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

reflect whether this would help her or do her harm, or how Peredonov would act⁠—she spoke simply from malice.

Peredonov tried to recall Pilnikov to his mind, but somehow he could not clearly visualise him. Until now, he had given little attention to this new pupil, and detested him for his prettiness and cleanness, and because he conducted himself so quietly, worked well, and was the youngest of the students in the fifth form. But now Varvara’s story aroused in him a mischievous curiosity. Immodest thoughts slowly stirred in his obscure mind.

“I must go to Vespers,” he thought, “and take a look at this disguised girl.”

Suddenly Klavdia came in rejoicing and threw on the table a piece of crumpled blue paper and exclaimed:

“There! You blamed me for taking the raisins, but what’s this? As if I needed your raisins.”

Peredonov guessed what was the matter; he had forgotten to throw the paper bag away in the street and now Klavdia had found it in his overcoat pocket.

“Oh! The devil!” he exclaimed.

“What is it? Where did you get it?” cried Varvara.

“I found it in Ardalyon Borisitch’s pocket,” said Klavdia triumphantly. “He ate them himself and I’m blamed for it. Everyone knows that Ardalyon Borisitch likes sweet things. But why should it be put on others when⁠ ⁠…”

“Don’t go so fast,” said Peredonov, “you’re telling lies. You put it there yourself. I didn’t touch them.”

“Why should I do that, God forgive you!” said Klavdia, nonplussed.

“How did you dare to touch other people’s pockets!” shouted Varvara. “Are you looking for money?”

“I don’t touch other people’s pockets,” answered Klavdia angrily, “I took the coat down to brush it. It was covered with mud.”

“But why did you put your hand in the pocket?”

“It fell out of the pocket by itself,” said Klavdia, defending herself.

“You’re lying, Diushka,” said Peredonov.

“I’m not a ‘diushka’⁠—what sneerers you are!” shouted Klavdia. “The devil take you. I’ll pay for those raisins and you can choke on them⁠—you’ve gorged on them yourself and now I must pay for them. Yes, I’ll pay for them⁠—you’ve no conscience, you’ve no shame, and yet you call yourself gentry!”

Klavdia went into the kitchen crying and abusing them.

Peredonov suddenly began to laugh and said:

“She’s very touchy, isn’t she?”

“Yes, let her pay for them,” said Varvara. “If you let them, they’ll eat anything, these ravenous devils.”

And for a long time afterwards they tormented Klavdia with having eaten a pound of raisins. They deducted the price of the raisins from her wages and told the story to everyone who came to the house.

The cat, as if attracted by this uproar, had left the kitchen, sidling along the walls, sat down near Peredonov and looked at him with its avid, evil eyes. Peredonov bent down to catch the animal, which snarled savagely, scratched Peredonov’s hand and ran and hid behind the sideboard. It peeped out from there and its narrow green eyes gleamed.

“It might be a werewolf!” thought Peredonov in fear.

In the meantime Varvara, still thinking about Pilnikov, said:

“Why do you spend all your evenings playing billiards? You might occasionally drop in at the students’ lodgings. They know that the instructors rarely come to see them and that the inspector only comes once a year, so that all sorts of indecencies, card-playing and drunkenness go on. You might, for instance, call on this disguised girl. You’d better go late, about bedtime⁠—that would be a good time to find her out and embarrass her.”

Peredonov reflected a while and then burst out laughing.

“Varvara’s certainly a sly rogue!” he thought, “she can teach me a thing or two.”

XII

Peredonov went to Vespers in the school chapel. There he placed himself behind the students and looked attentively to see how they behaved. It seemed to him that some of them were mischievous, talked, whispered and laughed. He noticed who they were and tried to memorise their names. There were a number of them and he reproached himself for not having brought a piece of paper and a pencil with him to write their names down. He felt depressed because the students behaved so badly and no one paid any attention to it, although the Headmaster and the inspector with their wives and children were present. As a matter of fact, the students were orderly and quiet⁠—some of them crossed themselves absently, with their thoughts far away from the church, others prayed diligently. Only very rarely did one of them whisper to his neighbour⁠—two or three words perhaps, without turning their heads, and the other always replied as briefly and quietly, sometimes with no more than a quick movement, a look, a shrug or a smile. But these insignificant movements, unnoticed by the form master, aroused an illusion of great disorder in Peredonov’s dull, perturbed mind. Even in his tranquil moments Peredonov, like all coarse people, could not appraise small incidents: either he did not notice them at all or he exaggerated their importance. Now that he was agitated by expectations, his perceptions served him even worse, and little by little the whole reality became obscured before him by a thin smoke of detestable and evil illusions.

And after all, what were the students to Peredonov even earlier? Were they not merely an apparatus for the spreading of ink and paper by means of the pen, and for the retelling in ready-made language what had been said before in live human speech! In his whole educational career Peredonov never for a moment reflected that the students were the same human beings as grownups. Only bearded students with awakened inclinations towards women suddenly became in his eyes equal to himself.

After he had stood behind the boys for some time and gathered enough of depressing reflections, Peredonov moved forward toward the middle rows. There, on the very edge, to the right, stood Sasha Pilnikov; he was praying earnestly and often went down on his knees. Peredonov watched him, and it gave him pleasure to see Sasha on his knees like one chastised, and looking before him