The Petty Demon (45 page)

There is a suggestion that the Countess, like Princess Volchanskaya, may have a witch nature, the last thing Germann calls
her before drawing his pistol to force the secret from her is “old witch.”
²⁰
But the Countess does not reveal
the secret while she is alive, and this leads to another similarity between the Countess and the Princess. Even though Princess
Volchanskaya never appears corporally in
The Petty Demon
, she exercises an overwhelmingly destructive infuence on Peredonov’s fate. His belief that she has turned against him leads
him into a deeper terror and suspicion bf others which culminates in the murder of Volodin and his collapse into total senselessness.
Similarly, it is not as a living woman, but as a corpse, an apparition, and as the queen of spades that the Countess has her
most powerful influence on Germann’s fate. She squints at him from her casket and then appears to him as an apparition to
reveal the secret by which he can win his fortune. And, on the final day of gambling, when Germann draws the queen of spades
instead of an ace, he perceives in the card figure the old woman mocking him.
²¹
Germann, like Peredonov, collapses into total insanity. The similarities in plot structure between “The Queen of Spades”
and
The Petty Demon
, the image of a decaying witch-like woman, and, above all, the shared metaphor of the queen of spades suggest that Princess
Volchanskaya is best understood as a literary reincarnation of Pushkin’s old Countess.

The Petty Demon
also contains a number of grotesque characters whose creations proceed not from the usual image of man, but rather from the
nonhuman world. In these characters the grotesque is achieved largely through humanization. These bizarre creatures include
card figures, Peredonov’s cat, and the
nedotykomka
. In his delirium Peredonov sees playing cards strutting before him and assuming the forms of familiar people. The eights
become “werewolf-students,” and he recognizes in the postman, who brings the second forged letter, a knave who caused him
to lose at cards (255, 310, 256). His cat too becomes an object of terror. Unlike the usual black famulus of witches and sorcerers,
it is white and fat; but Peredonov fears that it has the power to bewitch him, and he suspects that it has denounced him to
the authorities (242). In his imagination the cat assumes fantastic proportions, now becoming the fairy-tale “puss in boots,”
now a young man with a red moustache who cannot stop sniffing (337, 287).

The most important of the non-human creatures in
The Petty Demon
is the
nedotykomka
, a gray spirit which appears in the midst of the incense during the blessing of Peredonov’s new apartment and torments him
from this point to the murder of Volodin. The name “nedotykomka” means “not-quite-pokeable-female-creature,” and it points
to the spirit’s elusiveness. In contrast to all the other characters, the
nedotykomka’s
pictorial delineation is not the product of the distortion of a familiar form. It is “faceless,” a creature of “undefined
outlines” (156). Therefore, it is difficult to visualize the spirit, although not entirely impossible. An abundance of perceptual
criteria is used in the spirit’s delineation: it is smelly; noisy, and extremely active. These traits perhaps indicate that
the
nedotykomka
is primarily a presence to be felt, and only secondarily a creature to be visualized.

The spirit is gray, and the repetition of this color suggests that it is to be understood as a characterizing epithet. As
a color gray conveys a feeling of drabness—colorlessness—rather than of pigmentation and thus is of limited value in attempting
to picture the
nedotykomka
. Other attributives point to the sense in which the spirit’s grayness is to be understood: it is also “dirty” and “dusty”
(286, 308). Probably the main function of the color “gray” is to link the
nedotykomka
and Peredonov to each other; gray is indicative of the boredom,
squalor, and
poshlost’
of his existence. One of the most highly sensual traits used in the depiction of the
nedotykomka
is smell. The spirit is called “stinking”
(voniuchaia
, 308). Although smell provides an obvious feeling of the spirit’s presence, the use of this particular word, which is vulgar
and characteristic of Peredonov, suggests that it may be a way he perceives it, rather than an actual attribute of the creature.
This trait too joins the
nedotykomka
to Peredonov’s soul and to his apartment, which is foul smelling and which is, in its way, a mirror of his soul.

Sound and motion are other essential ingredients in the creation of the
nedotykomka
. The spirit continually laughs and jeers at Peredonov, and it is this mockery which more than anything else instills horror
into him and drives him to such acts as chopping the table under which the spirit is sitting (310). The
nedotykomka
is continually quivering, fidgeting, rolling about on the floor, and jumping. Both the spirit’s tremendous noise and its
quivering, whirling motion connect it with Peredonov’s psychic state. They provide an index of the restlessness and agitation
in his soul. These traits also suggest a possibility for visualizing the
nedotykomka
.

