XXV
Rumours of the forged letters spread about the town. Conversations about them preoccupied the townsmen and gave them great pleasure. Nearly everyone took Varvara’s part and was glad that Peredonov had been made a fool of. And all those who had seen the letters asserted as with one voice that they had guessed it at once. Especially great was the rejoicing in Vershina’s house: Marta, though she was going to marry Mourin, had nevertheless been rejected by Peredonov; Vershina wanted Mourin for herself but she had to yield him to Marta; Vladya had his obvious reasons for hating Peredonov and for rejoicing at his discomfiture. Though he felt vexed to think that Peredonov would remain at the gymnasia, still this vexation was outweighed by his pleasure at the fact that Peredonov had been let down badly. And besides this, during the last few days there was a persistent rumour that the Headmaster had informed the Director of the National Schools that Peredonov was out of his mind. And someone was going to be sent to examine him, after which he would be taken away.
Whenever her acquaintances met Varvara they would refer more or less openly to her stratagem, accompanying their words with coarse jokes and impudent winks. She would smile insolently and would not admit it, but she did not deny it.
Others hinted to Grushina that they knew of her share in the forgery. She was frightened and came to Varvara, reproaching her for gossiping too much. Varvara said to, her with a smile:
“Now, don’t make such a fuss. I never had the least intention of telling anyone.”
“How did they find it out then?” asked Grushina hotly. “Of course I shouldn’t tell anyone, I’m not such a fool.”
“And I haven’t told anyone,” asserted Varvara.
“I want the letter back,” demanded Grushina, “or else he’ll begin to look at it closely and he’ll recognise from the handwriting that it’s a forgery.”
“Well, let him find out!” said Varvara. “Why should I stop to consider a fool?”
Grushina’s eyes gleamed and she shouted:
“It’s all very well for you who’ve got all you wanted, but I might be jailed on your account! No, I must have that letter, whatever you do. Because they can unmarry you as well, you know.”
“That’s all nonsense,” replied Varvara with her arms insolently akimbo. “You might announce it in the marketplace, but you couldn’t undo the marriage.”
“Not nonsense at all,” shouted Grushina. “There is no law that permits you to marry through deception. If Ardalyon Borisitch should let the authorities know about this affair and the affair went up to the Higher Court they’d settle your hash for you.”
Varvara got frightened and said:
“Now don’t be angry—I’ll get you the letter. There’s nothing to be afraid of—I’ll not give you away. I’m not such a beast as all that. I’ve got a soul too.”
“What’s a soul got to do with it?” said Grushina harshly. “A dog and a man have the same breath, but there is no soul. You live while you live.”
Varvara decided to steal the letter, though this was difficult. Grushina urged her to hurry. There was one hope—to take the letter from Peredonov when he was drunk. And he drank a great deal now. He had even not infrequently appeared at the gymnasia in a rather tipsy state and had made unpleasant remarks which had aroused repugnance in even the worst of the boys.
Once Peredonov returned from the billiard saloon more drunk than usual: they had baptised the new billiard balls. But he never let go of his wallet. As he managed to undress somehow, he stuck it under his pillow. He slept restlessly but profoundly, and during his sleep his mind wandered and he babbled about something terrible and monstrous. And these words inspired Varvara with a painful apprehension.
“Well, it’s nothing,” she encouraged herself. “So long as he doesn’t wake up.”
She had tried to waken him. She nudged him—he only muttered something and cursed violently, but did not awaken. Varvara lit a candle and placed it so that the light should not fall into Peredonov’s eyes. Numb with terror, she rose in the bed and slipped her hand under Peredonov’s pillow. The wallet was quite close but for a long time it seemed to elude her fingers. The candle burned dimly. Its light wavered. Timorous shadows ran on the walls and on the bed—evil little devils flashed by. The air was close and motionless. There was a smell of badly-distilled vodka. Peredonov’s snores and drunken ravings filled the bedroom. The whole place was like the incarnation of a nightmare.
Varvara took the letter with trembling hands and replaced the wallet. In the morning Peredonov looked for his letter, failed to find it, and shouted in a fright:
“Where’s the letter, Varya?”
Varvara felt very much afraid but concealed it and said:
“How should I know, Ardalyon Borisitch? You keep showing it to everyone, you must have dropped it. Or else someone has stolen it from you. You have a lot of friends and acquaintances that you get drunk with at night.”
