Tatyana Tolstaya - The Slynx

He turned the pages-some men were walking along with rakes-they must be going to plant turnips.

Then there was the sea, and on it a boat, and over the boat a sheet on sticks. They must have decided to do the washing and hung it out to dry. That's handy: look how much water there is in the sea.

He turned the pages back to where the woman climbed on the bed. A fine woman. Kind of like Olenka, only no sour cream on her face.

Then there were a lot of Golubchiks sitting on animals-animals that looked something like goats, but with no beards. Father-in-law said they're steeds. Steeds. Aha. So that's what a steed is. Scary looking. But these guys rode them and weren't afraid.

Then there were colored flowers. A pot, and flowers sticking out of it. Boring. Then everything was all slathered on and mushed around and you couldn't figure out what it was. That was boring too. He turned some more pages and there was this picture: nothing on it, just a white page, and in the middle, a square-shaped black hole. Nothing else. Kind of like the end of everything. He looked and looked at the hole-and suddenly got scared, like in a dream. He clapped the book shut and dropped it.

There were lots of pictures in other books too. Benedikt sat on the floor for three days turning the pages. There were drawings of everything you could imagine. Good Lord! Pretty girls with babies sat laughing, and off in the distance were white roads and green hills, and on the hills were mountain towns, bright blue, or pink like the dawn. There were serious men, all important, with pancake-shaped hats on their heads, yellow chains across their chests, and puffy sleeves like women wear. Or a huge crowd of Golubchiks, and a bunch of little kids, only the kids are naked, they've only got colored rags wrapped around them. They're flying up somewhere, and they're taking lots of flowers and wreathes with them. The whole family must have gone weeding together, and some tricksters robbed them, took off with their coats while they were in the fields.

Once something familiar caught his eye. It was none other than The Demon. For sure. The one Fyodor Kuzmich gave them. Benedikt sat for a long time looking at it and thinking, so long that his feet went to sleep. It's one thing to listen to others, and another thing altogether to see for yourself. So it was true, they weren't lying, it wasn't Fyodor Kuzmich who wrote books, but other Golubchiks. Fyodor Kuzmich, Glorybe, must have seen this Demon, painted by a Golubchik named Vrubel, and he just up and tore the picture out of the book. So that's what he's like: dinky but daring. It was sad, somehow: he had deceived Benedikt, set him up, taken him for a fool.

After these books Benedikt started dreaming in color, and his heart pounded. It was all big green hills, covered with green-grass, and a road, and Benedikt was running along the road on light feet, amazed at how easy it was to run. And there were trees on the hills, and their shadows were lacy and fleet: the sun played through the leaves, danced on the greengrass. He ran and laughed: it's so easy to run, I want to tell someone! But there wasn't anyone, everyone was hiding. That's all right: they'll come out in time and laugh together with Benedikt! He didn't know where he was running, only that someone was waiting for him happily, someone wanted to praise him: Good boy, Benedikt, good boy!

He dreamt he knew how to fly. Not very high, and not for long, but still, he was flying. This was on a road too, but it was dark. And warm. It must be summer. Benedikt seemed to be dressed in white pants and a white shirt. And somehow he just knew that if he pushed off the ground with his feet, and then arched his back like this, and waved his arms to the side like a frog, that he could float in the air for about ten yards. Then that power seemed to dry up, and he pushed off again, and floated again. Benedikt showed someone and explained. You see how simple it is, just arch your back, point your stomach to the ground, and do this with your arms, there, like that. Then he'd wake up-and what a pity: he had known how to fly, and now he'd forgotten.

Once he dreamt that his tail had grown back ornate and patterned, all white, like the tail of the Princess Bird. He looked over his shoulder and gazed at his tail… It was dark and cool in the room and the window was low. The light of the morning sun hit the window and the white feathers, splintering into tiny rainbows, sparkling splotches. He would fan out his tail and gather it up again, and watch how the sparks played on the white feathers, as though they were made of fluffy, flying snow. He liked this tail so much, so much-he'd like to squat and jump through the window onto a branch right now, and walk along the branch: ko-ko-ko. Only the tail ached a little bit, and it was hard to walk with it. Then he was no longer by the window, but going down a staircase, the tail rustling behind him, bumping along the stairs, stiff and cold, and even fuller than before. Benedikt went into a room where the family was waiting for him. They're sitting at the table and watching… They're creeping around in lapty. And they look at him so sternly, judging, angry. Benedikt looks too and sees he's naked. He forgot to put his pants on, or he lost them or something. It's time to eat. So he sits down at the table and wants to cover his privates with his tail. He tries this way, and that, but nothing works because the tail's too short. How could that be? Just now it was so long it thumped on the stairs, and suddenly it's too short. He reached for it with his hands, turned his head, and looked at it under his arms. It wasn't the same tail anymore. It was dark and speckled, and the feathers stuck to his hands: he touched them and they fell off…

You dream the strangest things, but who knows what to think about all these dreams? When he'd looked at all the books with pictures, he started on the others. In the beginning his eyes couldn't follow the Oldenprint letters, they jumped around. Then they got used to it, like it was the way things ought to be. As if Benedikt had been reading forbidden books his whole life! At first he grabbed anything and everything, but then he decided to put them in order. To count up everything. He piled all the books on the floor and rearranged them his own way. At first he arranged them by color: yellow books in this corner, red books in that corner. That wasn't quite right. Then he organized them by size: big ones over there, little ones over here. He didn't like that either. Why? Because every book said who wrote it on the cover. Jules Verne, for instance. He wrote a big brown book, and a little blue one. How can you stick them in different corners? They should be together. Then he tripped up: there are books called journals, and more than one Golubchik wrote in them, maybe ten of them, and each wrote something different. These journals need to be together too, by numbers: first number one, then two, then-but what's this?-it should be number three, but there isn't any three, the next one is seven. What happened? It's gone! That's upsetting. Maybe it's around here somewhere, he'll find it later. There's all kinds of journals, and they have wonderful names. Some make sense and others don't. Take Star, for instance, that's clear. You'd have to be a complete idiot not to understand that one. But then there's Cadries, and what is "Cadries"? It must be a mistake, it should probably be "Cadres." That's what Teterya calls girls he meets on the street. Benedikt brewed some ink from rusht, whittled himself a writing stick, and fixed everything. There was a lot about girls written in that journal, it was true.

Then there's Questions of Literature. Benedikt took a look at it: no questions at all, only answers. The issue with questions must have got lost. Too bad.

There's a journal called Potatoes and Vegetables, with pictures. And there's At the Wheel. Siberian Lights. There's one called Syntaxis, which seems like a bad word, but who knows what it means. It must be a cuss word. Benedikt skimmed it: there you go, there are cuss words in it. He put it to one side: interesting. He'd have to read it before going to bed.