The Slynx by Tatyana Tolstaya Read Free Book Online Page A

down their names.
    "This restaurant is rather noisy," said Varvara Lukinishna, sighing. " 'I sat by the window in a crowded ballroom, while the bows in the background sang about love ...' What do you think bows are?"
    "Some kind of fast women?"
    "No .. . You know, I so long to talk about art... Come visit me. Really, do come!"
    "All right, I'll drop by sometime," said Benedikt unwillingly. If she weren't so ugly, he'd be happy to, of course. Take a steam bath and then go visiting. But in this case--there's plenty of time.
    Maybe if he squinted it wouldn't be so bad. She was a nice woman. And she'd feed him soup. Then again, all of these conversations unsettled Benedikt.
    Everyone had gathered in the Work Izba, but Olenka wasn't there. Benedikt waited, chewed on his writing stick. She wasn't coming. That happened sometimes: she was there before lunch, but didn't come in the afternoon. That must be the way it had to be. None of his business. But it made things boring.
    He sat down to work on a new fairy tale, "The Gingerbread Man." What a funny story. This Gingerbread Man ran from a husband, he ran from a wife, and from a bear and a cow. He ran all on his lonesome through the forest, singing little ditties: "Run, run, as fast as you can, you can't catch me, I'm the Gingerbread Man." Benedikt was happy for the Gingerbread Man. He laughed. His mouth hung open as he wrote.
    But when he got to the last line, his heart skipped a beat. The Gingerbread Man died. The fox gobbled him up! Benedikt even set his writing stick down and looked at the scroll. The Gingerbread Man died. Such a jolly little fellow. Singing songs. Enjoying life. And then--he was gone. Why?
    Benedikt swallowed and looked around the izba. Everyone was writing, leaning over. The candles flickered. The bear bladders on the windows let in a bluish light. It was evening already. A storm was probably coming. It would sweep the snow into high drifts, whistle through the streets, bury the izbas up to the
    windows. The high trees would moan in the northern forests, the Slynx would come out of the woods, head for the town, hiss sadly, wail mournfully: Slyyyyynx! Slyyyynx! And the snowy wind would rage over the village, whirl over the terems, carrying the wild plaint into the distance.
    Benedikt imagined himself sitting on the stove as a child, his boots hanging down and a blizzard carousing outside the window. The bluish mouse-oil candle crackled, shadows danced on the ceiling, Mother was sitting by the windowsill, embroidering a bed curtain or a towel with colored threads. Kitty crawled out from underneath the stove, soft, fuzzy, and jumped on Bene-dikt's lap. Mother doesn't like Kitty: if he claws her skirt she always brushes him off. Says she can't stand to look at his bare pink tail, the trunk on his face. And she doesn't like his pink, childlike fingers either. It seems these animals were completely different when she was young. So what, a lot of things have changed! If not for Kitty, who would catch so many mice for them, and where would they get lard for candles? And Benedikt loves him. If you reach out your finger, he'll grab it with his little hands and purr.
    Mother supposedly had an Oldenprint book. But she kept it hidden. Because, they say, they're contagious. So Benedikt hadn't ever touched it or even seen it, and Mother strictly forbade him to talk about it, as if it didn't exist.
    Father wanted to burn it. He was afraid. Some kind of Illness came from them, God forbid, God forbid.
    And if it came, then the Red Sleigh would come.
    And in the sleigh would be the Saniturions, may they remain nameless at night. They fly about in Red Sleighs, knock on wood, in red robes and hoods, slits where their eyes should be, and you can't see their faces, knock on wood.
    And there's Benedikt sitting on the stove, and Mother embroidering, and the blizzard wailing outside the window, and the candle flares a bit, like the flickering lights above swamp rusht, and it's dark in the