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gave a very mournful concert, croaking in a most sinister, ominous fashion.
Pankrat had to chase a grass-snake that slipped out of its chamber, and when
he caught it in the corridor the snake looked as if it would do anything
just to get away from there.
Late that evening the bell from Persikov's study rang. Pankrat appeared
on the threshold to be greeted by a strange sight. The scientist was
standing alone in the middle of the study, staring at the tables. Pankrat
coughed and froze to attention.
"There, Pankrat," said Persikov, pointing at the empty table. Pankrat
took fright. It looked in the dark as if the Professor
had been crying. That was unusual, terrifying.
"Yessir," Pankrat replied plaintively, thinking, "If only you'd bawl at
me!"
"There," Persikov repeated, and his lips trembled like a little boy's
whose favourite toy has suddenly been taken away from him.
"You know, my dear Pankrat," Persikov went on, turning away to face the
window. "My wife who left me fifteen years ago and joined an operetta
company has now apparently died... So there, Pankrat, dear chap... I got a
letter..."
The toads croaked mournfully, and darkness slowly engulfed the
Professor. Night was falling. Here and there white lamps went on in the
windows. Pankrat stood to attention with fright, confused and miserable.
"You can go, Pankrat," the Professor said heavily, with a wave of the
hand. "Go to bed, Pankrat, my dear fellow."
And so night fell. Pankrat left the study quickly on tiptoe for some
reason, ran to his cubby-hole, rummaged among a pile of rags in the corner,
pulled out an already opened bottle of vodka and gulped down a large
glassful. Then he ate some bread and salt, and his eyes cheered up a bit.
Late that evening, just before midnight, Pankrat was sitting barefoot
on a bench in the poorly lit vestibule, talking to the indefatigable bowler
hat on duty and scratching his chest under a calico shirt.
"Honest, it would've been better if he'd done me in..."
"Was he really crying?" asked the bowler hat, inquisitively.
"Honest he was," Pankrat insisted.
"A great scientist," the bowler hat agreed. "A frog's no substitute for
a wife, anyone knows that."
"It sure isn't," Pankrat agreed.
Then he paused and added:
"I'm thinking of bringing the wife up here... No sense her staying in
the country. Only she couldn't stand them there reptiles..."
"I'm not surprised, the filthy things," agreed the bowler hat.
Not a sound could be heard from the Professor's study. The light was
not on either. There was no strip under the door.
There is no better time of the year than mid-August in Smolensk
Province, say. The summer of 1928 was a splendid one, as we all know, with
rains just at the right time in spring, a full hot sun, and a splendid
harvest... The apples on the former Sheremetev family estate were ripening,
the forests were a lush green and the fields were squares of rich yellow...
Man becomes nobler in the lap of nature. Alexander Se-myonovich too did not
seem quite as unpleasant as in the town. And he wasn't wearing that
revolting jacket. His face had a bronze tan, the unbuttoned calico shirt
revealed a chest thickly covered with black hair. He had canvas trousers on.
And his eyes were calmer and kinder.
Alexander Semyonovich trotted excitedly down the colon-naded porch,
which sported a notice with the words "Red Ray State Farm" under a star, and
went straight to the truck that had just brought the three black chambers
under escort.
All day Alexander Semyonovich worked hard with his assistants setting
up the chambers in the former winter garden, the Sheremetevs' conservatory.
By evening all was ready. A white frosted arc lamp shone under the glass
roof, the chambers were set up on bricks and, after much tapping and turning
of shining knobs, the mechanic who had come with the chambers produced the
mysterious red ray on the asbestos floor in the black crates.
Alexander Semyonovich bustled about, climbing up the ladder himself and
checking the wiring.
The next day the same truck came back from the station and spat out
three boxes of magnificent smooth plywood stuck all over with labels and
white notices on a black background that read:
"Vorsicht: Eier!"
"Eggs. Handle with care!"
"Why have they sent so few?" Alexander Semyonovich exclaimed in
surprise and set about unpacking the eggs at once. The unpacking also took
place in the conservatory with the participation of the following: Alexander
Semyonovich himself, his unusually plump wife Manya, the one-eyed former
gardener of the former Sheremetevs, who now worked for the state farm in the
universal post of watchman, the guard doomed to live on the state farm, and
the cleaning girl Dunya. It was not Moscow, and everything here was simpler,
more friendly and more homely. Alexander Semyonovich gave the instructions,
glancing avidly from time to time at the boxes which lay like some rich
present under the gentle sunset glow from the upper panes in the
conservatory. The guard, his rifle dozing peacefully by the door, was
ripping open the braces and metal bands with a pair of pliers. There was a
sound of cracking wood. Clouds of dust rose up. Alexander Semyonovich padded
around in his sandals, fussing by the boxes.
"Gently does it," he said to the guard. "Be careful. Can't you see it's
eggs?"
"Don't worry," croaked the provincial warrior, bashing away happily.
"Won't be a minute..."
Wrr-ench. Down came another shower of dust.
The eggs were beautifully packed: first came sheets of waxed paper
under the wooden top, next some blotting paper, then a thick layer of wood
shavings and finally the sawdust in which the white egg-tops nestled.
"Foreign packing," said Alexander Semyonovich lovingly, rummaging
around in the sawdust. "Not the way we do it. Careful, Manya, or you'll
break them."
"Have you gone daft, Alexander Semyonovich," replied his wife. "What's
so special about this lot? Think I've never seen eggs before? Oh, what big
ones!"
"Foreign," said Alexander Semyonovich, laying the eggs out on the
wooden table. "Not like our poor old peasant eggs. Bet they're all
brahmaputras, the devil take them! German..."
"I should say so," the guard agreed, admitting the eggs.
"Only why are they so dirty?" Alexander Semyonovich mused thoughtfully.
"Keep an eye on things, Manya. Tell them to go on unloading. I'm going off
to make a phone call."
And Alexander Semyonovich went to use the telephone in the farm office
across the yard.
That evening the phone rang in the laboratory at the Zoological
Institute. Professor Persikov tousled his hair and went to answer it.
"Yes?" he asked.
"There's a call for you from the provinces," a female voice hissed
quietly down the receiver.
"Well, put it through then," said Persikov disdainfully into the black
mouthpiece. After a bit of crackling a far-off male voice asked anxiously in
his ear:
"Should the eggs be washed. Professor?"
"What's that? What? What did you say?" snapped Persikov irritably.
"Where are you speaking from?"
"Nikolskoye, Smolensk Province," the receiver replied.
"Don't understand. Never heard of it. Who's that speaking?"
"Feight," the receiver said sternly.
"What Feight? Ah, yes. It's you. What did you want to know?"
"Whether to wash them. They've sent a batch of chicken eggs from
abroad..."
"Well?"
"But they're all mucky..."
"You must be wrong. How can they be 'mucky', as you put it? Well, of
course, maybe a few, er, droppings got stuck to them, or something of the
sort."
"So what about washing them?"
"No need at all, of course. Why, are you putting the eggs into the
chambers already?"
"Yes, I am," the receiver replied.
"Hm," Persikov grunted.
"So long," the receiver clattered and fell silent.
"So long," Persikov repeated distastefully to Decent Ivanov. "How do
you like that character, Pyotr Stepanovich?"
Ivanov laughed.
"So it was him, was it? I can imagine what he'll concoct out of those
eggs."
"Ye-e-es," Persikov began maliciously. "Just think, Pyotr Stepanovich.
Well, of course, it's highly possible that the ray will have the same effect
on the deuteroplasma of a chicken egg as on the plasma of amphibians. It is
also highly possible that he will hatch out chickens. But neither you nor I
can say precisely what sort of chickens they will be. They may be of no
earthly use to anyone. They may die after a day or two. Or they may be
inedible. And can I even guarantee that they'll be able to stand up. Perhaps
they'll have brittle bones." Persikov got excited, waved his hand and
crooked his fingers.
"Quite so," Ivanov agreed.
"Can you guarantee, Pyotr Stepanovich, that they will be able to
reproduce? Perhaps that character will hatch out sterile chickens. He'll
make them as big as a dog, and they won't have any chicks until kingdom
come."
"Precisely," Ivanov agreed.
"And such nonchalance," Persikov was working himself into a fury. "Such
perkiness! And kindly note that I was asked to instruct that scoundrel."
Persikov pointed to the warrant delivered by Feight (which was lying on the
experimental table). "But how am I to instruct that ignoramus when I myself
can say nothing about the question?"
"Couldn't you have refused?" asked Ivanov.
Persikov turned purple, snatched up the warrant and showed it to Ivanov
who read it and gave an ironic smile.
"Yes, I see," he said significantly.
"And kindly note also that I've been expecting my shipment for two
months, and there's still no sign of it. But that rascal got his eggs
straightaway and all sorts of assistance."
"It won't do him any good, Vladimir Ipatych. In the end they'll just
give you back your chambers."
"Well, let's hope it's soon, because they're holding up my
experiments."
"Yes, that's dreadful. I've got everything ready."
"Has the protective clothing arrived?"
"Yes, today."
Persikov was somewhat reassured by this and brightened up.
"Then I think we'll proceed like this. We can close the doors of the
operating-room tight and open up the windows."
"Of course," Ivanov agreed.
"Three helmets?"
"Yes, three."
"Well then, that's you and me, and we'll ask one of the students. He
can have the third helmet."
"Grinmut would do."
"That's the one you've got working on salamanders, isn't it? Hm, he's
not bad, but, if you don't mind my saying so, last spring he didn't know the
difference between a Pseudotyphlops and a Platyplecturus," Persikov added
with rancour.
"But he's not bad. He's a good student," Ivanov defended him.
