The Petty Demon (7 page)

“And don’t be modest, Pavel Vasilyevich,” Prepolovenskaya continued. “You’d make a good husband! You’re young and handsome.”

“Perhaps Varvara Dmitrievna doesn’t care to,” Volodin said, giggling.

“What do you mean, doesn’t care to.” Prepolovenskaya replied, “You’re being painfully modest for nothing.”

“And maybe I don’t cane to,” Volodin said, clowning around. “Perhaps I don’t want to marry other people’s cousins. Perhaps
where I come from I have a niece of my own who’s growing up.”

By now he had begun to believe that Varvara wouldn’t be adverse to marrying him. Varvara grew angry. She considered Volodin
a fool. He earned only a quarter of Peredonov’s salary. But Prepolovenskaya wanted to marry Peredonov off to her own cousin,
the buxom daughter of a priest. For that reason she was trying to embroil Peredonov and Varvara.

“Why are you proposing me for marriage,” Varvara asked in annoyance. “Better you offer your little cousin to Pavel Vasilyevich
in marriage.”

“Why should I be about to take him away from you!” Prepolovenskaya protested jokingly.

Prepolovenskaya’s jokes added a new turn to Peredonov’s slow thoughts. And the
erly
had become firmly seated in his mind. Why had Volodin invented that particular dish? Peredonov didn’t like to spend time
reflecting. He always believed straightaway what people told him. So he had believed that Volodin was in love with Varvara.
He thought that no sooner would he be hitched to Varvara than he would be poisoned with the
erly
on the road to his new inspector’s position, Volodin would take his place, he would be buried under Volodin’s name and Volodin
would be the inspector. A clever plan they had hatched!

Suddenly there was a noise in the front hall. Peredonov and Varvara took fright. His eyes were riveted on the door. Varvara
crept stealthily up to the door in the living room and opened it a crack, peeked through and then just as quietly, on tip-toe,
balancing herself with her arms and smiling distractedly,
returned to the table. Shrill cries and a racket were coming from the entry way as though a struggle was underway there. Varvara
whispered:

“It’s that bag, Ershova, drunk as drunk can be. Natashka isn’t letting her in but she’s still trying to barge her way into
the living room.”

“What are we supposed to do?” Peredonov asked fearfully.

“We have to move into the living room,” Varvara decided, “so that she doesn’t sneak in here.”

They went into the living room and shut the doors firmly behind them. Varvara went out into the front hall with the faint
hope of detaining the landlady there or seating her in the kitchen. But the insolent woman forced her way into the living
room anyway. With hands on hips she stopped at the doorway and spouted words of abuse by way of a general greeting. Peredonov
and Varvara fussed around her and tried to sit her down on a chair closer to the front hall and as far as possible from the
dining room. Varvara brought her out a tray of vodka, beer and pastries from the kitchen. But the landlady wouldn’t sit down,
ate nothing and strained to get into the dining room but just couldn’t identify where the door was. She was flushed, bedraggled
and filthy, and she smelled of vodka from a long way off. She was screaming:

“No, you seat me at your table. What do you mean by serving me on a tray! I want it on a table cloth. I’m the landlady, so
you give me some respect. Don’t look at me like I’m drunk. I’m still a decent woman, I’m still my husband’s wife.”

Varvara, with a cowardly and impudent smirk, said:

“Don’t we know it.”

Ershova winked at Varvara, burst into a hoarse laughter and snapped her fingers jauntily. She was becoming increasingly impudent.

“Cousin!” she shouted, “we know what kind of cousin you are. And why doesn’t the headmaster’s wife come to visit you? Eh?
Well?”

“Stop shouting,” Varvara said.

But Ershova started to shout even more loudly:

“How dare you give me orders! I’m in my own house and I’ll do what I want. If I feel like it I’ll kick you out of here right
this minute so there won’t be hide nor hair of you. Only I’m being very gracious towards you. Live as you will, I don’t mind,
just don’t go causing a nuisance.”

Meanwhile, Volodin and Prepolovenskaya were huddling meekly by the window and keeping as quiet as can be. Prepolovenskaya
had the trace of a grin as she kept glancing sideways at the rowdy woman, pretending to look outside. Volodin sat with an
expression of offended importance on his face.

For the moment Ershova had become good-humored and said to Varvara in an amicable fashion while smiling drunkenly and cheerfully
and clapping her on the back:

“No, you just listen to what I’m going to say to you. You sit me down at your table and serve me something grand to drink.
And serve me some real spice cakes. Have some respect for your landlady, really, you dear girl of mine.”

