XIX
Peredonov’s strange behaviour worried Khripatch more and more. He consulted the school physician and asked him whether Peredonov were not out of his mind. The doctor laughingly replied that Peredonov had no mind to be out of, and that he was simply acting stupidly. There were also complaints. Adamenko’s was the first: she sent to the Headmaster her brother’s exercise-book which had been given only one mark for a very good piece of work. The Headmaster, during one of the recesses, asked Peredonov to come and see him.
“Yes, it’s quite true, he does look a little mad,” thought Khripatch when he saw traces of perplexity and terror on Peredonov’s dull, gloomy face.
“I’ve got a bone to pick with you,” said Khripatch quickly and dryly. “Whenever I have to work in a room next to yours my head is split—there’s such an uproar of laughter in your class. May I request you to give lessons of a less cheerful nature? ‘To scoff and always scoff—don’t you get tired?’ ”30
“It isn’t my fault,” said Peredonov, “they laugh by themselves. It is impossible to mention anything from the grammar or the satires of Kantemir without their laughing. They are a bad lot. They ought to be well scolded.”
“It’s desirable and even necessary that the work in class should be of a serious character,” said Khripatch sarcastically. “And another thing—”
Khripatch showed Peredonov two exercise-books and said:
“Here are two exercise-books from two students of one class on your subject: Adamenko’s and my son’s. I have compared them and I am compelled to make the inference that you are not giving your full attention to your work. Adamenko’s last work which was done very satisfactorily was marked one, while my son’s work, written much worse, was marked four. It is evident that you have made a mistake, that you have given one pupil’s marks to another and vice versa. Though it is natural for a man to make mistakes, still I must ask you to avoid such errors in future. It quite properly arouses dissatisfaction in the parents and in the pupils themselves.”
Peredonov mumbled something inaudible.
From spite he began to tease the smaller boys who had been recently punished at his instigation. He was especially severe on Kramarenko. The boy kept silent and went pale under his dark tan; his eyes gleamed.
As Kramarenko left the gymnasia that day, he did not hasten home. He stood at the gates and watched the entrance. When Peredonov went out Kramarenko followed him at some distance, waiting till a few passersby had got between him and Peredonov.
Peredonov walked slowly. The cloudy weather depressed him. During the last few days his face had assumed a duller expression. His glance was either fixed on something in the distance or wandered strangely. It seemed as if he were constantly looking into an object. To his eyes objects appeared vague or doubled or meaningless.
Who was he scrutinising so closely? Informers. They concealed themselves behind every object, they whispered and laughed. Peredonov’s enemies had sent against him a whole army of informers. Sometimes Peredonov tried quickly to surprise them. But they always managed to escape in time—as if they sank through the earth. … Peredonov suddenly heard quick, bold footsteps on the pavement behind him, and looked around him in fright—Kramarenko paused near him and looked at him decidedly, resolutely and malignantly, with burning eyes; pale, thin, like a savage ready to throw himself at an enemy. This look frightened Peredonov.
“Suppose he should suddenly bite me?” he thought.
He walked quicker, but Kramarenko did not leave him; he walked slowly and Kramarenko kept pace with him. Peredonov paused and said angrily:
“Why are you following me, you little dark wretch? I’ll take you to your father at once.”
Kramarenko also paused and continued to look at Peredonov. They stood facing one another on the loose pavement of the deserted street, beside the grey, depressing fence. Kramarenko trembled and said in a hissing voice:
“Scoundrel!”
He smiled and turned to go away.
He made three steps, paused, looked around and repeated louder:
“What a scoundrel! Vermin!”
He spat and walked away. Peredonov looked after him and then turned homewards. Confused and timorous thoughts crowded through his head. Vershina called to him. She stood smoking behind the bars of her garden-gate, wrapped up in a large black shawl. Peredonov did not at once recognise her. Something malignant in her figure seemed to threaten him. She stood like a black sorceress and blew out smoke, as if she were casting a spell. He spat and pronounced an exorcism. Vershina laughed and asked:
“What’s the matter with you, Ardalyon Borisitch?”