"We'll have to go without sleep completely for one night," Persikov
went on. "Only you must check the gas, Pyotr Stepanovich. The devil only
knows what it's like. That Volunteer-Chem lot might send us some rubbish."
"No, no," Ivanov waved his hands. "I tested it yesterday. You must give
them some credit, Vladimir Ipatych, the gas is excellent."
"What did you try it on?"
"Some common toads. You just spray them with it and they die instantly.
And another thing, Vladimir Ipatych. Write and ask the GPU to send you an
electric revolver."
"But I don't know how to use it."
"I'll see to that," Ivanov replied. "We tried one out on the Klyazma,
just for fun. There was a GPU chap living next to me. It's a wonderful
thing. And incredibly efficient. Kills outright at a hundred paces without
making a sound. We were shooting ravens. I don't even think we'll need the
gas."
"Hm, that's a bright idea. Very bright." Persikov went into the comer,
lifted the receiver and barked:
"Give me that, what's it called, Lubyanka."
The weather was unusually hot. You could see the rich transparent heat
shimmering over the fields. But the nights were wonderful, green and
deceptive. The moon made the former estate of the Sheremetevs look too
beautiful for words. The palace-cum-state farm glistened as if it were made
of sugar, shadows quivered in the park, and the ponds had two different
halves, one a slanting column of light, the other fathomless darkness. In
the patches of moonlight you could easily read Izvestia, except for the
chess section which was in small nonpareil. But on nights like these no one
read Izvestia, of course. Dunya the cleaner was in the woods behind the
state farm and as coincidence would have it, the ginger-moustached driver of
the farm's battered truck happened to be there too. What they were doing
there no one knows. They were sheltering in the unreliable shade of an elm
tree, on the driver leather coat which was spread out on the ground. A lamp
shone in the kitchen, where the two market-gardeners were having supper, -
and Madame Feight was sitting in a white neglige on the columned veranda,
gazing at the beautiful moon and dreaming.
At ten o'clock in the evening when the sounds had died down in the
village of Kontsovka behind the state farm, the idyllic landscape was filled
with the charming gentle playing of a flute. This fitted in with the groves
and former columns of the Sheremetev palace more than words can say. In the
duet the voice of the delicate Liza from The Queen of Spades blended with
that of the passionate Polina and soared up into. the moonlit heights like a
vision of the old and yet infinitely dear, heartbreakingly entrancing
regime.
Do fade away... Fade away...
piped the flute, trilling and sighing.
The copses were hushed, and Dunya, fatal as a wood nymph, listened, her
cheek pressed against the rough, ginger and manly cheek of the driver.
"He don't play bad, the bastard," said the driver, putting a manly arm
round Dunya's waist.
The flute was being played by none other than the manager of the state
farm himself, Alexander Semyonovich Feight, who, to do him justice, was
playing it beautifully. The fact of the matter was that Alexander
Semyonovich had once specialised in the flute. Right up to 1917 he had
played in the well-known concert ensemble of the maestro Petukhov, filling
the foyer of the cosy little Magic Dreams cinema in the town of
Yekaterinoslav with its sweet notes every evening. But the great year of
1917, which broke the careers of so many, had swept Alexander Semyonovich
onto a new path too. He left the Magic Dreams and the dusty star-spangled
satin of its foyer to plunge into the open sea of war and revolution,
exchanging his flute for a death-dealing Mauser. For a long time he was
tossed about on waves which washed him ashore, now in the Crimea, now in
Moscow, now in Turkestan, and even in Vladivostok. It needed the revolution
for Alexander Semyonovich to realise his full potential. It turned out that
here was a truly great man, who should not be allowed to waste his talents
in the foyer of Magic Dreams, of course. Without going into unnecessary
detail, we shall merely say that the year before, 1927, and the beginning of
1928 had found Alexander Semyonovich in Turkestan where he first edited a
big newspaper and then, as a local member of the Supreme Economic
Commission, became renowned for his remarkable contribution to the
irrigation of Turkestan. In 1928 Feight came to Moscow and received some
well-deserved leave. The Supreme Commission of the organisation, whose
membership card this provincially old-fashioned man carried with honour in
his pocket, appreciated his qualities and appointed him to a quiet and
honorary post. Alas and alack! To the great misfortune of the Republic,
Alexander Semyonovich's seething brain did not quieten down. In Moscow
Feight learned of Persikov's discovery, and in the rooms of Red Paris in
Tverskaya Street Alexander Semyonovich had the brainwave of using the ray to
restore the Republic's poultry in a month. The Animal Husbandry Commission
listened to what he had to say, agreed with him, and Feight took his warrant
to the eccentric scientist.
The concert over the glassy waters, the grove and the park was drawing
to a close, when something happened to cut it short. The dogs in Kontsovka,
who Should have been fast asleep by then, suddenly set up a frenzied
barking, which gradually turned into an excruciating general howl. The howl
swelled up, drifting over the fields, and was answered by a high-pitched
concert from the million frogs on the ponds. All this was so ghastly, that
for a moment the mysterious enchanted night seemed to fade away.
Alexander Semyonovich put down his flute and went onto the veranda.
"Hear that, Manya? It's those blasted dogs... What do you think set
them off like that?"
"How should I know?" she replied, gazing at the moon.
"Hey, Manya, let's go and take a look at the eggs," Alexander
Semyonovich suggested.
"For goodness sake, Alexander Semyonovich. You're darned crazy about
those eggs and chickens. Have a rest for a bit."
"No, Manya, let's go."
A bright light was burning in the conservatory. Dunya came in too with
a burning face and shining eyes. Alexander Semyonovich opened the
observation windows carefully, and they all began peeping into the chambers.
On the white asbestos floor lay neat rows of bright-red eggs with spots on
them. There was total silence in the chambers, except for the hissing of the
15,000 candle-power light overhead.
"I'll hatch those chicks out alright!" exclaimed Alexander Semyonovich
excitedly, looking now through the observation windows at the side, now
through the wide ventilation hatches overhead. "You'll see. Eh? Don't you
think so?"
"You know what, Alexander Semyonovich," said Dunya, smiling. "The men
in Kontsovka think you're the Antichrist. They say your eggs are from the
devil. It's a sin to hatch eggs with machines. They want to kill you."
Alexander Semyonovich shuddered and turned to his wife. His face had
gone yellow.
"Well, how about that? Ignorant lot! What can you do with people like
that? Eh? We'll have to fix up a meeting for them, Manya. I'll phone the
district centre tomorrow for some Party workers. And I'll give 'em a speech
myself. This place needs a bit of working over alright. Stuck away at the
back of beyond..."
"Thick as posts," muttered the guard, who had settled down on his
greatcoat in the conservatory doorway.
The next day was heralded by some strange and inexplicable events. In
the early morning, at the first glint of sunlight, the groves, which usually
greeted the heavenly body with a strong and unceasing twitter of birds, met
it with total silence. This was noticed by absolutely everybody. It was like
the calm before a storm. But no storm followed. Conversations at the state
farm took on a strange and sinister note for Alexander Semyonovich,
especially because according to the well-known Kontsovka trouble-maker and
sage nicknamed Goat Gob, all the birds had gathered in flocks and flown away
northwards from Sheremetevo at dawn, which was quite ridiculous. Alexander
Semyonovich was most upset and spent the whole day putting a phone call
through to the town of Grachevka. Eventually they promised to send him in a
few days' time two speakers on two subjects, the international situation and
the question of Volunteer-Fowl.
The evening brought some more surprises. Whereas in the morning the
woods had fallen silent, showing clearly how suspiciously unpleasant it was
when the trees were quiet, and whereas by midday the sparrows from the state
farmyard had also flown off somewhere, that evening there was not a sound
from the Sheremetevka pond either. This was quite extraordinary, because
everyone for twenty miles around was familiar with the croaking of the
Sheremetev frogs. But now they seemed to be extinct. There was not a single
voice from the pond, and the sedge was silent. It must be confessed that
this really upset Alexander Semyonovich. People had begun to talk about
these happenings in a most unpleasant fashion, i.e., behind his back.
"It really is strange," said Alexander Semyonovich to his wife at
lunch. "I can't understand why those birds had to go and fly away."
"How should I know?" Manya replied. "Perhaps it's because of your ray."
"Don't be so silly, Manya!" exclaimed Alexander Semyonovich, flinging
down his spoon. "You're as bad as the peasants. What's the ray got to do
with it?" "I don't know. Stop pestering me." That evening brought the third
surprise. The dogs began howling again in Kontsovka and how! Their endless
whines and angry, mournful yelping wafted over the moonlit fields.
Alexander Semyonovich rewarded himself somewhat with yet another
surprise, a pleasant one this time, in the conservatory. A constant tapping
had begun inside the red eggs in the chambers. "Tappity-tappity-tappity,"
came from one, then another, then a third.
The tapping in the eggs was a triumph for Alexander Semyonovich. The
strange events in the woods and on the pond were immediately forgotten.
Everyone gathered in the conservatory, Manya, Dunya, the watchman and the
guard, who left his rifle by the door.
"Well, then? What about that?" asked Alexander Semyonovich
triumphantly. Everyone put their ears eagerly to the doors of the first
chamber. "That's them tapping with their little beaks, the chickens,"
Alexander Semyonovich went on, beaming. "So you thought I wouldn't hatch out
any chicks, did you? Well, you were wrong, my hearties." From an excess of
emotion he slapped the guard on the shoulder. "I'll hatch chickens that'll
take your breath away. Only now I must keep alert," he added strictly. "Let
me know as soon as they start hatching."
"Right you are," replied the watchman, Dunya and the guard in a chorus.