“Here are some pastries for you,” Varvara said.

“I don’t want pastries, I want some really grand spice cakes,” Ershova started to shout, waving her arms about and smiling
blissfully. “The ladies
and gents are stuffing themselves with nice tasty spice cakes, real tasty ones!”

“I don’t have any cakes for you,” Varvara replied, growing bolder from the fact that the landlady was getting more cheerful.
“Here, you’re getting pastries, so stuff yourself.”

Suddenly, Ershova figured out where the door into the dining room was. They were too late to stop her. Bowing her head, her
fists clenched, she burst into the dining room after flinging the door open with a crash. There she stopped at the threshold,
caught sight of the spattered wallpaper and gave a shrill whistle. She put her hands on her hips, planted one foot ostentatiously
and screamed furiously:

“So, in actual fact, you want to leave town!”

“Come now, Irina Stepanovna,” Varvara said in a trembling voice. “We weren’t even thinking of it, enough of this tomfoolery.”

“We aren’t going anywhere,” Peredonov confirmed. “We like it here just fine.”

The landlady wasn’t listening, she stepped up to a dumbfounded Varvara and shook her fists in her face. Peredonov was standing
behind Varvara. He would have run away but he was curious to see how the landlady and Varvara would lay into each other.

“I’ll stand you on one foot, yank on the other and tear you in half!” Ershova screamed fiercely.

“Come now, Irina Stepanovna,” Varvara tried to convince her. “Stop, we have guests.”

“Let’s have your guests here too!” Ershova shouted. “What do I care about your guests anyway!”

Stumbling, Ershova plunged into the living room and suddenly changing both her speech and her entire behavior completely,
mildly addressed Prepolovenskaya as she gave her a deep bow and almost collapsed onto the floor:

“My dear madam, Sofiya Efimovna, forgive me, drunken woman that I am. Only listen to what I’m going to tell you. Here you
are coming to visit them and do you know what she says about your cousin? And to whom? To me, the drunken wife of a shoemaker!
Why? So I’ll tell everyone, that’s why?”

Varvara turned a deep crimson and said:

“I never said anything to you.”

“You didn’t? You, a foul libertine?” Ershova started to shout, stepping up to Varvara with clenched fists.

“Quiet down,” Varvara muttered with embarrassment.

“No I won’t,” Ershova screamed maliciously and turned to Prepolovenskaya once more. “She told me, the vile woman did, that
your cousin is apparently carrying on with your husband.”

Sofiya flashed an angry and cunning glance at Varvara, stood up and said with feigned laughter:

“I thank you most humbly I never expected that.”

“You’re lying!” Varvara shrieked spitefully at Ershova.

Ershova gave an angry boot, stomped her feet and shook her hand at Varvara and immediately turned to Prepolovenskaya once
more:

“And the things, dear lady, that the gentleman says about you! That apparently
earlier you used to gad about and only got married afterwards! That’s the kind they are, the vilest of people! Spit in their
mugs, my good madam, don’t have anything to do with these kind of utterly disgusting people.”

Prepolovenskaya blushed and silently went out into the front hall. Peredonov ran after her trying to make excuses.

“She’s lying, don’t you believe her. Only once in her presence did I say that you were a fool and that was only out of anger
and, by God, I never said anything more. She’s making it up herself.”

Prepolovenskaya replied calmly:

“Come now, Ardalyon Borisych! I can see that she’s drunk and she herself doesn’t know what she’s spouting on about. Only why
do you allow all this to go on in your home?”

“Just try to imagine,” replied Peredonov, “what can you do with her!”

Angry and embarrassed, Prepolovenskaya put on her jacket. Peredonov didn’t think to help her. He muttered a few things more
but she was no longer listening to him. Then Peredonov returned to the living room. Ershova started to reproach him noisily.
Varvara ran out on the porch and tried to console Prepolovenskaya:

“You know what a fool he is, he doesn’t know himself what to say.”

“Enough of your worrying,” Prepolovenskaya replied to her. “A drunken old woman will say all sorts of things.”

Outside, around the house where the porch fronted, stinging nettles grew thick and high. Prepolovenskaya smiled slightly and
the final shadow of displeasure disappeared from her white and plump face. Once more she grew friendly and amiable with Varvara.
The insult would be avenged without any quarrel. They walked together into the garden to wait out the landlady’s onslaught.

