing that was clear was that Grushina was an enemy. And, what was worst of all, she had
seen where he had hidden the Pisarev. He would have to change the hiding place.