"Tappity-tappity-tappity," went one egg, then another, in the first
chamber. In fact this on-the-spot spectacle of new life being born in a thin
shining shell was so intriguing that they all sat for a long time on the
upturned empty crates, watching the crimson eggs mature in the mysterious
glimmering light. By the time they went to bed it was quite late and a
greenish night had spread over the farm and the surrounding countryside. The
night was mysterious, one might even say frightening, probably because its
total silence was broken now and then by the abject, excruciating howls of
the dogs in Kontsovka. What on earth had got into those blasted dogs no one
could say.
An unpleasant surprise awaited Alexander Semyonovich the next morning.
The guard was extremely upset and kept putting his hands on his heart,
swearing that he had not fallen asleep but had noticed nothing.
"I can't understand it," the guard insisted. "It's through no fault of
mine, Comrade Feight."
"Very grateful to you, I'm sure," retorted Alexander Semyonovich
heatedly. "What do you think, comrade? Why were you put on guard? To keep an
eye on things. So tell me where they are. They've hatched out, haven't they?
So they must have run away. That means you must have left the door open and
gone off somewhere. Get me those chickens!"
"Where could I have gone? I know my job." The guard took offence.
"Don't you go accusing me unfairly, Comrade Feight!"
"Then where are they?"
"How the blazes should I know!" the guard finally exploded. "I'm not
supposed to guard them, am I? Why was I put on duty? To see that nobody
pinched the chambers, and that's what I've done. Your chambers are safe and
sound. But there's no law that says I must chase after your chickens.
Goodness only knows what they'll be like. Maybe you won't be able to catch
them on a bicycle."
This somewhat deflated Alexander Semyonovich. He muttered something
else, then relapsed into a state of perplexity. It was a strange business
indeed. In the first chamber, which had been switched on before the others,
the two eggs at the very base of the ray had broken open. One of them had
even rolled to one side. The empty shell was lying on the asbestos floor in
the ray.
"The devil only knows," muttered Alexander Semyonovich. "The windows
are closed and they couldn't have flown away over the roof, could they?"
He threw back his head and looked at some big holes in the glass roof.
"Of course, they couldn't, Alexander Semyonovich!" exclaimed Dunya in
surprise. "Chickens can't fly. They must be here somewhere. Chuck, chuck,
chuck," she called, peering into the corners of the conservatory, which were
cluttered with dusty flower pots, bits of boards and other rubbish. But no
chicks answered her call.
The whole staff spent about two hours running round the farmyard,
looking for the runaway chickens and found nothing. The day passed in great
excitement. The duty guard on the chambers was reinforced by the watchman,
who had strict orders to look through the chamber windows every quarter of
an hour and call Alexander Semyonovich if anything happened. The guard sat
huffily by the door, holding his rifle between his knees. What with all the
worry Alexander Semyonovich did not have lunch until nearly two. After lunch
he slept for an hour or so in the cool shade on the former She-remetev
ottoman, had a refreshing drink of the farm's kvass and slipped into the
conservatory to make sure everything was alright. The old watchman was lying
on his stomach on some bast matting and staring through the observation
window of the first chamber. The guard was keeping watch by the door.
But there was a piece of news: the eggs in the third chamber, which had
been switched on last, were making a kind of gulping, hissing sound, as if
something inside them were whimpering.
"They're hatching out alright," said Alexander Semyonovich. "That's for
sure. See?" he said to the watchman.
"Aye, it's most extraordinary," the latter replied in a most ambiguous
tone, shaking his head.
Alexander Semyonovich squatted by the chambers for a while, but nothing
hatched out. So he got up, stretched and announced that he would not leave
the grounds, but was going for a swim in the pond and must be called if
there were any developments. He went into the palace to his bedroom with its
two narrow iron bedsteads, rumpled bedclothes and piles of green apples and
millet on the floor for the newly-hatched chickens, took a towel and, on
reflection, his flute as well to play at leisure over the still waters. Then
he ran quickly out of the palace, across the farmyard and down the
willow-lined path to the pond. He walked briskly, swinging the towel, with
the flute under his arm. The sky shimmered with heat through the willows,
and his aching body begged to dive into the water. On the right of Feight
began a dense patch of burdock, into which he spat en passant. All at once
there was a rustling in the tangle of big leaves, as if someone was dragging
a log. With a sudden sinking feeling in his stomach, Alexander Semyonovich
turned his head towards the burdock in surprise. There had not been a sound
from the pond for two days. The rustling stopped, and above the burdock the
smooth surface of the pond flashed invitingly with the grey roof of the
changing hut. Some dragon-flies darted to and fro in front of Alexander
Semyonovich. He was about to turn off to the wooden platform, when there was
another rustle in the burdock accompanied this time by a short hissing like
steam coming out of an engine. Alexander Semyonovich tensed and stared at
the dense thicket of weeds.
At that moment the voice of Feight's wife rang out, and her white
blouse flashed in and out through the raspberry bushes. "Wait for me,
Alexander Semyonovich. I'm coming for a swim too."
His wife was hurrying to the pond, but Alexander Se-myonovich's eyes
were riveted on the burdock and he did not reply. A greyish olive-coloured
log had begun to rise out of the thicket, growing ever bigger before his
horrified gaze. The log seemed to be covered with wet yellowish spots. It
began to straighten up, bending and swaying, and was so long that it reached
above a short gnarled willow. Then the top of the log cracked, bent down
slightly, and something about the height of a Moscow electric lamp-post
loomed over Alexander Semyonovich. Only this something was about three times
thicker that a lamp-post and far more beautiful because of its scaly
tattooing. Completely mystified, but with shivers running down his spine,
Alexander Semyonovich looked at the top of this terrifying lamp-post, and
his heart almost stopped beating. He turned to ice on the warm August day,
and everything went dark before his eyes as if he were looking at the sun
through his summer trousers.
On the tip of the log was a head. A flattened, pointed head adorned
with a round yellow spot on an olive background. In the roof of the head sat
a pair of lidless icy narrow eyes, and these eyes glittered with
indescribable malice. The head moved as if spitting air and the whole post
slid back into the burdock, leaving only the eyes which glared at Alexander
Semyonovich without blinking. Drenched with sweat, the latter uttered five
incredible fear-crazed words. So piercing were the eyes between the leaves.
"What the devil's going on..."
Then he remembered about fakirs... Yes, yes, in India, a wicker basket
and a picture. Snake-charming.
The head reared up again, and the body began to uncoil. Alexander
Semyonovich raised his flute to his lips, gave a hoarse squeak and, gasping
for breath, began to play the waltz from Eugene Onegin. The eyes in the
burdock lit up at once with implacable hatred for the opera.
"Are you crazy, playing in this heat?" came Manya's cheerful voice, and
out of the corner of his eye Alexander Semyonovich glimpsed a patch of
white.
Then a terrible scream shattered the farm, swelling, rising, and the
waltz began to limp painfully. The head shot out of the burdock, its eyes
leaving Alexander Semyonovich's soul to repent of his sins. A snake about
thirty feet long and as thick as a man uncoiled like a spring and shot out
of the weeds. Clouds of dust sprayed up from the path, and the waltz ceased.
The snake raced past the state farm manager straight to the white blouse.
Feight saw everything clearly: Manya went a yellowish-white, and her long
hair rose about a foot above her head like wire. Before Feight's eyes the
snake opened its mouth, something fork-like darting out, then sank its teeth
into the shoulder of Manya, who was sinking into the dust, and jerked her up
about two feet above the ground. Manya gave another piercing death cry. The
snake coiled itself into a twelve-yard screw, its tail sweeping up a
tornado, and began to crush Manya. She did not make another sound. Feight
could hear her bones crunching. High above the ground rose Manya's head
pressed lovingly against the snake's cheek. Blood gushed out of her mouth, a
broken arm dangled in the air and more blood spurted out from under the
fingernails. Then the snake opened its mouth, put its gaping jaws over
Manya's head and slid onto the rest of her like a glove slipping onto a
finger. The snake's breath was so hot that Feight could feel it on his face,
and the tail all but swept him off the path into the acrid dust. It was then
that Feight went grey. First the left, then the right half of his jet-black
head turned to silver. Nauseated to death, he eventually managed to drag
himself away from the path, then turned and ran, seeing nothing and nobody,
with a wild shriek that echoed for miles around.
Shukin, the GPU agent at Dugino Station, was a very brave man. He said
thoughtfully to his companion, the ginger-headed Polaitis:
"Well, let's go. Eh? Get the motorbike." Then he paused for a moment
and added, turning to the man who was sitting on the bench: "Put the flute
down."
But instead of putting down the flute, the trembling grey-haired man on
the bench in the Dugino GPU office, began weeping and moaning. Shukin and
Polaitis realised they would have to pull the flute away. His fingers seemed
to be stuck to it. Shukin, who possessed enormous, almost circus-like
strength, prised the fingers away one by one. Then they put the flute on the
table.
It was early on the sunny morning of the day after Manya's death.
"You come too," Shukin said to Alexander Semyonovich, "and show us
where everything is." But Feight shrank back from him in horror, putting up
his hands as if to ward off some terrible vision.
"You must show us," Polaitis added sternly. "Leave him alone. You can
see the state he's in."
"Send me to Moscow," begged Alexander Semyonovich, weeping.
"You really don't want to go back to the farm again?"
Instead of replying Feight shielded himself with his hands again, his
eyes radiating horror.
"Alright then," decided Shukin. "You're really not in a fit state... I
can see that. There's an express train leaving shortly, you can go on it."
