Tatyana Tolstaya - The Slynx

Sniffling, Benedikt sat at the table, took a piece of birch bark, and turned it around. We need an idol… He squeezed the writing stick-he hadn't held it for so long-and dipped it in the ink. An idol. But how to draw one…

… He drew a bent head. Around the head-curls: scritch scratch, scritch scratch. Kind of like the letter S, technically, "Slovo." All right… A long nose. Straight. A face. Sideburns on the sides. Fill them in so they're thicker. Dot, dot-and you've got the eyes. The elbow goes here. Six fingers. Squiggle squaggle squiggle all around: that's supposed to be a caftan.

It looks like him.

He stuck the idol in her hands.

He stood there and looked at her.

Suddenly it was as if something broke through his chest, burst, exploded like a barrel of kvas: he started to sob, he shook, he gulped and gasped, he howled-was he remembering Mother? His life? Springtimes gone by? Islands in the sea? Un-traveled roads? A white bird? Nighttime dreams? Go on and ask, no one will answer!… He blew his nose and put on his hat.

Yes! That's right. So what did I come here for? Oh, the book!… Where does she have the book? Benedikt got down on all fours and looked under the bed, holding the candle. There's that box. He pulled it out and rifled around in it-women's junk, nothing valuable. No book. He looked some more-nothing, just the usual garbage. He put his hand under and felt around. Nothing.

He looked on the stove. Nothing…

Behind the stove. Nothing.

Under the stove. Nothing.

In the closet-he held the candle up-just rusht. With a deft hand he grabbed the hook-it's so much easier with a hook- and poked everything. Nothing.

Perhaps the table, a drawer of some kind-no, nothing. A stool-does it have a false bottom? No. He stood, looking over the izba with his eyes: the shed! He ran outside into the shed with the candle: nothing. She didn't have a bathhouse, there was no one to start the fire. He went back into the izba.

The mattress! He stuck his hands under Varvara. It was awkward, she got in the way. He felt the whole mattress, but she got in the way. He dragged her off onto the floor. He felt the mattress and pillow, poked them with the hook; he checked the blanket with hurried fingers, and the quilt of crow feathers. Nothing.

The attic!!! Where was the hatch? Over there. He climbed up on the stool. Hurrying, he bumped Varvara, and the idol fell out of her hands. He bent over, stuck it back somewhere in her middle.

There was nothing in the attic. Only torn strips of moonlight coming in through the dormer window.

It should be closed: it's a leap year, you never know…

The moon shone, the wind blew, the clouds scudded across the sky, the trees swayed. The air smelled of water. Spring again, was it? And the emptiness, the meaninglessness, and some kind of scurrying-sticks of hay fell from the ceiling, the roof was drying out. No, something else.

Ah-the mice. The mice were scurrying. She has mice in her izba. Hickory dickory dock. "Life, you're but a mouse's scurry…"

Who cares about her charming hands! Who needs her bed's warm heat Come on, brother, let's retreat, Let's soar above the sands!

… Benedikt returned to the sleigh. The Degenerator looked at him questioningly. Benedikt stuck out his leg and kicked him. He kicked Terenty Petrovich until his foot was numb.

There's a good rule: Don't let a pig into the house, he'll get used to it. The dog in the yard likes the doghouse just fine. Let him stay there and guard his master.

If some Golubchik takes pity on him and lets him into the house for the winter-"Oh, the poor mutt is freezing," or something like that-the dog will never go back to the doghouse, it has already taken a fancy to life in the izba. As soon as you turn around, it will weasel its way back in.

It's a scientific rule, true for all creatures. The same for Degenerators. Where is the Degenerator's place? In the sty. Because he's a pig and swine should stay in the pigpen, the very name tells you that.

Take Teterya, for instance: he was let in people's houses a couple of times. First Nikita Ivanich got out of line, sat him down at the table, and asked his opinions about things. Then Benedikt had to call him in at Varvara's that time-out of spiritual distress, he forgot himself. So the Degenerator developed a taste for it, and now he rushed in whenever he could.

At first he looked for excuses to help carry something, open the door, pay Mother-in-law or Olenka compliments. Then he started coming to the kitchen with his advice. You know, he'd say, I have a first-class recipe for drying marshrooms. Marshrooms, no less! We've been drying marshrooms since the time of Tsar Gorokh, we're still drying them, and will be drying them until the Last Days come! You just string them up on a thread and dry them! Nothing science can add to it!

Then he pretended that he wanted to hear Father-in-law's instructions: how to put on the sleigh bells so that they ring louder, so that there was more sound from them when you ride. What songs it was best to sing along the way: merry or melancholy. Then, before you knew it, he was the senior Degenerator, and he started shouting out orders himself: Hey, clean up that dung over there. Next thing he was making himself at home in the house. All you heard was: Terenty Petrovich this, Terenty Petro-vich that.

Benedikt was furious. He stomped, he pleaded, he shamed, he argued, he threatened, he dragged Teterya around by the sleeve. No, Benya, leave him be, what would we do without Terenty Petrovich? He fetches, and carries, and entertains, and whips up a great potato casserole, and compliments rosy cheeks and white face paint too.

He'd see Olenka in her curlers, slathered in sour cream, and would say, as if to himself, like he couldn't help it: "Holy Toledo! What a beautiful woman!"

He'd drive the sleigh with a whistle and a song; he braided the reins, decorated the harness strap with birch pictures; he fastened a picture of an idol right in the middle-a fellow with mustaches on both sides; to the right a naked woman with tits, to the left a sign: "Terenty Petrovich Golovatykh: at your service." He invited Olenka to admire it, and Olenka immediately said: "That's it, Benedikt. This is my sleigh! You take another one." Benedikt spat, but he gave her the sleigh and Teterya with it-he was so mad he didn't even feel like kicking him.

Benedikt was given a Degenerator named Joachim, an old man who wheezed and coughed: everything in his chest squealed and bleated, rattled and whistled; he could barely drag his legs along. He'd drive the length of two fences and stop: "Oh, Lord Almighty, heavenly queen… Our sins weigh heavy… If only the Lord would call me to him…"

And he'd cough… with a rattle, a wet cough; then he'd clear his throat and spit; not even the whip could get him going until he'd spat out everything.

"Heavenly mother… and the forty sainted martyrs… you've forgotten me… Oh, saint Nikolai… for my terrible sins…"

"Come on, Grandpa, get a move on! You can spit at home!"

"Oh, why won't death come?… the Lord is wrathful…"

"Let's have a song! A spirited one!"

"Chriiiiist is riiiiisen from the deeeeeeead…"

It was embarrassing: What if someone he knew saw him? Would he start to grin? Hey, looky there, look at Benedikt! What kind of old nag has he got? Where do they find them like that? Or even worse they'd give him a nickname!

And just as he'd feared, that's what happened. He was driving Joachim past the pushkin-he wanted to see how it was holding up-and right at that very moment Nikita Ivanich was climbing up on our be all and end all and untying another laundry line from his neck. He saw the whole shameful thing and sure enough, he shouted: "Benedikt, you should be ashamed of yourself!!! To drive an old man like that!! Just remember whose son you are!!! Polina Mikhailovna's!!! What on earth are you thinking of? You'll get there faster on foot!!!"