Peredonov looked vaguely at her and said at last:
“Ah, it’s you! I didn’t recognise you.”
“That’s a good sign. It means I’ll soon be rich,” said Vershina.
This did not please Peredonov, he wanted to be rich himself.
“Get away!” he exclaimed angrily. “Why should you be rich—you’ll always be what you are now.”
“Never mind, I shall win twenty thousand,” said Vershina with a wry smile.
“No, I shall win the twenty thousand,” argued Peredonov.
“I shall be in one drawing and you’ll be in another,” said Vershina.
“You’re lying,” said Peredonov angrily. “Who ever heard of two people winning at once in the same town. I tell you I’m going to win it.”
Vershina noticed that he was angry. She ceased to argue. She opened the gate to entice him in and said:
“There’s no reason for you to stand there. Come in, Mourin’s here.”
Mourin’s name recalled something pleasant to Peredonov—drink and zakouska. He entered.
In the drawing-room, darkened by the trees outside, sat Marta, looking very happy, with a red sash on and with a kerchief round her neck, Mourin, more unkempt than usual, and very cheerful for some reason or other, and a grownup schoolboy, Vitkevitch. He paid attentions to Vershina, and imagined that she was in love with him: he thought of leaving the school, marrying Vershina and managing her estate.
Mourin met Peredonov with exaggeratedly cordial exclamations, his expression became even gayer and his little eyes looked fat—all this did not go with his stout figure and untidy hair in which even some whisps of straw could be seen.
“I’m attending to business,” he said loudly and hoarsely. “I’ve business everywhere, and here these charming ladies are spoiling me with tea.”
“Business?” replied Peredonov gruffly. “What sort of business have you got? You are not in Government Service and you’ve got money coming in. Now I have business.”
“Well, what if you have, it’s only getting other people’s money,” said Mourin with a loud laugh.
Vershina smiled wryly and seated Peredonov near the table. On a round table near the sofa glasses and cups of tea, rum and cranberry jam were crowded together with a filigree silver dish, covered with a knitted doyley, a small cake-basket of teacake and homemade gingerbread stuck with almonds.
A strong odour of rum came from Mourin’s glass of tea, while Vitkevitch put a good deal of jam into a small glass plate, shaped like a shell. Marta was eating little slices of teacake with visible satisfaction. Vershina offered Peredonov refreshments—he refused to take tea.
“I might be poisoned,” he thought. “It’s very easy to poison you—you simply drink and don’t notice anything—there are sweet poisons—and then you go home and turn up your toes.”
And he felt vexed because they put jam before Mourin, and when he came they didn’t take the trouble to get a new jar of better jam. They hadn’t cranberry jam only but several other kinds.
Vershina really did give a good deal of attention to Mourin. Seeing that she had little hope of Peredonov, she was looking elsewhere for a husband for Marta. Now she was trying to catch Mourin. Half-civilised by his pursuit of hard-earned gains, this landed proprietor eagerly fell to the lure. Marta pleased him.
Marta was happy because it was her constant desire to find a husband and to have a good house and home—that would be complete happiness. And she looked at Mourin with loving eyes. The huge forty-years-old man, with his coarse voice and plain face, seemed to her in every movement a model of manly strength, cleverness, beauty and goodness.
Peredonov noticed the loving glances exchanged by Mourin and Marta—he noticed them because he expected Marta to pay attention to him. He said gruffly to Mourin:
“You sit there like a bridegroom. Your whole face is shining.”
“I have reason to be happy,” said Mourin in a brisk, cheerful voice. “I have managed my business very well.”
He winked at his hostesses. They both had gay smiles. Peredonov asked gruffly, contemptuously screwing up his eyes:
“What is it? Have you found a bride? Has she a big dowry?”
Mourin went on as if he had not heard these questions:
“Natalya Afanasyevna there—may God be good to her—has agreed to take charge of my Vaniushka. He’ll live here as if he were in Christ’s bosom, and my mind will be at rest, knowing that he won’t be spoiled.”
“He’ll get into mischief with Vladya,” said Peredonov morosely. “They’ll burn the house down.”