While the station watchman helped Alexander Semyonovich, whose teeth
were chattering on the battered blue mug, to have a drink of water, Shukin
and Polaitis conferred together. Polaitis took the view that nothing had
happened. But that Feight was mentally ill and it had all been a terrible,
hallucination. Shukin, however, was inclined to believe that a boa
constrictor had escaped from the circus on tour in the town of Grachevka.
The sound of their doubting whispers made Feight rise to his feet. He had
recovered somewhat and said, raising his hands like an Old Testament
prophet:
"Listen to me. Listen. Why don't you believe me? I saw it. Where is my
wife?"
Shukin went silent and serious and immediately sent off a telegram to
Grachevka. On Shukin's instructions, a third agent began to stick closely to
Alexander Semyonovich and was to accompany him to Moscow. Shukin and
Polaitis got ready for the journey. They only had one electric revolver, but
it was good protection. A 1927 model, the pride of French technology for
shooting at close range, could kill at a mere hundred paces, but had a range
of two metres in diameter and within this range any living thing was
exterminated outright. It was very hard to miss. Shukin put on this shiny
electric toy, while Polaitis armed himself with an ordinary light
machine-gun, then they took some ammunition and raced off on the motorbike
along the main road through the early morning dew and chill to the state
farm. The motorbike covered the twelve miles between the station and the
farm in a quarter of an hour (Feight had walked all night, occasionally
hiding in the grass by the wayside in spasms of mortal terror), and when the
sun began to get hot, the sugar palace with columns appeared amid the trees
on the hill overlooking the winding River Top. There was a deathly silence
all around. At the beginning of the turning up to the state farm the agents
overtook a peasant on a cart. He was riding along at a leisurely pace with a
load of sacks, and was soon left far behind. The motorbike drove over the
bridge, and Polaitis sounded the horn to announce their arrival. But this
elicited no response whatsoever, except from some distant frenzied dogs in
Kontsovka. The motorbike slowed down as it approached the gates with
verdigris lions. Covered with dust, the agents in yellow gaiters dismounted,
padlocked their motorbike to the iron railings and went into the yard. The
silence was eery.
"Hey, anybody around?" shouted Shukin loudly.
But no one answered his deep voice. The agents walked round the yard,
growing more and more mystified. Polaitis was scowling. Shukin began to
search seriously, his fair eyebrows knit in a frown. They looked through an
open window into the kitchen and saw that it was empty, but the floor was
covered with broken bits of white china.
"Something really has happened to them, you know. I can see it now.
Some catastrophe," Polaitis said.
"Anybody there? Hey!" shouted Shukin, but the only reply was an echo
from the kitchen vaults. "The devil only knows! It couldn't have gobbled
them all up, could it? Perhaps they've run off somewhere. Let's go into the
house."
The front door with the colonnaded veranda was wide open. The palace
was completely empty inside. The agents even climbed up to the attic,
knocking and opening all the doors, but they found nothing and went out
again into the yard through the deserted porch.
"We'll walk round the outside to the conservatory," Shukin said. "We'll
give that a good going over and we can phone from there too."
The agents set off along the brick path, past the flowerbeds and across
the backyard, at which point the conservatory came into sight.
"Wait a minute," whispered Shukin, unbuckling his revolver. Polaitis
tensed and took his machine-gun in both hands. A strange, very loud noise
was coming from the conservatory and somewhere behind it. It was like the
sound of a steam engine. "Zzzz-zzzz," the conservatory hissed.
"Careful now," whispered Shukin, and trying not to make a sound the
agents stole up to the glass walls and peered into the conservatory.
Polaitis immediately recoiled, his face white as a sheet. Shukin froze,
mouth open and revolver in hand.
The conservatory was a terrible writhing mass. Huge snakes slithered
across the floor, twisting and intertwining, hissing and uncoiling, swinging
and shaking their heads. The broken shells on the floor crunched under their
bodies. Overhead a powerful electric lamp shone palely, casting an eery
cinematographic light over the inside of the conservatory. On the floor lay
three huge photographic-like chambers, two of which were dark and had been
pushed aside, but a small deep-red patch of light glowed in the third.
Snakes of all sizes were crawling over the cables, coiling round the frames
and climbing through the holes in the roof. From the electric lamp itself
hung a jet-black spotted snake several yards long, its head swinging like a
pendulum. There was an occasional rattle amid the hissing, and a strange
putrid pond-like smell wafted out of the conservatory. The agents could just
make out piles of white eggs in the dusty corners, an enormous long-legged
bird lying motionless by the chambers and the body of a man in grey by the
door, with a rifle next to him.
"Get back!" shouted Shukin and began to retreat, pushing Polaitis with
his left hand and raising his revolver with his right. He managed to fire
nine hissing shots which cast flashes of green lightning all round. The
noise swelled terribly as in response to Shukin's shots the whole
conservatory was galvanised into frantic motion, and flat heads appeared in
all the holes. Peals of thunder began to roll over the farm and echo on the
walls. "Rat-tat-tat-tat," Polaitis fired, retreating backwards. There was a
strange four-footed shuffling behind him. Polaitis suddenly gave an awful
cry and fell to the ground. A brownish-green creature on bandy legs, with a
huge pointed head and a cristate tail, like an enormous lizard, had
slithered out from behind the barn, given Polaitis a vicious bite in the
leg, and knocked him over.
"Help!" shouted Polaitis. His left arm was immediately snapped up and
crunched by a pair of jaws, while his right, which he tried in vain to lift,
trailed the machine-gun over the ground. Shukin turned round in confusion.
He managed to fire once, but the shot went wide, because he was afraid of
hitting his companion. The second time he fired in the direction of the
conservatory, because amid the smaller snake-heads a huge olive one on an
enormous body had reared up and was slithering straight towards him. The
shot killed the giant snake, and Shukin hopped and skipped round Polaitis,
already half-dead in the crocodile's jaws, trying to find the right spot to
shoot the terrible monster without hitting the agent. In the end he
succeeded. The electric revolver fired twice, lighting up everything around
with a greenish flash, and the crocodile shuddered and stretched out rigid,
letting go of Polaitis. Blood gushed out of his sleeve and mouth. He
collapsed onto his sound right arm, dragging his broken left leg. He was
sinking fast.
"Get out... Shukin," he sobbed.
Shukin fired a few more shots in the direction of the conservatory,
smashing several panes of glass. But behind him a huge olive-coloured coil
sprang out of a cellar window, slithered over the yard, covering it entirely
with its ten-yard-long body and wound itself round Shukin's legs in a flash.
It dashed him to the ground, and the shiny revolver bounced away. Shukin
screamed with all his might, then choked, as the coils enfolded all of him
except his head. Another coil swung round his head, ripping off the scalp,
and the skull cracked. No more shots were heard in the farm. Everything was
drowned by the all-pervading hissing. In reply to the hissing the wind
wafted distant howls from Kontsovka, only now it was hard to say who was
howling, dogs or people.
In the editorial office of Izvestia the lights were shining brightly,
and the fat duty editor was laying out the second " column with telegrams
"Around the Union Republics". One galley caught his eye. He looked at it
through his pince-nez;
and laughed, then called the proof-readers and the maker-up and showed
them it. On the narrow strip of damp paper they read:
"Grachevka, Smolensk Province. A hen that is as big as a horse and
kicks like a horse has appeared in the district. It has bourgeois lady's
feathers instead of a tail."
The compositors laughed themselves silly.
"In my day," said the duty editor, chuckling richly, "when I was
working for Vanya Sytin on The Russian Word they used to see elephants when
they got sozzled. That's right. Now it's ostriches."
The compositors laughed.
"Yes, of course, it's an ostrich," said the maker-up. "Shall we put it
in, Ivan Vonifatievich?"
"Are you crazy?" the editor replied. "I'm surprised the secretary let
it through. It was written under the influence alright."
"Yes, they must have had a drop or two," agreed the compositors, and
the maker-up removed the ostrich report from the desk.
So it was that Izvestia came out next day containing, as usual, a mass
of interesting material but no mention whatsoever of the Grachevka ostrich.
Decent Ivanov, who was conscientiously reading Izvestia in his office,
rolled it up and yawned, muttering: "Nothing of interest," then put on his
white coat. A little later the Bunsen burners went on in his room and the
frogs started croaking. In Professor Persikov's room, however, there was
hell let loose. The petrified Pankrat Stood stiffly to attention.
"Yessir, I will," he was saying.
Persikov handed him a sealed packet and told him:
"Go at once to the head of the Husbandry Department, and tell him
straight that he's a swine. Tell him that I said so. And give him this
packet."
"That's a nice little errand and no mistake," thought the pale-faced
Pankrat and disappeared with the packet.
Persikov fumed angrily.
"The devil only knows what's going on," he raged, pacing up and down
the office and rubbing his gloved hands. "It's making a mockery of me and
zoology. They're bringing him pile upon pile of those blasted chicken eggs,
when I've been waiting two months for what I really need. America's not that
far away! It's sheer inefficiency! A real disgrace!" He began counting on
his fingers. "Catching them takes, say, ten days at the most, alright then,
fifteen, well, certainly not more than twenty, plus two days to get them to
London, and another one from London to Berlin. And from Berlin it's only six
hours to get here. It's an utter disgrace!"
He snatched up the phone in a rage and began ringing someone.
Everything in his laboratory was ready for some mysterious and highly
dangerous experiments. There were strips of paper to seal up the doors,
divers' helmets with snorkels and several cylinders shining like mercury
with labels saying "Volunteer-Chem" and "Do not touch" plus the drawing of a
skull and cross-bones on the label.
