Liudmilla laughed and said:
“Nonsense!”
The townspeople regarded Sasha with ugly curiosity. Sasha sometimes reproached Liudmilla because he was teased about her. It even happened that he slapped her, because she laughed so loudly.
To put an end to this stupid gossip, and to save Liudmilla from unpleasant scandal, all the Routilovs and their numerous friends and relatives acted against Peredonov and persuaded people that all his tales were the inventions of a madman. Peredonov’s wild actions compelled many people to believe this explanation.
At the same time many denunciations of Peredonov were sent to the Director of the School District. From the District headquarters they sent an enquiry to the Headmaster. Khripatch referred them to his previous reports, and added that the further presence of Peredonov in the gymnasia was a positive danger, as his mental disease was visibly increasing.
Peredonov was now entirely governed by wild illusions. The world was screened off from him by apparitions. His vacant, dull eyes wandered, and were unable to rest on objects as if he wanted to look beyond them on the other side of the objective world, and as if he sought for chinks of light between them.
When he was alone he talked to himself and shouted senseless threats at some unknown person:
“I will kill you! I will cut your throat! I’ll caulk you up!”
Varvara listened with a smile.
“Make all the row you want,” she thought malignantly.
It seemed to her that it was only his rage; he must have guessed that they had fooled him and was angry. He wouldn’t go out of his mind—a fool has no mind to go out of. And even if he did—well, madness cheers the stupid!
“Do you know, Ardalyon Borisitch,” said Khripatch, “you look very unwell?”
“I have a headache,” said Peredonov morosely.
“Do you know, my friend,” continued the Headmaster in a cautious voice, “I would advise you not to come to the gymnasia at present. You ought to attend to yourself—to give a little attention to your nerves, which are obviously a little unstrung.”
“Not come to the gymnasia. Of course,” thought Peredonov, “that’s the best thing to do. Why didn’t I think of it before! I’ll look ill, and stay at home and see what will come of it.”
“Yes, yes, I’d better not come. I am rather unwell,” he said eagerly to Khripatch.
At the same time Khripatch wrote again to the Head Office of the District and awaited from day to day the appointment of the physicians for an examination of Peredonov. But the officials were very leisurely. That was because they were officials.
Peredonov did not go to the gymnasia and awaited something. During the last few days he had clung more and more to Volodin. Directly he opened his eyes in the morning Peredonov thought gloomily of Volodin: where was he now? Was he up to something? Sometimes he had visions of Volodin: clouds floated in the sky like a flock of sheep, and Volodin ran among them, bleating with laughter, with a bowler hat on his head; sometimes he floated by in the smoke issuing from the chimneys, making monstrous grimaces and leaping in the air.
Volodin thought and told everyone with pride that Peredonov had recently taken a great fancy to him—that Peredonov simply could not live without him.
“Varvara has fooled him,” explained Volodin, “and he sees that I alone am his faithful friend—that’s why he sticks to me.”
When Peredonov went out of his house to look for Volodin, the other met him on the way in his bowler hat, with his stick, jumping along gaily and laughing his bleating laugh.
“Why do you always wear a bowler?” Peredonov once asked him.
“Well, why shouldn’t I wear a bowler, Ardalyon Borisitch?” replied Volodin gaily and shrewdly. “It’s modest and becoming. I’m not allowed to wear a cap with a badge, and as for a top-hat, let the aristocrats stick to it, it doesn’t become us.”
“You’ll roast in your bowler,” said Peredonov morosely.
Volodin sniggered.
They went to Peredonov’s house.
“One has to do so much walking,” complained Peredonov.
“It’s good to take exercise, Ardalyon Borisitch,” said Volodin persuasively. “You work, you take a walk, you eat your meals, and you’re healthy.”
“Well, yes,” said Peredonov, “do you think that in two or three hundred years from now people will have to work?”
“What else is there to do? If you don’t work, you have no bread to eat. You buy bread with money and you have to earn the money.”
“But I don’t want bread.”
“But there wouldn’t be any rolls or tarts either,” said Volodin with a snigger. “No one would have any money to buy vodka, and there wouldn’t be anything to make liqueurs of.”
“No, the people themselves won’t work,” said Peredonov. “There’ll be machines for everything—all you’ll have to do is to turn a handle like an ariston43 and it’s ready. … But it would be a bore to turn it long.”
Volodin lapsed into thought, lowered his head, stuck out his lips and said, reflectively:
“Yes, that would be very good. Only none of us will live to see it.”
Peredonov looked at him malignantly and grumbled:
“You mean you won’t live to see it, but I shall.”
“May God grant you,” said Volodin gaily, “to live two hundred years, and then to crawl on all fours for three hundred.”
Peredonov no longer pronounced exorcisms—let the worst come. He would triumph over everything; he had only to be on his guard and not yield.
Once at home, sitting in the dining-room and drinking with Volodin, Peredonov told him about the Princess.
The Princess, according to Peredonov, grew more decrepit and terrible from day to day; yellow, wrinkled, bent, tusked, evil, she incessantly haunted Peredonov.
“She’s two hundred years old,” said Peredonov, looking strangely and gloomily before him, “and she wants me to make it up with her again. Until then she won’t give me a job.”
“She certainly wants a good deal,” said Volodin shaking his head. “The old hag!”
Peredonov brooded over murder. He said to Volodin, frowning savagely:
“I’ve
