The Petty Demon (34 page)

“A fine bit of criticism! Those quill-pushers act pompous a lot, they love to wear their cockades and uniforms. They’ve got
their criticism now—and very cleverly done.”

When it became hot, the official in the robe started to wave his besom all around, exclaiming:

“Now it’s a real bathhouse!”

Those surrounding him roared with laughter. Tickets fell in a shower into his wash basin.

Peredonov gazed at the besom wavering about in the crowd. It seemed to him that it was the
nedotykomka
.

“The rascal has turned green,” he thought in horror.(n)

A
T LAST THE COUNT
began of the tickets received for the costumes. The club elders made up the committee. A tensely expectant crowd gathered
by the doors into the judges’ room. For a short while it grew quiet and monotonous in the club. No music was being played.
The guests had fallen silent. Peredonov felt eerie. But within a short while conversation, impatient grumbling and then a
clamor rose in the crowd. Someone was trying to convince people that both prizes had been won by actors.

“You just see,” someone’s irritated and hissing voice was heard.

Many people believed it. The crowd grew restless. Those who had received only a few tickets were already angered by the fact.
Those who had received a large number were upset in anticipation of a possible injustice.

Suddenly a bell gave a delicate and nervous tinkle. The judges had emerged: Veriga, Avinovitsky, Kirillov and the other elders.
A wave of commotion ran through the room and suddenly everyone fell silent. Avinovitsky’s stentorian voice rang out over the
entire hall:

“The prize, an album, for the best male costume has been awarded, on the basis of the majority of tickets received, to the
gentleman in the costume of the ancient German.”

Avinovitsky raised the album up high and angrily looked at the thronging guests. The strapping German started to pick his
way through the crowd. People were looking at him with hostility. They wouldn’t even let him pass.

“Don’t push, please!” cried the despondent woman in a dark blue costume with glass star and paper moon on her forehead—”Night”—in
a plaintive voice.

“He won the prize so he’s already imagining that the ladies ought to stretch themselves out in front of him,” a spitefully
hissing voice was heard from the crowd.

“If you’re not willing to let me pass yourselves,” the German replied with restrained annoyance.

Finally he somehow reached the judges and took the album from Veriga’s hands. The music played a fanfare. But the sounds of
the music were drowned in a scandalous racket. Curses flew. People surrounded the German, jostled him and shouted:

“Take off the mask!”

The German was silent. It wouldn’t have been difficult for him to beat his way through the crowd, but obviously he was loathe
to exercise his strength. Gudaevsky made a grab for the album and at the same time someone quickly tore the mask off the German.
People in the crowd started to yell:

“It is an actor!”

Their suppositions had been proven correct: it was the actor Bengalsky. He cried angrily:

“So I’m an actor, what of it! After all, you yourselves gave me the tickets!”

Spiteful cries echoed in response:

“You could have slipped a few in yourself.”

“You probably printed the tickets yourself.”

“There were more tickets distributed than there were people in the audience.”

“He brought fifty tickets in his pocket.”

Bengalsky turned crimson and cried:

“It’s vile to talk like that. Check it whoever wants, it can be checked against the number of guests.”

Meanwhile, Veriga said to the people closest to him:

“Gentlemen, calm down, there hasn’t been any deception, I can vouch for that. The number of tickets has been checked against
the number of people present.”

With the help of several reasonable guests, the elders somehow managed to calm the crowd down. Besides, everyone was now curious
to see who would be given the fan. Veriga announced:

“Gentlemen, the greatest number of tickets for the female costume has been received by the lady in the costume of the geisha
to whom is awarded the prize of the fan. Geisha, come here please, the fan is yours. Gentlemen, I beg you most humbly, be
good enough and let the geisha through.”

The music played a fanfare for the second time. The frightened geisha would have been happy to run away. But she was urged
on, a path was made for her and she was led forward. Veriga, with a polite smile, handed her the fan. Something colorful and
smart-looking flashed before Sasha’s eyes which were clouded with fear and embarrassment. He had to express his thanks, he
thought. The accustomed politeness of a well-bred boy came to the fore. The geisha curtsied, said something that was inaudible,
giggled, raised her little fingers—and once more a furious din arose in the hall as jeering and curses were heard. Everyone
strained towards the geisha. A fierce, bristling Wheat Sheaf was crying:

“Curtsey, you vile creature! Curtsey!”

