THE LITTLE DEMON

BY

FEODOR SOLOGUB

AUTHORISED TRANSLATION

BY JOHN COURNOS AND

RICHARD ALDINGTON

ALFRED A. KNOPF

NEW YORK

MCMXVI

TRANSLATORS' PREFACE

"The Little Demon" is a successful and almost imperceptible mergingof comedy with tragedy. It is in fact a tragedy in which the comicforms an integral part and is not sandwiched in superficially merely toplease the reader. The method resembles in a measure that of Gogol's"Dead Souls," with which "The Little Demon" was compared upon its firstappearance in 1907.

It is a work of art—and it is a challenge; and this challenge isaddressed not to Russia alone, but to the whole world.

"What a sad place Russia is!" exclaimed Pushkin when Gogol read hisstory to him. But what the world knows to-day is that Gogol gave usa portrait of the human soul, and that only the frame was Russian.Prince Kropotkin assures us that there are Chichikovs in England, andProfessor Phelps of Yale is equally emphatic about their presence inAmerica.

And this is also true of Peredonov, of "The Little Demon."

In spite of its "local colour" and its portrayal of small town life inRussia, this novel has the world for its stage, and its chief actor,Peredonov, is a universal character. He is a Russian—an American—anEnglishman. He is to be found everywhere, and in every station of life.Both translators agree that they have even met one or two Peredonovs atLondon literary teas—and not a few Volodins, for that matter.

Certainly there is a touch of Peredonov in many men. It is amatter of degree. For the extraordinary thing about this book isthat nearly all the characters are Peredonovs of a lesser calibre.Their Peredonovism lacks that concentrated intensity which lifts theunfortunate Peredonov to tragic—and to comic—heights in spite of hispettiness; or perhaps because his pettiness is so gigantic.

"The Little Demon" is a penetration into human conscience, and acriticism of the state of petty "provinciality" into which it hasfallen.

"The Kingdom of God is within you." So is the kingdom of evil. Thatis the great truth of "The Little Demon." And in Peredonov's case, theinner spirit takes possession of external objects, and all the concretethings that his eyes see become symbols of the evil that is withinhimself. More than that: this spirit even creates for him a "littlegrey, nimble beast"—the Nedotikomka—which is the sum of the evilforces of the world, and against which he has to contend.

The author enters his "hero's" condition so deeply that even peopleand objects and scenery are rendered, as it were, through Peredonov'seyes—and the mood created by this subjective treatment helps toinveigle the reader into comprehending the chief character.

The beautiful Sasha-Liudmilla episode relieves the Peredonovianatmosphere as a dab of vermilion relieves grey. But what the authorshows us is that even such an idyllic love episode is affected bycontact with this atmosphere, and that its beauty and innocence becomeobscured under the tissue of lies as under a coat of grey dust. This,as well as other aspects of "The Little Demon," are dealt with atlength in my article on Feodor Sologub in "The Fortnightly Review"(September, 1915), and if I refrain from going over the ground again,it is because I hope that the tale is simple and clear enough toprovide its own comment.

Finally, I may be pardoned for speaking of the difficultiesof transla