The Slynx

RTSY

Father-in-law has a huge menagerie, almost a whole street, cages and pens running down both sides. First there's a big shed, and in that shed a stable, and in the stable Degenerators. Hairy, black-yikes. All the fur on their sides is matted. Nasty faces. Some scratch their sides on the fence branches, some guzzle swill from jugs, others chew hay, some sleep, and three in the corner play birch cards and quarrel.

"Are you bonkers, lead with a diamond?"

"You shut up!"

"Oh, so that's it. Here's a stud fer ya."

Father-in-law didn't like it, he scratched the floor.

"Card games again, is it? And the stalls haven't been cleaned!"

The Degenerators don't give a hoot.

"Don't freak, boss. Everything's hunky-dory. Ycur play, Val-era."

"Ha. Trump you."

Father-in-law swore and led Benedikt further on.

"Swine… Lazy so and sos… I'll give you Terenty, son, he'll be quieter. Only watch out, don't overfeed him. I wanted to give you Potap, but he's skittish. Chews on the bit, insults you… So… Here are the goats. I keep these for meat. Those are for wool. They make a fine jersey, very warm. Women like them."

"What's a jersey?"

"A knitted thing. Here are our chickens. I built an outdoor cage here, I keep rabbits."

"How about that!"

Benedikt craned his neck. There it was: a cage of woven sticks, tall as could be. A whole tree grew in the cage and on the very top was a nest, and in the nest, there they were, rabbits. One stuck his tail out and wagged it like he was teasing. Benedikt didn't have anything to wag anymore. And his sitting bone ached… On and on, cages and more cages… His father-in-law walked along, pointing left and right.

"Here we got some curiosities. All kinds of animals. We don't go hungry here. I got bird catchers sitting in the forest all day long, they bring back full snares. Sparrows and nightingales are good in pies. My wife, Fevronia, she fancies them. You can't eat every single kind of bird, of course. First we try 'em out on the serfs. One time they caught a tiny little bird, red, beady eyes; it smelled good and had a pretty voice. We wanted to marinate it, but then had second thoughts: Let's feed it to a serf, we decided. He took one bite, fell down on the floor, and kicked the bucket. We laughed so hard! What if it'd been us? Well, there you go! You have to keep an eye on nature."

There's another cage and there's a moss-covered tree in it too, with a hollow.

"What's here? I can't see anything."

"Ah… Here I got a woodsucker."

"You caught a woodsucker?"

"Uh huh. It's in the tree hollow."

"Wow…"

Father-in-law raised the whip he used to keep the Degenerators in line, stuck it through the branches, and knocked on the trunk.

"Woodsucker! Come out! Come out, listen up!"

Silence. It didn't want to come out.

"Come out, you bitch!!" Father-in-law poked the tree hollow with the whip.

And sure enough-it darted out like a shadow, and then hid its head.

"You see it?" said Father-in-law, happy.

"Amazing…" Benedikt said in wonder.

"That's right. We want to use this one for soup. Let's see… What else do we have here?"

In the cages and wicker sheds everything whistled, cackled, and ruffled like some kind of jungle. Over there on a branch a dozen nightingales were lined up like mice. A blue feather flashed by over there, and in the far cages there was another tree, bare, gnawed, with no bark. Something white and rumpled, like a worn sheet with holes in it, hung on a limb of that tree.

"I got some of everything stored up… There you have it, son! Summer, winter-the cup is full. Come on, I'll show you the barns."

He showed Benedikt the barns where the thistledown grain and goosefoot bread were stored, he showed him the fish farms, the gardens. It was a rich, sizable household-no doubt about it. Benedikt had never known such wealth existed. So how's that now-he's sort of like the owner of this property? Great!

It really did turn out well, it'd be a sin to complain. And he had been scared of something… What had he been scared of? It wasn't scary. A friendly family, everyone has meals together. The table is always set wall to wall with dishes, and they eat every last crumb. Benedikt can't keep up with them.

Mother-in-law serves herself more than anyone, of course, or, as Kudeyar Kudeyarich put it, she takes the lead. After her comes Father-in-law, and then Olenka, and Benedikt hangs somewhere at the end of the line. They laugh at him all the time! But in a good-natured way.

