Benedikt had arranged all the shelves in the storeroom a long time ago: you could see right away what was where. Father-in-law had Gogol right next to Chekhov–you could look for a
hundred years and you’d never find it. Everything should have its own science, that is, its own system. So you don’t have to fuss around here and there to no good end, instead you can just go and find what you need.
Number eight wasn’t there. Well, maybe he made a mistake and put it in the wrong place … that happens … Here’s The Northern Herald, here’s The Herald of Europe, Russian Wealth, The Urals, Lights of the Urals, Beekeeping … no, not here … Banner, Literary Bashkortostan, New World … he’d read them, Turgenev, he’d read it, Yakub Kolas, read it, Mikhalkov, A Partisan’s Handbook, Petrarch, The Plague, The Plague of Domestic Animals: Fleas and Ticks, Popescu, Popka-the-Fool–Paint It Yourself, Popov, another Popov, Poptsov, The Iliad, Electric Current, he’d read it, Gone With the Wind, Russo-Japanese Poly-technical Dictionary, Sartakov, Sartre, Sholokhov: Humanistic Aspects, Sophocles, Sorting Consumer Refuse, Sovmorflot–60 Years, Stockard, Manufacture of Stockings and Socks, he’d read that one, that one and that one …
Chalk Farm, Chandrabkhangneshapkhandra Lal, vol. 18, Chaucer, John Cheever; The Black Prince, aha, a mistake, that didn’t go there, Chekhov, Chapchakhov, Chakhokhbili in Kar-sian, Chukh-Chukh: For Little People.
Chen-Chen: Tales of the Congo, Cherokee Customs, Chewing Gum Stories, Chingachguk the Giant Serpent, Chipmunks and Other Friendly Rodents, Chkalov, Chrysanthemums of Armenia Part V, Chukotka: A Demographic Review, Chukovsky, Chum– Dwelling of the Peoples of the Far North, Churchill: The Early Years, read it. Kafka, Kama River Steamboats, Kashas Derived from Whole Grain. Dial M for Murder, Murder in Mesopotamia, Murder on the Orient Express, Kirov’s Murder, Laudanum: The Poetic Experience, Lilliputians and Other Little People, Limonov, Lipchitz, Lipid-protein Tissue Metabolism … he’d read it all.
The Red and the Black, Baa Baa Black Sheep, The Blue and the Green, The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle, The Blue Cup, Island of the Blue Dolphins, The Chocolate Prince, The Crimson Flower .. . that’s a good one … The Crimson Letter, Crimson Sails, Little Red Riding Hood, The Yellow Arrow, The Five Orange Pips, The White Steamboat, White Clothes, White Bim– Black Ear, T. H. White, The Woman in White, The Purple Island, The Black Tower, Black Sea Steamboats: Registry, this is where The Black Prince goes. Now …
Appleton, Bacon, Belcher, Blinman, Cooke, Culpepper, Honeyman, Hungerford, Liverich, Pearson, Saulter … Baldwin, Beardsley, Hatcliff, Morehead, Skinner, Topsfield, Whitehead, Whisker … Bairnsfather, Childe, Fairbrother, Motherwell, Littleboy … Ambler, Bulstrode, Chatterley, Doddleton, Dolittle, Fleetwood, Gabbler, Golightly, Hopkins, Sitwell, Skip-with, Standon, Swift, Talkien, Walker, Whistler. .. Hammer-stein, Hornebolt, Ironquill, Newbolt, Witherspoon … Canby, Mabie, Moody, Orwell, Whowood … Bathurst, Beerbohm, Beveridge, Brine, Dampier-Whetham, de La Fontaine, Dewey, Drinkwater, Dryden, Lapping, Shipwash, Washburn, Water-house .. . Addicock, Cockburn, Crapsey, Dickens, Dickinson, Fullalove, Gotobed, Hooker, Longfellow, Lovelace, Loveridge, Middlesex, Sexton, Simpkiss, Sinkin, Strangewayes, Sweetecok, Toplady . .. Fairweather, Flood, Fogg, Frost, Haleston, Rain-borough, Snowdon, Sun Yat-sen, Weatherby, Wyndham … Middleton, Overbury, Underhill… Coffin, Dyer, Feversham, Lockjaw, Paine, Rawbone …
The Vampire’s Embrace, The Dragon’s Embrace, The Foreigner’s Embrace, The Fatal Embrace, Passion’s Embrace, Fiery Embraces, The All-Consuming Flame of Passion … The Dagger’s Blow, The Poisoned Dagger, The Poisoned Hat, Poisoned Clothes, With Dagger and Poison, Poisonous Mushrooms of Central Russia, Golden-haired Poisoners, Arsenic and Old Lace, Death of a Salesman, Death Comes for the Archbishop, Death Comes at Midnight, Death Comes at Dawn, The Bloody Dawn. . .