Peredonov thought that the letter had been stolen by his enemies, most likely by Volodin. The letter was now in Volodin’s hands and later he would get the other papers and the appointment into his clutches, and he would go away to his inspectorship while Peredonov remained a disappointed beggar.
Peredonov decided that he must defend himself. Every day he wrote denunciations of his enemies: Vershina, the Routilovs, Volodin, his colleagues, who, it seemed to him, had their eye on the same position. In the evening he would take these denunciations to Roubovsky.
The Officer of the gendarmerie lived in a prominent place on the square near the gymnasia. Many people observed from their windows how often Peredonov entered the gates of the Officer of the gendarmerie.
But Peredonov thought that he was unobserved. He had good reason to take these denunciations at night, by the back way through the kitchen.
He kept the papers under his coat. It was noticeable at once that he was holding something. When it happened that he had to take his hand out to shake hands with someone, he clutched the papers under his coat with his left hand, and imagined that no one would guess that anything was there. When his acquaintances asked him where he was going he lied to them very clumsily, but was very satisfied himself with his awkward inventions.
He explained to Roubovsky:
“They’re all traitors. They pretend to be your friends so as to be more certain of deceiving you. But none of them stop to think that I know things about them that would send them all to Siberia.”
Roubovsky listened to him in silence. The first denunciation, which was patently absurd, he sent to the Headmaster, and he did the same thing with several others. He kept certain others in case he should need them. The Headmaster wrote to the Director of National Schools that Peredonov was showing clear symptoms of mental disease.
At home Peredonov constantly heard ceaseless, exasperating and mocking rustlings. He said to Varvara dejectedly:
“Someone’s walking about on tiptoe. There are so many spies in the house, jostling each other. Varya, you’re not taking care of me.”
Varvara did not understand the meaning of Peredonov’s ravings. At one time she taunted him, at another she felt afraid. She said to him malignantly and yet with fear:
“You see all sorts of things when you’re drunk.”
The door to the hall seemed especially suspicious to Peredonov. It did not close tightly. The crevice between the two halves hinted at something that was hiding outside. Wasn’t it the knave who was peeping through it? Someone’s evil, penetrating eye gleamed behind it.
The cat followed Peredonov everywhere with its wide, green eyes. Sometimes it blinked its eyes, sometimes it mewed fearfully. It was obvious that the animal wanted to catch Peredonov at something, but it could not and was therefore angry. Peredonov exorcised the cat by spitting, but the cat remained unmoved.
The nedotikomka ran under the chair and in the corners, and squealed. It was dirty, evil-smelling, repulsive and terrifying. It was already quite clear that it was hostile to Peredonov, and rolled in entirely on his account, and that it had not existed anywhere before. It had been created—and it had been bewitched. And this evil, many-eyed beast lived here to his dread and to his perdition—followed him, deceived him, laughed at him—now rolled upon the floor, now turned into a rag, a ribbon, a twig, a flag, a small cloud, a little dog, a pillar of dust in the street, and everywhere it crawled and ran after Peredonov. It harassed him, it wearied him with its vacillating dance. If only someone would deliver him from it, with a word or with a downright blow. But he had no friends here, there was no one to come to save him. He must use his own cunning or the malicious beast would ruin him.
Peredonov thought of a device. He smeared the entire floor with glue so that the nedotikomka should get stuck. What did stick to the floor was the soles of Varvara’s shoes and the hems of her dress, but the nedotikomka rolled on freely and laughed shrilly. Varvara abused him loudly.
Persistent suspicions of being under constant persecution frightened him. More and more he became immersed in a world of wild illusions. This reflected itself in his face, which became a motionless mask of terror.
In the evenings Peredonov no longer went to play billiards. After dinner he shut himself in his bedroom, barricaded the room with various objects—a chair upon a table—and very carefully surrounded himself with crosses and exorcisms and sat down to write denunciations against everyone he could think of. He wrote denunciations not only against people but against playing-card queens. As soon as he had written one he would take it immediately to the Officer of the gendarmerie. And in this way he spent every evening.