And we don't just put everything on our plate at the same time, but in a certain order. First come the pasties. We toss about forty in our mouths, one after the other, one after the other- like peas. Then it's time for pancakes. Can't keep count of the pancakes. Then we snack on ferns. After we've warmed up, we move on to soup. After about five bowls, we say: Aha, now that we've finally worked up an appetite-it's time for the meat. After the meat come the bliny: with sour cream, a dollop of marshrooms, then you roll it up and-Lord bless us! We finish off a whole tray of bliny. Then come all kinds of sweet rolls with powdered firelings, doughnuts, crullers. Then cheese and fruit.

Benedikt didn't want to go near the cheese and fruit. He resisted.

"After sweets? Cheese? What do you mean?"

They laughed at him.

"I told you: my wife, Fevronia, is of French extraction! Didn't we explain that?"

These French sure are out to get you: you eat cheese and your stomach turns and you can say goodbye to your dinner. Even if you eat it first. And gooseberries are a sour fruit, horrible, fuzzy, even worse. You chew and groan: you feel like a goat.

That's dinner. But besides dinner we have other meals: breakfast, midmorning breakfast, snacks, supper-each and every day. And at nighttime you get a bowl of food: you might wake up at night to take a leak or something-and what if your innards are growling from hunger? God forbid.

After eating, you rest. Lie on the bed. Doze. Next to the stove.

Or we might take a ride in the sleigh: in autumn when there's a bit of frost, it's great. In the morning, after you wake up, you open the bladder on the window and look out: what's nature doing? Is winter coming? The air is so fresh, so cold, and the sky's murky white. The first snowflakes, big, white, and jagged, fall on the ground. Slowly at first, just a little bit, or one by one: you can even count them. Then more and more-and then you see they've thickened in the air: first you can't see the fence, then the nearby huts disappear, and when it gets going-you can't see anything at all, only a white net dancing in front of your eyes. And in the dining room it's all clean and warm; the stove crackles and hums, the bed is wide and soft, Olenka has flopped on the bed, the lazybones, she doesn't want to come out from under the covers.

"Come here, Benedikt, let's love it up…"

You hang the window back in place, and jump under the covers with Olenka. After making love, you crawl to the table, have breakfast-and it's into the sleigh with you. The sleigh is wide and soft too: it's lined with fur and piled with feather pillows. And the serfs bring more skins to put on top like blankets. They tuck you into the fur on all sides and you lie there like you're in bed. Mother-in-law runs up with a bowl full of pasty pies: "You might get hungry on the road."

The Degenerator stomps and grumbles.

"What weather!… A good master wouldn't let his dog out in this kind of weather…"

What's the bastard hinting at?

"Come on, Terenty, don't think. Just go. I want to take a ride."

"Been a long time since you walked, eh, chief?"

"How dare you! Come on, get a move on!"

Here's a nasty breed for you: all they want to do is argue, object, and whistle. Benedikt ended up with a lazy cur, a real slacker. He wouldn't race flat out like a whirlwind, the way Benedikt liked. No, he had to prance around putting one foot after the other, whistling and grinning. If a girl passed by he'd even allow himself to make comments: "Whoa, what a voluptuous broad!"

Or: "Now there's a cadre for you!"

Or he'd say to Benedikt: "Maybe we should give them a hay-ride? Hey, baby! Hey, you ginches! Over here!"

He scares people, the swine. And attracts disrespect. Sometimes he just plunks down in the middle of the road and sits there.

"What's going on, Teterya?"

"Some can call me Teterya, and some Terenty Petrovich."

"I'll give you a Petrovich! Get a move on!… Stop. Where the hell're you going?"

"Back to the garage. I'm off duty!"

And he bursts out laughing, the rat.

But all in all, life is good. Everything's all right. Well, almost everything. At night Benedikt would sometimes wake up suddenly, and at first he couldn't understand: Where am I? The room was big, the windows were bright with moonlight, and the moonlight lay in stripes on the floor. Someone snored lightly nearby. Oh, that's right, I'm married. You get up, walk around barefoot, quietly. The floor in the room is warm-that's because we sleep on the second story, and under the floor are stovepipes that warm it. What will they think up next? The floors are smooth, only here and there are little piles Olenka has clawed up. You stand, listening to the silence. It's quiet… Well, Olenka is snuffling, a snore can be heard somewhere far off in the house, someone suddenly cries out in his sleep, but still, it's quiet. And that's because the mice aren't scampering around. There aren't any mice.

