The Slynx by Tatyana Tolstaya Read Free Book Online

own--he's cozy. His eyes are different. You just look at him and you can see he wants to eat. You can feel his stomach grumbling. One of your own is almost like you.
    Varvara Lukinishna sighs. "I see they're not gutting the mice."
    "They say there's not enough people to do the job."
    "I understand, but still. Come and visit me, Benedikt, I'll treat you to some good soup."
    "Thank you, Varvara Lukinishna. I'll definitely do that sometime."
    Poor thing, that cockscomb just sticks straight out of her eye. Hard to look at it.
    "I've been meaning to ask you, Benedikt. I'm copying poems by Fyodor Kuzmich, Glorybe. And I keep coming across the word 'steed,' 'steed.' What is a steed, do you know?"
    Benedikt thought for a moment. Then another. His face even reddened from the effort. How many times he'd written that word himself, and had never thought about it. "It must be a mouse."
    "What makes you think that?"
    "Because 'Don't I take care of you, don't I fill your trough with oats?' That's it, a mouse."
    "Well, then, what about 'The steed races, the earth trembles'?"
    "It must be a big mouse. Once they start running around, you can't get to sleep. You remember, Fyodor Kuzmich, Glorybe, also wrote, 'Life, you're but a mouse's scurry, why do you trouble me?' It's a mouse, that's for sure."
    "Still, it's strange. No, you haven't convinced me."
    Varvara Lukinishna knows a lot of poems by heart. And she's always wanting to understand something. Who can count all the hard words! Someone else would shrug it off, but she needs to understand. Go figure. And she talks like a book. That's the way Mother talked. Or Nikita Ivanich.
    Varvara Lukinishna lives alone. She catches mice, takes them to market, and trades them for booklets. Reads all the time.
    "You know, Benedikt, poetry is everything to me. Our job is pure joy. And I've noticed something. Fyodor Kuzmich, Glory-he, he's different at different times. Do you understand what I mean? It's as though he speaks with different voices."
    "That's what makes him the Biggest Murza, Long May He Live," said Benedikt cautiously.
    "No, that's not what I mean ... I don't know how to explain it, but I can sense it. For example: 'The reed pipe sings upon the bridge, and apple trees do bloom. The angel lifts a single star on high, of greenish hue. And on that bridge it is divine to gaze into those depths, those heights ...' That's one voice. But, say--"
    "On the bridge?" Benedikt interrupted. "That must be Foul Bridge. I know it. I caught worrums there. It really is deep as can he there. Watch out! If you bump your head and topple over, all they'll remember is your name. There'll only be bubbles left. The boards are rotten there too. When they herd the goats over it, one always falls through. I know that place." And he sucked on a bone.
    "No, no, that's not what I mean. Listen: 'In the district where no feet have passed, save assassins' / Your herald the aspen is lipless and hushed, a specter far paler than canvas ...' That's an entirely different voice, you must admit. Entirely different."
    "I know that neighborhood too," cried Benedikt. "That's where Pakhom cracked his skull open."
    Varvara Lukinishna shook her head, looked at the candle, and the blue flame wavered in her only eye.
    "No, no ... I keep reading and reading, and thinking, thinking . . . And I've divided the poems into different categories. And re-sewed the notebooks. And you know what's interesting?"
    "Vasiuk the Earful over there is interested too," said Benedikt. "Huh, look how he's spread out. And you're wasting your time sewing poems back and forth. That's Freethinking."
    "Oh, my God ... Let's go back to work. They'll be ringing the clapper any moment now." Varvara Lukinishna looked around the hut. Rusht smoke was so thick you could cut it with a knife. It hung down blue to the floor. In the corner, Golubchiks who had had their fill were playing thwackers. Two of them had
    already drunk a lot of kvas and lay on the floor. Vasiuk wrote