Everywhere card-figures walked before Peredonov’s eyes, as if they were alive—kings, queens and knaves. Even the other cards walked about. These consisted of people with silver buttons: schoolboys and policemen. There was the ace of spades—stout, with a protruding stomach, almost entirely stomach. Sometimes the cards became transformed into his acquaintances. Living people were mixed up with these strange phantasms.
Peredonov was convinced that a knave was standing behind the door and that he had strength and power—something like a policeman’s—and that he could take you away somewhere to some terrible jail. Under the table sat the nedotikomka. And Peredonov was afraid to glance either under the table or behind the door.
The nimble eights of the pack, like little boys, mocked at Peredonov—these were the phantasms of schoolboys. They lifted their legs with strange, stiff movements, like the legs of a compass, but their legs were shaggy and with hoofs. Instead of tails they had whipping rods, which they swung with a swish, and at each flourish they gave a squeak. The nedotikomka grunted from under the table, and laughed at the play of these eights. Peredonov thought with rage that the nedotikomka would not have dared to come to an official.
“They surely wouldn’t let it in,” he thought enviously. “The lackeys would drive it out with their mops.” At last Peredonov could no longer stand its evil, insolently shrill laughter. He brought an axe from the kitchen and he split the table under which the nedotikomka was hiding. The nedotikomka squeaked piteously and furiously. It dashed out from under the table and rolled away. Peredonov trembled. “It might bite,” he thought, and screamed with terror and sat down, but the nedotikomka hid itself peacefully. Not for long. …
Sometimes Peredonov took the cards and with a ferocious expression on his face cut the heads off the court cards. Especially those of the queens. In cutting the kings, he glanced around him so as not to be detected and not to be accused of a political crime. But even these executions did not help for long. Visitors came, cards were brought and evil spies again took possession of the cards.
Peredonov already began to consider himself a secret criminal. He imagined that even from his student days he had been under the surveillance of the police. For some reason he thought that they were watching him. This terrified and yet flattered him.
The wind stirred the wallpaper. It shook with a quiet, evil rustling. And soft half-shadows glided over their vividly coloured patterns. “There’s a spy hiding behind the wallpaper,” thought Peredonov sadly. “Evil people! No wonder they put the paper on the wall so unevenly and so poorly, for a skilful, patient, flat villain to creep in and hide behind. Such things have happened even before.”
Confused recollections stirred in his mind. Someone had hidden behind the wallpaper; someone had been stabbed either with a poignard or an awl. Peredonov bought an awl. And when he returned home the wallpaper stirred unevenly and restlessly—a spy felt his danger and was perhaps trying to creep in farther. A shadow jumped to the ceiling and there threatened and grimaced.
Peredonov was infuriated. He struck the wallpaper impetuously with the awl. A shiver ran over the wall. Peredonov began to sing triumphantly and to dance, brandishing the awl. Varvara came in.
“Why are you dancing by yourself, Ardalyon Borisitch?” she asked, smiling stupidly and insolently as always.
“I’ve killed a beetle,” explained Peredonov morosely.
His eyes gleamed in wild triumph. Only one thing annoyed him; the disagreeable odour. The murdered spy stank putridly behind the wallpaper. Horror and triumph shook Peredonov—he had killed an enemy! He had hardened his heart to the very end of the deed. It was not a real murder—but for Peredonov it was quite real. A mad horror had forged in him a readiness to commit the crime—and the deep, unconscious image of future murder, dormant in the lower strata of spiritual life, the tormenting itch to murder, a condition of primitive wrath, oppressed his diseased will. The ancient Cain—overlaid by many generations—found gratification in his breaking and damaging property, in his chopping with the axe, in his cutting with the knife, in his cutting down trees in the garden to prevent the spies from looking out behind them. And the ancient demon, the spirit of prehistoric confusion, of hoary chaos, rejoiced in the destruction of things, while the wild eyes of the madman reflected horror, like the horror of the death agonies of some monster.
And the same illusions tormented him again and again. Varvara, amusing herself at Peredonov’s expense, sometimes hid herself behind the door of the room where he was sitting, and talked in assumed voices. He would get frightened, walk up quietly to catch the enemy—and find Varvara.
“Whom were you whispering to?” he asked sadly.
Varvara smiled and replied:
“It only seemed to you, Ardalyon Borisitch.”