It took at least three hours for the Professor to calm down and get on
with some minor jobs. Which is what he did. He worked at the Institute until
eleven in the evening and therefore had no idea what was happening outside
Pankrat had to chase a grass-snake that slipped out of its chamber, and when
he caught it in the corridor the snake looked as if it would do anything
just to get away from there.
Late that evening the bell from Persikov's study rang. Pankrat appeared
on the threshold to be greeted by a strange sight. The scientist was
standing alone in the middle of the study, staring at the tables. Pankrat
coughed and froze to attention.
"There, Pankrat," said Persikov, pointing at the empty table. Pankrat
took fright. It looked in the dark as if the Professor
had been crying. That was unusual, terrifying.
"Yessir," Pankrat replied plaintively, thinking, "If only you'd bawl at
me!"
"There," Persikov repeated, and his lips trembled like a little boy's
whose favourite toy has suddenly been taken away from him.
"You know, my dear Pankrat," Persikov went on, turning away to face the
window. "My wife who left me fifteen years ago and joined an operetta
company has now apparently died... So there, Pankrat, dear chap... I got a
letter..."
The toads croaked mournfully, and darkness slowly engulfed the
Professor. Night was falling. Here and there white lamps went on in the
windows. Pankrat stood to attention with fright, confused and miserable.
"You can go, Pankrat," the Professor said heavily, with a wave of the
hand. "Go to bed, Pankrat, my dear fellow."
And so night fell. Pankrat left the study quickly on tiptoe for some
reason, ran to his cubby-hole, rummaged among a pile of rags in the corner,
pulled out an already opened bottle of vodka and gulped down a large
glassful. Then he ate some bread and salt, and his eyes cheered up a bit.
Late that evening, just before midnight, Pankrat was sitting barefoot
on a bench in the poorly lit vestibule, talking to the indefatigable bowler
hat on duty and scratching his chest under a calico shirt.
"Honest, it would've been better if he'd done me in..."
"Was he really crying?" asked the bowler hat, inquisitively.
"Honest he was," Pankrat insisted.
"A great scientist," the bowler hat agreed. "A frog's no substitute for
a wife, anyone knows that."
"It sure isn't," Pankrat agreed.
Then he paused and added:
"I'm thinking of bringing the wife up here... No sense her staying in
the country. Only she couldn't stand them there reptiles..."
"I'm not surprised, the filthy things," agreed the bowler hat.
Not a sound could be heard from the Professor's study. The light was
not on either. There was no strip under the door.
There is no better time of the year than mid-August in Smolensk
Province, say. The summer of 1928 was a splendid one, as we all know, with
rains just at the right time in spring, a full hot sun, and a splendid
harvest... The apples on the former Sheremetev family estate were ripening,
the forests were a lush green and the fields were squares of rich yellow...
Man becomes nobler in the lap of nature. Alexander Se-myonovich too did not
seem quite as unpleasant as in the town. And he wasn't wearing that
revolting jacket. His face had a bronze tan, the unbuttoned calico shirt
revealed a chest thickly covered with black hair. He had canvas trousers on.
And his eyes were calmer and kinder.
Alexander Semyonovich trotted excitedly down the colon-naded porch,
which sported a notice with the words "Red Ray State Farm" under a star, and
went straight to the truck that had just brought the three black chambers
under escort.
All day Alexander Semyonovich worked hard with his assistants setting
up the chambers in the former winter garden, the Sheremetevs' conservatory.
By evening all was ready. A white frosted arc lamp shone under the glass
roof, the chambers were set up on bricks and, after much tapping and turning
of shining knobs, the mechanic who had come with the chambers produced the
mysterious red ray on the asbestos floor in the black crates.
Alexander Semyonovich bustled about, climbing up the ladder himself and
checking the wiring.
The next day the same truck came back from the station and spat out
three boxes of magnificent smooth plywood stuck all over with labels and
white notices on a black background that read:
"Vorsicht: Eier!"
"Eggs. Handle with care!"
"Why have they sent so few?" Alexander Semyonovich exclaimed in
surprise and set about unpacking the eggs at once. The unpacking also took
place in the conservatory with the participation of the following: Alexander
Semyonovich himself, his unusually plump wife Manya, the one-eyed former
gardener of the former Sheremetevs, who now worked for the state farm in the
universal post of watchman, the guard doomed to live on the state farm, and
the cleaning girl Dunya. It was not Moscow, and everything here was simpler,
more friendly and more homely. Alexander Semyonovich gave the instructions,
glancing avidly from time to time at the boxes which lay like some rich
present under the gentle sunset glow from the upper panes in the
conservatory. The guard, his rifle dozing peacefully by the door, was
ripping open the braces and metal bands with a pair of pliers. There was a
sound of cracking wood. Clouds of dust rose up. Alexander Semyonovich padded
around in his sandals, fussing by the boxes.
"Gently does it," he said to the guard. "Be careful. Can't you see it's
eggs?"
"Don't worry," croaked the provincial warrior, bashing away happily.
"Won't be a minute..."
Wrr-ench. Down came another shower of dust.
The eggs were beautifully packed: first came sheets of waxed paper
under the wooden top, next some blotting paper, then a thick layer of wood
shavings and finally the sawdust in which the white egg-tops nestled.
"Foreign packing," said Alexander Semyonovich lovingly, rummaging
around in the sawdust. "Not the way we do it. Careful, Manya, or you'll
break them."
"Have you gone daft, Alexander Semyonovich," replied his wife. "What's
so special about this lot? Think I've never seen eggs before? Oh, what big
ones!"
"Foreign," said Alexander Semyonovich, laying the eggs out on the
wooden table. "Not like our poor old peasant eggs. Bet they're all
brahmaputras, the devil take them! German..."
"I should say so," the guard agreed, admitting the eggs.
"Only why are they so dirty?" Alexander Semyonovich mused thoughtfully.
"Keep an eye on things, Manya. Tell them to go on unloading. I'm going off
to make a phone call."
And Alexander Semyonovich went to use the telephone in the farm office
across the yard.
That evening the phone rang in the laboratory at the Zoological
Institute. Professor Persikov tousled his hair and went to answer it.
"Yes?" he asked.
"There's a call for you from the provinces," a female voice hissed
quietly down the receiver.
"Well, put it through then," said Persikov disdainfully into the black
mouthpiece. After a bit of crackling a far-off male voice asked anxiously in
his ear:
"Should the eggs be washed. Professor?"
"What's that? What? What did you say?" snapped Persikov irritably.
"Where are you speaking from?"
"Nikolskoye, Smolensk Province," the receiver replied.
"Don't understand. Never heard of it. Who's that speaking?"
"Feight," the receiver said sternly.
"What Feight? Ah, yes. It's you. What did you want to know?"
"Whether to wash them. They've sent a batch of chicken eggs from
abroad..."
"Well?"
"But they're all mucky..."
"You must be wrong. How can they be 'mucky', as you put it? Well, of
course, maybe a few, er, droppings got stuck to them, or something of the
sort."
"So what about washing them?"
"No need at all, of course. Why, are you putting the eggs into the
chambers already?"
"Yes, I am," the receiver replied.
"Hm," Persikov grunted.
"So long," the receiver clattered and fell silent.
"So long," Persikov repeated distastefully to Decent Ivanov. "How do
you like that character, Pyotr Stepanovich?"
Ivanov laughed.
"So it was him, was it? I can imagine what he'll concoct out of those
eggs."
"Ye-e-es," Persikov began maliciously. "Just think, Pyotr Stepanovich.
Well, of course, it's highly possible that the ray will have the same effect
on the deuteroplasma of a chicken egg as on the plasma of amphibians. It is
also highly possible that he will hatch out chickens. But neither you nor I
can say precisely what sort of chickens they will be. They may be of no
earthly use to anyone. They may die after a day or two. Or they may be
inedible. And can I even guarantee that they'll be able to stand up. Perhaps
they'll have brittle bones." Persikov got excited, waved his hand and
crooked his fingers.
"Quite so," Ivanov agreed.
"Can you guarantee, Pyotr Stepanovich, that they will be able to
reproduce? Perhaps that character will hatch out sterile chickens. He'll
make them as big as a dog, and they won't have any chicks until kingdom
come."
"Precisely," Ivanov agreed.
"And such nonchalance," Persikov was working himself into a fury. "Such
perkiness! And kindly note that I was asked to instruct that scoundrel."
Persikov pointed to the warrant delivered by Feight (which was lying on the
experimental table). "But how am I to instruct that ignoramus when I myself
can say nothing about the question?"
"Couldn't you have refused?" asked Ivanov.
Persikov turned purple, snatched up the warrant and showed it to Ivanov
who read it and gave an ironic smile.
"Yes, I see," he said significantly.
"And kindly note also that I've been expecting my shipment for two
months, and there's still no sign of it. But that rascal got his eggs
straightaway and all sorts of assistance."
"It won't do him any good, Vladimir Ipatych. In the end they'll just
give you back your chambers."
"Well, let's hope it's soon, because they're holding up my
experiments."
"Yes, that's dreadful. I've got everything ready."
"Has the protective clothing arrived?"
"Yes, today."
Persikov was somewhat reassured by this and brightened up.
"Then I think we'll proceed like this. We can close the doors of the
operating-room tight and open up the windows."
"Of course," Ivanov agreed.
"Three helmets?"
"Yes, three."
"Well then, that's you and me, and we'll ask one of the students. He
can have the third helmet."
"Grinmut would do."
"That's the one you've got working on salamanders, isn't it? Hm, he's
not bad, but, if you don't mind my saying so, last spring he didn't know the
difference between a Pseudotyphlops and a Platyplecturus," Persikov added
with rancour.
"But he's not bad. He's a good student," Ivanov defended him.
