He burst into tears and moved aside.

"Very well put, Nikita Ivanich. We thank you. Lev Lvovich, please step forward on behalf of the Dissidents," announced Viktor Ivanich.

A thin, curly-headed Golubchik stood up. He grimaced. Clasped his hands over his belly. Rocked gently from heel to toe. "Ladies and gentlemen, this is symbolic: the world may perish, but the meat grinder is indestructible. The meat grinder of history. And here I beg to differ with the representative from the Monument Preservation Society," he said, grimacing again. "A meat grinder, ladies and gentlemen. With attachments. The grinder hasn't changed. Only the attachments have changed. There was no freedom back then, nor is there now. And note the saddest thing, ladies and gentlemen. How deep rooted this is. In the people's mind. Instructions for tightening the screws. The eternal rotation of levers and blades. Let us remember Dostoevsky: 'The whole world may perish, but I want to drink tea.' Or grind meat. Cannon fodder, ladies and gentlemen. In this hour I have a bitter taste in my mouth. We have already been ground to bits. And they want to do it some more. I won't even mention the present economic situation: we're all freezing. I simply wish to draw your attention to this: yes, a meat grinder. Devised long ago by the slaves of the Third Rome. By slaves! And there are no Xeroxes!"

"Very well said, Lev Lvovich. We thank you. On behalf of the female community?… Lily Pavlovna?"

Benedikt didn't bother to listen to the woman; he squatted on a mound and waited for them to finish. It started to freeze. The surface of the clay, stirred up by many feet, began to ice over, and a fine snow was blowing. Spring just wouldn't stick, just wouldn't hang on. It'd be nice to go into the warmth and stretch out on the bed. And for Olenka to bring him pancakes and hot kvas. Olenka! Indescribable beauty! A little scary to marry such beauty! Her braid is long. Her eyes are bright… Her little face is egg-shaped, like a triangle. Plump, but maybe that's all the warm clothes wrapped around her. Her fingers are thin. If only the May Holiday would come… She could sit at the window and embroider, and Benedikt would admire her all the livelong day.

Meanwhile, the Oldeners talked, cried, sang something melancholy, buried their old woman, and had begun to go their separate ways. Nikita Ivanich, sniffing, sat down next to Benedikt, opened his pouch, stuffed some rusht into a leaf and rolled it up, one for him, one for Benedikt. He puffed out a little flame and they lit up.

"What did she die of, Nikita Ivanich?"

"I don't know, Benya. Who can tell?"

"She ate something, or what?"

"Ah, Benya!…"

"Nikita Ivanich, I'm thinking of getting married."

"That's good. But aren't you young to be getting married?"

"Nikita Ivanich! I'm in my third decade!"

"That's true… But I wanted to get you involved in something… As old friends…"

"What is it? Putting up pillars and posts?"

"Even better… I want to erect another monument to Pushkin. On Strastnoi Boulevard. We buried Anna Petrovna, and I thought… by association, you know… He had his Anna Petrovna, we had our Anna Petrovna… A fleeting vision… Whatever passes shall be sweet… You have to help me."

"What kind of monument?"

"How can I explain it? We'll carve a figure out of wood, life size. A handsome fellow. Thoughtful. His head bowed, his hand on his heart."

"The way you bow to Murzas?"

"No… The way you listen: What is in the offing? What has passed us by? Hand on heart. Like this. Is it beating? Yes? Then I here's life still there."

"Who is Pushkin? From around here?"

"A genius. He died. Long ago."

"He ate something bad?"

"Good Lord Almighty!… Lord forgive me, but what a dim-witted oaf you are, and Polina Mikhailovna's son to boot! How-over, I must take some of the blame, I should have taken you under my wing long ago. Well, now I'll have something to do in my old age. We'll fix everything. You have a good profession, no? You're well read, is that right?"

"I read well, Nikita Ivanich! I love to read. I love art. I adore music."

"Music. Hmm, yes. I loved Brahms."

"I love a good brahms too. That's for sure."

"How could you know?" asked the old man, surprised.

"What do you mean! Ha! Semyon, you see-you know Sem-yon, right? He has an izba on Rubbish Pond? Next to Ivan Bee-fich? Like this-Ivan Beefich's izba, and there's Semyon's, you know? On the right, where the big ditch is?"

"All right, all right, what about this Semyon?"

"Well, when he has his fill of kvas, he plays loud music. He turns buckets and pots upside down, and hits them with sticks- broompah, broompah, broompah-pah, and then he hits the bottom of a barrel-whack-and it makes a big brrrahms!"

"Right…" sighed Nikita Ivanich.

They sat in silence and smoked. It was nice to think about music. And singing… He should ask Semyon to the wedding. The wind gusted and blew down some more fine snow.

"Well, should we go, Nikita Ivanich?… Or else my tail is gonna freeze stiff."

"What tail?"

"What do you mean, what tail? A plain old tail, the kind that grows on your backside."

NASH

How do you like that! Man proposes, God disposes. Halfway through my earthly life, I awoke in a twilit forest! Having strayed from the path in the darkness of the valley! There I was, living my life, enjoying the sun, gazing in sorrow at the stars, smelling the flowers, dreaming lovely dreams, and suddenly- what a blow! What a drama! A crying shame and a drama- nothing this really terrible has probably ever happened to anybody, not even the Gingerbread Man!

Benedikt had lived his whole life proudly: fine and fit as a fiddle he was. He knew it himself, and people said so. You can't see your own face, of course, unless you pour water in a bowl, light a candle, and look in. Then you can sort of see something. But his body was right there in plain sight. Arms, legs, belly button, nipples, private parts, here are all the fingers on his hands and there are the toes on his feet-and all without any defect. And what's in back? His backside, of course, and on his backside-a little tail. And now Nikita Ivanich says people don't and shouldn't have tails! What? What is it then, a Consequence?

Of course, there was a time when Benedikt didn't have a tail. In childhood his backside was smooth. But when he started growing and his male strength began to show, his tail began to grow too. Benedikt thought that was the way it should be. That's the difference between a man and a woman, that on him every-thing grows on the outside, and in her everything grows inside. His beard and the hair on his body didn't grow at first either, but then they came in real handsome.

He was proud of his tail! A well-formed little tail, white and strong, about as long as your palm or a little longer. If Benedikt was pleased, or feeling happy, it would wag back and forth. What else was it supposed to do? And if he felt a sudden fear or sadness come over him, then his tail would kind of lay low, flat down. You could always tell from your tail what mood you were in. And so how is it that now it turns out it's not normal? All wrong? Holy moly! Maybe his privates-his pudential, in book talk-are also wrong? Take a look, Nikita Ivanich!

Nikita Ivanich examined Benedikt and he looked kind of dejected. No, he said, your privates are just fine, handsome and healthy, there's only one set, and anybody would be happy to have one like that. But your tail is completely superfluous. I'm rather surprised that someone like you, a dreamer and a neu-rotic, didn't catch on earlier. I always told you not to eat so many mice! Let me amputate it for you right now. That means that I'll get an ax and chop it off. Whack!