The Petty Demon (44 page)

The two widows Vershina and Grushina play a significant role in Peredonov’s fate. Vershina wants to marry Peredonov to her
ward, an awkward Polish girl named Marta, and she therefore beckons him into her house whenever he passes. Grushina is Varvara’s
confidante in her attempts to marry Peredonov, and it is she who forges letters promising Peredonov the inspectorship. But
Vershina is also involved in the ruse of the letters. She instills suspicion into Peredonov about the authenticity of the
first one, thus causing Varvara to have Grushina forge a second; moreover, at the end of the novel she tells Peredonov outright
that the second letter was a forgery and thus directly precipitates the murder of Volodin.

Vershina is an obvious witch. She is a small, thin, prematurely wizened woman with black eyes and brows, a dark complexion,
and dark yellow teeth, and she always dresses in black. Her gestures are smooth, almost imperceptible, her smile is crooked,
and her tone of voice monotonous. Vershina is a chain smoker, and she should be visualized with puffs of smoke rising in front
of her. Vershina’s garden is an important part of her characterization; it is lush and vibrant with color, and it is chaotic.
This garden and the gray house within it form the only setting for the many meetings between Peredonov and her, for, unlike
most of Peredonov’s other friends, she never visits him at his home. During these meetings he is in her territory, an enchanted
realm, and the implication is that he is also under her spell.

While Vershina is depicted in black, gray is used for Grushina, and dust rather than smoke is her characterizing motif. She
gives the impression that she never washes and that “if she were struck several times with a carpet beater, a column of dust
would rise to the very heavens” (42). This emphasis on dirtiness is bolstered by Grushina’s corresponding vulgarity, the immodesty
of her conversation, and the general depravity of her life. Her house is slovenly, and her walls are decorated with poorly-drawn
pictures of naked women. This house, like Vershina’s house and garden, is an important locus of action in the novel. It is
here that the forgery takes place and that Peredonov, during a party, makes his final decision to marry Varvara.

Certain parallels in the depictions of Vershina and Grushina are evident. Their names are phonetically similar, and each is
drawn through the use of color (black-gray) and a corresponding motif (smoke-dust).
¹²
It seems, however, that Vershina’s witch nature is more striking. Significantly, except for the business of finding Marta
a husband, she scarcely Seems to be a part of the provincial
byt
of the novel; she belongs almost wholly to the supernatural. It is likely that Grushina is also a witch; she is a known fortune-teller.
Nevertheless, this witch nature is hidden under layers of dirt, and her involvement in the petty affairs of the town serves
to ingrain her in
byt
. In a sense Vershina and Grushina may be considered the two aspects of a total, grotesque personality: the demonic predominates
in Vershina, but
poshlost’
is more obvious in Grushina.

The most unusual and most seemingly mismatched of the potential fiancées for the dull-witted, gloomy Peredonov are the three
lively, attractive,
intelligent Rutilov sisters. Even so, the possibility of a match between Peredonov and the Rutilov girls is to be taken seriously
within the world of
The Petty Demon
. While it is repeated many times that the girls are attractive, gay, and lively, they are not drawn through emphasis on significant
physical features. The sisters are characterized rather by secondary effects, such as the foods they eat and the atmosphere
they create about them and, especially, by literary and folk allusions. The Rutilov home is an example of impeccable neatness
and care; it is dust-free, pleasant-smelling, colorful—the very opposite of the Peredonov and Grushina households. The sisters’
home conveys the appearance that those who live there belong to the best circles of local society and are in every way proper.
But the foods they eat—fruit, nuts, halvah, and imported liqueurs—suggest something unusual.