"We'll have to go without sleep completely for one night," Persikov
went on. "Only you must check the gas, Pyotr Stepanovich. The devil only
knows what it's like. That Volunteer-Chem lot might send us some rubbish."
"No, no," Ivanov waved his hands. "I tested it yesterday. You must give
them some credit, Vladimir Ipatych, the gas is excellent."
"What did you try it on?"
"Some common toads. You just spray them with it and they die instantly.
And another thing, Vladimir Ipatych. Write and ask the GPU to send you an
electric revolver."
"But I don't know how to use it."
"I'll see to that," Ivanov replied. "We tried one out on the Klyazma,
just for fun. There was a GPU chap living next to me. It's a wonderful
thing. And incredibly efficient. Kills outright at a hundred paces without
making a sound. We were shooting ravens. I don't even think we'll need the
gas."
"Hm, that's a bright idea. Very bright." Persikov went into the comer,
lifted the receiver and barked:
"Give me that, what's it called, Lubyanka."
The weather was unusually hot. You could see the rich transparent heat
shimmering over the fields. But the nights were wonderful, green and
deceptive. The moon made the former estate of the Sheremetevs look too
beautiful for words. The palace-cum-state farm glistened as if it were made
of sugar, shadows quivered in the park, and the ponds had two different
halves, one a slanting column of light, the other fathomless darkness. In
the patches of moonlight you could easily read Izvestia, except for the
chess section which was in small nonpareil. But on nights like these no one
read Izvestia, of course. Dunya the cleaner was in the woods behind the
state farm and as coincidence would have it, the ginger-moustached driver of
the farm's battered truck happened to be there too. What they were doing
there no one knows. They were sheltering in the unreliable shade of an elm
tree, on the driver leather coat which was spread out on the ground. A lamp
shone in the kitchen, where the two market-gardeners were having supper, -
and Madame Feight was sitting in a white neglige on the columned veranda,
gazing at the beautiful moon and dreaming.
At ten o'clock in the evening when the sounds had died down in the
village of Kontsovka behind the state farm, the idyllic landscape was filled
with the charming gentle playing of a flute. This fitted in with the groves
and former columns of the Sheremetev palace more than words can say. In the
duet the voice of the delicate Liza from The Queen of Spades blended with
that of the passionate Polina and soared up into. the moonlit heights like a
vision of the old and yet infinitely dear, heartbreakingly entrancing
regime.
Do fade away... Fade away...
piped the flute, trilling and sighing.
The copses were hushed, and Dunya, fatal as a wood nymph, listened, her
cheek pressed against the rough, ginger and manly cheek of the driver.
"He don't play bad, the bastard," said the driver, putting a manly arm
round Dunya's waist.
The flute was being played by none other than the manager of the state
farm himself, Alexander Semyonovich Feight, who, to do him justice, was
playing it beautifully. The fact of the matter was that Alexander
Semyonovich had once specialised in the flute. Right up to 1917 he had
played in the well-known concert ensemble of the maestro Petukhov, filling
the foyer of the cosy little Magic Dreams cinema in the town of
Yekaterinoslav with its sweet notes every evening. But the great year of
1917, which broke the careers of so many, had swept Alexander Semyonovich
onto a new path too. He left the Magic Dreams and the dusty star-spangled
satin of its foyer to plunge into the open sea of war and revolution,
exchanging his flute for a death-dealing Mauser. For a long time he was
tossed about on waves which washed him ashore, now in the Crimea, now in
Moscow, now in Turkestan, and even in Vladivostok. It needed the revolution
for Alexander Semyonovich to realise his full potential. It turned out that
here was a truly great man, who should not be allowed to waste his talents
in the foyer of Magic Dreams, of course. Without going into unnecessary
detail, we shall merely say that the year before, 1927, and the beginning of
1928 had found Alexander Semyonovich in Turkestan where he first edited a
big newspaper and then, as a local member of the Supreme Economic
Commission, became renowned for his remarkable contribution to the
irrigation of Turkestan. In 1928 Feight came to Moscow and received some
well-deserved leave. The Supreme Commission of the organisation, whose
membership card this provincially old-fashioned man carried with honour in
his pocket, appreciated his qualities and appointed him to a quiet and
honorary post. Alas and alack! To the great misfortune of the Republic,
Alexander Semyonovich's seething brain did not quieten down. In Moscow
Feight learned of Persikov's discovery, and in the rooms of Red Paris in
Tverskaya Street Alexander Semyonovich had the brainwave of using the ray to
restore the Republic's poultry in a month. The Animal Husbandry Commission
listened to what he had to say, agreed with him, and Feight took his warrant
to the eccentric scientist.
The concert over the glassy waters, the grove and the park was drawing
to a close, when something happened to cut it short. The dogs in Kontsovka,
who Should have been fast asleep by then, suddenly set up a frenzied
barking, which gradually turned into an excruciating general howl. The howl
swelled up, drifting over the fields, and was answered by a high-pitched
concert from the million frogs on the ponds. All this was so ghastly, that
for a moment the mysterious enchanted night seemed to fade away.
Alexander Semyonovich put down his flute and went onto the veranda.
"Hear that, Manya? It's those blasted dogs... What do you think set
them off like that?"
"How should I know?" she replied, gazing at the moon.
"Hey, Manya, let's go and take a look at the eggs," Alexander
Semyonovich suggested.
"For goodness sake, Alexander Semyonovich. You're darned crazy about
those eggs and chickens. Have a rest for a bit."
"No, Manya, let's go."
A bright light was burning in the conservatory. Dunya came in too with
a burning face and shining eyes. Alexander Semyonovich opened the
observation windows carefully, and they all began peeping into the chambers.
On the white asbestos floor lay neat rows of bright-red eggs with spots on
them. There was total silence in the chambers, except for the hissing of the
15,000 candle-power light overhead.
"I'll hatch those chicks out alright!" exclaimed Alexander Semyonovich
excitedly, looking now through the observation windows at the side, now
through the wide ventilation hatches overhead. "You'll see. Eh? Don't you
think so?"
"You know what, Alexander Semyonovich," said Dunya, smiling. "The men
in Kontsovka think you're the Antichrist. They say your eggs are from the
devil. It's a sin to hatch eggs with machines. They want to kill you."
Alexander Semyonovich shuddered and turned to his wife. His face had
gone yellow.
"Well, how about that? Ignorant lot! What can you do with people like
that? Eh? We'll have to fix up a meeting for them, Manya. I'll phone the
district centre tomorrow for some Party workers. And I'll give 'em a speech
myself. This place needs a bit of working over alright. Stuck away at the
back of beyond..."
"Thick as posts," muttered the guard, who had settled down on his
greatcoat in the conservatory doorway.
The next day was heralded by some strange and inexplicable events. In
the early morning, at the first glint of sunlight, the groves, which usually
greeted the heavenly body with a strong and unceasing twitter of birds, met
it with total silence. This was noticed by absolutely everybody. It was like
the calm before a storm. But no storm followed. Conversations at the state
farm took on a strange and sinister note for Alexander Semyonovich,
especially because according to the well-known Kontsovka trouble-maker and
sage nicknamed Goat Gob, all the birds had gathered in flocks and flown away
northwards from Sheremetevo at dawn, which was quite ridiculous. Alexander
Semyonovich was most upset and spent the whole day putting a phone call
through to the town of Grachevka. Eventually they promised to send him in a
few days' time two speakers on two subjects, the international situation and
the question of Volunteer-Fowl.
The evening brought some more surprises. Whereas in the morning the
woods had fallen silent, showing clearly how suspiciously unpleasant it was
when the trees were quiet, and whereas by midday the sparrows from the state
farmyard had also flown off somewhere, that evening there was not a sound
from the Sheremetevka pond either. This was quite extraordinary, because
everyone for twenty miles around was familiar with the croaking of the
Sheremetev frogs. But now they seemed to be extinct. There was not a single
voice from the pond, and the sedge was silent. It must be confessed that
this really upset Alexander Semyonovich. People had begun to talk about
these happenings in a most unpleasant fashion, i.e., behind his back.
"It really is strange," said Alexander Semyonovich to his wife at
lunch. "I can't understand why those birds had to go and fly away."
"How should I know?" Manya replied. "Perhaps it's because of your ray."
"Don't be so silly, Manya!" exclaimed Alexander Semyonovich, flinging
down his spoon. "You're as bad as the peasants. What's the ray got to do
with it?" "I don't know. Stop pestering me." That evening brought the third
surprise. The dogs began howling again in Kontsovka and how! Their endless
whines and angry, mournful yelping wafted over the moonlit fields.
Alexander Semyonovich rewarded himself somewhat with yet another
surprise, a pleasant one this time, in the conservatory. A constant tapping
had begun inside the red eggs in the chambers. "Tappity-tappity-tappity,"
came from one, then another, then a third.
The tapping in the eggs was a triumph for Alexander Semyonovich. The
strange events in the woods and on the pond were immediately forgotten.
Everyone gathered in the conservatory, Manya, Dunya, the watchman and the
guard, who left his rifle by the door.
"Well, then? What about that?" asked Alexander Semyonovich
triumphantly. Everyone put their ears eagerly to the doors of the first
chamber. "That's them tapping with their little beaks, the chickens,"
Alexander Semyonovich went on, beaming. "So you thought I wouldn't hatch out
any chicks, did you? Well, you were wrong, my hearties." From an excess of
emotion he slapped the guard on the shoulder. "I'll hatch chickens that'll
take your breath away. Only now I must keep alert," he added strictly. "Let
me know as soon as they start hatching."
"Right you are," replied the watchman, Dunya and the guard in a chorus.
