XI
On Saturday Peredonov prepared to visit the Commissioner of Police. “Though he is not so big a bird as the Marshal of the Nobility,” thought Peredonov, “he might do me greater harm than anyone else. On the other hand he might help me a great deal with the authorities. The police are, after all, very important.”
Peredonov took from its box his official cap with its badge. He decided that henceforth he would wear no other hat. It was all very well for the Headmaster to wear any hat he liked—he stood well with the authorities, but Peredonov was still seeking his inspector’s position; it was not enough for him to depend upon patrons, he must do something himself to show his mettle. Already, several days earlier, before he had begun to go about among the authorities, he had thought of this, but somehow his hat only came to his hand. Now Peredonov arranged things differently: he threw his hat on top of the stove—to make certain that he would not pick it up by accident.
Varvara was not at home; Klavdia was washing the floors. Peredonov went into the kitchen to wash his hands. He saw on the table there a roll of blue paper from which a few raisins had fallen. This was a pound of raisins bought for the teacake to be baked at home. Peredonov began to eat the raisins as they were, unwashed and unstoned. He quickly and avidly ate the whole pound as he stood at the table, keeping one eye on the door so that Klavdia should not surprise him. Then he carefully folded up the thick, blue paper and carried it into the front room under his coat and there put it in the pocket of his overcoat so that he could throw it away in the street and thus get rid of all traces of it.
He walked out. Soon Klavdia went to get the raisins, and then began to hunt for them unsuccessfully in a frightened way. Varvara returned and discovered the loss of the raisins and began to abuse Klavdia: she was certain that Klavdia had eaten them.
It was quiet in the streets with a slight breeze. There was only an occasional cloud. The pools were drying up. There was a pale glow in the sky. But Peredonov’s soul was heavily oppressed.
On the way he went into the tailor’s in order to hurry along the new uniform he had ordered three days ago.
As he walked past the church he took his hat off and crossed himself three times elaborately and sweepingly, so that everyone should see how the future inspector walked past the church. He was not accustomed to do it before, but now he had to be on the lookout. It was possible that some spy was walking stealthily behind or was hiding around a corner or behind a tree and was watching him.
The Commissioner of Police lived in a remote street of the town. In the gates, which were flung wide open, Peredonov met a police constable—a meeting which now always made Peredonov feel dejected. There were several muzhiks visible in the courtyard, but not the kind one meets everywhere—these were an unusually orderly and quiet sort. The courtyard was dirty. Carts stood about covered with matting.
In the dark corridor Peredonov met another police constable, a small, meagre man of capable yet depressed appearance. He stood motionless and held under his arm a book in black leather binding. A ragged, barefoot girl ran out from a side door and helped Peredonov off with his coat; as she led him into the drawing-room, she said:
“Please come in, Semyon Grigoryevitch will be here soon.”
The drawing-room ceiling was low and this oppressed Peredonov. The furniture was huddled against the wall. Rope-mats lay on the floor. To the right and to the left noises and whisperings could be heard behind the walls. Pale women and scrofulous boys looked out from the doors, all with avid glistening eyes. Among the whisperings certain questions and answers spoken in a louder tone could be heard:
“I brought …”
“Where shall I take this?”
“Where do you want this put?”
“I’ve brought it from Ermoshkin, Sidor Petrovitch.”
The Commissioner soon appeared. He was buttoning up his uniform and smiling amiably.
“Pardon me for keeping you waiting,” he said, as he pressed Peredonov’s hand in both his huge grasping hands. “I’ve had many business callers. Our work is such that it won’t bear delay.”
Semyon Grigoryevitch Minchukov a tall, robust, black-haired man, with a thinness of hair on the top of his scalp, stooped slightly. His hands hung down and his fingers were like rakes. He often smiled in such a way as to suggest that he had just eaten something that was forbidden but very pleasant and was now licking his lips. His lips were bright red, thick; his nose fleshy; his face was eager, zealous but stupid.
Peredonov was perturbed by everything he saw and heard in this place. He mumbled incoherent words and as he sat on his chair he tried to hold his cap in such a way that the Commissioner should see the badge. Minchukov sat opposite him on the other side of the table, very erect, and kept his amiable smile, while his rake-like fingers quietly moved on his knees, opening and shutting.
