Arkady and Boris Strugatsky. Monday begins on Saturday (№ 272603)

The range of his knowledge was daunting. No stories and no songs he did not know more than half, but it was the Russian, Ukrainian, West Slavic, German, English, even Japanese, Chinese and African fairy tales, legends, Proverbs, ballads, songs, romances, ditties, and refrains. Sclerosis led him into a rage several times he rushed to the trunk of an oak tree and tore the bark with their claws, he hissed and spat, and his eyes burned like the devil, and furry tail, thick as a log, then looked to the Zenith, then frantically twitched, then lashed his sides. But the only song he sang to the end, was "Chizhik-Pyzhik", and the only tale he told coherently was "the House that Jack built" in the Marshak translation, and even then with some cuts.