A hilarious
short story by
Fyodor Dostoyevsky. The idea of the story is more or less plagiarized from the
Gogol's essay "The
Nose".
In The Crocodile, a German bourgeois brings a big crocodile to St. Petersburg to show it for the public and thus get some capital. However, a Russian civil servant goes too close and gets eaten by the crocodile. For everyone's surprise the man is still alive and feeling okay.
His friend tries to figure out how to save him but the German doesn't want his crocodile to be killed. In addition, a man in its stomach makes it even more valuable: everyone wants to see a man-eating crocodile. The poor victim is the first one to admit that an "economical principle" must be consider and consider for good.
The story is very funny satire of emerging capitalism in Russia. Also "progressive ideals" and other "European trends" are shown in ridiculous light. The only disappointment is that FD hadn't invented any decent end for the story and thus the silly man is simply left in the belly of the beast.