The Little Demon by Fyodor Sologub (reading e books .TXT) 📕

“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.

Sasha was fascinated by Liudmilla, but something prevented him from talking about her to Kokovkina. He felt somehow ashamed, and sometimes he came to be afraid of her visits. His heart would feel faint and his eyebrows contract involuntarily when he saw her rose-yellow hat pass quickly under his window. Nevertheless he awaited her with anxiety and impatience⁠—he was sad when she did not come for a long time. Contradictory feelings were mingled in his soul, feelings dark and vague⁠—morbid because premature, and sweet because morbid.

Liudmilla had called neither yesterday nor today. Sasha exhausted himself with waiting and had already ceased to expect her. Suddenly she came. He grew radiant and rushed forward to kiss her hand.

“Well, have you forgotten me?” he reproached her. “I haven’t seen you for two days.”

She laughed happily and a sweet, languid and piquant odour of Japanese funkia emanated from her, as if it came from her light hair. Liudmilla and Sasha went out for a walk in the town. They invited Kokovkina but she would not go.

“How could an old woman like me go out with you? I’d only get in your way. You’d better go out by yourselves.”

“But we’ll get into mischief,” laughed Liudmilla.

The warm, languid air caressed them and called to remembrance the irrevocable. The sun, as if diseased, burned dimly and lividly in the pale, tired sky. The dry leaves lay humbly on the dark earth, dead.

Liudmilla and Sasha went into a hollow. It was cool, refreshing, almost damp there⁠—a tender autumn weariness reigned there within its shady slopes.

Liudmilla walked in front. She lifted her skirt. She showed her small shoes and flesh-coloured stockings. Sasha looked on the ground, so as not to stumble over roots, and saw the stockings. It seemed to him that she had put on shoes without stockings. He flushed. He felt giddy.

“If only I could fall suddenly before her,” he thought, “snatch off her shoes, and kiss her delicate feet!”

Liudmilla instinctively felt Sasha’s passionate glance, his impatient desire. She laughed and turned to him with a question:

“Are you looking at my stockings?”

“No, I⁠—er⁠—” mumbled Sasha in confusion.

“What dreadful stockings I’ve got on,” said Liudmilla laughing and not listening to him. “It almost looks as if I had put my shoes on my bare feet⁠—they’re absolutely flesh-coloured. Don’t you think they’re dreadfully ridiculous stockings?”

She turned her face to Sasha and lifted the hem of her dress.

“Aren’t they ridiculous?” she asked.

“No, they’re beautiful,” said Sasha, red with embarrassment.

Liudmilla pretended to be surprised, raised her eyebrows and exclaimed:

“And what do you know about beauty?”

Liudmilla laughed and walked on. Sasha, burning with confusion, walked uneasily after her, stumbling frequently.

They managed to get through the hollow. They sat down on a birch trunk thrown down by the wind. Liudmilla said:

“My shoes are full of sand. I can’t go on any further.” She took off her shoes, shook out the sand and looked archly at Sasha.

“Do you think it’s a pretty foot?” she asked.

Sasha flushed even more and did not know what to say. Liudmilla pulled off her stockings.

“Don’t you think they’re very white feet?” she asked and smiled strangely and coquettishly. “Down on your knees! Kiss them!” she said severely, and a commanding severity showed on her face.

Sasha went down on his knees quickly and kissed Liudmilla’s feet.

“It’s much nicer without stockings,” said Liudmilla as she placed her stockings in her pocket and stuck her feet into her shoes. And her face again became gay and calm as if Sasha had not just been on his knees before her, kissing her naked feet.

Sasha asked:

“Won’t you catch cold, dear?”

His voice sounded tender and tremulous. Liudmilla laughed.

“What a notion! I’m used to it. I’m not so delicate as that.”

Liudmilla once came to Kokovkina’s just before dusk and called Sasha:

“Come and help me put up a new shelf.”

Sasha loved to knock nails in, and somehow he had promised to help Liudmilla in arranging her room. And now he eagerly consented, glad that there was an innocent pretext to go to Liudmilla’s house. And now the innocent, pungent odour of essence of muguet blew from Liudmilla’s greenish dress and gently soothed him.

For the work Liudmilla redressed herself behind a screen, and came out to Sasha in a short, spruce skirt, and short sleeves, perfumed with the pleasant, languid, pungent Japanese funkia.

“Oh, but how spruced up you are!” said Sasha.

“Yes, I am,” said Liudmilla laughing. “Look,