The Rutilov girls are introduced into the novel through a curious scene. Their brother, so he thinks, has persuaded Peredonov
to marry one of them. But Peredonov has a condition: he demands that each sister state how she would please him. The oldest
Daria says she would bake pancakes; the second Lyudmila that she would collect gossip; and the youngest Valeriya tells Peredonov
that he must guess for himself how she would please him. These answers provide a comic touch because, with their reference
to appetite (pancakes), scandal, and eroticism (Valeriya’s vague hint), they play directly to the
poshlost’
and coarseness in Peredonov. More importantly, this scene is a clear echo of the opening lines of Pushkin’s fairy tale “Tsar
Saltan” (“Skazka o Tsare Saltane” …”) in which three fair maidens relate how they would please the tsar if he would marry
them: the first would arrange a banquet, the second weave linen, and the third would give birth to a hero.”
¹³
This allusion to “Tsar Saltan” casts the Rutilov girls into the roles of “fair maidens” of the Russian fairy tale, thus suggesting
that they are best visualized as the perfect but nondescript beauties of Russian folk art. Peredonov by implication becomes
a remolding of the tsar—and in a weirdly perverted way, his ability to choose from almost any of the young girls in town makes
him a local autocrat. Of course, in Peredonov the color and splendor of the fairy-tale world have degenerated to
poshlost’
—appetite, scandal, and vulgar eroticism. Moreover, if the comparison between the scenes in
The Petty Demon
and “Tsar Saltan” can be sustained, there is the additional hint that at least the two older sisters may have evil powers.
In the fairy tale the tsar marries the youngest, and the others, who become the palace cook and the palace weaver, work toward
her destruction.

The suggestion that the fairy-tale beauty of the Rutilov sisters may conceal a sinister nature is borne out by comparisons
of the sisters to witches. Peredonov calls them witches immediately after refusing to marry them. Moreover, in their frenzied
drinking, singing, and dancing they are likened to witches celebrating their Sabbath on Bald Mountain (181). Perhaps it is
in view of their identity within the novel’s demonology, and not of their attractiveness and seeming propriety, that the sisters
should be viewed as serious candidates for marriage with Peredonov.

Lyudmila attains an identity apart from her sisters in her relationship with Sasha Pylnikov, the fourteen-year-old schoolboy
with whom she falls in love. The exotically sensuous games of the young couple run counterpoiont to the coarse relationship
between Peredonov and Varvara. Yet, aside from clear aesthetic differences, there are suggestions that Lyudmila may in fact
be very much like Peredonov.

In addition to the metaphor of the witch, certain other comparisons play a vital role in Lyudmila’s presentation: she is also
called a
rusalka
and a devil. In Russian folk belief the
rusalka
was an unclean spirit, often descended from an unbaptized child, who appeared naked, with loose, flowing hair, and who often
drowned or tickled her victim to death.”
¹⁴
Lyudmila is first called a
rusalka
by Sasha after she wins a mock wrestling match. Later she compares herself to a
rusalka
and, at the same time, acknowledges her pagan love of bodily beauty and the joy she finds in pain (323). Some of her actions
reveal that she, like Peredonov, is sadistic. She pinches Sash’s cheeks until red spots appear; she pulls his ear; and she
makes him kiss her knees, during which she has an expression of “triumphant cruelty on her face” (216, 213, 318). Furthermore,
she has an erotic-sadistic dream in which she takes pleasure in watching Sasha be whipped (182). Still another link connecting
Lyudmila to Peredonov is the metaphor of the devil. Dania, referring to Lyudmila’s relationship with Sasha, repeats the common
saying “The devil has bound himself to an infant” (“Chort s mladentsem sviazalsia,” 218) and then specifically identifies
Lyudmila as this devil.

Sasha is introduced into
The Petty Demon
through a rumor which Grushina tells Varvara of a boy posing as a girl in order to snare Peredonov and find a husband. Thus,
although a connection is not explicitly made, it appears that Sasha too is introduced as a possible bride for Peredonov. He
is one of the few genuinely likeable characters in the novel, yet even he has a dual nature. The motif of metamorphosis is
basic to his presentation; his physical delineation turns on his attractiveness and his resemblance to a girl. He is slender
and dark, with mysteriously sad eyes and long blue-black lashes. His name too suggest a duality: he is almost always called
“Sasha,” a diminutive form of both “Alexander” and “Alexandra.” The smoothness of his skin, his rosy cheeks and blushing,
and his high cheat cause him to be taken for a girl, and at the same time it is these traits which are the source of sensuous
appeal for Lyudmila. The erotic games in which Sasha and Lyudmila engage play on the questionable status of his sex. Lyudmila
delights in dressing Sasha in her own clothing, and she collaborates with her sisters in sending Sasha to the town masquerade
dressed as a girl—a geisha.