"Tappity-tappity-tappity," went one egg, then another, in the first
chamber. In fact this on-the-spot spectacle of new life being born in a thin
shining shell was so intriguing that they all sat for a long time on the
upturned empty crates, watching the crimson eggs mature in the mysterious
glimmering light. By the time they went to bed it was quite late and a
greenish night had spread over the farm and the surrounding countryside. The
night was mysterious, one might even say frightening, probably because its
total silence was broken now and then by the abject, excruciating howls of
the dogs in Kontsovka. What on earth had got into those blasted dogs no one
could say.
An unpleasant surprise awaited Alexander Semyonovich the next morning.
The guard was extremely upset and kept putting his hands on his heart,
swearing that he had not fallen asleep but had noticed nothing.
"I can't understand it," the guard insisted. "It's through no fault of
mine, Comrade Feight."
"Very grateful to you, I'm sure," retorted Alexander Semyonovich
heatedly. "What do you think, comrade? Why were you put on guard? To keep an
eye on things. So tell me where they are. They've hatched out, haven't they?
So they must have run away. That means you must have left the door open and
gone off somewhere. Get me those chickens!"
"Where could I have gone? I know my job." The guard took offence.
"Don't you go accusing me unfairly, Comrade Feight!"
"Then where are they?"
"How the blazes should I know!" the guard finally exploded. "I'm not
supposed to guard them, am I? Why was I put on duty? To see that nobody
pinched the chambers, and that's what I've done. Your chambers are safe and
sound. But there's no law that says I must chase after your chickens.
Goodness only knows what they'll be like. Maybe you won't be able to catch
them on a bicycle."
This somewhat deflated Alexander Semyonovich. He muttered something
else, then relapsed into a state of perplexity. It was a strange business
indeed. In the first chamber, which had been switched on before the others,
the two eggs at the very base of the ray had broken open. One of them had
even rolled to one side. The empty shell was lying on the asbestos floor in
the ray.
"The devil only knows," muttered Alexander Semyonovich. "The windows
are closed and they couldn't have flown away over the roof, could they?"
He threw back his head and looked at some big holes in the glass roof.
"Of course, they couldn't, Alexander Semyonovich!" exclaimed Dunya in
surprise. "Chickens can't fly. They must be here somewhere. Chuck, chuck,
chuck," she called, peering into the corners of the conservatory, which were
cluttered with dusty flower pots, bits of boards and other rubbish. But no
chicks answered her call.
The whole staff spent about two hours running round the farmyard,
looking for the runaway chickens and found nothing. The day passed in great
excitement. The duty guard on the chambers was reinforced by the watchman,
who had strict orders to look through the chamber windows every quarter of
an hour and call Alexander Semyonovich if anything happened. The guard sat
huffily by the door, holding his rifle between his knees. What with all the
worry Alexander Semyonovich did not have lunch until nearly two. After lunch
he slept for an hour or so in the cool shade on the former She-remetev
ottoman, had a refreshing drink of the farm's kvass and slipped into the
conservatory to make sure everything was alright. The old watchman was lying
on his stomach on some bast matting and staring through the observation
window of the first chamber. The guard was keeping watch by the door.
But there was a piece of news: the eggs in the third chamber, which had
been switched on last, were making a kind of gulping, hissing sound, as if
something inside them were whimpering.
"They're hatching out alright," said Alexander Semyonovich. "That's for
sure. See?" he said to the watchman.
"Aye, it's most extraordinary," the latter replied in a most ambiguous
tone, shaking his head.
Alexander Semyonovich squatted by the chambers for a while, but nothing
hatched out. So he got up, stretched and announced that he would not leave
the grounds, but was going for a swim in the pond and must be called if
there were any developments. He went into the palace to his bedroom with its
two narrow iron bedsteads, rumpled bedclothes and piles of green apples and
millet on the floor for the newly-hatched chickens, took a towel and, on
reflection, his flute as well to play at leisure over the still waters. Then
he ran quickly out of the palace, across the farmyard and down the
willow-lined path to the pond. He walked briskly, swinging the towel, with
the flute under his arm. The sky shimmered with heat through the willows,
and his aching body begged to dive into the water. On the right of Feight
began a dense patch of burdock, into which he spat en passant. All at once
there was a rustling in the tangle of big leaves, as if someone was dragging
a log. With a sudden sinking feeling in his stomach, Alexander Semyonovich
turned his head towards the burdock in surprise. There had not been a sound
from the pond for two days. The rustling stopped, and above the burdock the
smooth surface of the pond flashed invitingly with the grey roof of the
changing hut. Some dragon-flies darted to and fro in front of Alexander
Semyonovich. He was about to turn off to the wooden platform, when there was
another rustle in the burdock accompanied this time by a short hissing like
steam coming out of an engine. Alexander Semyonovich tensed and stared at
the dense thicket of weeds.
At that moment the voice of Feight's wife rang out, and her white
blouse flashed in and out through the raspberry bushes. "Wait for me,
Alexander Semyonovich. I'm coming for a swim too."
His wife was hurrying to the pond, but Alexander Se-myonovich's eyes
were riveted on the burdock and he did not reply. A greyish olive-coloured
log had begun to rise out of the thicket, growing ever bigger before his
horrified gaze. The log seemed to be covered with wet yellowish spots. It
began to straighten up, bending and swaying, and was so long that it reached
above a short gnarled willow. Then the top of the log cracked, bent down
slightly, and something about the height of a Moscow electric lamp-post
loomed over Alexander Semyonovich. Only this something was about three times
thicker that a lamp-post and far more beautiful because of its scaly
tattooing. Completely mystified, but with shivers running down his spine,
Alexander Semyonovich looked at the top of this terrifying lamp-post, and
his heart almost stopped beating. He turned to ice on the warm August day,
and everything went dark before his eyes as if he were looking at the sun
through his summer trousers.
On the tip of the log was a head. A flattened, pointed head adorned
with a round yellow spot on an olive background. In the roof of the head sat
a pair of lidless icy narrow eyes, and these eyes glittered with
indescribable malice. The head moved as if spitting air and the whole post
slid back into the burdock, leaving only the eyes which glared at Alexander
Semyonovich without blinking. Drenched with sweat, the latter uttered five
incredible fear-crazed words. So piercing were the eyes between the leaves.
"What the devil's going on..."
Then he remembered about fakirs... Yes, yes, in India, a wicker basket
and a picture. Snake-charming.
The head reared up again, and the body began to uncoil. Alexander
Semyonovich raised his flute to his lips, gave a hoarse squeak and, gasping
for breath, began to play the waltz from Eugene Onegin. The eyes in the
burdock lit up at once with implacable hatred for the opera.
"Are you crazy, playing in this heat?" came Manya's cheerful voice, and
out of the corner of his eye Alexander Semyonovich glimpsed a patch of
white.
Then a terrible scream shattered the farm, swelling, rising, and the
waltz began to limp painfully. The head shot out of the burdock, its eyes
leaving Alexander Semyonovich's soul to repent of his sins. A snake about
thirty feet long and as thick as a man uncoiled like a spring and shot out
of the weeds. Clouds of dust sprayed up from the path, and the waltz ceased.
The snake raced past the state farm manager straight to the white blouse.
Feight saw everything clearly: Manya went a yellowish-white, and her long
hair rose about a foot above her head like wire. Before Feight's eyes the
snake opened its mouth, something fork-like darting out, then sank its teeth
into the shoulder of Manya, who was sinking into the dust, and jerked her up
about two feet above the ground. Manya gave another piercing death cry. The
snake coiled itself into a twelve-yard screw, its tail sweeping up a
tornado, and began to crush Manya. She did not make another sound. Feight
could hear her bones crunching. High above the ground rose Manya's head
pressed lovingly against the snake's cheek. Blood gushed out of her mouth, a
broken arm dangled in the air and more blood spurted out from under the
fingernails. Then the snake opened its mouth, put its gaping jaws over
Manya's head and slid onto the rest of her like a glove slipping onto a
finger. The snake's breath was so hot that Feight could feel it on his face,
and the tail all but swept him off the path into the acrid dust. It was then
that Feight went grey. First the left, then the right half of his jet-black
head turned to silver. Nauseated to death, he eventually managed to drag
himself away from the path, then turned and ran, seeing nothing and nobody,
with a wild shriek that echoed for miles around.
Shukin, the GPU agent at Dugino Station, was a very brave man. He said
thoughtfully to his companion, the ginger-headed Polaitis:
"Well, let's go. Eh? Get the motorbike." Then he paused for a moment
and added, turning to the man who was sitting on the bench: "Put the flute
down."
But instead of putting down the flute, the trembling grey-haired man on
the bench in the Dugino GPU office, began weeping and moaning. Shukin and
Polaitis realised they would have to pull the flute away. His fingers seemed
to be stuck to it. Shukin, who possessed enormous, almost circus-like
strength, prised the fingers away one by one. Then they put the flute on the
table.
It was early on the sunny morning of the day after Manya's death.
"You come too," Shukin said to Alexander Semyonovich, "and show us
where everything is." But Feight shrank back from him in horror, putting up
his hands as if to ward off some terrible vision.
"You must show us," Polaitis added sternly. "Leave him alone. You can
see the state he's in."
"Send me to Moscow," begged Alexander Semyonovich, weeping.
"You really don't want to go back to the farm again?"
Instead of replying Feight shielded himself with his hands again, his
eyes radiating horror.
"Alright then," decided Shukin. "You're really not in a fit state... I
can see that. There's an express train leaving shortly, you can go on it."