“He wouldn’t dare,” shouted Mourin. “Don’t you worry about that, my dear Natalya Afanasyevna, you’ll find him as straight as a fiddle-string.”
To cut short this conversation, Vershina said with her wry smile:
“I should like to eat something tart.”
“Perhaps you’d like some bilberries and apples—I’ll get them,” said Marta quickly rising from her chair.
“Do, please.”
Marta ran out of the room. Vershina did not even look after her. She was used to taking Marta’s services for granted. She was sitting deep in her sofa puffing out blue curling clouds of smoke, and compared the two men talking to each other, looking at Peredonov angrily and indifferently, at Mourin gaily and animatedly. Mourin pleased her more of the two. He had a good-natured face, while Peredonov could not even smile. She liked everything in Mourin—he was large, stout, attractive, spoke in an agreeable, low voice, and was very respectful to her. Vershina even thought at certain moments that she ought to arrange the matter so that Mourin should become engaged not to Marta but to herself. But she always ended her reflections by magnanimously yielding him to Marta.
“Anyone would marry me,” she thought, “because I have money. I can choose almost anyone I like. If I liked, I could even take this young man,” and she rested her glance, not without satisfaction, on Vitkevitch’s youthful, impudent, yet handsome face—a boy who spoke little, ate a great deal and looked continuously at Vershina, smiling insolently.
Marta brought the bilberries and apples in an earthenware cup and began to relate how she had dreamed the night before that she had gone to a wedding as a bridesmaid, where she ate pineapples and pancakes with mead; on one pancake she had found a hundred-rouble note and she cried when they took it from her, and woke up in tears.
“You should have hidden it on the quiet so that no one could see it,” said Peredonov rather gruffly. “If you can’t even keep money in a dream, what sort of a housewife will you make?”
“There’s no reason to feel sorry for this money,” said Vershina. “There are many things seen in dreams!”
“I feel as if I’d really lost the money,” said Marta ingenuously. “A whole hundred roubles!”
Tears appeared in her eyes, and she forced a laugh in order not to cry. Mourin anxiously put his hands into his pocket and exclaimed:
“My dear Marta Stanislavovna, don’t feel so put out about it, we can soon mend the matter.”
He took a hundred-rouble note from his wallet, put it before Marta on the table, and slapped his hand into her palm, shouting:
“Permit me! No one will take this away!”
Marta was about to rejoice but suddenly flushed violently and said in confusion:
“Oh, Vladimir Ivanovitch, I didn’t mean that! I can’t take it. Really you are …”
“Now, don’t offend me by refusing it,” said Mourin with a laugh, not taking up the money. “Let’s say that your dream has become realised.”
“No, but how can I? I feel ashamed. I wouldn’t take it for anything.” Marta resisted, looking with desirous eyes upon the hundred-rouble note.
“Why do you protest when it’s given to you?” said Vitkevitch. “It’s good luck falling right into your hands,” he continued with an envious sigh.
Mourin stood in front of Marta and said in a persuasive voice:
“My dear Marta Stanislavovna, believe me, I give it with all my heart—please take it! And if you don’t want to take it for nothing, then take it for looking after Vaniushka. As to my agreement with Natalya Afanasyevna, let that stand. But this is for you—for looking after Vanya.”
“But how can I, it’s too much,” said Marta irresolutely.
“It’s for the first half-year,” and he bowed very low to Marta. “Don’t offend me by refusing it. Take it and be a sister to Vaniushka.”
“Well, Marta, you’d better take it,” said Vershina. “And thank Vladimir Ivanitch.”
Marta, flushing with shame and pleasure, took the money.
Mourin began to thank her ardently.
“You’d better marry at once—it would be cheaper,” said Peredonov gruffly. “How generous he’s got all of a sudden!”
Vitkevitch roared with laughter, which the others pretended they had not heard. Vershina began to tell a dream of her own, but Peredonov interrupted her before she had finished by saying goodbye. Mourin invited him to his house for the evening.
“I must go to Vespers,” said Peredonov.
“Ardalyon Borisitch has suddenly become very zealous in churchgoing,” said Vershina with a quick, dry laugh.