Children of the Arbat, Vanya’s Children, Children of the Underground, Children of the Soviet Land, Kids in Cages, Children on Christ, The Boxcar Children, Nikita’s Childhood.
Marinina, Marinating and Pickling, Marine Artists, Marinetti –the Ideologist of Fascism, Mari-El Grammar: Uses of the Instrumental Case.
Klim Voroshilov, Klim Samgin, Ivan Klima, K. Li, Maximal Load in Concrete Construction: Calculations and Tables (dissertation).
Anais Nin, Nina Sadur, Nineveh: An Archeological Collection. Ninja in a Bloody Coat, Mutant Ninja Turtles Return, Papanin, Make Life from Whom?
Eugenia Grandet, Eugene Onegin, Eugene Primakov, Eugene Gutsalo, Eugenics: A Racist’s Weapon, Eugene Sue.
Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, Tashkent–City of Bread, Bread –A Common Noun, Urengoi– The Land of Youth, Uruguay– An Ancient Land, Kustanai– The Steppe Country, Scabies–An Illness of Dirty Hands,.
Foot Hygiene on the Road, F. Leghold, Ardent Revolutionaries, The Barefoot Doctors, Flat Feet in Young Children, Claws: New Types, Shoe Polish Manufacture, Grow Up, Friend: What a Young Man Needs to Know about Wet Dreams, Hands Comrade!, Sewing Trousers, The Time of the Quadrupeds, Step Faster!, How the Millipede Made Porridge, Marinating Vegetables at Home, Faulkner, Fiji: Class Struggle, Fyodor’s Woe, Shakh-Reza-Pahlevi, Shakespeare, Shukshin.
Mumu, Nana, Shu-shu: Tales of Lenin, Gagarin: We Remember Yura, Tartar Women’s Costumes, Bubulina–A Popular Greek Heroine, Boborykin, Babaevsky, Chichibabin, Bibigon, Gogol, Dadaists Exhibition Catalogue, Kokoschka, Mimicry in Fish, Vivisection, Tiutiunnik, Chavchavadze, Lake Titicaca, Popocatepetl, Raising Chihuahuas, The Adventures of Tin Tin.
Afraid of guessing, Benedikt went through the treasures with shaking hands; he was no longer thinking about issue number eight. It’s not here, I’ll live. But book after book, journal after journal–he’d already seen this, read this, this, this, this, this … So what did this mean? Had he already read everything? Now what was he going to read? And tomorrow? A year from now?
His mouth went dry and his legs felt weak. He lifted the candle high; its bluish light parted the darkness and danced on the shelves along the books’ covers … maybe, up on the top …
Plato, Plotinus, Platonov, Plaiting and Knitting Jackets, Herman Plisetsky, Maya Plisetskaya, Plevna: A Guide, Playing with Death, Plaints and Songs of the Southern Slavs, Playboy. Plinths: A Guidebook, Planetary Thinking, Plan for Popular Development in the Fifth Five-year Plan. Plebeians of Ancient Rome. Plenary Sessions of the CPSU, The Horn of Plenty in Oil Painting, Pleurisy. Pliushka, Khriapa, and Their Merry Friends. Plying the Arctic Waters. The Pilgrims at Plymouth Rock. He’d read them all.
From The Slynx by Tatyana Tolstaya. English translation by Jamey Gambrell.
Biblioklept 