Read Online The Slynx by Tatyana Tolstaya - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Tatyana Tolstaya
Tags: Fiction, Literary, General, Fantasy, Classics, Literary Criticism, Russian & Former Soviet Union
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or where you are. Who am I?
Who am I?
Ay. Ugh. This is me. I just let things get out of hand for a moment, I almost dropped myself, just barely caught hold .. . Ugh . . . That's what it does, that Slynx, that's what it does with you even from afar, it sniffs you out, senses you, fumbles for you through the distance, through the snowstorm, through the fat log walls. And what if it happened to be nearby?
No, no, I shouldn't think about it, to hell with it, scare it off, I should start laughing or dance a squatting dance like on the May holidays. Sing a loud, happy song.
Ay, tra-la-la, tra-la-la. Ay, tra-la-la-la la! Tra la-la la la! Faldi-rol-fiddle dee faddle. Hey diddle diddle dum dee!
There you go. That's better ... Fyodor Kuzmich, Glorybe,
teaches us that art elevates us. But art for art's sake--that's no good, he says. Art should be connected to life. "My life, or are you just a dream? ..." Maybe ... I don't know.
What do we really know about life? Even if you think hard about it. Who told it to be? Life, that is. Why does the sun roll across the sky, why does the mouse scuttle and scurry, the tree stretch upward, the mermaid splash in the river, the wind smell of flowers? Why do people hit each other over the head with sticks? Why is it that sometimes you don't feel like hitting, but want to go off somewhere in the summer, without roads, without paths, toward the sunrise, where the greengrass grows all around, shoulder high, where the blue rivers play, and above the rivers the golden flies swarm, the branches of unknown trees hang down to the water, and on those branches, white as white can be, sits the Princess Bird. And her eyes take up half her face, and her mouth is human, red. And she's so beautiful, that fancy Princess Bird, that she can't get over herself. Her body's covered with lavish, delicate white feathers, and she's got a tail seven yards wide that hangs like a braided net, like lacy goosefoot. The Princess Bird turns her head this way and that, admiring herself, kissing her lovely self all over. And no one in his life has ever been harmed by that white bird. And no one ever will be. Amen.
ZELO
Rich people are called rich because they live rich.
Take Varsonofy Silich, a Greater Murza. He's in charge of all the Warehouses. He decides when to have a Warehouse Day, whose turn it is, and what to hand out.
Varsonofy Silich has a governmental turn of mind, and he looks that way too: he's a blubbery sight, even for a Murza. If you took six Golubchiks and tied them together, it wouldn't even make for half of Varsonofy Silich, no, it wouldn't!
His voice is deep, rough, and kind of slow. For instance, you might need to tell the workers that on the Sunday before the May Holiday they have to open the Central Warehouse and hand out half a pood of goosefoot bread to the Golubchiks, and two skeins of uncolored thread. Some other simpler fellow would just open his mouth, say what he had to say, and close it again till next time.
But that wouldn't be the governmental approach to things, and no one would listen to him. Someone who talked that way wouldn't be a Murza.
But Varsonofy Silich does it like he's supposed to: in the morning he calls in the Lesser Murzas and the Warehouse Workers, and starts: "D-i-s-t-r-i-b-u-t-e ..." But what exactly they're supposed to distribute he doesn't get to until evening because he doesn't like to give away official goods.
And how could you? You give one Golubchik a half pood, and then you have to go and give one to his wife, and one to the kids, and to the old, blind, limping grandma and grandpa, and to all the relatives or workers in every household. Don't you have to feed the Degenerators?--yes, you have to. In the Central Settlement alone there's at least a thousand izbas, you can count 'em, and if you take all of Fyodor-Kuzmichsk, the whole town will want to be fed, and well, you couldn't ever save up enough for everyone!
And don't you want to eat too? And your family? And
Who am I?
Ay. Ugh. This is me. I just let things get out of hand for a moment, I almost dropped myself, just barely caught hold .. . Ugh . . . That's what it does, that Slynx, that's what it does with you even from afar, it sniffs you out, senses you, fumbles for you through the distance, through the snowstorm, through the fat log walls. And what if it happened to be nearby?
No, no, I shouldn't think about it, to hell with it, scare it off, I should start laughing or dance a squatting dance like on the May holidays. Sing a loud, happy song.
Ay, tra-la-la, tra-la-la. Ay, tra-la-la-la la! Tra la-la la la! Faldi-rol-fiddle dee faddle. Hey diddle diddle dum dee!
There you go. That's better ... Fyodor Kuzmich, Glorybe,
teaches us that art elevates us. But art for art's sake--that's no good, he says. Art should be connected to life. "My life, or are you just a dream? ..." Maybe ... I don't know.
What do we really know about life? Even if you think hard about it. Who told it to be? Life, that is. Why does the sun roll across the sky, why does the mouse scuttle and scurry, the tree stretch upward, the mermaid splash in the river, the wind smell of flowers? Why do people hit each other over the head with sticks? Why is it that sometimes you don't feel like hitting, but want to go off somewhere in the summer, without roads, without paths, toward the sunrise, where the greengrass grows all around, shoulder high, where the blue rivers play, and above the rivers the golden flies swarm, the branches of unknown trees hang down to the water, and on those branches, white as white can be, sits the Princess Bird. And her eyes take up half her face, and her mouth is human, red. And she's so beautiful, that fancy Princess Bird, that she can't get over herself. Her body's covered with lavish, delicate white feathers, and she's got a tail seven yards wide that hangs like a braided net, like lacy goosefoot. The Princess Bird turns her head this way and that, admiring herself, kissing her lovely self all over. And no one in his life has ever been harmed by that white bird. And no one ever will be. Amen.
ZELO
Rich people are called rich because they live rich.
Take Varsonofy Silich, a Greater Murza. He's in charge of all the Warehouses. He decides when to have a Warehouse Day, whose turn it is, and what to hand out.
Varsonofy Silich has a governmental turn of mind, and he looks that way too: he's a blubbery sight, even for a Murza. If you took six Golubchiks and tied them together, it wouldn't even make for half of Varsonofy Silich, no, it wouldn't!
His voice is deep, rough, and kind of slow. For instance, you might need to tell the workers that on the Sunday before the May Holiday they have to open the Central Warehouse and hand out half a pood of goosefoot bread to the Golubchiks, and two skeins of uncolored thread. Some other simpler fellow would just open his mouth, say what he had to say, and close it again till next time.
But that wouldn't be the governmental approach to things, and no one would listen to him. Someone who talked that way wouldn't be a Murza.
But Varsonofy Silich does it like he's supposed to: in the morning he calls in the Lesser Murzas and the Warehouse Workers, and starts: "D-i-s-t-r-i-b-u-t-e ..." But what exactly they're supposed to distribute he doesn't get to until evening because he doesn't like to give away official goods.
And how could you? You give one Golubchik a half pood, and then you have to go and give one to his wife, and one to the kids, and to the old, blind, limping grandma and grandpa, and to all the relatives or workers in every household. Don't you have to feed the Degenerators?--yes, you have to. In the Central Settlement alone there's at least a thousand izbas, you can count 'em, and if you take all of Fyodor-Kuzmichsk, the whole town will want to be fed, and well, you couldn't ever save up enough for everyone!
And don't you want to eat too? And your family? And
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