This darkly humorous story, a Russian classic from the golden period, describes the ascent of a schoolteacher to sadism, murder, and arson.The regional schoolteacher Peredonov is insane, lustful, cruel, and foolish; nevertheless, to everyone else, he is a respectable member of society. He torments his students and has hallucinatory thoughts about deeds of brutality and humiliation. His pursuit of marriage as a means of advancement leads to paranoia, sexual depravity, arson, torture, and murder.One of the great comic monsters of twentieth-century literature, Sologub's anti-hero gave his name to the sadomasochistic subculture known as Peredonovism.The author of "The Little Demon" (1907), who rejected claims that the book was autobiographical, became an instant celebrity after saying, "No, my darling contemporaries... it is about you." The best Russian novel to come out of the Symbolist movement is perhaps this hideous portrait of a spiritually bankrupt society.