Although the
nedotykomka
does not smile (image), but laughs (sound), one may construe the visual representation of this laughter as a taunting smile,
a smirk, or a leer. The spirit can perhaps best be pictured as a leer implanted on a small, amorphous grayish mass, which
is continually whirling about Peredonov, yet which is impossible to touch or approach. If this is correct, then the leer adds
a human element to the delineation of the
nedotykomka
and renders it grotesque.
²²
Moreover the spirit’s motion may be understood as an uninterrupted dance of death.

Peredonov is the only character in the novel who sees the
nedotykomka
, and he, of course, is insane. Yet, while there can be no doubt that the spirit reflects his soul and is symptomatic of his
insanity, there is reason to believe that the
nedotykomka
has a broader meaning than would be possible if it were merely the projection of a madman’s fantasy. Rather, this gray spirit
is integral to the total vision of the world in
The Petty Demon
and, possibly, in Sologub’s work in general. This is suggested partly by the spirit’s presence outside the novel; the
nedotykomka
is the subject of an earlier lyric.
²³
However, the most convincing evidence that the spirit is a reality existing beyond the confines of Peredonov’s consciousness
is the particular way in which it is presented in the novel itself. Although Peredonov is the only character who sees the
nedotykomka
, nevertheless, it is never presented totally through his vision. Unlike the other fantasy creatures, the spirit never occurs
in a dream; and, it is never presented through interior monologue, which would bring the reader directly into Peredonov’s
consciousness without the obvious presence of the narrator’s voice. Rather, the
nedotykomka
is always presented as a statement of fact within the narration, and this signifies that the narrator shares in the vision
of the spirit.

Here one must consider the particular nature of the narrator. In
The Petty Demon
there is minimal distance between the implied author and the narrator who retains almost absolute control over the telling
of the story. We can term this narrator “reliable”: his testimony is to be considered true and his judgment is valid.
²⁴
When the
nedotykomka
is introduced, the narrator’s voice is totally dominant. The language is highly poetic and thus uncharacteristic of the dull-witted,
vulgar Peredonov; rather, it is close to that of the earlier lyric: “An amazing creature of indefinite features ran out from
somewhere—a small, gray,
lively, nimble
nedotykomka
. It chuckled, and quivered, and whirled around Peredonov…. It quivered and teased—gray, faceless, nimble (156).”
²⁵
In later passages the device of narrated perception is often in evidence.
²⁶
Here, though the spirit’s presence is narrated, Peredonov’s experiencing consciousness is brought in through the use of modal
words characteristic of him and of the present tense: “The
nedotykomka
ran about … and squealed. It was dirty, smelly, repulsive, and terrifying…. If only someone would deliver him with some
word or sweep it away. But there are no friends here … (308–9).”

The
nedotykomka
must be considered a feature of the cosmos of
The Petty Demon
and not just the hallucination of a madman. It is perhaps best understood as a symbolization of evil. The creature’s eerie
laughter hints at a diabolical nature, and the attributive “faceless” may link it to the devil who is also faceless. Some
of the forms which the Spirit assumes, such as that of a dog and column of dust, are linked to beliefs about the devil in
folk superstition.
²⁷
Particularly meaningful is the guise of the serpent which it assumes at the masquerade. As the form of the devil in the Biblical
story of the Fall, this guise connects the spirit with primordial evil. Yet, while the
nedotykomka
is no doubt a manifestation of the evil which pervades the cosmos of
The Petty Demon
, it should not be understood as a gradiose symbol of denial. Rather, the spirit embodies petty
evil—poshlost’
and spite raised to cosmic dimensions. The grayness, dirtiness, and dustiness of the spirit point clearly to this.