“I always go,” he answered. “I believe in God—unlike the others. Perhaps I am the only one of that kind in the gymnasia. That’s why I’m persecuted. The Headmaster is an atheist.”
“When you are free, let me know,” said Mourin.
Peredonov said, twisting his cap irritatedly in his hands:
“I have no time to go visiting.”
But suddenly he recalled that Mourin was very hospitable with food and drink, so he said:
“Well, I can come to you on Monday.”
Mourin showed great pleasure at this, and was about to ask Vershina and Marta also, but Peredonov said:
“I don’t want any ladies. We might get a little tipsy and blurt out something which would be awkward in their presence.”
When Peredonov left, Vershina said sneeringly:
“Ardalyon Borisitch is acting curiously. He would very much like to be an inspector, and it looks to me as if Varvara were leading him by the nose. So he’s up to all sorts of tricks.”
Vladya—who had hidden himself while Peredonov was there—came out and said with a malicious smile:
“The locksmith’s sons have found out from someone that it was Peredonov who told about them.”
“They’ll break his windows,” exclaimed Vitkevitch laughing gleefully.
Everything in the street seemed hostile and ominous to Peredonov. A ram stood at the crossroads and looked stupidly at him. This ram so closely resembled Volodin that Peredonov felt frightened. He thought that possibly Volodin had turned into a ram to spy upon him.
“How do we know?” he thought. “Perhaps it is possible; science has not discovered everything and it’s possible someone does know something. Now there are the French—a learned people, and yet magicians and mages have begun to spread there.” And a fear took possession of him. “This ram might kick me,” he thought.
The ram began to bleat, and its bleat resembled Volodin’s laughter. It was sharp, piercing and unpleasant.
Then he met the Officer of the gendarmerie. Peredonov went up to him and said in a whisper:
“You’d better watch Adamenko. She corresponds with Socialists. She’s one of them.”
Roubovsky looked at him in silent astonishment. Peredonov walked on further and thought dejectedly:
“Why do I always keep coming across him? He must be watching me, and he has put policemen everywhere.”
The dirty streets, the gloomy sky, the pitiful little houses, the ragged, withered-looking children—all these breathed depression, neglect and a hopeless sadness.
“It’s a foul town,” thought Peredonov. “The people here are disgusting and malignant; the sooner I get to another town the better, where the instructors would bow down to one and the schoolboys will be afraid and whisper in fear: ‘The inspector is coming.’ Yes! The higher officials always live differently in the world.”
“Inspector of the second District of the Rouban Government,” he mumbled under his nose. “The Right Honourable the State Councillor, Peredonov—that’s the way! Do you know who I am? His Excellency, Headmaster of the National Schools of the Rouban Government, the Actual State Councillor Peredonov. Hats off! Hand in your resignation! Get out! I’ll manage you!”
Peredonov’s countenance became arrogant. In his poor imagination he had already received his share of power.
When Peredonov returned home, while he was taking off his overcoat, he heard shrill sounds from the dining-room—it was Volodin laughing. Peredonov’s spirits fell.
“He’s managed to get here already,” he thought. “Perhaps he’s now conspiring with Varvara against me. That’s why he’s laughing; he’s glad because Varvara agrees with him.”
He walked angrily and dejectedly into the dining-room. The table was already set for dinner. Varvara met Peredonov with an anxious face.
“Ardalyon Borisitch,” she exclaimed, “think what’s happened! The cat’s run away.”
“Well,” exclaimed Peredonov with an expression of fear in his face, “why did you let it go?”
“You didn’t expect me to sew his tail to my petticoat, did you?” asked Varvara in irritation.
Volodin sniggered. Peredonov thought it had perhaps gone to the Officer of the gendarmerie to purr out all it knew about Peredonov and about where and why he went out at night—she would reveal everything and would even mew a little more than had happened. More troubles! Peredonov sat down on a chair at the table, bent his head, twirled the end of the tablecloth in his fingers and became lost in gloomy reflections.
