Читать книгу The Little Demon - Fyodor Sologub - Страница 11

Peredonov and Ershova went out into the open. He growled:

"Come this way."

She shouted with all her might, though gaily. They were apparently getting ready to dance. Prepolovenskaya and Varvara passed through the kitchen into another room, where they sat down at the window to see what would happen.

Peredonov and Ershova embraced each other, and began to dance around the pear tree. Peredonov's face remained dull as before and did not express anything. Mechanically, as upon an automaton, his golden-rimmed spectacles sprang up and down his nose, and his hair flopped up and down on his head. Ershova screamed, shouted, waved her arms, and at times reeled.

She shouted to Varvara, whom she espied at the window:

"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 to-day 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 wall-paper.

"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[1]; 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 finger-nails. 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 some one 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 she heard the maid's name; and asked in a doubtful voice:

"Klavdia? What on earth shall I call her,—Klashka?"

"Why don't you call her Klavdiushka?" suggested Grushina. This pleased Varvara.

"Klavdiushka, diushka!" she said with a crackling laugh. It should be observed that in our town a pig is called a "diushka." Volodin grunted; everyone laughed.

"Diushka, diushenka," lisped Volodin between the laughter, screwing up his stupid face and protruding his underlip. And he kept on grunting and making a fool of himself until he was told that he was a nuisance. Then he left his chair, with an expression of injury on his face, and sat down beside Peredonov. He lowered his large forehead like a ram and fixed his eyes on a spot on the soiled tablecloth.

On the way to Samorodina Varvara decided that she would buy the material for her wedding dress. She always went shopping with Grushina who helped her to make selections and to bargain.

Unseen by Peredonov, Varvara had stealthily stuffed Grushina's deep pockets with sweets and tarts and other gifts for her children. Grushina surmised that Varvara was in great need of her services.

Varvara's narrow, high-heeled shoes would not allow her to walk much. She quickly became fatigued. It was for this reason that she usually took a cab, though the distances in our town are not great. Latterly, she had frequented Grushina's house. The cabbies had noticed this, for there were only about a score of them. When Varvara entered a cab they never asked her where she wanted to go.

They seated themselves in a drozhky and were driven to the house where Klavdia was servant-maid, in order to make inquiries about her. The streets were dirty almost everywhere although it had rained only the day before. The drozhky no sooner rattled on to a solid paved part of the road than it plunged again into the clinging mud of the unpaved sections. But, by way of compensation, Varvara's voice rattled on continuously, now and then accompanied by Grushina's sympathetic chatter.

"My goose has been to Marfushka's again," said Varvara.

Grushina answered in a sympathetic outburst: "That's how they're trying to catch him. And why not, he'd be a great catch, especially for Marfushka. She never dreamt of anyone like him."

"Really, I don't know what to do," confessed Varvara. "He's become so obstinate lately—it's simply awful. Believe me, my head's in a constant whirl. He'll really marry and then there's nothing for me but the streets."

"Don't worry, darling Varvara," said Grushina consolingly. "Don't think about it. He'll never marry anyone but you. He's used to you."

"He sometimes goes off in the evening, and I can't get to sleep afterwards," said Varvara. "Who knows? Perhaps he's courting some girl. Sometimes I toss about all night. Everyone has her eye on him—even those three Routilov mares of women—but of course they'd hang around any man's neck. And that fat Zhenka's after him too."

Varvara went on complaining for a long time, and all her conversation led Grushina to think that Varvara had some favour to ask of her, and she was gratified at the prospect of a reward.

Klavdia pleased Varvara. The excise officer's wife strongly recommended her. They engaged her and told her to come that evening, as the excise officer was leaving at once.

At last they came to Grushina's house. Grushina lived in her own house in a slovenly enough fashion. The three children were bedraggled, dirty, stupid and malicious, like dogs that have just come out of water.

Their confidences were just beginning.

"My fool, Ardalyosha," began Varvara, "wants me to write to the Princess again. It's a waste of time to write to her. She'll either not answer or she'll answer unsatisfactorily. We're not on very intimate terms."

The Princess Volchanskaya, with whom Varvara had lived in the past as a seamstress for simple domestic things, could have helped Peredonov, since her daughter was married to the Privy-Councillor Stchepkin, who held an important position in the department of Education. She had already written in answer to Varvara's petitions in the past year that she could not ask anything for Varvara's fiancé, but she might for her husband, if the opportunity offered. This letter did not satisfy Peredonov, since it expressed merely a vague hope, and did not definitely state that the Princess would actually find Varvara's husband an inspector's position. In order to clear up this doubt they had lately gone to St. Petersburg; Varvara went to the Princess and later she took Peredonov with her, but purposely delayed the visit so that they did not find the Princess at home: Varvara realised that at best the Princess would merely have advised them to get married soon, making a few vague promises which would not have satisfied Peredonov. And Varvara decided not to let Peredonov meet the Princess.

"I've no one to depend upon but you," said Varvara. "Help me, darling Marya Ossipovna!"

"How can I help, my dearest Varvara Dmitrievna?" asked Grushina. "Of course you know I'm ready to do anything I can for you. Shall I read your fortune for you?"

Varvara laughed and said: "I know how clever you are, but you must help me another way."

"How?" asked Grushina, with a tremulous, expectant pleasure.

"That's very simple," replied Varvara. "You write a letter in the Princess's handwriting and I'll show it to Ardalyon Borisitch."

"But, my dear, how can I do it?" said Grushina, pretending to be alarmed. "What would become of me if I should be found out?"

Varvara was not in the least disconcerted by her answer, but pulled a crumpled letter out of her pocket, saying:

"I've brought one of the Princess's letters for you to copy."

Grushina refused for a long time. Varvara saw clearly that Grushina would consent, but that she was bargaining for a bigger reward, while Varvara wanted to give less. She gradually increased her promises of various small gifts, among them an old silk dress, until Grushina saw that Varvara could not be persuaded to give any more. A stream of entreaties poured from Varvara's mouth, and Grushina finally took the letter, making it appear from the expression of her face that she did so out of pity.

[1] A musical instrument.