Prepolovenskaya kept looking at the nettles that grew along the fences in abundance. She finally said:

“You have a lot of nettles. Do you need them all?”

Varvara laughed and replied:

“Now what would I need them for!”

“If you don’t mind I should like to gather some from you, we don’t have any,” Prepolovenskaya said.

“What do you need them for?” Varvara asked in amazement.

“I’ve got a use for them,” Prepolovenskaya said laughingly.

“Honey, tell me what for?” Varvara asked with curiosity.

Leaning over to Varvara’s ear Prepolovenskaya whispered:

“Rub yourself with nettles and you won’t lose any weight. My Genichka became such a fatty from using nettles.”

She was aware that Peredonov gave preference to fat women and disapproved of skinny ones. Varvara was crushed by the fact
that she was slender and getting thinner. How could she put some more weight on? That was one of her most important concerns.
She had asked everyone whether they knew of any means. Now Prepolovenskaya was certain that Varvara, following her suggestion,
would zealously rub herself all over with nettles and in this way punish herself.

P
EREDONOV AND
E
RSHOVA
came outside. He muttered:

“Well, who would have thought it possible.”

She was shouting at the top of her voice and was happy. They were going to dance. Prepolovenskaya and Varvara crept back into
the rooms through the kitchen and sat down by the window to watch what would happen outside.

Peredonov and Ershova took hold of each other and started up a dance around the pear tree. Peredonov’s face retained its customary
dull expression and displayed nothing. The gold spectacles and the short hair on his head were bobbing up and down mechanically
as though on some inanimate thing. Ershova was squealing, shouting and waving her hands while her whole body reeled.

She shouted to Varvara through the window:

“Hey, you prig, come on out and dance! You ashamed of our company?”

Varvara turned away.

“To hell with you! I’m dead on my feet!” Ershova shouted, collapsed on the grass and pulled Peredonov down with her.

They sat a while in each other’s arms and then they started dancing again. And so it continued a number of times: first they
would dance a while, then rest under the pear tree, on a bench or right on the grass.

Volodin was genuinely enjoying himself looking out the window at the dancers. He was roaring with laughter, making killingly
funny faces, clowning, bending his knees up and screeching:

“They’re really going at it now! Great fun!”

“Damned bitch!” Varvara said angrily.

“Bitch,” Volodin agreed, laughing. “Just you wait, my dear old landlady, I’m going to do you a nice favor. Let’s make a mess
in the living room too. It doesn’t matter now, she won’t be back today, she’ll fag herself out there on the grass and then
go home to sleep.”

He dissolved in a bleating laugh and started to prance like a sheep. Prepolovenskaya played the instigator:

“Of course, go ahead and make a mess, Pavel Vasilyevich, no need to play up to her. If she does come then you can tell her
that she did it herself in a drunken state.”

Jumping up and down and guffawing, Volodin ran off into the living room and started to scrape the wallpaper with the soles
of his shoes.

“Varvara Dmitrievna, give me some rope,” he cried.

Waddling like a duck, Varvara crossed the living room into the bedroom and brought back the end of a rope that was shredded
and knotted. Volodin made a noose, stood a chair in the middle of the room and hung the noose on the lamp hook.

“That’s for the landlady!” he shouted. “So she’ll have something to hang herself with out of anger when you move out.”

Both women squealed with laughter.

“Give me a bit of paper,” Volodin shouted, “and a pencil.”

Varvara rummaged around in the bedroom again and brought out a scrap of paper and a pencil. Volodin wrote “for the landlady”
and fastened the paper to the noose. He accompanied all of this with amusing faces. Then once more he began to jump up and
down furiously along the walls, pounding away at them with the soles of his shoes and shaking with laughter the whole time.
The entire house was filled with his squealing and bleating laughter. The white cat, its ears laid back in fright, kept peering
out of the bedroom and obviously didn’t know where it should flee to.

Peredonov finally extricated himself from Ershova and returned home alone. Ershova had in fact exhausted herself and had gone
home to sleep. Volodin greeted Peredonov with a joyful guffaw and cry:

“We’ve made a mess in the living room too! Hurray!”

“Hurray!” Peredonov cried and abruptly burst into a loud laugh just as though he were firing off a salvo of his laughter.

The women shouted “hurray” as well. A general revelry commenced. Peredonov cried:

“Pavlushka, let’s dance!”

“Let’s, Ardalyon, old boy,” Volodin replied with a stupid giggle.

