He lay down on the bed that had seen so many sighs and groans. He had made himself a serious rut, lying there during all those empty years, those countless, joyless nights. He frowned and thought: If the thing just stayed under the floor that wouldn't be so bad, but what if it comes out and starts chewing up books? Maybe he should spackle the cracks closed? The floor boards had gotten quite thin. The family could scrape up a big heap in a day. Sometimes you'd walk by and it looked like there was a whole head of hair fallen on the floor! You could never tell, that thing might come out from under the floor and head straight for the book room. It would gnaw on the bindings, the spines… There's glue in there. Leather sometimes.

As if he didn't have enough worries, and here… It would eat them up, it would definitely eat them! It needs to eat, right? There are threats to art all around: from people, rodents, the damp! How stupid and blind Benedikt used to be, blind as the blind men at the market: they sing, sing their hearts out, but they live in darkness, for them it's dark at midday! He didn't understand anything back then, like he was a worrum! He asked all kinds of silly questions, frowned, and opened his mouth wide so it was easier to think, but he didn't understand anything.

How come we don't have mice? How come we don't need them? Well, we don't need them because we live a spiritual life: we've got books preserved here, and art, and mice would come out and eat up our treasures! With their tiny, sharp teeth, crunch crunch, nibble nibble, they'd chew them up, ruin them!

But Golubchiks have a different life, they depend on mice. They can't do anything without mice. They need them for soup, of course, and stew, and if you want to sew yourself a coat, or trade at the market, pay taxes, that is, pay the tithe. There's the house tax, the pillow tax, the stove tax-you need mice for all of them. So that means they can't keep books at home, no, no, no! It's either one or the other.

And why is it that spiritual life is called a higher life? It's because you put books up as high as you can, on the top floor, on a shelf, so that if misfortune strikes and the vermin get into the house, the treasure will be safer. That's why!

And why do Father-in-law, Mother-in-law, and Olenka have claws on their feet?-for the same reason, of course! To protect spirituality! To be on the watch for mice! You won't slip by them. That's why there are three fences wrapped around the terem! That's why the guards are so strict! That's why they search you when you come in! Because no matter who you are, even the fanciest suitor or some other very important person, you could still bring a mouse in with you and you wouldn't even notice.

If you have a rat's nest in your hair a mouse could make its own nest there too.

It could hide in your pockets, that happens sometimes.

Or in a boot.

It couldn't have been clearer, but he hadn't understood. And he hadn't understood Illness, goodness knows what he thought. But Illness is in people's heads, Illness is human ignorance, stupidity, Freethinking, dimwittedness, it's when they think "Oh, well, who cares, it doesn't matter, mice and books can live in the same izba." Jeez! A book in the same izba with a mouse! Horrible even to think about.

And how stubborn the scum are: you'd think no one let them read, that someone took away poems and essays! And just why did the government hire Scribes, why did it build the Work Izba, teach people letters, hand out writing sticks, scrape bark clean, sew bark booklets? It's a lot of extra work for the government, extra effort, fuss and bother! It's all for the people, that's who it's for. Catch all the mice you like, go on, be my guest-then trade them for booklets and read to your heart's content!

He clenched his fists in anger, tossed and turned on the bed, and in his head everything grew clearer and clearer, like a great space was opening up! Good Lord! That's how it always was, in ancient times too! "But is the world not all alike… Throughout the ages, now and ever more?" It is! It is!

Beneath a canopy of fetid thatch, In valleys far below the mountain's crest, A web has bound both kith and kin, Nearby, an earthly mouse now builds its nest.

Now kith and kin crowd round the valley,

They clamor, yet each one is still alone, And each conceals in his own desert A frozen knot, an ever precious stone.

There you go! In the Oldener days people did the same thing: they made mischief, had a spell of Freethinking, hid books in the cold somewhere, in the damp, all frozen in a knotted bundle. Now he got it!

In the stony cracks between the tiles

The faces of the mice squeezed through,

They looked like triangles of chalk,

With mournful eyes on either side-one, two.

That's right, there's no holding a mouse back! It can get through any crack or crevice!

… Life, you're but a mouse's scurry, Why do you trouble me?

Ah, brother pushkin! Aha! You also tried to protect your writing from rodents! He'd write-and they'd eat, he'd write some more, and they'd eat again! No wonder he was troubled! That's why he kept riding back and forth across the snow, across the icy desert! The sleigh bells jangle ting-a-ling! He'd hitch up a Degenerator and it was off to the steppes! He was hiding his work, looking for a place to keep it safe!

Neither fire nor darkened huts, Just woods and snow to greet me, The whitened stripes of frosty ruts Are all that here do meet me.

He was looking for a place to bury… Suddenly, everything became so clear that Benedikt sat up and put his feet on the floor. Why didn't he realize it earlier…? How could he have missed the instructions?… A long time ago! What did they sing with Lev Lvovich?

Steppe and nothing else, As far as the eye can see…

Out on that lonesome steppe A coachman called to me.

Well! Why did he go racing off to the steppes, if not to hide books?-"in his own desert / a frozen knot, an ever precious stone…"

Please do tell my wife, That on the steppe I froze, And that I took with me Her undying love!

What love is he talking about? It was a book! What else could you love but a book? Huh?

"Tell my wife… that I took with me." He asks his pal to tell his wife so that she doesn't keep looking, otherwise she'll be missing them… Now there's a poem for you! Not a poem but a regular fable! Governing instructions rendered in a simplified, popular form!

That's why Lev Lvovich was crying. He probably buried some books too, and now he can't find them. That's enough to make you cry. But he started singing and remembered!

How did they hint to Benedikt? Benedikt asked them: Are there any books around to read? And they answered: You don't know your ABCs. And he said: What do you mean I don't know them, I know them! And they said: "Steppe and nothing else, as far as the eye can see…" It was a hint. A fable. That's where the books are buried, they were telling him. We don't keep them at home.

All right. Where is the steppe? The steppe is in the south… But why did he keep saying: the west will help us?… And Nikita Ivanich kept telling him: No way, it won't help, we have to do it ourselves. So which is it? Where are they?

Mother-in-law knocked on the door: "Time to bathe the children! Are you going to watch?"

"Don't bother me!" screamed Benedikt, pounding his fist. "Close the door!"

"Should we bathe them?"

"Shut the door!"

She broke his train of thought, dammit!… Benedikt dressed hurriedly, throwing on his coat, the robe, and the hood. He dashed down the stairs and whistled to a lethargic Nikolai to hitch up.

He drove him impatiently, tapping his boot in the sleigh. He had to check the horizon. He absolutely had to. Before the faint winter light was gone, he had to survey the horizon in all four directions.