The geisha made a dash for the doors, but they wouldn’t let her pass. Spiteful cries echoed through the crowd which had grown
agitated around the geisha:

“Make her take her mask off!”

“Off with the mask!”

“Grab her, hold her!”

“Take the fan away!”

The Wheat Sheaf cried:

“You know who they gave the prize to? To the actress, Kashtanova. She took someone else’s husband away and they gave her the
prize! They won’t give it to decent women, but they gave it to that vile creature!”

And she rushed at the geisha, screaming shrilly and clenching her dry fists. Others followed her—mostly her gentlemen admirers.
The geisha desperately fought her way free. A savage persecution began. They smashed the fan, tore it to pieces, threw it
on the floor and stomped on it. The crowd, with the geisha in its midst, hurtled about the hall in a frenzy, knocking bystanders
off their feet. Neither the Rutilov sisters, nor the elders could force their way through to the geisha. The geisha, spritely
and strong, was screaming shrilly, scratching and biting. She firmly held on to her mask, first with her right hand, then
with her left.

“They all should be beaten!” some infuriated woman shrieked.

A drunken Grushina, hiding behind the others, kept inciting Volodin on together with the rest of her acquaintances.

“Pinch her, pinch the vile creature!” she cried.

Machigin, holding himself by the nose, was dripping blood as he leapt out of the crowd and complained:

“She gave it to me right in the nose with her fist.”

Some fierce young man had fastened onto the geisha’s sleeve with his teeth and had torn it in half. The geisha screamed:

“Help me!”

Others started to tear at her costume as well. Her body was bared in a few spots. Darya and Lyudmila were pushing and shoving
desperately, trying to squeeze through to the geisha, but to no avail. Volodin was tugging at the geisha, screeching and clowning
around with such energy that he was even getting in the way of others who were less drunk and more furious than he. It was
more out of cheerfulness than spite that he was expending such energy, imagining that a very entertaining amusement was being
performed. He ripped the sleeve cleanly off the geisha’s dress and wrapped it around his head.

“This is handy!” he cried shrilly, making faces and roaring with laughter.

Making his way out of the crowd where it seemed too cramped for him, he fooled around in the open space and with a wild shriek
danced over the remnants of the fan. There was no one around to remove him. Peredonov looked at him in terror and thought:

“He’s dancing, he’s happy over something. That’s the way he’ll be dancing on my grave.”

Finally the geisha tore free—the men surrounding her couldn’t withstand her nimble fists and sharp teeth.

The geisha dashed out of the hall. In the corridor the Wheat Sheaf once again fell on the Japanese girl and grabbed her by
the dress. The geisha was about to tear free, but once more she was surrounded. The persecution was renewed.

“The ears, they’ve got her by the ears,” someone shouted.

Some lady grabbed the geisha by the ear and tugged at it, emitting loud triumphant cries. The geisha started to howl and somehow
broke free, striking the spiteful woman with her fist.

Finally, Bengalsky, who meanwhile had managed to change into his ordinary dress, forced his way through the crowd to the geisha.
He took the trembling Japanese girl in his arms, and using his enormous body and his arms as much as possible to protect her,
quickly carried her off, deftly scattering the crowd with his elbows and feet. People in the crowd were crying:

“Scoundrel! Rogue!”

They tugged and pounded at Bengalsky’s back. He cried:

“I won’t let you tear the mask off the lady. Do as you will, but I won’t let you.”

In this fashion he carried the geisha through the entire corridor. The corridor ended at a narrow door into the dining room.
Here Veriga managed to restrain the crowd for a short while. With the determination of a military man, he stood before the
door, blocking it off with his body, and said:

“Gentlemen, you will not proceed any farther.”

Gudaevskaya, rustling the remains of her bedraggled wheat sheaves, kept leaping at Veriga, showing him her fists and screamed
shrilly:

“Out of the way, let us through.”

But the intimidatingly cold face of the general and his determined gray eyes restrained her from taking any action. In an
impotent fury she started to shout at her husband:

“You ought to have given her a slap in the face, what were you gaping over, you nitwit!”

“It was awkward to get through,” the Indian tried to excuse himself, waving his arms senselessly about. “Pavlushka kept getting
in the way.”

“You should have given Pavlushka one in the teeth and her one in the ear, what were you mincing about for!”

The crowd started to press in against Veriga. Foul language could be heard. Veriga stood calmly before the door and tried
to convince those closest to him to stop their rowdiness. A kitchen boy opened the door slightly behind Veriga and whispered:

“They’ve left, Your Excellency.”