They danced away beneath the noose, kicking out their feet in a clumsy fashion. The floor was trembling under Peredonov’s
heavy stomping.

“Ardalyon Borisych is dancing his heart out,” Prepolovenskaya noted with a slight smile.

“You’re telling me, he’s full of quirks,” Varvara replied peevishly, nevertheless admiring Peredonov.

She sincerely thought that he was a handsome and fine fellow. His most stupid actions seemed only proper to her. He was neither
ridiculous nor despicable to her.

“Let’s hold a funeral service for the landlady!” Volodin cried.

“Give me a pillow!”

“What won’t they think up!” Varvara said with a laugh.

She tossed a pillow in a filthy cover out of the bedroom. The pillow was placed on the floor as the landlady and they started
to perform her funeral in wild and squealing voices. Afterwards they called in Natalya and made her turn the handle on the
music-box While they themselves, all four of them, danced a quadrille, making absurd faces and kicking their feet up high.

After the dancing Peredonov was overcome with generosity. A gloomy
and sullen animation gleamed on his swollen face. An almost mechanical decisiveness took possession of him—perhaps a consequence
of the intensified physical activity. He pulled out his wallet, counted off several bank notes and with an arrogant and conceited
expression tossed them in Varvara’s direction.

“Take it, Varvara!” he shouted. “Make yourself a wedding dress.”

The bank notes scattered over the floor. Varvara gathered them up smartly. She was not in the least offended by this manner
of presentation. Prepolovenskaya thought spitefully: “We’ll still see which one gets him.” And she gave a venomous smile.
Volodin, of course, never thought to help Varvara pick up the money.

Prepolovenskaya soon left. In the passage she ran into a new guest, Grushina.

Marya Osipovna Grushina, a young widow, had a prematurely wasted appearance. She was slender and her dry skin was completely
covered in delicate little wrinkles seemingly filled with dust. Her face was not lacking in pleasantness, but her teeth were
dirty and black. The hands were slender the fingers long and prehensile with dirt under the fingernails. Superficially it
wasn’t that she seemed very dirty. Rather she produced the impression that she never washed and merely shook herself out together
with her clothes. One had the feeling that if she were struck several times with a carpet beater, a column of dust would rise
to the very heavens. The clothing on her hung in rumpled folds as though it had only just been pulled out of a tightly trussed
up bundle where it had lain all crushed together for a long while. Grushina lived on a pension, the income from petty trading
in secondhand goods and the interest on property secured loans. For the most part she carried on immodest conversations and
attached herself to men with the desire of finding a husband. Unmarried officials were constantly renting a room in her house.

Varvara gave Grushina a joyful welcome: she had business that concerned her. Grushina and Varvara immediately started to talk
about the maid in a whisper. A curious Volodin sat dawn with them and listened. Peredonov sat sullenly at the table by himself
and kneaded the edge of the table cloth in his hands.

Varvara was complaining to Grushina about her Natalya. Grushina told her about a new servant, Klavdiya, and praised her highly.
They decided to go for her right away to Samorodina River where she was living in the meanwhile at the home of an excise duty
official who had received a transfer to another town a few days before. The only thing that stopped Varvara was the name.
She asked in bewilderment:

“Klavdiya? But what will I call her? Klashka or something?”

Grushina advised her:

“You’ll call her Klavdyushka.”

Varvara liked that. She repeated:

“Klavdyushka, dyushka.”

And she gave a screeching laugh. It should be noted that in our town pigs are called dyushkas. Volodin started to make an
oinking sound. Everyone burst into laughter.

“Dyushka, dyushenka,” Volodin prattled between fits of laughter as he screwed up his stupid face and puffed out his lips.

And he went on oinking and playing the fool until he was told that he was a bore. Then he went off with an offended expression
and sat beside Peredonov and lowering his abrupt forehead like a sheep he stared at the stained tablecloth.

Varvara decided that she would buy the material for her wedding dress at the same time that she went to Samorodina River.
She always made the rounds of the stores together with Grushina. The latter would help her to choose and to bargain.

Behind Peredonov’s back Varvara stuffed Grushina’s deep pockets with various victuals, sweet pastries and candies for her
children. Grushina guessed that Varvara was going to be greatly in need of her services that day.

Varvara could not walk a great deal because of her narrow shoes and high heels. She would quickly tire. For that reason she
rode in cabs although the distances were not great in our town. Lately she had become a frequent visitor at Grushina’s. The
cabbies had already taken note of that. All in all there were about two dozen of them. After seating her they no longer asked
where to take her.

