Read Online The Petty Demon by Fyodor Sologub - Free Book Online

was reserved for you,” Vershina said.
    “Makes no difference! She’s supposed to do the repairs, so why are weobliged to pay for the time when we’re not living there? And the main thing is that she’s terribly insolent.”
    “Well, the landlady is insolent because your um … cousin is a hot-tempered person,” Vershina said, with a slight hesitation
     over the word “cousin.”
    Peredonov frowned and stared dully in front of himself with half-asleep eyes. Vershina started to talk about something different.
     Peredonov pulled a caramel out of his pocket, cleaned the paper away and started to chew. By chance he glanced at Marta and
     had the thought that she was jealous and would also like a caramel.
    “Should I give her one or not?” Peredonov thought. “She’s not worth it. Or maybe I should anyway, I don’t want them to think
     that I begrudge it. I have lots of them, pocketfuls of caramels.”
    And he pulled out a fistful of caramels.
    “Go ahead,” he said and offered the candy first to Vershina, then to Marta. “They’re good bonbons, expensive, cost thirty
     kopecks a pound.”
    Each took one. He said:
    “Take more. I have lots, and they’re good bonbons, I’m not about to eat bad stuff.”
    “Thank you, I don’t want any more,” Vershina said quickly and tonelessly.
    Marta repeated the same words after her, but somehow uncertainly. Peredonov looked mistrustfully at Marta and said:
    “What do you mean you don’t want any! Go ahead.”
    From a fistful he took one caramel for himself and laid the rest in front of Marta. Marta smiled in silence and bowed her
     head.
    “The boor,” Peredondv thought. “Doesn’t know how to thank you nicely.”
    He didn’t know what to talk to Marta about. He didn’t find her interesting—she was like all the objects with which someone
     else hadn’t established good or bad relations for him.
    The rest of the beer Was poured into Peredonov’s glass. Vershina glanced at Marta.
    “I’ll bring more,” Marta said.
    She always guessed without any words what Vershina wanted.
    “Send Vladya, he’s in the garden,” Vershina said.
    “Vladislav!” Marta shouted.
    “Here,” the boy responded quickly and close by, just as though he were eavesdropping.
    “Bring some beer, two bottles,” Marta said. “Inside the chest in the passage.”
    Vladislav soon came running noiselessly back to the summer house, handed the beer to Marta through a window and bowed to Peredonov.
    “Greetings,” Peredonov said with a frown. “How many bottles have you polished off today?”
    Vladislav gave a strained smile and said:
    “I don’t drink beer.”
    He was a boy of about fourteen, resembling his sister, with freckles like Marta’s, awkward and sluggish in his movements.
     He was dressed in a long loose shirt of coarse linen.
    Marta spoke with her brother in a whisper. They were both laughing. Peredonov kept giving them suspicious looks. When people
     were laughing in his presence and he didn’t know about what, he always supposed that they were laughing about him. Vershina
     grew uneasy. She was about to call Marta. But Peredonov himself asked in a spiteful voice:
    “What are you laughing at?”
    Marta gave a start, turned to him and didn’t know what to say. Vladislav smiled, stared at Peredonov and blushed slightly.
    “It’s not polite in front of guests,” Peredonov reprimanded them. “Are you laughing at me?” he asked.
    Marta blushed, Vladislav was frightened.
    “Forgive us,” Marta said. “We weren’t talking about you. It was about something that concerned us.”
    “A secret,” Peredonov said angrily. “It’s not polite to chat about secrets in front of guests.”
    “It’s not really a secret at all,” Marta said “We were talking about the fact that Vladya is barefoot and can’t come in here,
     he’s bashful.”
    Peredonov relaxed, began to make up jokes at Vladya’s expense and then he treated him to a caramel as well.
    “Marta, bring my