“They’re saying I don’t know what about me,” said Peredonov. “Things that never happened. I can do some informing myself, but I don’t want to. I’m nothing of what they say, but I know what they are. Behind your back they spread all sorts of scandal and then laugh in your face. You must admit that, in my position, this is very annoying. I have patronage, but these people go about throwing mud at me. All their following me about is useless. They only waste time and annoy me. Wherever you go, the whole town knows about it. So I hope that if anything happens you’ll support me.”
“Of course, of course! with the greatest pleasure! But how?” asked Minchukov, gesticulating with his large hands. “Still the police ought to know whether you suspect anyone.”
“Of course, it’s really nothing to me,” said Peredonov angrily. “Let them chatter if they like. But they might injure my position. They’re cunning. You don’t notice that they all chatter, like Routilov, for instance. How do you know that he’s not plotting to blow up the Treasury? It’s one way of shifting the blame.”
Minchukov at first thought that Peredonov was drunk and talking nonsense. Then as he listened further he imagined that Peredonov was complaining of someone who was spreading calumnies about him and that he had come to ask Minchukov to take certain measures.
“They’re young people,” continued Peredonov, thinking of Volodin, “and have a very good opinion of themselves. They’re plotting against other people and are dishonest themselves. Young people, as everyone knows, are liable to temptation. Some of them are even in the police service, and they too are busybodies.”
For a long time he talked about young people but for some reason or other did not want to name Volodin. At any rate, he wanted Minchukov to understand that certain young police officials were not free from his suspicions. Minchukov concluded that Peredonov was hinting at two young officials in the police bureau—two very young men who were rather frivolous and were always running after girls. Peredonov’s confusion and manifest nervousness infected Minchukov.
“I’ll look into the matter,” he said with some anxiety. For a moment he was lost in thought and then again began to smile. “I have two quite young officials—their mothers’ milk isn’t dry on their lips. Believe me, one of them is still put in the corner by his mother, honest to God!”
Peredonov broke into a cackling laugh.
In the meantime Varvara had gone to Grushina’s house where she learned an astonishing piece of news.
“Varvara Dmitrievna darling,” said Grushina rapidly, before Varvara had time to cross the threshold, “I have a piece of news for you that will make you stare.”
“What is it?” asked Varvara.
“Just think what low people there are in this world! What tricks they’ll play to reach their purpose!”
“What is the matter?”
“Just wait and I’ll tell you.”
But first of all the cunning Grushina gave Varvara coffee; then chased her children out into the street, which made the elder of her girls unwilling to go.
“Ah, you little brat!” Grushina shouted at her.
“You’re a brat yourself!” answered the little girl and stamped her foot at her mother.
Grushina caught the child by the hair, pushed her out the door and slammed it. …
“The little beast!” she complained to Varvara. “These children are a great worry. I’m alone with them and I never get any peace. If only they had their father!”
“Why don’t you marry again, then they’d have a father,” said Varvara.
“You never can tell how a man’ll turn out, Varvara Dmitrievna darling. He might treat them badly.”
In the meantime the little girl ran back from the street and threw into the window a handful of sand which fell on to her mother’s head and dress. Grushina put her head out of the window and shouted:
“Wait till I catch you, you little devil, and see what you’ll get!”
“You’re a devil yourself, you silly fool!” shouted the little girl from the street, jumping on one foot and clenching her dirty little fist at her mother.
“You just wait!” shouted Grushina.
And she shut the window. Then she sat down calmly as if nothing had happened and began to talk:
“I have a piece of news for you, but I don’t know if I ought to tell you. But don’t worry, Varvara Dmitrievna darling, they won’t succeed.”
“Well, what is it?” asked Varvara in affright, and the saucer of coffee trembled in her hand.
“You know that a young student by the name of Pilnikov has just entered the school and been put straight into the fifth form as if he’d come from Rouban, for his aunt has bought an estate in our district.”
“Yes, I know,” said Varvara, “I saw him when he came with his aunt. Such a pretty boy, almost like a girl, and always blushing.”
“But, dearest, why shouldn’t he look like a girl? He is a girl dressed up!”
