The autumn evening dragged along quietly. A barely audible rustle came now and then through the window when the wind moved the tree branches. Sasha and Liudmilla were alone. Liudmilla had dressed him up as a barelegged fisher-boy—in a costume of thin blue canvas. He was lying on a low couch and she sat on the floor by his bare feet, herself barefoot and in a chemise. She sprinkled Sasha’s clothes and body with perfume—a dense, grassy smell like the motionless odour of a strangely blossoming valley locked in hills.
Large, bright Roman pearls sparkled on Liudmilla’s neck, and golden, figured bracelets rang on her arms. Her body was scented with orris—it was an overpowering, fleshly, provoking perfume, bringing drowsiness and langour, created from the distillations of slow waters. She languished and sighed, looking at his smooth face, at his bluish-black eyelashes and at his night-dark eyes. She laid her head on his bare knees, and her bright hair caressed his smooth skin. She kissed his body, and her head whirled from the strange aroma, mingling with the scent of young flesh.
Sasha lay there and smiled a quiet, indefinite smile. A vague desire awoke in him, and sweetly tormented him. And when Liudmilla kissed his knees and feet the kisses aroused languorous, half-dreaming musings in him. He wanted to do something, something pleasant or painful, gentle or shameful—but what? To kiss her feet? Or to beat her long, hard, with long flexible twigs, so that she would laugh with joy or cry with pain? Perhaps she desired one or the other. But that was not enough. What then did she want? Here they were both half-naked, and with their freed flesh was bound desire and a restraining shame—but what then was the mystery of the flesh? And how then could he bring his blood and his body as an exquisite sacrifice to her desires, and to his shame?
And Liudmilla languished and stirred at his feet, going pale from impossible desires, now growing cold. She whispered passionately:
“Am I not beautiful? Haven’t I burning eyes? Haven’t I wonderful hair? Then caress me! Take me close to you! Tear off my bracelets, pull off my necklace!”
Sasha felt terrified, and impossible desires tormented him agonisingly.
XXVII
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 Headmaster, 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?”42
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