Veriga moved off. The crowd tore into the dining room then into the kitchen. They were looking for the geisha, but they couldn’t
find her any longer. Bengalsky had carried the geisha at a run through the dining room into the kitchen. She lay calmly in
his arms and was silent. It seemed to Bengalsky that he could hear the powerful pounding of the geisha’s heart. On her naked
arms, tightly pressed together, he noticed several scratches and a bluish-yellow spot from a bruise near the elbow. Bengalsky
said in an excited voice to the menials crowded together in the kitchen:

“Quickly, a coat, a robe, a sheet, anything, we have to save the young lady.”

Someone’s coat was thrown over Sasha’s shoulders. Somehow or other Bengalsky wrapped the Japanese girl up and carried her
out into the courtyard by way of a narrow staircase that was illuminated with smoking kerosene lamps. And from there through
a gate and into an alleyway.

“Take off your mask, it’ll be harder for them to recognize you in the mask, anyway it’s dark now,” he said rather inconsistently.
“I won’t tell anyone.”

He was curious. He probably knew that it wasn’t Kashtanova, but who was it? The Japanese girl obeyed. Bengalsky caught sight
of a swarthy, unfamiliar face on which fear had been replaced with an expression of joy at having escaped from the danger.
The eyes, provocative and cheerful now, rested on the actor’s face.

“How can I thank you!” the geisha said in a sonorous voice. “The things that would have happened to me if you hadn’t dragged
me out of there!”

“The girl’s no coward, an interesting little wench!” the actor thought. “But who is she? Obviously, she’s a newcomer.” Bengalsky
knew the local ladies. He said softly to Sasha:

“We have to get you home as quickly as possible. Tell me your address and I’ll get a cab.”

The Japanese girl’s face clouded over once more with fear.

“I mustn’t!” she babbled. “I’ll go by myself, just leave me.”

“How are you going to get there in this kind of mire and in your wooden sandals, we need a cab,” the actor protested confidently.

“No, I’ll run, for God’s sake, let me go,” the geisha implored him.

“I swear on my honor that I won’t tell anyone,” Bengalsky tried to convince her. “I can’t let you go, you’ll catch cold. I’ve
taken responsibility for you and I can’t let you do it. You’d better tell me quickly, they might give you a licking right
here. You saw for yourself that these are utterly savage people. They’re capable of anything.”

The geisha gave a shudder. Quick tears suddenly welled up in her eyes. Sobbingly she said:

“They’re horribly, horribly wicked people! Take me to the Rutilovs for the time being, I’ll spend the night at their place.”

Bengalsky hailed a cab. They got in and rode off. The actor was peering into the swarthy face of the geisha. It seemed curious
to him. The geisha kept turning away. A vague inkling flashed through his head. He recollected the town gossip about the Rutilovs,
about Lyudmila and her student from the gymnasium.

“Aha, you’re a boy!” he said in a whisper so the cab driver wouldn’t hear.

“For God’s sake,” the boy begged, pale with terror.

And his swarthy arms reached out in an imploring gesture to Bengalsky from beneath the coat which sat haphazardly on him.
Bengalsky laughed quietly and said just as quietly:

“Well, I won’t tell anyone, don’t worry. My business is to get you home
and I don’t know any more than that. But you’re a desperate one. Won’t they find out at home?”

“If you don’t let it slip then no one will know,” Sasha said in an entreatingly tender voice.

“You can rely on me, I’ll be as quiet as the grave,” the actor replied. “I was a young lad once myself, I got into enough
mischief.”

By now the scandal at the club had begun to subside. But the evening was crowned with a fresh disaster. While the geisha was
being persecuted in the corridor, a fiery
nedotykomka
, leaping about the chandeliers, laughed and relentlessly tried to inspire Peredonov with the idea that he ought to light
a match and set this fiery, but captive
nedotykomka
loose on these dreary, filthy walls and then, having had its fill of destruction after devouring the building where such
terrible and incomprehensible things were taking place, it would leave Peredonov in peace. And Peredonov could not resist
its persistent provocation. He went into the small sitting room beside the dance hall. There was no one in it. Peredonov looked
around, struck a match, put it to the bottom of the window curtain, right at the very edge, and waited until the curtain caught
fire. The fiery
nedotykomka
crept like a spritely little serpent along the curtain, squealing softly and cheerfully. Peredonov left the sitting room
and bolted the door behind him. No one noticed the arson.