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Usually interpreted as a diatribe against the Chernyshevsky generation, and as a parody of the fate of the Russian socialist writer Nikolai Chernyshevsky, The Crocodile is a work that is often referred to, but rarely read.

The story relates the events that befall one Ivan Matveich when he, his wife Elena Ivanovna, and the narrator visit the Arcade to see a crocodile that has been put on display by a German entrepreneur. After teasing the crocodile, Ivan Matveich is swallowed alive. He finds the inside of the crocodile to be quite comfortable, and the animal's owner refuses to allow it to be cut open, in spite of the pleas from Elena Ivanovna.