“What do you mean!” exclaimed Varvara.
“They’ve thought of it on purpose to catch Ardalyon Borisitch,” said Grushina quickly with many gesticulations, very happy that she had such important news to tell. “You see this girl has a first cousin, a boy, an orphan, who went to school at Rouban. And this girl’s mother took him away from Rouban and used his papers to send the girl here. And you will notice that they have put him in a house where there are no other boys. He’s there alone, so that the whole matter, they thought, would be kept secret.”
“And how did you find out?” asked Varvara incredulously.
“Varvara darling, news gets about quickly. It was suspicious at once: all the other boys are like boys, but this one is so quiet and walks about as if he had just been dipped in the water. To look at he’s a fine-looking fellow, red-cheeked and chesty, but his companions notice that he’s very modest—they tell him a word and he blushes at once. They tease him for being a girl. They do it for a lark and don’t realise that it’s the truth. And just think how shrewd they’ve been—why, even the landlady doesn’t know anything.”
“How did you find out?” repeated Varvara.
“But, Varvara darling, what is there that I don’t know! I know everyone in the district. Why everyone knows that they have a boy at home the same age as this one. Why didn’t they send them to school together? They say that he was ill last summer and that he was to spend a year recuperating and then go back to school. But that’s all nonsense. The real schoolboy is at home. And then everyone knows that they had a girl and they say that she was married and went off to the Caucasus. But that’s another lie—she didn’t go away. She’s living here disguised as a boy.”
“But what’s the object of it?” asked Varvara.
“What do you mean, ‘What’s the object?’ ” said Grushina animatedly. “To get hold of one of the instructors—there are plenty of them bachelors. Or perhaps someone else. Disguised as a boy, she could go to men’s apartments, and there isn’t much she couldn’t do.”
“You say she’s a pretty girl?” said Varvara in apprehensive tones.
“Rather! She’s a fabulous beauty!” said Grushina. “She may be a little constrained now, but just wait, she’ll get used to things and show her true colours. She’ll turn plenty of heads in the town. And just think how shrewd they’ve been: as soon as I found out about this I tried to meet his landlady, or perhaps I should say her landlady.”
“It’s a topsy-turvy affair. Pah! God help us!” said Varvara.
“I went to Vespers at the parish church on St. Pantelemon’s day. She’s very pious. ‘Olga Vassilyevna,’ I say to her, ‘why do you keep only one student in your house now?’ ‘It seems to me,’ I say to her, ‘that one is not enough for you.’ And she says, ‘Why should I have any more? They’re a great trouble.’ And so I say, ‘Why, in past years you used to have two or three.’ And then she says—just imagine, Varvara darling—‘They stipulated that Sashenka alone should live in my house. They are well-to-do people,’ she says to me, ‘and they pay me a little more, as if they were afraid that the other boys would do him harm.’ Now what do you think of that?”
“Aren’t they sly blighters,” said Varvara indignantly. “Well, did you tell her that he was a wench?”
“I said to her: ‘Olga Vassilyevna, are you sure they haven’t foisted a girl upon you instead of a boy?’ ”
“Well, and what did she say?”
“She thought at first that I was joking, and she laughs. Then I say to her more seriously, ‘My dear Olga Vassilyevna,’ I say, ‘d’you know they say that this is a girl?’ But she wouldn’t believe me. ‘Nonsense,’ she says, ‘who put that into your head? I’m not blind.’ ”
This tale left Varvara dumbfounded. She believed the whole story just as she heard it, and she believed that an assault from yet another side was being prepared for her intended husband. She must somehow have the mask torn off this disguised girl as quickly as possible. For a long time they deliberated as to how this was to be done, but so far they could not think of any way.
When Varvara got home her annoyance was further increased by the disappearance of the raisins.
When Peredonov returned Varvara quickly and agitatedly told him that Klavdia had hidden away somewhere the pound of raisins and would not admit it.
“And what is more,” said Varvara, “she suggests that they’ve been eaten by the master. She says that you were in the kitchen for some reason or other when she was washing the floors and that you stopped there for a long time.”
“I didn’t stop there at all long,” said Peredonov glumly, “I only washed my hands there and I didn’t see any raisins.”
