But Volodin was not afraid, and kept on sniggering.
“Do you smell the stench from behind the wallpaper?” asked Peredonov.
“No, I don’t smell it,” said Volodin, still sniggering and grimacing.
“Your nose is blocked up,” said Peredonov. “No wonder it’s gone red. It’s rotting there behind the wallpaper.”
“A beetle!” exclaimed Varvara with a boisterous laugh. Peredonov looked dull and grave.
Peredonov became more and more engulfed in his madness, and began to write denunciations against the court cards, the nedotikomka, the Ram—that he, the Ram, was an imposter who, representing Volodin, was aiming for a high position, but was in reality only a Ram; against the forest destroyers who cut down the birches, so that there were no twigs for Turkish baths, and that it was impossible to bring up children, because they left only the aspens, and what use were they?
When he met the schoolboys in the street, Peredonov frightened the youngest and amused the older ones with his shameless and ridiculous words. The older ones walked after him in a crowd, scattering, however, when they saw one of the other masters; the younger ones ran away from him of their own accord.
Peredonov saw enchantments and sorceries in everything. His hallucinations terrified him and forced from him senseless moans and squeals. The nedotikomka appeared to him now blood-like, now flaming; it groaned and it bellowed, and its bellowing split his head with an unendurable pain. The cat grew to terrible dimensions, stamped with high boots and turned into a huge red bewhiskered person.
XXVIII
Sasha left home after lunch and did not return at the appointed time, at seven; Kokovkina was worried:
“May God preserve him from meeting one of his masters in the street at a forbidden time! He’ll be punished and I shall feel uncomfortable,” she thought. Quiet boys always lived at her house and did not wander about at night. Kokovkina went to look for Sasha. Where else could he be except at the Routilovs’.
As ill luck would have it, Liudmilla that evening had forgotten to lock the door. Kokovkina entered, and what did she see? Sasha stood before the mirror in a woman’s dress, waving a fan. Liudmilla was laughing and arranging ribbons at his brightly-coloured belt.
“Good heavens!” exclaimed Kokovkina in horror. “What’s this? I was worried and came to look for him, and here he is acting a comedy. What a disgrace for him to dress himself in a skirt. And aren’t you ashamed, Liudmilla Platonovna?”
Liudmilla was for a moment very embarrassed because of the suddenness of the thing, but soon recovered herself. She embraced Kokovkina with a laugh, sat her in a chair and invented an explanation:
“We are going to have a play at home—I shall be a boy and he’ll be a girl and it’ll be very amusing.”
Sasha stood flushed and terrified, with tears in his eyes.
“What nonsense!” said Kokovkina angrily, “he ought to be studying his lessons and not waste his time playacting. What will you think of next! Dress yourself at once, Aleksandr, and march home with me.”
Liudmilla laughed loudly and gaily and kissed Kokovkina—and the old woman thought that the happy girl was very childlike, and that Sasha obediently carried out all her whims. Liudmilla’s laughter, at this moment, showed this to be only a simple childish prank, for which they would only have to be lectured a little. And Kokovkina grumbled, assuming an angry face, but her feelings were already calmed down.
Sasha quickly redressed himself behind the screen, where Liudmilla’s bed stood. Kokovkina took him off, and scolded him all the way home. Sasha felt ashamed and frightened and did not attempt to justify himself.
“And what will happen at home?” he thought timidly. At home, Kokovkina treated him sternly for the first time: she ordered him to get down on his knees. But Sasha had barely been in that position for a few moments when Kokovkina, softened by his repentant face and silent tears, released him. She said grumblingly:
“What a little lady-killer, you are! Your perfumes can be smelt a mile off!”
Sasha gracefully bent over and kissed her hand—and the courtesy of the punished boy touched her even more.
In the meantime a storm was gathering over Sasha. Varvara and Grushina composed and sent to Khripatch an anonymous letter to the effect that the schoolboy, Pilnikov, had been fascinated by the Routilov girl, that he spent whole evenings with her rather questionably. Khripatch collected a recent conversation. One evening at the house of the Marshal of the Nobility someone had thrown out an insinuation—which no one had taken up—about a girl who was in love with a schoolboy. The conversation had immediately passed to other subjects: in Khripatch’s presence, everyone, acting on the unwritten law of people accustomed to good society, considered this an extremely awkward theme for discussion, and they assumed that this topic was not to be mentioned in the presence of women and that the rumour itself was trivial and very unlikely. Khripatch, of course, had noticed this but he was not so naive as to ask anyone. He was fully confident that he would know all about it soon, that all information came of itself in one way or another, but always in good season. Well, here was a letter which contained the expected information.
Khripatch did not for a moment believe that Pilnikov was guilty, and that his relations with Liudmilla were improper.
“This,” he thought, “is one of Peredonov’s stupid inventions and is nourished by Grushina’s envy and spitefulness. But this letter shows that certain undesirable rumours are current, which might cast a reflection on the good name of the gymnasia entrusted to me. And therefore measures must be taken.”
First of all Khripatch invited Kokovkina to discuss with him the circumstances which had helped to give rise to these rumours.
Kokovkina already knew what was the trouble. She had been informed even more bluntly than the Headmaster. Grushina had waited for her