A recent critic has suggested that the real import of the
nedotykomka is
that it signals Peredonov’s contact wit another reality.”
²⁸
His vision of the spirit can in fact be understood as a sort of self-transcendence. He is initiated into a truth beyond himself
and beyond the limits of visual reality—for the other characters do not see it. Of all the characters in the novel, Peredonov
seems the most total in his devotion to petty evil. If, as an emodiment of this evil, the
nedotykomka
can be considered his “god,” then, in religious terms, Peredonov is a fully integrated man. He has reached a stage of “transfiguration,”
albeit in a negative sense, and his vision of this dirty, gray spirit can possibly be construed as the converse of the vision
of light of Orthodox mysticism.
²⁹

THE COSMOS

Implicit in the delineations of most of the strange creatures of
The Petty Demon
is the motif of the mask; in most cases a human identity veils a perhaps truer identity within a demonology. The idea of
the mask was, in fact, basic to Sologub’s conception of art. He believed that the purpose of art is to remove appearances
or masks
(lichiny)
and to reveal the true Countenance of things (Lik).
³⁰
In
The Petty Demon
the tension between appearance and reality is basic not only to the depictions of individual characters, but to the presentation
of the cosmos as a whole.

The aggregate of dual-natured creatures in the novel presents a picture of an utterly bizarre society, and the physical environment
in which these strange characters are placed intensifies this impression. Among the more important places of action are Peredonov’s
dirty, stifling apartment and Grushina’s dusty house; the unpaved dusty and muddy streets of a provincial town; Vershina’s
lush, enchanted garden; a billiard hall filled with smoke; the pleasant home of the Rutilov girls; and a splendidly colorful
seventeenth-century Russian church.
These settings are too lush and too disparate to be typical of a normal, drab Russian provincial town. Rather, this is typical
scenery for the grotesque. The visual world of people and places which emerges is an amalgamation of the ugly and the beautiful,
the everyday and the exotic, the vulgar and the supernatural.

The activities of the town as a whole are significant in suggesting the true nature of the cosmos. Scandalmongering is a basic
preoccupationn of this society, and it is also a sign of
poshlost’
and spitefulness. Rumor has it that the Marshall of the Nobility Veriga wears a corset; Grushina and Rutilov taunt Peredonov
with stories that his students drink, smoke, and chase girls; Peredonov’s visits to the town functionaries are prompted by
fear of scandal, and the content of the conversations during these visits is largely gossip. Probably the most significant
rumors are those concerned with Sasha. He is introduced through a story tha the is a girl. This rumor prompts Peredonov to
visit Sasha and then to report the scandal to the headmaster and to spread the story throughout the school. Lyudmila, who
is loved in the town for her charming, lively way of relating gossip, hears this rumor and, curious, goes to visit Sasha.
Preposterous as it may seem; this rumor contains a glimmer of truth, for Sasha’s characterization turns on the suggestion
that he has the ability to change into a girl. Later in the novel Peredonov spreads a story that Lyudmila has perverted Sasha.
Grushina and Varvara write letters about this to the headmaster, and he resolves to investigate. Lyudmila, however, enchants
him into believing an outright lie—that her relationship with Sasha is perfectly innocent. Although Peredonov is telling the
truth, he is vulgar, coarse, and obviously insane; Lyudmila is believed because she is attractive, sweet-smelling, and well-dressed.
Rumor thus serves as a means of confusing appearance and reality. Moreover, in the strange world of the novel, the most believable
tales seem to contain a hint of truth.

Although a sense of stagnation and inertia pervades the atmosphere of
The
Petty Demon
, the pace of the action is frenzied. Much of the hustle and bustle is centered around getting people married. Most obvious
are the attempts to catch Peredonov, but, in addition, Peredonov hopes to find a wife for Volodin, and Grushina and Vershina
are looking for husbands. The desire to marry is prompted not by feelings of mutual attraction, but by an apparently rootless
conviction that one simply should be married. Many petty abuses are connected with the business of marriage: Volodin is persuaded
to have Marta’s gates tarred because he was rejected as her fiance; Vershina tells Peredonov of the forgery largely because
her plan to marry him to Marta failed; Grushina arranges for litter to be thrown into the carriage of the newly-wed Peredonovs.
Marriage is, of course, a legitimate human concern, and, moreover, the wedding ceremony serves as an excellent reflection
of a society’s customs—an embodiment of
byt
. Yet, within folk superstition, weddings are among the most basic activities of witches and demons.
³¹
It is probable that in the world of the novel
byt is
a sham and the rage to marry is in reality deviltry.