Free The Slynx by Tatyana Tolstaya

collar, freezing the Golubchiks' necks and painting their ears the color of poppies--in a word, it was an ordinary, everyday sort of day, today! Today! A sleigh drove up to the Work Izba, and in it were Heralds all decked out in belts and hats and sleeves and leggings, they were wearing everything you could possibly imagine--and they made an announcement: Fyodor Kuzmich himself, Glorybe, desires to honor your izba with a luminous visitation.
    And in the Work Izba, wouldn't you know it, all the stoves had gone out that morning. The night Stokers, instead of tending to the kindling and blowing on the fire, got drunk on rusht, or maybe kvas, or maybe they snorted a bunch of bog bilberry-- though that's Freethinking--and slept through everything. When they rubbed their eyes open they raced to the stoves-- but there was only cold ashes, and even those had gone and blown out through the chimney pipes.
    What a ruckus! There was such a hullabaloo of choice cuss words--you normally wouldn't hear so many in a whole year.
    But what to do? Nothing. They ran to the neighboring Work Izba for fire, but they wouldn't give it to them. You didn't give us any last time, so we won't give you any now. "Housekeeping Is Everyone's Business, Figure It Out Yourself." What do we care that you're official; we're even more official than you. Get out, get out of here, you goats' asses! Or else we'll beat the fish out of you.
    So our people ran off empty-handed, and now here come the Heralds. Our people got scared, mad, they almost started bawling; some were wringing their hands, some pissed on themselves out of fear. Konstantin Leontich, who sits in the corner near the window, lost his senses for a time; he started screaming, "I see, I see a column, incorporeal, luminous, horrendous, humongous, with eyes fourscore in number, and in that pillar there's a spinning, and a flowing, and wings, and a beast heading in all four directions."
    And what do you know, the bosses went berserk and ran in all four directions shouting and hollering: Where's Nikita Iva-nich, the Head Stoker? Bring Nikita Ivanich here immediately!
    And Benedikt got worked up with all the others, he ran around till his temples pounded and he saw dark spots before his eyes: Nikita Ivanich! Where is Nikita Ivanich! Right here, right now, what an event, good Lord, it's maybe once a century Fyodor Kuzmich decides to show himself to the people, Glo-rybe! Once in a blue moon he comes out of his terem, his bright terem adorned with sharp spires, eaves trimmed with carved curlicues, crimson onion domes painted with young rusht, decorated with whorls, embellished with frillery and frippery! Lord-a-miiiighty! ... What joy, fear, joy! I... where should I ... Lordy! Where is Nikita Ivanich, the old .. . damn him ... Doesn't he understand?
    The Heralds jumped off their sleigh and went about setting up their stuff. They unfurled rug runners, ornamented and woven, throughout the whole izba: a rug on the porch, and leading from the porch; in the wink of an eye they trampled down the snow around the izba and laid out a sort of half circle of bear skin. Such a grand sight, you could die now with no regrets. Va-
    siuk the Earful fell to the ground with all his ears and listened: Are they coming? Then he cried out: "I hear them! They're coming!" Right away you could see a sort of white cloud trembling in the distance: snowdust flew up. The cloud grew, headed our way, and people almost fainted, but to no account; it was only the Lesser Murzas, riding by to make an impression, as if to say, you can start trembling now.
    They rode on by, scaring the people for no good reason. Then some time passed. Suddenly--hark!--it sounded like stone bells were ringing. The birds startled and everything died down, and then it was like a great snowstorm was moving toward us, full of twisting windwhirls. Everyone stood on the porch--the lazy Stokers and all the Scribes. Benedikt caught a glimpse of Olenka, the cooks from the Food