The Slynx

And it really did go away. And Father did find the Olden-print book and burn it after all. He wasn't as afraid of the contagion as he was of the Saniturions, may they remain nameless at night.

Because they take you away and treat you, and after treatment people don't come back. No one ever comes back.

It's scary to think about. You walk down the street and suddenly there's a whistle and a whoaing. The Red Sleigh rushes by, with six Degenerators hitched to it. And whatever you're wearing, a caftan or a padded jacket, or a shirt in summer-you fling yourself to the side, into the snowdrifts or mud, cover your head with your hands, and shrink back: Lord, let them pass! Save me! You'd like to hide in the ground, disappear into the clay, become a blind worrum-just don't take me! Not me, not me, not me, not me!…

And they come closer and the clatter grows louder-here they are! There's heat and whistles, and the six Degenerators wheeze, and clods of mud fly up from the ru

I'm not ill, I'm not ill, no, no, no. No, no, don't let the Saniturions come, no, no, no. God forbid, God forbid, no, no, no.

YEST

When kitty died, there was no one to catch mice. You won't catch too many with bare hands. Of course science doesn't stand still, it just keeps inventing things. Benedikt would sometimes make loops, noose traps. He'd twist threads into a stiff string, rub it good and well with mouse lard, wind a special loop on one end so that it would slide, try it out on his finger-and he was off to the hunt. Our floors are all cracked and gaping, not so much on account of being poor, but so it's easier for the mice to come out. Come on out now, little critters!

I have seen you, little mouse, Ru

They say that the rich Golubchiks who have tall, painted terems two stories high-Murzas, for instance, or someone who has grown fat from a dishonest life-those ones have all the cracks stuffed up so there's no draft even in the deepest winter. And how do they get their food? They've got special serfs sitting in the cellars, and those serfs are trained to attack mice. That's all they know how to do. People say they sit there in the cellars day in and day out in the pitch dark, but they can see like it's high noon. They can't even come out into the light, they'd go blind right off, and their mice-catching days would be over. Who knows? Could be.

But we're simple folk, we lie down on the floor on our bellies, stick the noose in a crack and give it a tug. Mice are stupid critters. They're curious: what is that noose doing over there? And they'll stick their heads right in the loop and then: whoop! You give it a jerk.

Fyodor Kuzmich, Glorybe, made a scientific invention for us. The mouse trap. Well, people do have those too, but they just stand there idle. You have to put a piece of food in the mouse trap for it to work, otherwise the mice aren't interested and won't go near it. Thieves, on the other hand, are very interested. As soon as you've left home, a thief will find out that you have food lying about, and he'll come take a look. He'll clean you out of house and home and won't even say thank you.

That's just what thieves do: they take everything. Meat, noodles, nuts, goosebread, marshrooms, if you've got them saved up -everything. But they don't take rusht. There's plenty of it everywhere. You have to be a real lazybones not to have enough rusht! True, if it's really good rusht, dry and fluffy-then they might go after it. They might take the rusht too.

You can understand a thief. Here he is, walking through the village and he sees the izba door is closed with a stick. The owners aren't home. They're out, but there might be some rabbit meat in the izba. Mightn't there? It is possible, isn't it? Yes indeed, there might! Maybe the owner managed to hit a rabbit with a rock, or maybe he traded eggs or horsetail with his neighbors. Maybe he's got a knack for catching rabbits! The idea gets into your head and stays there. If you walk on by you'll never know. You can't help taking a peek. So the thief goes in, looks around. If he guessed right and there's meat-he'll take it. If not, he gets mad that there isn't any and he'll take whatever he can find, even worrums. And once he's pinched one thing, what's to hold him back? The izba's already been burgled, he figures, and so he'll go and clean the place out.

But Benedikt doesn't have anything to steal. He doesn't keep provisions, he eats what he catches. All that's there is a full trunk of rusht.

What's so good about rusht? Well, it's good for all sorts of things. You can smoke it, and drink it, and make ink out of it, and dye threads with it if someone wants to embroider a cloth. It makes good mead, especially when winter's coming. You can use it to keep the house warm by sticking it between the logs to fill the cracks. Some people have tried to cover the roof with it, but that doesn't work. The bunches are round and stiff-it just falls apart. Straw is good for a roof. If you're rich, you can use wood planks.

You can find rusht in the bog. On weekends everyone grabs a basket as soon as it's light and sets off in different directions. Benedikt found a good place. Nikita Ivanich put up a post there that says "Garden Ring." There's no ring of course, just izbas in rows. The town ends there. And right beyond the izbas there's a bog full of rusht. More than you can pick. Even the locals won't shoo you away; other Golubchiks would beat you up for going near their place, but these people don't care. So you hurry along just after dawn, in winter it's murky, red, and blows cold.

From the dawn a luxurious cold Pierces the garden.

Just like Fyodor Kuzmich wrote.

We don't have gardens, of course, only maybe a Murza might, but the part about the cold-that's true enough. It goes straight through you. Benedikt's felt boots have thi

They're just cutting off their noses to spite their faces. What can they say in Cockynork? Our language is handier any way you look at it: you can sit down, talk things over, discuss them: such and such and thus and so. And everything's clear as day.

The Cockynorks are just plain stubborn and that's all there is to it. Some say that their noses get in their way; that they'd be happy to sit down and chat in our language, except for their noses. Their noses practically touch the ground-it's really fu

When our people don't have anything to do, they sometimes get together in the evening at the Cockynork settlement, climb up on the fence, look all around, and laugh. Hey, Cockynorks, how come your noses are hanging down? Trying to smell your shoes? We'll wipe your noses for you! They run out and they're all mad. It's so fu