While he was walking he didn't forget to think: Just look how well you can do when you put your mind to something. In one night he made enough for a whole table of food. How about that! Now there were sweet rolls to bake, guests to invite. It would be nice to invite Olenka, but if she won't come, then Var-vara Lukinishna, and maybe someone else from work. Barthol-omich would be good, he's a fine storyteller. Ksenia the Orphan, though she's kind of boring and nothing much to look at. What about the neighbors? That's right, invite a dozen or so Golubchiks, sweep the izba, set out candles… No, hire a woman to sweep the floor… Why should he do the bending over? And let the woman bake the sweet rolls too. Pay her with mice. And hire the blind men! That's it! Hire the whole group. A surprise for the guests! They'll drink, eat, dance, and then, maybe, play leapfrog or choker. Not to the death, just halfway. Right. And sweep the crumbs under the floor and a zillion mice will come running again-he'll catch them again-and buy more food-and the food will drop back under the floor again! And more mice- more trading! More and more and more!

Gracious! What would happen? Thataways Benedikt would get so rich that just watch, he wouldn't have to work! That's right! He'd have mice coming out of his ears. He'd start loaning them out for a cut. He'd hire servants to stand guard, and he'd have a bright, tall, two-story house with gewgaws on the roof! He'd have another servant to watch the guards, to make sure they didn't steal anything! And more to watch those! And others to… But he could figure it out later… He'd hire women to cook… And blind singers to play all the time and make music, to entertain Benedikt… He'd build them a little platform in the corner so they could sit there and sing day in and day out… And build a good bathhouse… And have music in the bathhouse too… more blind people. You could listen while you took your bath… And he'd hire a back-scratcher girl to scratch his back… And another to brush his hair and hum songs to him… Well, and what else? That's right! A sleigh! And a wide entrance to the house, and gates that lock… Hey there, serfs, open the gate, the master's home! And they all throw themselves down on the ground. Benedikt's sleigh drives into the yard and right up to the terem… And Olenka, the snow-white swan, comes out of the terem to greet him: Hello, light of my life, Benya, come sit at the table, I've been waiting for you, keeping my eyes peeled.

They made it back to the izba. Ugh… What a vision he'd had… and his little izba wasn't exactly a terem, to put it mildly. The serf put the baskets down in the snow. He laughed. Benedikt unfastened his pay: a string of mice. Disrespect showed on the serf's face, he was sure of it. And right away the conversation went sour.

The serf said: "Who do you serve?"

Benedikt gnashed his teeth. "Serve, what do you mean, serve? I'll give you serve! I'm a state worker. And I don't serve."

The serf replied: "Who's the food for?"

Benedikt: "Who for? Me! I've got my own place! I'm going to eat now!"

The serf: "Yeah, sure. It's all yours."

He took the pay, blew his nose on the snow, right next to Benedikt's boot, and walked off.

What can you expect from a serf? A serf is a serf!!! He should catch him, take back the mice, sock him in the nose, kick him for good measure, for the Freethinking!… The swine!!! Benedikt was about to take off, but he was afraid to leave the baskets alone: Golubchiks had begun coming over to look at the food. Ugh. He spat, and lugged the baskets into the izba.

That rat, that cockroach turd, he hinted that Benedikt wasn't Benedikt, but someone's serf like him, that he didn't buy all that food for himself, but for his master, and his izba wasn't an izba, but a little shack, a cage. Some kind of storage hut… That his dreams were empty. So you want a sleigh for yourself, do you? No, he couldn't leave it be! Catch the bastard quick, give him a kick in the ass. Benedikt ran out on the street and looked around. The serf was gone, like he'd never been there… Maybe he'd just imagined him?

He went back into the cooled, chill twilight of the izba. How time had flown. What with one thing and another, the sun was already setting. He felt the stove: it was cold. But it shouldn't be, right? He opened the damper-so that was it… Thieves had been there. They'd gone and filched his coals. Nothing but cold ash. What can you do…

Suddenly everything was dull and boring. He didn't want any of it anymore. He sat down on the stool. He got up. He opened the door, stood there, leaning against the door jamb. Something sour rose in his chest and he felt weak. It was already dark. The middle of the day and it was evening; that's winter for you. The pale sunsetting sky, tree branches etched against it like you drew them with coals. The nests looked like tangles of hair. A rabbit flitted by. Below, the sad blue of the snow ridges, hillocks, drifts. The dilapidated black pickets of the fence sticking up like an old comb. It was still visible, but when the sunset went out you wouldn't be able to see anything at all in the pitch dark. The stars would come out, their milky, feeble light would pour across the vault of the sky as though someone were mocking him, or didn't care, or these heavenly lights weren't meant for us: What can you see in their dim, dead twinkling! That's it, they're probably not meant for us!…

That's the way it always is! Like someone went and cut a tiny little sliver of boundless nature out for us, for people: here you go, Golubchiks, a little bit of sun, a bit of summer, some tulip flowers, a tiny bit of greengrass, a few small birds thrown in for spare change. And that's enough. But I'll hide all the other creatures, I'll wrap them in the night, cover them in darkness, stick them in the forest and under the ground like a sleeve, I'll bury them, starlight's enough for them, they're just fine. Let them rustle, scamper, squeak, multiply, live their own lives. And you, well, go and catch 'em if you can. You caught some? Eat your fill. And if you didn't, do the best you can.

Benedikt sighed deeply. He even heard his own sigh. There it goes again. A kind of splitting in his head again. Everything was just fine: simple, clear, happy, he was full of all kinds of nice dreams, and then suddenly it was like someone came up behind him and scooped all the happiness out of his head… Like they plucked it out with a claw…

It must be the Slynx, that's what! The Slynx is staring at his back!

Benedikt felt sick with fear from the evil, from the feeling of something rising in his throat. He slammed the door shut without waiting until the sun went down, without inhaling the raw, blue, evening air; he hooked the door in a hurry, shut the bolt; slipped in the dank dark of the izba on the curds he had bought; and even forgot to cuss. He made it to the bed and lay down quickly, his legs numb.

His heart was pounding. The Slynx… that's what it was. That's what. Not any of this feelosophy. The old saying is right: the Slynx is staring at your back!

It's out there, in the branches, in the northern forests, in the impenetrable thickets-it wails, turns, sniffs, lifts one paw at a time, flattens its ears, picks… and it has chosen!… Softly, like a terrible, invisible Kitty, it jumps from the branches, treading delicately, crawling under the storm kindling, under the heaps of sticks and thorny branches, leaping over the gray, overgrown moss, the dry rot piled up by blizzards! Crawling and leaping, lithe and long; it turns its flat head from side to side so's not to miss or lose the trail: far away in a poor izba, on the bed, filled with blood warm as kvas, Benedikt lies and trembles, staring at the ceiling.

Closer and closer to the house… Out there where snow blankets the land, dusts the ravines, where the blizzard stands like a wall, where a snowy whirlwind rises from the fields, there it is: it flies in the blankets of snow, twists in the blizzard! Its paws won't leave a trace on the snow, it won't frighten a single courtyard dog, nor trouble any household creatures!