The ambiguous nature of Sasha’s sex seems to be connected with the metaphor of the werewolf. Varvara calls Sasha a werewolf
almost as soon as she hears about him, and within a few pages the same term is applied to Peredonov’s cat (142, 146).
¹⁵
In a subsequent dream, Peredonov imagines that Sasha and his cat are enticing him somewhere in werewolf-like fashion: “Pylnikov
led him along dark and dirty streets, and the cat ran alongside, and its green eyes glimmered … (230).” After Sasha’s landlady
surprises the couple and finds Sasha dressed as a girl, she forbids him to visit Lyudmila. Thus, for the fittings for the
geisha costume and for the masquerade itself, Sasha must escape through the window of his room at night. These nocturnal ventures
which he makes for the purpose of “appearing to be a girl” suggest metamorphosis and hint at his werewolf nature. Lyudmila
also alludes to this when, during their erotic games, she puns on the expressions “who wants”
(kto zhelaet)
and “who bays”
(kto zhe laet
, 208).
¹⁶

Even Sasha, the most appealing creature in the novel, has an identity within the demonology of
The Petty Demon
. The werewolf, however, has a particular significance in Sologub’s art; it often stands as a symbol of a wistful, nostalgic
longing for a primeval existence and an escape from everyday reality
(especially
poshlost’).
¹⁷
It is meaningful that Sasha’s nostalgia should reveal itself particularly after a visit from Peredonov, the novel’s prime
embodiment of
poshlost’(155)
.

In addition to the above characters, who play fairly major roles in Peredonov’s life, the novel contains a vast number of
minor characters, most of whom are also grotesque. Peredonov’s disheveled and habitually drunk landlady is a striking example
of a witch. It is she who has a spell cast on Peredonov’s old hat, and she returns Peredonov’s cat with rattles on its tail.
As the town ruffians the Avdeev boys are responsible for the execution of much foul play: they tar Marta’s gates, break Peredonov’s
windows, and throw litter into Peredonov’s carriage after his wedding. They seem to “spring from the earth” and be “swallowed
up by the earth,” a suggestion that they are best understood as unclean spirits which, in folk superstition, appear and disappear
in this fashion (251).
¹⁸
Even the town functionaries whom Peredonov visits to ward off possible slander are grotesque. They are drawn through the
exaggeration of certain features and through the complementary presentations of their houses.

As we have seen in several instances, literary and folklore allusions shape the visual images of characters and aid in interpreting
their activities. One of the more fantastic personages in
The Petty Demon
whose creation depends largely on literary allusion is the alleged author of the letters promising Peredonov the inspectorship,
Princess Volchanskaya. The Princess never actually appears in the novel, yet, Peredonov suspects that she is nearby spying
on him, and in his imagination she assumes the form of a two-hundred-year-old “yellow, wrinkled, hunchbacked, fang-toothed,
evil” woman (336). He suspects that she may be hiding in a pack of cards as either the queen of hearts or the queen of spades,
and though he attempts to burn the whole pack, the princess rises up out of the flames, hissing and spitting on the fire (314).

The comparison of Princess Volchanskaya to the queen of spades is highly significant because it provides a clear reference
to Pushkins’s tale “The Queen of Spades.” It is possible to observe a number of parallels in the plots of the two works. In
Pushkin’s tale the protagonist Germann relies on an old Countess to reveal a mysterious secret whereby he may win a fortune
at cards. This thought becomes an obsession with him, and his entire fate is placed in the hands of the old woman. The vehicle
through which he hopes to obtain an audience with the Countess is her poor-relative ward Lizaveta, and he courts her to this
purpose. In
The Petty Demon
Peredonov is obsessed with his inspectorship just as Germann is with the secret of the cards; and he relies on the Princess,
who is supposedly Varvara’s patron, to obtain it for him.

The image of the old Countess of “The Queen of Spades” offers a visual referent for the grotesque image of Princess Volchanskaya.
In Pushkin’s tale the Countess appears as (1) a young, beautiful, but frivolous woman of the 1770’s, (2) an ancient, hideous
woman of the 1830’s who is trying to preserve her long faded beauty, (3) a corpse, (4) an apparition, and
(5)
the queen of spades.
¹⁹
A particularly grotesque image of the Countess is achieved through the incongruity of her puffy, decrepit flesh and the various
adornments she grafts on it to make herself younger: a powdered wig, rouge, elegant dresses which are sixty years out of fashion,
and, an item from the floral world, roses.