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

“We did it on our own,” they said.

They were whipped again until they confessed that Cherepnin had given them the money. The boys were then turned over to their father.

“Well, we’ve punished them⁠—that is their father punished them,” said the Commissioner to Vershina, “and now you know who’s responsible.”

“I won’t let that Cherepnin off easily,” said Vershina. “I’ll prosecute him.”

“I shouldn’t advise you to, Natalya Afanasyevna,” said Minchukov abruptly. “You’d better let the thing drop.”

“What! Let such wretches go! No, never!” exclaimed Vershina.

“After all, you have had no real proof,” said the Commissioner quietly.

“What do you mean by no proof, when the boys themselves have confessed it?”

“That doesn’t count, they might deny it before the judge and there’d be no one to flog them there.”

“How can they deny it? There are the constables who were witnesses,” said Vershina confidently.

“Where are your witnesses? When you beat a man he’ll confess anything, even something that never happened. They’re rascals, of course, and they got what they deserved. But you’ll get nothing out of them in court.”

Minchukov smiled and looked calmly at Vershina.

Vershina left the Commissioner very dissatisfied, but after reflection admitted to herself that it was difficult to accuse Cherepnin, and that only publicity and scandal would come of it.

Towards evening Peredonov appeared before the Headmaster⁠—to talk on business.

The Headmaster, Nikolai Vlasyevitch Khripatch had a certain number of rules which were sufficiently practical and not difficult to keep. He calmly fulfilled all the school laws and regulations and also kept to the rules of a generally-accepted mild Liberalism. This was why the school authorities, the parents and the students were equally satisfied with the Headmaster. He had no moments of doubt, no indecisions and no hesitations⁠—what was the use of them?⁠—one could always rely on the decisions of the Pedagogical Council or on the instructions of the Educational authorities. He was no less calm and correct in his personal relations. His very appearance gave the impression of good-nature and steadiness. He was short, robust, active, with keen eyes, and with a confident voice. He seemed a man who ordered his life well and who was always ready to improve. There were many books on the shelves in his study. He made notes from them. When he had accumulated a sufficient number of notes, he would put them in order and paraphrase them⁠—that was how a textbook was compiled, published and circulated, of course not so successfully as the textbooks of Ushinsky and Evtoushevsky but still they were not a failure. Sometimes he put together, chiefly from foreign books, a compilation which was very respectable and quite unnecessary to anyone and published it in a periodical equally respectable and equally unnecessary. He had a number of children and all of them, boys and girls, already gave indication of various talents: some wrote verses, some drew, some made rapid progress in music.

Peredonov said morosely:

“You’re always down on me, Nikolai Vlasyevitch. Perhaps someone has been slandering me to you, but I’ve done nothing of the kind.”

“I beg your pardon,” the Headmaster interrupted him, “I don’t understand what slanders you have in mind. In the management of the gymnasia entrusted to me, I make use of my own observations, and I dare hope that my educational experience is sufficient to estimate with proper correctness what I see and what I hear, all the more in view of my close attention to my duties which I have made an unbreakable rule.”

Khripatch said this quickly and decisively, and his voice sounded dry and clear, like the sharp noise given out by a zinc bar when bent. He went on:

“As far as it concerns my personal opinion of you, I still continue to think that there are sad lapses in your professional activity.”

“Yes,” said Peredonov morosely. “You’ve taken it into your head that I’m good for nothing. Yet I’m always preoccupied with the gymnasia.”

Khripatch lifted his eyebrows in astonishment and glanced questioningly at Peredonov.

“You haven’t noticed,” continued Peredonov, “that there’s a possibility of a scandal in our gymnasia. No one has noticed it⁠—I alone have detected it.”

“What scandal?” asked Khripatch with a dry smile, pacing up and down his study. “You arouse my curiosity, though, to speak candidly, I hardly believe in the possibility of a scandal in our school.”

“Yes, but you don’t know who you have recently admitted to the school,” said Peredonov with such malevolence that Khripatch paused and looked attentively at him.

“I know all the new students perfectly well,” he said dryly. “Besides, it goes without saying that the new boys in the first form have never been excluded from another school, and the only one who has just entered the fifth form came to us with such recommendations that preclude all possibility of suspicion.”

“Yes, but he shouldn’t have come to us but to some other kind of institution,” said Peredonov morosely and as if reluctantly.

“Please explain, Ardalyon Borisitch,” said Khripatch. “I hope you don’t mean to say that Pilnikov ought to have been sent to a Reformatory.”

“No, that creature should be sent to a pension where they don’t learn ancient languages,”21 said Peredonov maliciously, and his eyes gleamed with spite.

Khripatch put his hands into the pockets of his short jacket and looked at Peredonov with unusual astonishment.

“What pension?” he asked. “Do you know what institutions are designated in that way? And if you do know, how could you venture to make such an unseemly suggestion?”

Khripatch flushed violently and his voice sounded drier and even more decisive. At another time these symptoms of the Headmaster’s anger would have flustered Peredonov. But this time he was not flustered.

“Of course, you think Pilnikov’s a boy,” he said screwing up his eyes in derision, “but he’s not a boy at all, but a girl, and what sort of a girl!”

Khripatch uttered a dry, abrupt laugh, but his laughter sounded affected, it was so loud and mechanical⁠—he always laughed like that.

“Ha! Ha! Ha!” he laughed mechanically, and when