Peredonov awoke in the morning. Someone was looking at him with huge,
cloudy, four-cornered eyes. Wasn't it Pilnikov? Peredonov walked up
to the window and spat on the evil apparition. Everything seemed
bewitched. The wild nedotikomka squealed and the people and the beasts
looked malignantly and craftily at Peredonov. Everything was hostile to
him, he was one against all. During lessons at the _gymnasia_ Peredonov
slandered his colleagues, the Head-Master, the parents and the pupils.
The students listened to him in astonishment. Some, vulgarians by
nature, truckled to Peredonov and showed their sympathy with him.
Others remained gravely silent or defended their parents hotly, when
Peredonov assailed them. Peredonov looked morosely and timorously on
these boys, and avoided them, muttering something to himself.
At some of the lessons Peredonov amused his pupils by absurd comments.
They were reading the lines from Pushkin:
"The sun rises in a cold mist;
The harvest-fields are silent;
The wolf goes out on the road
With his hungry mate."
"Let us stop here," said Peredonov. "This needs to be thoroughly
understood. There's an allegory concealed here. Wolves go in pairs,
that is, the wolf with his hungry mate. The wolf is fed, but she is
hungry. The wife should always eat after the husband. The wife should
be subject to the husband in everything."
Pilnikov was in a cheerful mood, he smiled and looked at Peredonov
with his elusively fine, dark eyes. Sasha's face annoyed and yet
attracted Peredonov. The cursed boy bewitched him with his artful smile.
Was it really a boy? Or perhaps there were two of them: a brother and a
sister. But it was difficult to tell who was there. Or perhaps it was
even possible for him to change himself from a boy into a girl. There
must be some reason for his being so clean--when he changed his form he
splashed in magical waters--otherwise how could he transform himself?
And he always smelt of scents.
"What have you scented yourself with, Pilnikov?" asked Peredonov. "Was
it patchkouli?"[1]
The boys laughed. Sasha grew red at the insult, but said nothing.
Peredonov could not understand the disinterested desire to please, not
to be repulsive to others. Every such manifestation, even on the part
of a boy, he considered a design against himself. He who was neatly
dressed evidently was trying to gain Peredonov's favour. Otherwise,
why should he go to so much trouble? Neatness and cleanliness were
repulsive to Peredonov. Perfumes seemed to him to be bad smells. He
preferred the stink of a manured field--which he considered good for
the health--to all the perfumes of the world. To be neatly dressed,
washed, clean, all this required time and labour; and the thought of
labour depressed and dejected Peredonov. How good it would be to do
nothing, and only eat, drink and sleep!
Sasha's companions teased him about his scenting himself with
"patchkouli" and about Liudmillotchka's being in love with him. This
angered him, and he replied hotly that it was not true, she was not in
love with him--that it was all an invention of Peredonov, who had paid
court to Liudmilla and had been snubbed; this was why he was angry
with her and was spreading all sorts of evil rumours about her. His
companions believed him--they knew Peredonov--but they did not stop
teasing Sasha; it was such a pleasure to tease someone.
Peredonov persisted in telling everyone about Pilnikov's viciousness.
"He's got himself mixed up badly with Liudmillka," he said.
The townspeople gossiped of Liudmilla's affection for the schoolboy
in a greatly exaggerated way, and with stupid, unseemly details. But
there were only a few who believed this: Peredonov had overdone it.
Ill-natured people--of whom there are not a few in our town--asked
Liudmilla:
"What made you fall in love with a small boy? It's an insult to the
cavaliers of our town."
Liudmilla laughed and said:
"Nonsense!"
The townspeople regarded Sasha with ugly curiosity. Sasha sometimes
reproached Liudmilla because he was teased about her. It even happened
that he slapped her, because she laughed so loudly.
To put an end to this stupid gossip, and to save Liudmilla from
unpleasant scandal, all the Routilovs and their numerous friends
and relatives acted against Peredonov and persuaded people that all
his tales were the inventions of a madman. Peredonov's wild actions
compelled many people to believe this explanation.
At the same time many denunciations of Peredonov were sent to the
Director of the School District. From the District headquarters they
sent an enquiry to the Head-Master. Khripatch referred them to his
previous reports, and added that the further presence of Peredonov in
the _gymnasia_ was a positive danger, as his mental disease was visibly
increasing.
Peredonov was now entirely governed by wild illusions. The world was
screened off from him by apparitions. His vacant, dull eyes wandered,
and were unable to rest on objects as if he wanted to look beyond them
on the other side of the objective world, and as if he sought for
chinks of light between them.
When he was alone he talked to himself and shouted senseless threats at
some unknown person:
"I will kill you! I will cut your throat! I'll caulk you up!"
Varvara listened with a smile.
"Make all the row you want," she thought malignantly.
It seemed to her that it was only his rage; he must have guessed that
they had fooled him and was angry. He wouldn't go out of his mind--a
fool has no mind to go out of. And even if he did--well, madness cheers
the stupid!
* * * * *
"Do you know, Ardalyon Borisitch," said Khripatch, "you look very
unwell?"
"I have a headache," said Peredonov morosely.
"Do you know, my friend," continued the Head-Master in a cautious
voice, "I would advise you not to come to the _gymnasia_ at present.