“Klavdiushka! Klavdiushka!” shouted Varvara, “Master says he didn’t even see the raisins—that means you must have hidden them somewhere.”
Klavdia showed her reddened, tear-stained face from the kitchen.
“I didn’t take your raisins!” she shouted in a tear-choked voice. “I’ll pay for them, but I didn’t take them.”
“You’ll pay for them all right,” shouted Varvara angrily. “I’m not obliged to feed you on raisins.”
Peredonov burst out laughing and shouted:
“Diushka’s got away with a whole pound of raisins!”
“Heartless wretches!” shouted Klavdia, and slammed the door.
After dinner Varvara could not help telling Peredonov what she had heard about Pilnikov. She did not stop to reflect whether this would help her or do her harm, or how Peredonov would act—she spoke simply from malice.
Peredonov tried to recall Pilnikov to his mind, but somehow he could not clearly visualise him. Until now, he had given little attention to this new pupil, and detested him for his prettiness and cleanness, and because he conducted himself so quietly, worked well, and was the youngest of the students in the fifth form. But now Varvara’s story aroused in him a mischievous curiosity. Immodest thoughts slowly stirred in his obscure mind.
“I must go to Vespers,” he thought, “and take a look at this disguised girl.”
Suddenly Klavdia came in rejoicing and threw on the table a piece of crumpled blue paper and exclaimed:
“There! You blamed me for taking the raisins, but what’s this? As if I needed your raisins.”
Peredonov guessed what was the matter; he had forgotten to throw the paper bag away in the street and now Klavdia had found it in his overcoat pocket.
“Oh! The devil!” he exclaimed.
“What is it? Where did you get it?” cried Varvara.
“I found it in Ardalyon Borisitch’s pocket,” said Klavdia triumphantly. “He ate them himself and I’m blamed for it. Everyone knows that Ardalyon Borisitch likes sweet things. But why should it be put on others when …”
“Don’t go so fast,” said Peredonov, “you’re telling lies. You put it there yourself. I didn’t touch them.”
“Why should I do that, God forgive you!” said Klavdia, nonplussed.
“How did you dare to touch other people’s pockets!” shouted Varvara. “Are you looking for money?”
“I don’t touch other people’s pockets,” answered Klavdia angrily, “I took the coat down to brush it. It was covered with mud.”
“But why did you put your hand in the pocket?”
“It fell out of the pocket by itself,” said Klavdia, defending herself.
“You’re lying, Diushka,” said Peredonov.
“I’m not a ‘diushka’—what sneerers you are!” shouted Klavdia. “The devil take you. I’ll pay for those raisins and you can choke on them—you’ve gorged on them yourself and now I must pay for them. Yes, I’ll pay for them—you’ve no conscience, you’ve no shame, and yet you call yourself gentry!”
Klavdia went into the kitchen crying and abusing them.
Peredonov suddenly began to laugh and said:
“She’s very touchy, isn’t she?”
“Yes, let her pay for them,” said Varvara. “If you let them, they’ll eat anything, these ravenous devils.”
And for a long time afterwards they tormented Klavdia with having eaten a pound of raisins. They deducted the price of the raisins from her wages and told the story to everyone who came to the house.
The cat, as if attracted by this uproar, had left the kitchen, sidling along the walls, sat down near Peredonov and looked at him with its avid, evil eyes. Peredonov bent down to catch the animal, which snarled savagely, scratched Peredonov’s hand and ran and hid behind the sideboard. It peeped out from there and its narrow green eyes gleamed.
“It might be a werewolf!” thought Peredonov in fear.
In the meantime Varvara, still thinking about Pilnikov, said:
“Why do you spend all your evenings playing billiards? You might occasionally drop in at the students’ lodgings. They know that the instructors rarely come to see them and that the inspector only comes once a year, so that all sorts of indecencies, card-playing and drunkenness go on. You might, for instance, call on this disguised girl. You’d better go late, about bedtime—that would be a good time to find her out and embarrass her.”
Peredonov reflected a while and then burst out laughing.
“Varvara’s certainly a sly rogue!” he thought, “she can teach me a thing or two.”