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

when Sasha was laid on the floor, his face towards Liudmilla, and beaten, he loudly laughed and wept⁠—she was also laughing, as one laughs only in dreams, when the heart begins to beat intensely, and when one laughs long, unrestrainedly, the laughter of oblivion and of death.⁠ ⁠…

In the morning after all these dreams Liudmilla felt that she was passionately in love with Sasha. An impatient desire to see him seized hold of her⁠—but the thought that she would see him dressed made her sad. How stupid that small boys don’t go about naked! Or at least barefoot, like the streets gamins in summer upon whom Liudmilla loved to gaze because they walked about barefoot, and sometimes showed their bared legs quite high.

“As if it were so shameful to have a body,” thought Liudmilla, “that even small boys hide it!”

XV

Volodin went punctually to the Adamenkos to give his lessons. His hopes that the young woman would invite him to take coffee were not realised. Each time he came he was taken straight to the little shanty used for carpentry. Misha usually stood in his linen apron at the joiner’s bench, having got ready what was necessary for the lesson. He did obediently but unwillingly all that Volodin told him to do. In order to work less, Misha tried to drag Volodin into conversation, but Volodin wished to work conscientiously and refused to comply.

“Mishenka,” he would say, “you had better do your work for a couple of hours and then, if you like, we can have a talk. Then as much as you like, but now not a bit⁠—business before everything.”

Misha sighed lightly and went on with his work, but at the end of the lesson he had no desire to talk: he said he had no time and that he had much home work to do.

Sometimes Nadezhda came to the lesson to see how Misha was getting along. Misha noticed⁠—and made use of the fact⁠—that in her presence Volodin could much more easily be lured into conversation. When Nadezhda saw that Misha was not working she immediately said to him:

“Misha, don’t be lazy!”

And when she left she said to Volodin:

“I’m sorry that I’ve interrupted. If you give him a little leeway he gets very lazy.”

At the beginning Volodin was mortified by Nadezhda’s behaviour; then he thought that she hesitated to ask him to take coffee in case there should be gossip. Then he thought that she need not have come to look on at the lessons at all and yet she came⁠—was it because she liked to see him? So Volodin reasoned to his advantage from the fact that Nadezhda from the very first had eagerly agreed that he should give lessons and had not stopped to bargain. He was encouraged in these suppositions by Peredonov and Varvara.

“It is clear that she’s in love with you,” said Peredonov.

“And what better fiancé could she have?” added Varvara.

Volodin tried to look modest and felt pleased with his prospects.

Once Peredonov said to him:

“You’re a fiancé and yet you wear that shabby tie!”

“I’m not her fiancé yet, Ardasha,” said Volodin soberly, nevertheless trembling with pleasure. “But I can easily get a new tie.”

“Buy yourself one with a pattern in it,” advised Peredonov. “So that it will be clear that love is burning within you.”

“Better get a red one,” said Varvara, “and the fancier the better. And a tiepin. You can buy a tiepin cheaply and with a stone too⁠—it will be quite chic.”

Peredonov thought that possibly Volodin had not enough money. Or he might think of economising and buy a simple black one. And that would be fatal, thought Peredonov: Adamenko is a fashionable girl and if he should come to propose to her in any kind of a tie she might be offended and reject him. Peredonov said:

“Only don’t buy a cheap one. Pavloushka, you’ve won from me enough money to pay for a tie. How much do I owe you? I think it’s one rouble forty kopecks, isn’t it?”

“You’re quite right about the forty kopecks,” said Volodin with a wry smile, “only it’s not one rouble but two.”

Peredonov knew himself that it was two roubles, but it was more pleasant to pay only one. He said:

“You’re a liar! What two roubles?”

“Varvara Dmitrievna’s my witness,” said Volodin.

“You’d better pay, Ardalyon Borisitch,” said Varvara, “since you lost⁠—and I remember that it was two forty.”

Peredonov thought that as Varvara was interceding for Volodin, that meant that she was going over to his side. He frowned, produced the money from his purse and said:

“All right, let it be two forty⁠—it won’t ruin me. You’re a poor man, Pavloushka. Well, here it is.”

Volodin took the money, counted it, then assumed an offended expression and bent down his thick forehead, stuck out his lower lip and said in a bleating, cracked voice:

“Ardalyon Borisitch, you happen to be in debt to me and therefore you’ve got to pay, and that I happen to be poor has nothing to do with the matter. I haven’t yet come down to begging my bread off anyone, and as you know the only poor devil is the one that hasn’t any bread to eat, and as I eat bread, and butter with it, that means I’m not poor.”

And he became mollified and at the same time blushed with joy to think that he had answered so cleverly, and twisted his lips into a smile.

At last Peredonov and Volodin decided to go and fix up the match. They arranged themselves very elaborately and they had a solemn and more than usually stupid look. Peredonov put on a white stock. Volodin a vivid red tie with green stripes. Peredonov argued thus:

“As I am to do the matchmaking, mine is a sober role. I must live up to it. So I must wear a white tie, and you, the lover, should show your flaming feelings.”

With intense solemnity Peredonov and Volodin seated themselves in the Adamenkos’ drawing-room. Peredonov sat on a sofa