At first it was kind of strange. A mouse scurries, life hurries, goes the saying, and poems say the same kind of thing: "Life, you're but a mouse's scurry, why do you trouble me?" " Hickory dickory dock…" "There was a crooked man who walked a crooked mile…" But here-nothing. Benedikt wanted to ask, but it was kind of awkward to ask all kinds of silly questions. There aren't any, so they must have caught them all.

Yes, things are good: it's warm, his stomach's full, his wife is nice and fat. And he's used to his in-laws now, they're not so bad. They have faults, but who's perfect? Everybody's different, isn't that so? Mother-in-law, for instance, she's… well, kind of boring. There's nothing to talk about. All she says is "eat," and "eat." I got it, I got it, I'm eating. I open my mouth, put food in, close it, chew. Now I want to talk about life or art or something.

I chew, and was just about to ask something, when she says: "Why aren't you eating?" I open my mouth again, more food – it's hard to talk with your mouth full-and swallow, in a hurry to say something, and she says, "Why aren't you eating anything? Maybe it isn't tasty? Just tell me."

"No, everything's delicious, I just wanted to-"

"If it's delicious, then eat."

"But I-"

"You don't like our food?"

"No, I didn't-"

"Maybe you're used to delicacies, and you're turning up your nose at our food?"

"We don't have any dainties, of course, we get by with what we have, but if you don't care for our…"

"But-"

"Olenka! Why is he so picky… If he won't taste my cooking, then I just don't know what to feed him!"

"Benya, don't upset Mama, eat…"

"I'm eating, I'm eating!!!"

"You're not eating well enough, then." As soon as the bickering starts, all thought of art, or poems, or anything else, disappears.

Father-in-law is a little different. He really likes to talk. You could even say he wants to talk all the time, so you start thinking: It would be nice if he'd be quiet for a change. He likes to teach and ask questions, like he's testing you. He opens his mouth, takes a few breaths, and starts asking. There's a bad smell from his mouth, it kind of stinks. And he sort of stretches his neck out. Benedikt thought that his collar was tight, but no: his collar is always unbuttoned. It's just a habit. When Benedikt has eaten his full, he sits down by the window to look out-and there's Father-in-law sitting down next to him, ready for a chat.

"So, how about it, son, no thoughts popping up?"

"What thoughts?"

"All kinds of bad thoughts?"

"No, nothing popping up."

"Think about it carefully."

"I can't think. I'm stuffed."

"Maybe you feel like committing some villainy?"

"No, I don't."

"But if you think about it?"

"I still don't."

"Maybe you've planned some homicide?"

"No."

"But if you think about it?"

"No."

"If you're honest about it?"

"For heaven's sake, I told you. No!"

"No dreams of overthrowing the bosses?"

"Listen, I'm going to sleep! I can't take this!"

"And what if you have some murderous dreams?"

Benedikt gets up, goes to his room, slams the door and flops on the bed. Then the door opens noiselessly: Father-in-law pokes his head in.

He whispers, "Haven't thought up any malicious acts against the Big Murza, have you?"

Benedikt doesn't answer.

"Against the Murza, I said?"

Benedikt doesn't answer.

"Hey? No ideas? I'm asking. Son? Hello… son? Against the Murza, I'm asking you, have you dreamt up-"

"No! No! Close the door! I'm sleeping! Don't bother me, what is this? I want to sleep!"

"So, no ideas've popped up, is that it?"

That's how time passes. Eat, sleep, bicker with your relatives. And ride in the sleigh. Look out the window. Everything's just fine, all right-it doesn't get any better. But something is missing. Like you need something else. Only he forgot what.

After the marriage Benedikt didn't need anything at first. For about two weeks, maybe three. Well… four. Maybe five. While he got used to things, had a look around at this and that. But then-it felt like there was something-and it was gone.