The article gave a detailed account of the animal’s daily food requirements and of his touching devotion to humans. His superiority to the common domestic goat was particularly stressed. First of all, it was pointed out that the average weight of the goatibex was twice that of the common goat — a circumstance of no little importance in light of the country’s chronic meat shortages. Secondly, the goatibex was blessed with strong legs and a hardy constitution, and hence should be able to graze on the steepest mountain slopes almost without risk. Thanks, moreover, to his calm and gentle disposition, the animal would be easy to care for and a single goatherd should be able to tend as many as two thousand goatibexes.
The author adopted a somewhat lighter tone in his description of the goatibex’s wool yield. The animals’ thick wool of white and ashen hues was in his words a real bonus for the consumer industry. It seemed that the breeding specialist’s wife had already knitted herself a sweater of goatibex wool — a garment which according to Platon Samsonovich was in no way inferior to any import. “Our fashion-conscious ladies will be satisfied,” he declared.
It was further pointed out that the goatibex had inherited the jumping ability of his illustrious forebear, the ibex, as well as the latter’s beautiful horns. If suitably processed, these horns could be used as decorations for the home or as attractive souvenirs for tourists and well-wishing foreign guests.
Platon Samsonovich had put heart and soul into this article, and to this day it stands out in my mind as the most colorful of the many articles devoted to the goatibex. And I have read all of them!
The article must have provoked considerable public response, for soon afterward our paper began to feature two new columns under the headings: “On the Trail of the Goatibex” and “Laughing at the Skeptics.” All favorable letters were published with suitable commentary in the first column; any skeptical or critical letters appeared in the second column and were promptly attacked and repudiated.
Under the heading “On the Trail of the Goatibex” there was published a letter from a certain Moscow scientist[1] who declared that he personally was not at all surprised by the appearance of the goatibex, since all of this had long ago been foreseen by the followers of the Michurin school of biology. Certain other scientists, however, who had been captivated by theories of dubious validity, had not and naturally could not have foreseen anything of the sort. The great scientist concluded his letter with the statement that the appearance of the goatibex had helped to confirm the validity of his own experiments.
This individual was our country’s most renowned scientist. In his day he had advanced the hypothesis that the ram is nothing other than a direct descendant of the prehistoric reptile which, in keeping with Darwin’s teachings, had undergone a gradual transformation in its struggle for survival. The proof of his hypothesis had been based, it seems, on a comparative analysis of the frontal sinuses of the ram and the skull of an Assyrian reptile fossil.
On the basis of this analysis the great scientist logically concluded that the stubby tail of the ram — being in fact a vestigial reptile tail — ought still to have the capacity to revert to its original form. It remained only to develop this capacity while at the same time training the organism to cast off its present tail in some relatively painless fashion. This is precisely what the great scientist had been working on in recent years and, as far as one could tell, his experiments were meeting with some success.
There were, it is true, certain envious individuals who complained that no one had been able to repeat the great man’s ingenious experiments. Such complaints were countered, however, with the quite sensible reply that what made these experiments ingenious was precisely the fact that they could not be repeated.
All this notwithstanding, the great scientist’s support of our goatibex was both timely and beneficial.
In the same column a letter was published from one of our lady readers. Apparently she had not understood a word of Platon Samsonovich’s article or else was going merely on hearsay, since she wished to find out where she could purchase a sweater made of goatibex wool. The editors politely informed her that although it was a bit premature to be discussing the commercial manufacture of sweaters, her letter did nonetheless provide food for thought. In fact, some of our manufacturing organizations should begin to make immediate preparations for the eventual stocking and processing of goatibex wool.
Under the same heading there also appeared a letter from the workers’ collective of the city slaughterhouse. The workers wished to congratulate the agricultural toilers on their interesting new undertaking and to offer their services to whichever kolkhoz became the first to specialize in goatibex breeding.
In the second column, “Laughing at the Skeptics,” excerpts were published from the letters of a certain livestock expert and an agronomist.
The livestock expert politely expressed his doubts as to the hybrid’s ability to reproduce itself, thus calling into question the whole future of the goatibex venture. In this connection, however, the editorial board was happy to report that the goatibex had already impregnated eight female goats and according to all indications had no intention of stopping here. The impregnated goats were all in good health and the mating continued.
The agronomist proved to be more acrimonious. He made fun of each and every one of the goatibex’s qualities, from the first to the last and all of them as a whole. The animal’s jumping ability was an object of particular derision. I should like to know, he wrote, how our collective farmers can possibly benefit from the goatibex’s jumping ability. As if we didn’t have trouble enough with the jumping ability of our own goats and the damage they do to our corn fields — now you want to saddle us with the goatibex! After this he went on to make some wisecrack about the possibility of our paper’s entering the goatibex as a contestant for the high jump at the next Olympic games.
The agronomist’s letter was given a worthy rebuff by Platon Samsonovich. He began by calmly explaining that the goatibex’s jumping ability was in fact a great asset, since future herds of goatibexes would be able to graze on high alpine meadows inaccessible to the common domestic goat. And there, thanks to his great jumping ability, the animal would be able to escape with relative ease from the predators which continued to prey on our communal livestock.
As for the jumping ability of our collective farm goats, here the editorial board could take no responsibility. All responsibility for the goats lay with the collective farm shepherds, most of whom probably spent their days sleeping or playing cards. Such shepherds should be fined, and not only the shepherds but the kolkhoz leadership as well — from the chairman on down through those agronomists who were unable to distinguish between alpine meadows and Olympic fields.
Platon Samsonovich’s reply apparently silenced the acrimonious agronomist for good. The polite livestock expert, however, continued to make himself heard, and once again his name appeared in the column “Laughing at the Skeptics.”
He declared that the paper’s reply had not convinced him, since even if the hybrid did have the capacity to mate with female goats, this did not necessarily mean that any offspring would be forthcoming. Moreover, he felt that the livestock industry should be placing its main emphasis on the larger breeds of cattle (on the buffalo in particular), rather than on the goatibex which, while larger than the goat, was nonetheless a small breed.
1
What follows is an ironic fictional portrait of the Soviet biologist and agriculturalist Trofim D. Lysenko (1898–1976). Using the name of the famous Russian horticulturalist Michurin (1855–1935), Lysenko was able to impose his theory of “the inheritance of acquired characteristics” on the Soviet scientific community from the late forties until some years after Stalin’s death. While Lysenko was to remain a powerful figure throughout the Khrushchev era, by the early sixties other more widely-accepted views on genetics were once again able to be heard.