You ought to attend to yourself--to give a little attention to your
nerves, which are obviously a little unstrung."
"Not come to the _gymnasia!_ Of course," thought Peredonov, "that's the
best thing to do. Why didn't I think of it before! I'll look ill, and
stay at home and see what will come of it."
"Yes, yes, I'd better not come. I am rather unwell," he said eagerly to
Khripatch.
At the same time Khripatch wrote again to the Head Office of the
District and awaited from day to day the appointment of the physicians
for an examination of Peredonov. But the officials were very leisurely.
That was because they were officials.
Peredonov did not go to the _gymnasia_ and awaited something. During
the last few days he had clung more and more to Volodin. Directly he
opened his eyes in the morning Peredonov thought gloomily of Volodin:
where was he now? Was he up to something? Sometimes he had visions of
Volodin: clouds floated in the sky like a flock of sheep, and Volodin
ran among them, bleating with laughter, with a bowler hat on his head;
sometimes he floated by in the smoke issuing from the chimneys, making
monstrous grimaces and leaping in the air.
Volodin thought and told everyone with pride that Peredonov had
recently taken a great fancy to him--that Peredonov simply could not
live without him.
"Varvara has fooled him," explained Volodin, "and he sees that I alone
am his faithful friend--that's why he sticks to me."
When Peredonov went out of his house to look for Volodin, the other met
him on the way in his bowler hat, with his stick, jumping along gaily
and laughing his bleating laugh.
"Why do you always wear a bowler?" Peredonov once asked him.
"Well, why shouldn't I wear a bowler, Ardalyon Borisitch?" replied
Volodin gaily and shrewdly. "It's modest and becoming. I'm not allowed
to wear a cap with a badge, and as for a top-hat, let the aristocrats
stick to it, it doesn't become us."
"You'll roast in your bowler," said Peredonov morosely.
Volodin sniggered.
They went to Peredonov's house.
"One has to do so much walking," complained Peredonov.
"It's good to take exercise, Ardalyon Borisitch," said Volodin
persuasively. "You work, you take a walk, you eat your meals, and
you're healthy."
"Well, yes," said Peredonov, "do you think that in two or three hundred
years from now people will have to work?"
"What else is there to do? If you don't work, you have no bread to eat.
You buy bread with money and you have to earn the money."
"But I don't want bread."
"But there wouldn't be any rolls or tarts either," said Volodin with a
snigger. "No one would have any money to buy vodka, and there wouldn't
be anything to make liqueurs of."
"No, the people themselves won't work," said Peredonov. "There'll be
machines for everything--all you'll have to do is to turn a handle like
an _ariston_[2] and it's ready.... But it would be a bore to turn it
long."
Volodin lapsed into thought, lowered his head, stuck out his lips and
said, reflectively:
"Yes, that would be very good. Only none of us will live to see it."
Peredonov looked at him malignantly and grumbled:
"You mean you won't live to see it, but I shall."
"May God grant you," said Volodin gaily, "to live two hundred years,
and then to crawl on all fours for three hundred."
Peredonov no longer pronounced exorcisms--let the worst come. He would
triumph over everything; he had only to be on his guard and not yield.
Once at home, sitting in the dining-room and drinking with Volodin,
Peredonov told him about the Princess.
The Princess, according to Peredonov, grew more decrepit and terrible
from day to day; yellow, wrinkled, bent, tusked, evil, she incessantly
haunted Peredonov.
"She's two hundred years old," said Peredonov, looking strangely and
gloomily before him, "and she wants me to make it up with her again.
Until then she won't give me a job."
"She certainly wants a good deal," said Volodin shaking his head. "The
old hag!"
Peredonov brooded over murder. He said to Volodin, frowning savagely:
"I've got one hidden behind the wall-paper. And I'm going to kill
another under the floor."
But Volodin was not afraid, and kept on sniggering.
"Do you smell the stench from behind the wall-paper?" asked Peredonov.
"No, I don't smell it," said Volodin, still sniggering and grimacing.
"Your nose is blocked up," said Peredonov. "No wonder it's gone red.
It's rotting there behind the wall-paper."
"A beetle!" exclaimed Varvara with a boisterous laugh. Peredonov looked
dull and grave.
* * * * *
Peredonov became more and more engulfed in his madness, and began to
write denunciations against the court cards, the nedotikomka, the
Ram--that he, the Ram, was an imposter who, representing Volodin, was
aiming for a high position, but was in reality only a Ram; against the
forest destroyers who cut down the birches, so that there were no twigs
for Turkish baths, and that it was impossible to bring up children,
because they left only the aspens, and what use were they?
When he met the schoolboys in the street, Peredonov frightened the
youngest and amused the older ones with his shameless and ridiculous
words. The older ones walked after him in a crowd, scattering, however,
when they saw one of the other masters; the younger ones ran away from
him of their own accord.
Peredonov saw enchantments and sorceries in everything. His
hallucinations terrified him and forced from him senseless moans and
squeals. The nedotikomka appeared to him now blood-like, now flaming;
it groaned and it bellowed, and its bellowing split his head with an
unendurable pain. The cat grew to terrible dimensions, stamped with
high boots and turned into a huge red bewhiskered person.
[1] A double meaning is implied in Peredonov's use of the word, as the
word "patchkatsya" means to soil oneself.
[2] A musical instrument.