They got into a drozhky and went to the people where Klavdiya was living in order to make inquiries about her. There was mud
almost everywhere in the streets even though the rain had ended by the evening before. At rare intervals the drozhky would
reverberate along the stone pavement only to sink in the sticky mud once more in the unpaved streets.

On the other hand, Varvara’s voice reverberated incessantly, frequently accompanied by the sympathetic chatter of Grushina.

“My goose was at Marfushka’s again,” Varvara said.

Grushina replied with sympathetic spitefulness:

“They’re trying to catch him. And I should think so. A first-rate husband, particularly for that one, Marfushka. She never
dreamed of one like that.”

“Truly, I don’t know what to do,” Varvara complained. “He’s become so prickly, it’s really frightening. Believe me, my head
is just spinning. If he marries someone else then I’m out on the street.”

“Come now, my dear Varvara Dmitrievna,” Grushina tried to console her. “None of those thoughts. He would never marry anyone
but you. He’s used to you.”

“Sometimes he’d go off late at night and I wouldn’t be able to sleep,” Varvara said. “Who knows, maybe he’s off betting married
somewhere. Sometimes I toss and turn the whole night. They all have their eyes on him, those three Rutilov mares—they latch
on to everyone. And that fat-faced Zhenka as well.”

Varvara complained for a long while and from the entire conversation Grushina saw that she had something else in mind, some
kind of request, and she began to anticipate with delight the money she would earn.

Klavdiya was to their liking. The wife of the excise duty official praised her. She was hired and ordered to come that same
evening because the official was leaving that very day.

Finally, they arrived at Grushina’s. Grushina lived in her own little house in a rather slovenly fashion with her three little
children, who were shabby, dirty, stupid and mean as scalded whelps. Only now did the conversation
begin in earnest.

“My sweet fool, Ardalyon,” Varvara began, “is demanding that I write the Princess once more. But why should I write her for
nothing! She wouldn’t answer or she would answer the wrong thing. We’re not all that marvelously close to each other.”

Princess Volchanskaya, in whose house Varvara had lived at one time as a domestic seamstress for ordinary chores, might have
been able to offer some patronage to Peredonov: her daughter was married to the privy councillor Shchepkin, an important person
in the Ministry of Education. In response to Varvara’s request, the Princess had already written the previous year that she
wasn’t about to intercede on behalf of a fiancé of Varvara’s, but if it were Varvara’s husband that would be a different matter
and it would be possible to intercede when the opportunity arose. Peredonov had not been satisfied by that letter: only a
vague hope was being offered and it was not directly stated that the Princess would without fail help to secure an inspector’s
post for Varvara’s husband. In order to resolve the confusion, they had recently made a trip to St. Petersburg. Varvara went
to see the Princess and then brought Peredonov to visit her, but she deliberately procrastinated over this visit so that they
would miss the Princess at home. Varvara understood that at the very best the Princess would confine herself to the advice
of getting married as soon as possible and to several vague promises to intercede when the opportunity offered—promises which
would have been completely insufficient for Peredonov. So Varvara decided not to show the Princess to Peredonov.

“I’m relying on your rock-solid support,” Varvara said. “Help me, Marya Osipovna, honey.”

“But how can I help you, Varvara Dmitrievna, sweetheart?” Grushina asked. “You know full well that I’m ready to do anything
I can for you. Do you want me to tell your fortune?”

“I know all about your fortune telling,” Varvara said with a laugh. “No, you have to help me in a different way.”

“How?” Grushina asked in anxious, happy anticipation.

“Very simple,” Varvara said smirkingly. “You are going to write a letter as though it came from the Princess, in her handwriting,
and I’ll show it to Ardalyon Borisych.”

“Ai, sweetheart, come now, how can I!” Grushina began, pretending to be frightened. “As soon as people find out about this
business, what’ll happen to me then?”

Varvara was not in the least dismayed by her answer and she pulled a crumpled letter out of her pocket and said:

“Here I’ve brought a letter from the Princess for you to use as a model.”

Grushina demurred for a long while. Varvara clearly saw that Grushina would agree, but that she wanted to get more for doing
it. On the other hand, Varvara wanted to give her less. She carefully increased her promises, pledged various minor gifts,
an old silk dress, and finally Grushina saw that Varvara would give absolutely no more. Varvara fairly gushed with words of
entreaty. Grushina pretended that she was agreeing merely out of pity and she took the letter.
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