The Little Demon, Fyodor Sologub [reading the story of the TXT] 📗

“Hey you, don’t be such a lady, come out and dance. Are you disgusted with our company?”

Varvara turned away.

“The deuce take you! I’m dead tired,” shouted Ershova, and fell back on the grass, drawing down Peredonov with her.

They sat a while in each other’s embrace, then got up and once more began to dance. This they repeated several times: now they danced, now they rested under the pear tree, upon the bench, or simply on the grass.

Volodin enjoyed himself thoroughly, as he watched the dancers from the window. He roared with laughter, made extraordinarily funny faces, and bent his body in two. He shouted:

“They’re cracked! How funny!”

“Accursed carrion!” said Varvara angrily.

“Yes, carrion,” agreed Volodin with a grin. “Just wait, my dear landlady, I’ll show you something! Let’s go and make a mess in the parlour too. She won’t come back again today anyhow, she’ll tire herself out and go home to sleep.”

He burst into his bleating laughter and jumped about like a great ram. Prepolovenskaya encouraged him:

“Yes, go ahead, Pavel Vassilyevitch, and make a mess. We don’t care a rap for her! If she does come back we can tell her that she did it herself when she was drunk.”

Volodin, skipping and laughing, ran into the parlour and began to smear and rub his boots on the wallpaper.

“Varvara Dmitrievna, get me a piece of rope!” he shouted.

Varvara, waddling like a duck, passed through the parlour into the bedroom and brought back with her a piece of frayed, knotted rope. Volodin made a noose, then stood up on a chair in the middle of the room and hung the noose on the lamp-bracket.

“That’s for the landlady,” he explained. “So that when you leave she’ll have somewhere to hang herself in her rage!”

Both women squealed with laughter.

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

Varvara searched in the bedroom and discovered a pencil and a piece of paper.

Volodin wrote on it: “For the landlady,” and pinned the paper on the noose. He made ridiculous grimaces all the time he was doing this. Then he began to jump furiously up and down along the walls, kicking them every now and again with his boots, shaking with laughter at the same time. His squeals and bleating laughter filled the whole house. The white cat, putting back its ears in terror, peered out of the bedroom and seemed undecided where to run.

Peredonov at last managed to disengage himself from Ershova and returned to the house. Ershova really did get tired and went home to bed. Volodin met Peredonov with uproarious laughter:

“We’ve made a mess of the parlour too! Hurrah!”

“Hurrah!” shouted Peredonov, bursting into a loud, abrupt laugh.

The women also cried “Hurrah,” and a general gaiety set in. Peredonov cried:

“Pavloushka! let’s dance.”

“Yes, let’s, Ardalyosha!” replied Volodin, with a stupid grin.

They danced under the noose and kicked up their legs awkwardly. The floor trembled under Peredonov’s heavy feet.

“Ardalyon Borisitch’s got a dancing fit,” said Prepolovenskaya with a smile.

“That’s nothing new, he has his little whims,” grumbled Varvara, looking admiringly at Peredonov nevertheless.

She sincerely thought that he was handsome and clever. His most stupid actions seemed to her perfectly fitting. To her he was neither ridiculous nor repulsive.

“Let’s sing a funeral mass over the landlady,” shouted Volodin. “Fetch a pillow here.”

“What will they think of next?” said Varvara laughingly.

She threw out from the bedroom a pillow in a dirty calico slip. They put the pillow on the floor to represent the landlady and began to chant over it with wild discordant voices. Then they called in Natalya, and made her turn the ariston;6 all four of them began to dance a quadrille with strange antics, kicking up their legs.

After the dance Peredonov felt generous. A dim, morose sort of animation lit up his plump face; he was inspired by a sudden, almost automatic decision, a consequence, perhaps, of his sudden muscular action. He pulled out his wallet, counted several notes, and with a proud self-laudatory expression, threw them towards Varvara.

“Here you are, Varvara!” he exclaimed. “Get yourself a wedding dress!”

The notes fluttered across the floor. Varvara eagerly picked them up; she was not in the least offended at the way the gift was made. Prepolovenskaya thought: “Well, we shall see who’s going to have him.” And she smiled maliciously. Volodin, of course, did not think of helping Varvara to pick up the money.

Soon Prepolovenskaya left. In the passage she met another visitor, Grushina.

Marya Ossipovna Grushina was a young widow, with a prematurely faded appearance. She was thin⁠—her dry skin was covered with small wrinkles which looked filled with dust. Her face was not unpleasant, but her teeth were black and unbrushed. She had long hands, long grasping fingers and dirty fingernails. At the first glance she not only looked dirty but gave the impression that she and her clothes had been beaten together. It really looked as if a column of dust would rise up into the sky if she were struck several times with a carpet beater. Her clothes hung upon her in crumpled folds; she might have been just released from a tightly-bound bundle. Grushina lived on a pension, on petty commissions, and by lending money on mortgages. Her conversation was mostly on immodest lines, and she attached herself to men in the hope of getting a second husband. One of her rooms was always let to someone among the bachelor officials.

Varvara was pleased to see Grushina. She had something to tell her. They began to talk immediately about the servant-maid in whispers. The inquisitive Volodin edged closer to them and listened. Peredonov sat morosely by himself in front of the table crumpling the corner of the tablecloth in his fingers.

Varvara was complaining to Grushina about Natalya. Grushina suggested a new servant, Klavdia, and praised her. They decided to go after her at once, to Samorodina where she was living in the house of an excise officer, who had just been transferred to another town. Varvara paused when