“Surely everything doesn’t merely seem to me,” muttered Peredonov sadly. “There must be also truth upon the earth.”
Even Peredonov, in common with all conscious life, strove towards the truth, and this striving tortured him. He was not conscious that he, like all people, was striving towards the truth, and that was why he suffered this confused restlessness. He could not find the truth he sought, and he was caught in the toils and was perishing.
His acquaintances began to taunt him with being a dupe. With the usual cruelty of our town towards the weak, they talked of this deception in his presence. Prepolovenskaya asked with a derisive smile:
“How is it, Ardalyon Borisitch, that you haven’t gone away to your inspector’s job yet?”
Varvara answered for him with suppressed anger:
“We shall get the paper soon, and we shall leave at once.”
But these questions depressed him.
“How can I live, if the place isn’t given to me?” he thought.
He kept devising new plans of defence against his enemies. He stole the axe from the kitchen and hid it under the bed. He bought a Swedish knife and always carried it about in his pocket. He frequently locked himself in his room. At night he put traps around the house and in the rooms and later he would examine them. These traps were, of course, so constructed that they could not catch anyone. They gripped but could not hold anyone, and it was easy to walk away with them. But Peredonov had no technical knowledge and no common sense. When he saw each morning that no one was caught Peredonov imagined that his enemies had tampered with the traps. This again frightened him.
Peredonov watched Volodin with special attention. He frequently went to Volodin when he knew that Volodin would not be at home and rummaged among the papers to see if there were any stolen from himself.
Peredonov began to suspect what the Princess wanted—it was that he should love her again. She was repugnant to him, a decrepit old woman.
“She’s a hundred and fifty years old,” he thought with vexation. “Yes, she’s old, but then how powerful she is!” And his repulsion became mingled with an allurement. “She’s an almost cold little old woman, she smells slightly of a corpse,” he imagined, and he felt faint with a savage voluptuousness.
“Perhaps it would be possible to arrange a meeting, and her heart would be touched. Oughtn’t I to send her a letter?”
This time Peredonov, with slight hesitation, composed a letter to the Princess. He wrote:
“I love you, because you are cold and remote. Varvara perspires, it is hot to sleep with her, it is like the breath of an oven. I would like to have a cold and remote love. Come here and respond to me.”
He wrote it and posted it—and then repented.
“What will come of it?” he thought. “Perhaps I ought not to have written. I should have waited until the Princess came here.”
This letter was an accidental occurrence, like so much that Peredonov did—he was like a corpse moved by external powers, and moved as if these powers had no desire to busy themselves with him for long: one would play with him and then cast him to another.
Soon the nedotikomka reappeared—for a long time it rolled around Peredonov as if it were on the end of a lasso, and kept mocking him. And it was now noiseless, and laughed only with a shaking of its body. The evil, shameless beast flared up with dimly golden sparks—it threatened and burned with an intolerable triumph. And the cat threatened Peredonov; its eyes gleamed and it mewed arrogantly and fiercely.
“Why are they so glad?” thought Peredonov dejectedly, and suddenly understood that the end was approaching, that the Princess was already here, close, quite close. Perhaps she was in this very pack of cards.
Yes, undoubtedly she was the queen of spades or the queen of hearts. Perhaps she was hiding in another pack, or in other cards, but he did not know what she looked like. The difficulty was that Peredonov had never seen her. It would be useless to ask Varvara—she would tell lies.
At last Peredonov thought he would burn the whole pack. Let them all burn! If they creep into the cards to his ruin, then it’s their own fault.
Peredonov chose a time when Varvara was not at home. The stove in the parlour was alight—and he threw all the cards into the stove. With a crackling the marvellous pale red flowers opened out—they burned but were black at the edges. Peredonov looked in horror at these flaming blossoms.
The cards contracted, bent over and moved as if they were trying to escape from the stove.
Peredonov caught hold of the poker and began to beat the lighted cards with it. There was a shower of tiny bright sparks on all sides—and suddenly in a bright, wild riot of sparks the Princess rose out of the fire, a little ash-grey woman, bestrewn with small dying sparks; she wailed piercingly in her shrill voice and hissed and spit on the flames.
Peredonov fell backward. He cried out in horror. The darkness embraced him, tickled him, and laughed with a thousand jarring little noises.