The Crocodile Page #2

"The Crocodile" is a satirical novella by Fyodor Dostoevsky, first published in 1865. The story follows a man named Ivan Matveich, who is swallowed alive by a crocodile while visiting a zoo in St. Petersburg. Throughout the narrative, Dostoevsky explores themes of existentialism, identity, and the absurdity of human existence. As Ivan navigates his unusual circumstances, he reflects on society's reactions to his plight and the nature of life and death. The novella combines dark humor with philosophical insights, showcasing Dostoevsky's skill in blending the absurd with profound social commentary.

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another treacherous trick upon us. The crocodile made a tremendous effort,
probably oppressed by the magnitude of the object he had swallowed, once
more opened his terrible jaws, and with a final hiccup he suddenly let the
head of Ivan Matveitch pop out for a second, with an expression of despair
on his face. In that brief instant the spectacles dropped off his nose to
the bottom of the tank. It seemed as though that despairing countenance
had only popped out to cast one last look on the objects around it, to take
its last farewell of all earthly pleasures. But it had not time to carry
out its intention; the crocodile made another effort, gave a gulp and
instantly it vanished again--this time for ever. This appearance and
disappearance of a still living human head was so horrible, but at the
same--either from its rapidity and unexpectedness or from the dropping of
the spectacles--there was something so comic about it that I suddenly quite
unexpectedly exploded with laughter. But pulling myself together and
realising that to laugh at such a moment was not the thing for an old
family friend, I turned at once to Elena Ivanovna and said with a
sympathetic air:

"Now it's all over with our friend Ivan Matveitch!"

I cannot even attempt to describe how violent was the agitation of Elena
Ivanovna during the whole process. After the first scream she seemed rooted
to the spot, and stared at the catastrophe with apparent indifference,
though her eyes looked as though they were starting out of her head; then
she suddenly went off into a heart-rending wail, but I seized her hands. At
this instant the proprietor, too, who had at first been also petrified by
horror, suddenly clasped his hands and cried, gazing upwards:

"Oh my crocodile! Oh mein allerliebster Karlchen! Mutter, Mutter,
Mutter!"

A door at the rear of the room opened at this cry, and the Mutter, a
rosy-cheeked, elderly but dishevelled woman in a cap made her appearance,
and rushed with a shriek to her German.

A perfect Bedlam followed. Elena Ivanovna kept shrieking out the same
phrase, as though in a frenzy, "Flay him! flay him!" apparently entreating
them--probably in a moment of oblivion--to flay somebody for something. The
proprietor and Mutter took no notice whatever of either of us; they were
both bellowing like calves over the crocodile.

"He did for himself! He will burst himself at once, for he did swallow a
ganz official!" cried the proprietor.

"Unser Karlchen, unser allerliebster Karlchen wird sterben," howled his
wife.

"We are bereaved and without bread!" chimed in the proprietor.

"Flay him! flay him! flay him!" clamoured Elena Ivanovna, clutching at the
German's coat.

"He did tease the crocodile. For what did your man tease the crocodile?"
cried the German, pulling away from her. "You will if Karlchen wird
burst, therefore pay, das war mein Sohn, das war mein einziger Sohn."

I must own I was intensely indignant at the sight of such egoism in the
German and the cold-heartedness of his dishevelled Mutter; at the same
time Elena Ivanovna's reiterated shriek of "Flay him! flay him!" troubled
me even more and absorbed at last my whole attention, positively alarming
me. I may as well say straight off that I entirely misunderstood this
strange exclamation: it seemed to me that Elena Ivanovna had for the moment
taken leave of her senses, but nevertheless wishing to avenge the loss of
her beloved Ivan Matveitch, was demanding by way of compensation that the
crocodile should be severely thrashed, while she was meaning something
quite different. Looking round at the door, not without embarrassment, I
began to entreat Elena Ivanovna to calm herself, and above all not to use
the shocking word "flay." For such a reactionary desire here, in the midst
of the Arcade and of the most cultured society, not two paces from the hall
where at this very minute Mr. Lavrov was perhaps delivering a public
lecture, was not only impossible but unthinkable, and might at any moment
bring upon us the hisses of culture and the caricatures of Mr. Stepanov. To
my horror I was immediately proved to be correct in my alarmed suspicions:
the curtain that divided the crocodile room from the little entry where the
quarter-roubles were taken suddenly parted, and in the opening there
appeared a figure with moustaches and beard, carrying a cap, with the upper
part of its body bent a long way forward, though the feet were scrupulously
held beyond the threshold of the crocodile room in order to avoid the
necessity of paying the entrance money.

"Such a reactionary desire, madam," said the stranger, trying to avoid
falling over in our direction and to remain standing outside the room,
"does no credit to your development, and is conditioned by lack of
phosphorus in your brain. You will be promptly held up to shame in the
Chronicle of Progress and in our satirical prints...."

But he could not complete his remarks; the proprietor coming to himself,
and seeing with horror that a man was talking in the crocodile room without
having paid entrance money, rushed furiously at the progressive stranger
and turned him out with a punch from each fist. For a moment both vanished
from our sight behind a curtain, and only then I grasped that the whole
uproar was about nothing. Elena Ivanovna turned out quite innocent; she
had, as I have mentioned already, no idea whatever of subjecting the
crocodile to a degrading corporal punishment, and had simply expressed the
desire that he should be opened and her husband released from his interior.

"What! You wish that my crocodile be perished!" the proprietor yelled,
running in again. "No! let your husband be perished first, before my
crocodile!... Mein Vater showed crocodile, mein Grossvater showed
crocodile, mein Sohn will show crocodile, and I will show crocodile! All
will show crocodile! I am known to ganz Europa, and you are not known to
ganz Europa, and you must pay me a strafe!"

"Ja, ja," put in the vindictive German woman, "we shall not let you go.
Strafe, since Karlchen is burst!"

"And, indeed, it's useless to flay the creature," I added calmly, anxious
to get Elena Ivanovna away home as quickly as possible, "as our dear Ivan
Matveitch is by now probably soaring somewhere in the empyrean."

"My dear"--we suddenly heard, to our intense amazement, the voice of Ivan
Matveitch--"my dear, my advice is to apply direct to the superintendent's
office, as without the assistance of the police the German will never be
made to see reason."

These words, uttered with firmness and aplomb, and expressing an
exceptional presence of mind, for the first minute so astounded us that we
could not believe our ears. But, of course, we ran at once to the
crocodile's tank, and with equal reverence and incredulity listened to the
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