“Cats always run back to their old home,” said Volodin, “because cats get used to a place and not to their master. A cat should be swung round several times and then taken to her new home. She mustn’t be shown the way or otherwise she’ll go back.”
Peredonov listened and felt consoled.
“So you think he’s gone back to the old house, Pavloushka?” he asked.
“Undoubtedly, Ardasha,” replied Volodin.
Peredonov rose and shouted:
“Well, we’ll have a drink, Pavloushka!”
Volodin sniggered.
“That’s a possibility, Ardasha,” he said. “It’s always possible to take a drink.”
“We must get that cat back,” decided Peredonov.
“A treasure,” replied Varvara sarcastically. “I’ll send Klavdiushka for it after dinner.”
They sat down to dinner. Volodin was in a cheerful mood and chattered and laughed a great deal. His laughter sounded to Peredonov like the bleating of the ram he had met in the street.
“Why has he got evil intentions against me?” thought Peredonov. “What does he want?”
And Peredonov thought that he would get Volodin on his side.
“Listen, Pavloushka,” he said, “if you’ll stop trying to injure me, then I’ll buy you a pound of the best sugar-candy every week—you can suck it to my good health.”
Volodin laughed, but immediately afterwards looked hurt and said:
“Ardalyon Borisitch, I have no idea of injuring you, and I don’t want your sugar-candy because I don’t like it.”
Peredonov became depressed. Varvara said sneeringly:
“You’ve made a big enough fool of yourself, Ardalyon Borisitch. How can he do you any injury?”
“Any fool can do you harm,” said Peredonov dejectedly.
Volodin thrust out an offended lip, shook his head and said:
“If you have such an idea about me, Ardalyon Borisitch, then I can only say one thing: I thank you most humbly. If you think that way about me, what have I to say? What shall I understand by this, in what sense?”
“Take a drink, Pavloushka, and pour me one too,” said Peredonov.
“Don’t pay any attention to him, Pavel Vassilyevitch,” said Varvara consolingly. “He’s only talking, his heart doesn’t know what his tongue blabs.”
Volodin said nothing, and preserving his injured look began to pour the vodka from the decanter into the glasses. Varvara said sarcastically:
“How is it, Ardalyon Borisitch, that you’re not afraid to drink vodka when he pours it out? Perhaps he’s exorcising it—don’t you see his lips moving?”
Peredonov’s face bore an expression of terror. He caught the glass which Volodin had filled and flung the vodka on to the floor, shouting:
“Chure me! Chure—chure—chure! A spell against the spell-weaver—may the evil tongue die of thirst, may the black eye burst. To him Karachoun [death], to me chure-perechure!”
Then he turned to Volodin with a malignant face, snapped his fingers and said:
“That’s for you. You’re cunning, but I’m more cunning.”
Varvara laughed uproariously.
Volodin bleating in an offended, trembling voice said:
“It’s you, Ardalyon Borisitch, who know and pronounce all sorts of magic words, but I never occupied myself with black magic. I hadn’t any idea of bedevilling your vodka or anything else, but it’s possible that it’s you who’ve bewitched my brides from me.”
“What an idea!” said Peredonov angrily. “I don’t want your brides. I can get them by cleaner means.”
“You’ve cast a spell to burst my eyes,” continued Volodin, “but mind your spectacles don’t burst sooner.”
Peredonov caught his glasses in fear.
“What nonsense!” he growled. “You let your tongue run away with you.”
Varvara looked warningly at Volodin and said crossly:
“Don’t be spiteful, Pavel Vassilyevitch, eat your soup, or else it’ll get cold. Eat, you spiteful thing!”
She thought that Ardalyon Borisitch had exorcised himself in time. Volodin began to eat his soup. They were all silent for a while, and presently Volodin said in a hurt voice:
“No wonder I dreamed last night that I was being smeared with honey. Did you smear me, Ardalyon Borisitch?”
“That’s not the way you ought to be smeared,” said Varvara still crossly.
“Why should I be? Be good enough to tell me. I don’t see why I should be,” said Volodin.
“Well, because you’ve got a nasty tongue,” explained Varvara. “You oughtn’t to babble everything that comes into your mind immediately.”