The Little Demon - Fyodor Sologub (reading the story of the TXT) 📗

considered Peredonov a lazy, incapable instructor. Peredonov imagined that the Headmaster told the boys not to respect him, which it is obvious was an absurd invention of his own. But it inspired Peredonov with the idea that he must be on his guard against the Headmaster.

From spite against the Headmaster he spoke slightingly of him more than once in the classes of the older students. This pleased many of the students.

Now that Peredonov was hoping to become an inspector the Headmaster’s attitude towards him seemed particularly unpleasant. Let it be admitted that if the Princess should so desire, her protection would override the Headmaster’s unfriendliness, still it was not without its dangers.

And there were other people in the town⁠—as Peredonov had lately noticed⁠—who were hostile to him and wanted to hinder his appointment to the inspectorship. There was Volodin; it was not for nothing that he continually repeated the words, “The future inspector.” There have been occasions when people have assumed another man’s name with great profit to themselves. Of course, Volodin would find it difficult to impersonate Peredonov, but after all even such a fool as Volodin might have the idea that he could. It is certain that we ought to fear every evil man. And there were still the Routilovs, Vershina with her Marta, and his envious colleagues⁠—all equally ready to do him harm. And how could they harm him? It was perfectly clear they could vilify him to the authorities and make him out to be an unreliable man.

So that Peredonov had two anxieties: one, to prove his reliableness and the other to secure himself from Volodin⁠—by marrying him to a rich girl.

Peredonov once asked Volodin:

“If you like, I’ll get you engaged to the Adamenko girl, or are you still pining for Marta? Isn’t a month long enough for you to get consoled?”

“Why should I pine for Marta?” replied Volodin, “I’ve done her a great honour by proposing to her, and if she doesn’t want me, what’s that to me? I’ll easily find someone else⁠—there are as good fish in the sea as ever came out of it.”

“Well, but Marta’s pulled your nose for you nicely,” said Peredonov tauntingly.

“I’ve no notion what sort of a husband they’re looking for,” said Volodin with an offended air. “They haven’t even any dowry to speak of. She’s after you, Ardalyon Borisitch.”

Peredonov advised him:

“If I were in your place I should smear her gates with tar.”

Volodin grinned and calmed down at once. He said:

“But if they catch me it might be unpleasant.”

“Hire somebody; why should you do it yourself?” said Peredonov.

“And she deserves it⁠—honest to God!” said Volodin animatedly. “A girl who won’t get married and yet lets young fellows in through the window! That means that human beings have no shame or conscience!”

VI

The next day Peredonov and Volodin went to see the Adamenko girl. Volodin was in his best clothes; he put on his new, tight-fitting frock-coat, a clean-laundered shirt and a brightly-coloured cravat. He smeared his hair with pomade and scented himself⁠—he was in fine spirits.

Nadezhda Vassilyevna Adamenko lived with her brother in town in her own redbrick house; she had an estate not far from town which she let on lease. Two years before she had completed a course in the local college and now she occupied herself in lying on a couch to read books of every description and in coaching her brother, an eleven-year-old schoolboy, who always protected himself against his sister’s severities by saying:

“It was much better in Mamma’s time⁠—she used to put an umbrella in the corner instead of me.”

Nadezhda Vassilyevna’s aunt lived with her. She was a characterless, decrepit woman with no voice in the household affairs. Nadezhda Vassilyevna chose her acquaintances with great care. Peredonov was very seldom in her house and only his lack of real acquaintance with her could have given birth to his idea of getting her to marry Volodin. She was therefore extremely astonished at their unexpected visit, but she received the uninvited guests quite graciously. She had to amuse them, and it seemed to her that the most likely and pleasant method of entertaining an instructor of the Russian language would be to talk of educational conditions, school reform, the training of children, literature, Symbolism and the Russian literary periodicals. She touched upon all these themes, but received no response beyond enigmatic remarks, which showed that these questions had no interest for her guests.

She soon saw that only one subject was possible⁠—town gossip. But Nadezhda Vassilyevna nevertheless made one more attempt.

“Have you read the Man in the Case, by Chekhov?” she asked. “It’s a clever piece of work, isn’t it?”

As she turned with this question to Volodin he smiled pleasantly and asked:

“Is that an essay or a novel?”

“It’s a short story,” exclaimed Nadezhda.

“Did you say it was by Mister Chekhov?” inquired Volodin.

“Yes, Chekhov,” said Nadezhda and smiled.

“Where was it published?” asked Volodin curiously.

“In the Russkaya Misl,” the young woman explained graciously.

“In what number?” continued Volodin.

“I can’t quite remember. I think it was in one of the summer numbers,” replied Nadezhda, still graciously but with some astonishment.

A schoolboy suddenly appeared from behind the door.

“It was published in the May number,” he said, with his hand on the doorknob, glancing at his sister and her guests with cheerful blue eyes.

“You’re too young to read novels!” growled Peredonov angrily. “You ought to work instead of reading indecent stories.”

Nadezhda Vassilyevna looked sternly at her brother.

“It is a nice thing to stand behind doors and listen,” she remarked, and lifting her hands crossed her little fingers at a right angle.

The boy made a wry face and disappeared. He went into his own room, stood in the corner and gazed at the clock; two little fingers crossed was a sign that he should stand in the corner for ten minutes. “No,” he thought sadly, “it was much better when Mamma was alive. She only put an umbrella in the corner.”

Meanwhile in the drawing-room Volodin was