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

ahead, and spray me with whatever you’ve got.”

He returned home in vexation. It was a windy day. The gates kept banging, yawning and laughing in the wind. Peredonov looked at them dispiritedly. How could he face the drive? But everything arranged itself.

Three carriages were waiting⁠—they had to sit down and drive away at once, in order not to attract attention. Many curiosity mongers might collect and follow them to the wedding, if the carriages waited about too long. They took their places and drove off: Peredonov with Varvara, the Prepolovenskys with Routilov, Grushina with the other bride’s-men.

A cloud of dust rose in the square. Peredonov heard a noise of axes. Barely visible through the dust, a wooden wall loomed and grew. They were building a fortress. Muzhiks, savage and morose-looking, glimmered in their red shirts through the dust.

The carriages ran past; the terrible vision flashed by and vanished. Peredonov looked around in terror, but nothing was visible, and he could not decide to tell anyone about his vision.

A sadness tormented Peredonov the whole way. Everything looked hostilely at him. The wind blew ominously. The sky was black. The wind was in their faces and seemed to moan for something. The trees gave no shadow⁠—they kept their shadows within themselves. But the dust rose, a long grey, half-transparent serpent. The sun hid behind the clouds⁠—did it look out from under them?

The road was undulating. Unexpected bushes, copses and fields rose from behind low hillocks, and streams appeared under the hollow-sounding, wooden arched bridges.

“The eye-bird flew by,” said Peredonov morosely, looking into the whitish, misty distance of the sky. “One eye and two wings, and nothing more.”

Varvara smiled. She thought that Peredonov had been drunk since the morning. But she did not argue with him⁠—“for,” she thought, “he might get angry and refuse to go to the wedding.”

All four of Routilov’s sisters were already in a corner of the church, hiding behind a column. Peredonov did not see them at first, but later during the ceremony when they appeared from their ambush and came forward, he saw them and felt frightened. They actually did not do anything unpleasant, they did not demand (as he had been afraid at first) that he should chase Varvara away and take one of them. They only kept laughing all the time. And their laughter, quiet at first, resounded louder and more evil in his ears all the time, like the laughter of untameable furies.

There were practically no outsiders in the church. Only two or three old women came from somewhere or other. And this was fortunate, for Peredonov conducted himself curiously and stupidly. He yawned, mumbled, nudged Varvara, complained about the smell of incense, wax and muzhiks.

“Your sisters are always laughing,” he grumbled, turning to Routilov. “They’ll perforate their livers with laughing.”

Besides that, the nedotikomka disturbed him. It was dirty and dusty and kept hiding under the priest’s vestments.

Both Varvara and Grushina thought the church ceremonies amusing. They giggled continuously. The words about a woman cleaving to her husband evoked special merriment. Routilov also giggled. He considered it his duty always and everywhere to amuse the ladies. Volodin conducted himself sedately, and crossed himself, preserving an expression of profundity on his face. The church ceremonies did not suggest to his mind anything but that they were an established custom which ought to be fulfilled, and that the fulfilment of all ceremonies leads one to a certain inner convenience: he went to church on Sundays, and he prayed, and was absolved, he had sinned and repented and again he was absolved. Now this is excellent and convenient⁠—all the more convenient because once outside the church he did not have to think about churchly matters, but was guided entirely by quite different and worldly rules.

The ceremony was barely over and they had not yet had time to leave the church when suddenly a drunken crowd tumbled noisily into the church. It was Mourin and his friends.

Mourin, dusty and tousled, as usual, embraced Peredonov and shouted:

“You can’t hide it from us, old boy! We’re such fast friends that you can’t part us by pouring cold water on us. And yet you hid it from us, you tricky fellow!”

Exclamations came from all sides:

“Villain, you didn’t invite us!”

“But we’re here all the same!”

“Yes, we found it out without you!”

The newcomers embraced and congratulated Peredonov. Mourin said:

“We missed the way because we stopped for a drink, or else we’d have conferred the pleasure of our company on you earlier.”

Peredonov looked at them gloomily and did not reply to their congratulations. Malevolence and fear tormented him.

“They’re always tracking me everywhere,” he thought dejectedly.

“You might have crossed your foreheads,” he said angrily. “Or possibly you were thinking evil against me.”

The visitors crossed themselves, laughed and joked. The young officials especially distinguished themselves. The deacon reproached them.

Among the visitors was a young men with red moustaches whom Peredonov did not even know. He resembled a cat to an extraordinary degree. Wasn’t it their cat turned into human shape? It was not for nothing that this young man kept snarling⁠—he had not forgotten his cattish habits.

“Who told you?” asked Varvara angrily of the new guests.

“A nice young woman told us,” replied Mourin. “But we have forgotten who it was.”

Grushina turned around and winked at them. The new guests smiled back but did not give her away. Mourin said:

“As you like, Ardalyon Borisitch, but we’re coming with you and you must give us champagne. Don’t be a skinflint. You can’t pour cold water on such friends as we are, and yet you’ve tried to get married on the quiet.”

When the Peredonovs returned from the wedding the sun had gone down, but the sky was all fiery and golden. But this did not please Peredonov. He growled:

“They’ve dabbed pieces of gold on the sky and they’re falling off. Who ever saw such a waste!”

The locksmith’s sons met them just outside the town in a crowd of other street boys. They ran alongside and hooted. Peredonov trembled with fear.