While the station watchman helped Alexander Semyonovich, whose teeth
were chattering on the battered blue mug, to have a drink of water, Shukin
and Polaitis conferred together. Polaitis took the view that nothing had
happened. But that Feight was mentally ill and it had all been a terrible,
hallucination. Shukin, however, was inclined to believe that a boa
constrictor had escaped from the circus on tour in the town of Grachevka.
The sound of their doubting whispers made Feight rise to his feet. He had
recovered somewhat and said, raising his hands like an Old Testament
prophet:
"Listen to me. Listen. Why don't you believe me? I saw it. Where is my
wife?"
Shukin went silent and serious and immediately sent off a telegram to
Grachevka. On Shukin's instructions, a third agent began to stick closely to
Alexander Semyonovich and was to accompany him to Moscow. Shukin and
Polaitis got ready for the journey. They only had one electric revolver, but
it was good protection. A 1927 model, the pride of French technology for
shooting at close range, could kill at a mere hundred paces, but had a range
of two metres in diameter and within this range any living thing was
exterminated outright. It was very hard to miss. Shukin put on this shiny
electric toy, while Polaitis armed himself with an ordinary light
machine-gun, then they took some ammunition and raced off on the motorbike
along the main road through the early morning dew and chill to the state
farm. The motorbike covered the twelve miles between the station and the
farm in a quarter of an hour (Feight had walked all night, occasionally
hiding in the grass by the wayside in spasms of mortal terror), and when the
sun began to get hot, the sugar palace with columns appeared amid the trees
on the hill overlooking the winding River Top. There was a deathly silence
all around. At the beginning of the turning up to the state farm the agents
overtook a peasant on a cart. He was riding along at a leisurely pace with a
load of sacks, and was soon left far behind. The motorbike drove over the
bridge, and Polaitis sounded the horn to announce their arrival. But this
elicited no response whatsoever, except from some distant frenzied dogs in
Kontsovka. The motorbike slowed down as it approached the gates with
verdigris lions. Covered with dust, the agents in yellow gaiters dismounted,
padlocked their motorbike to the iron railings and went into the yard. The
silence was eery.
"Hey, anybody around?" shouted Shukin loudly.
But no one answered his deep voice. The agents walked round the yard,
growing more and more mystified. Polaitis was scowling. Shukin began to
search seriously, his fair eyebrows knit in a frown. They looked through an
open window into the kitchen and saw that it was empty, but the floor was
covered with broken bits of white china.
"Something really has happened to them, you know. I can see it now.
Some catastrophe," Polaitis said.
"Anybody there? Hey!" shouted Shukin, but the only reply was an echo
from the kitchen vaults. "The devil only knows! It couldn't have gobbled
them all up, could it? Perhaps they've run off somewhere. Let's go into the
house."
The front door with the colonnaded veranda was wide open. The palace
was completely empty inside. The agents even climbed up to the attic,
knocking and opening all the doors, but they found nothing and went out
again into the yard through the deserted porch.
"We'll walk round the outside to the conservatory," Shukin said. "We'll
give that a good going over and we can phone from there too."
The agents set off along the brick path, past the flowerbeds and across
the backyard, at which point the conservatory came into sight.
"Wait a minute," whispered Shukin, unbuckling his revolver. Polaitis
tensed and took his machine-gun in both hands. A strange, very loud noise
was coming from the conservatory and somewhere behind it. It was like the
sound of a steam engine. "Zzzz-zzzz," the conservatory hissed.
"Careful now," whispered Shukin, and trying not to make a sound the
agents stole up to the glass walls and peered into the conservatory.
Polaitis immediately recoiled, his face white as a sheet. Shukin froze,
mouth open and revolver in hand.
The conservatory was a terrible writhing mass. Huge snakes slithered
across the floor, twisting and intertwining, hissing and uncoiling, swinging
and shaking their heads. The broken shells on the floor crunched under their
bodies. Overhead a powerful electric lamp shone palely, casting an eery
cinematographic light over the inside of the conservatory. On the floor lay
three huge photographic-like chambers, two of which were dark and had been
pushed aside, but a small deep-red patch of light glowed in the third.
Snakes of all sizes were crawling over the cables, coiling round the frames
and climbing through the holes in the roof. From the electric lamp itself
hung a jet-black spotted snake several yards long, its head swinging like a
pendulum. There was an occasional rattle amid the hissing, and a strange
putrid pond-like smell wafted out of the conservatory. The agents could just
make out piles of white eggs in the dusty corners, an enormous long-legged
bird lying motionless by the chambers and the body of a man in grey by the
door, with a rifle next to him.
"Get back!" shouted Shukin and began to retreat, pushing Polaitis with
his left hand and raising his revolver with his right. He managed to fire
nine hissing shots which cast flashes of green lightning all round. The
noise swelled terribly as in response to Shukin's shots the whole
conservatory was galvanised into frantic motion, and flat heads appeared in
all the holes. Peals of thunder began to roll over the farm and echo on the
walls. "Rat-tat-tat-tat," Polaitis fired, retreating backwards. There was a
strange four-footed shuffling behind him. Polaitis suddenly gave an awful
cry and fell to the ground. A brownish-green creature on bandy legs, with a
huge pointed head and a cristate tail, like an enormous lizard, had
slithered out from behind the barn, given Polaitis a vicious bite in the
leg, and knocked him over.
"Help!" shouted Polaitis. His left arm was immediately snapped up and
crunched by a pair of jaws, while his right, which he tried in vain to lift,
trailed the machine-gun over the ground. Shukin turned round in confusion.
He managed to fire once, but the shot went wide, because he was afraid of
hitting his companion. The second time he fired in the direction of the
conservatory, because amid the smaller snake-heads a huge olive one on an
enormous body had reared up and was slithering straight towards him. The
shot killed the giant snake, and Shukin hopped and skipped round Polaitis,
already half-dead in the crocodile's jaws, trying to find the right spot to
shoot the terrible monster without hitting the agent. In the end he
succeeded. The electric revolver fired twice, lighting up everything around
with a greenish flash, and the crocodile shuddered and stretched out rigid,
letting go of Polaitis. Blood gushed out of his sleeve and mouth. He
collapsed onto his sound right arm, dragging his broken left leg. He was
sinking fast.
"Get out... Shukin," he sobbed.
Shukin fired a few more shots in the direction of the conservatory,
smashing several panes of glass. But behind him a huge olive-coloured coil
sprang out of a cellar window, slithered over the yard, covering it entirely
with its ten-yard-long body and wound itself round Shukin's legs in a flash.
It dashed him to the ground, and the shiny revolver bounced away. Shukin
screamed with all his might, then choked, as the coils enfolded all of him
except his head. Another coil swung round his head, ripping off the scalp,
and the skull cracked. No more shots were heard in the farm. Everything was
drowned by the all-pervading hissing. In reply to the hissing the wind
wafted distant howls from Kontsovka, only now it was hard to say who was
howling, dogs or people.
In the editorial office of Izvestia the lights were shining brightly,
and the fat duty editor was laying out the second " column with telegrams
"Around the Union Republics". One galley caught his eye. He looked at it
through his pince-nez;
and laughed, then called the proof-readers and the maker-up and showed
them it. On the narrow strip of damp paper they read:
"Grachevka, Smolensk Province. A hen that is as big as a horse and
kicks like a horse has appeared in the district. It has bourgeois lady's
feathers instead of a tail."
The compositors laughed themselves silly.
"In my day," said the duty editor, chuckling richly, "when I was
working for Vanya Sytin on The Russian Word they used to see elephants when
they got sozzled. That's right. Now it's ostriches."
The compositors laughed.
"Yes, of course, it's an ostrich," said the maker-up. "Shall we put it
in, Ivan Vonifatievich?"
"Are you crazy?" the editor replied. "I'm surprised the secretary let
it through. It was written under the influence alright."
"Yes, they must have had a drop or two," agreed the compositors, and
the maker-up removed the ostrich report from the desk.
So it was that Izvestia came out next day containing, as usual, a mass
of interesting material but no mention whatsoever of the Grachevka ostrich.
Decent Ivanov, who was conscientiously reading Izvestia in his office,
rolled it up and yawned, muttering: "Nothing of interest," then put on his
white coat. A little later the Bunsen burners went on in his room and the
frogs started croaking. In Professor Persikov's room, however, there was
hell let loose. The petrified Pankrat Stood stiffly to attention.
"Yessir, I will," he was saying.
Persikov handed him a sealed packet and told him:
"Go at once to the head of the Husbandry Department, and tell him
straight that he's a swine. Tell him that I said so. And give him this
packet."
"That's a nice little errand and no mistake," thought the pale-faced
Pankrat and disappeared with the packet.
Persikov fumed angrily.
"The devil only knows what's going on," he raged, pacing up and down
the office and rubbing his gloved hands. "It's making a mockery of me and
zoology. They're bringing him pile upon pile of those blasted chicken eggs,
when I've been waiting two months for what I really need. America's not that
far away! It's sheer inefficiency! A real disgrace!" He began counting on
his fingers. "Catching them takes, say, ten days at the most, alright then,
fifteen, well, certainly not more than twenty, plus two days to get them to
London, and another one from London to Berlin. And from Berlin it's only six
hours to get here. It's an utter disgrace!"
He snatched up the phone in a rage and began ringing someone.
Everything in his laboratory was ready for some mysterious and highly
dangerous experiments. There were strips of paper to seal up the doors,
divers' helmets with snorkels and several cylinders shining like mercury
with labels saying "Volunteer-Chem" and "Do not touch" plus the drawing of a
skull and cross-bones on the label.
It took at least three hours for the Professor to calm down and get on
with some minor jobs. Which is what he did. He worked at the Institute until
eleven in the evening and therefore had no idea what was happening outside