Mikhail Bulgakov. The Fateful Eggs

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     "Роковые яйца"   eggs.txt
     Translated by Kathleen Gook-Horujy
     OCR: http://home.freeuk.net/russica2/   http://home.freeuk.net/russica2/
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     Mikhail  Bulgakov (1891-1940) was born  in Kiev into the  family  of  a
teacher  at  a  religious  academy,  endured  the  hardships  of   wars  and
revolutions, starved, became a playwright  for the country's finest theatre,
knew fame, persecution, public ovations and forced muteness. His best works,
including  the  famous  The Master and Margarita, were  not published  until
after his death. His dramas were struck off the repertoire-The Days  of  the
Turbins at the Moscow Arts Theatre and his plays about Moliere  and Pushkin.
During his lifetime, not a single major anthology  of his  short stories was
ever published
     Bulgakov's works have since been recognised as classics; his books have
been published in all the languages  of the civilised world, studies of  him
have reached the four-figure  mark and the number is still rising;  editions
of  his books  in the USSR  have run into millions.  He has won  the highest
praise from Gabriel  Garcia Marquez  of Columbia and Kendzaburo Oe of Japan.
Kirghiz writer  Chinghiz  Aitmatov looks on Bulgakov as his teacher. Mikhail
Bulgakov's books have at last come into  their own  with their wild  fantasy
and their prophetic ideas  about man and humanity.  Our  collection includes
one of his most vivid stories, "The Fateful Eggs".


        CHAPTER I. Professor Persikov's Curriculum Vitae

     On the evening of 16  April, 1928, the Zoology Professor of the  Fourth
State University and  Director of the Moscow Zoological Institute, Persikov,
went into his laboratory  at the  Zoological Institute in Herzen Street. The
Professor switched on the frosted ceiling light and looked around him.
     This ill-fated evening must be regarded as marking the beginning of the
appalling catastrophe, just as  Professor Vladimir Ipatievich  Persikov must
be seen as the prime cause of the said catastrophe.
     He was fifty-eight years old. With a splendid bald head, like a pestle,
and  tufts  of  yellowish hair  sticking  out  at the sides.  His  face  was
clean-shaven, with a slightly protruding lower lip which  gave it a slightly
cantankerous expression. Tall and round-shouldered, he had small bright eyes
and tiny old-fashioned spectacles in silver frames on  a red nose.  He spoke
in a grating, high, croaking voice and one of his many idiosyncrasies was to
crook  the index finger of his right hand and screw up his eyes, whenever he
was saying something weighty  and authoritative. And since  he  always spoke
authoritatively,  because his knowledge  in his field  was quite phenomenal,
the crooked  finger was  frequently pointed at those with whom the Professor
was conversing.  Outside his field, that  is, zoology, embriology,  anatomy,
botany  and  geography, however,  Professor Persikov said almost nothing  at
all.
     Professor  Persikov did not read the  newspapers  or go to the theatre.
His wife had run away with a tenor from the Zimin opera in 1913, leaving him
a note which read as follows:
     "Your  frogs  make me shudder  with  intolerable  loathing. I  shall be
unhappy all my life because of them."
     The  Professor did  not  marry  again  and  had  no  children.  He  was
short-tempered, but did not bear grudges, liked cloudberry tea and lived  in
Prechistenka Street in a flat with five  rooms, one of which was occupied by
the old housekeeper, Maria Stepanovna, who looked after the Professor like a
nanny.
     In 1919 three of the Professor's five rooms were taken away.  Whereupon
he announced to Maria Stepanovna:
     "If they  don't  stop  this  outrageous behaviour,  I  shall  leave the
country, Maria Stepanovna."
     Had the Professor  carried out this plan, he would  have experienced no
difficulty in obtaining a place in the zoology department  of any university
in the world, for he was a really first-class scholar, and in the particular
field  which  deals with  amphibians  had  no equal,  with  the exception of
professors William  Weckle in  Cambridge and Giacomo  Bartolomeo Beccari  in
Rome. The  Professor could  read  four languages,  as  Mvell as Russian, and
spoke  French and  German  like  a native. Persikov  did not carry  out  his
intention  of going abroad, and 1920 was even worse  than 1919. All sorts of
things happened, one after the other. Bolshaya Nikitskaya was renamed Herzen
Street. Then the clock on  the wall of the  corner building in Herzen Street
and Mokhovaya  stopped at  a  quarter  past eleven and,  finally,  unable to
endure  the  perturbations  of  this  remarkable   year,  eight  magnificent
specimens  of  tree-frogs died  in the Institute's  terrariums, followed  by
fifteen ordinary toads and an exceptional specimen of the Surinam toad.
     Immediately  after the demise of the toads  which devastated that first
order  of  amphibians  rightly  called tailless,  old Vlas,  the Institute's
caretaker  of  many years'  standing, who  did not  belong  to any order  of
amphibians,  also  passed on to  a better world.  The  cause  of  his death,
incidentally,  was  the  same as that  of  the  unfortunate  amphibians, and
Persikov diagnosed it at once:
     "Undernourishment!"
     The scientist was perfectly right. Vlas should have been fed with flour
and  the  toads with flour  weevils,  but  the disappearance  of the  former
determined  that  of the latter  likewise,  and Persikov tried to  shift the
twenty surviving specimens  of tree-frogs  onto a diet  of cockroaches,  but
then  the cockroaches disappeared too, thereby  demonstrating  their hostile
attitude to war communism. Consequently, these last remaining specimens also
had to be thrown into the rubbish pits in the Institute yard.
     The  effect  of  these  deaths on  Persikov, particularly  that  of the
Surinam toad,  is  quite  indescribable.  For  some  reason  he  blamed them
entirely on the People's Commissar for Education.
     Standing in his fur  cap and galoshes  in the corridor of the  freezing
Institute,  Persikov said to his assistant Ivanov, an elegant gentleman with
a fair pointed beard:
     "Hanging's too  good  for  him, Pyotr Stepanovich!  What do they  think
they're  doing!  They'll ruin the whole Institute! Eh? An exceptionally rare
male specimen of Pipa americana, thirteen centimetres long..."
     Things went from bad  to worse.  When Vlas died the  Institute  windows
froze  so hard that there  were icy scrolls on the inside of  the panes. The
rabbits, foxes,  wolves  and fish died, as well as every single grass-snake.
Persikov brooded  silently for  days on end, then  caught pneumonia, but did
not die. When he recovered, he started coming to  the Institute twice a week
and in  the  round hall, where  for some reason it  was always  five degrees
below freezing point irrespective of the temperature outside, he delivered a
cycle of lectures on "The  Reptiles  of the Torrid Zone" in  galoshes, a fur
cap with ear-flaps and a scarf, breathing out white steam, to an audience of
eight. The rest of the time he lay under a rug on the divan in Prechistenka,
in a room with books piled up to the ceiling, coughing, gazing into the jaws
of  the  fiery  stove  which Maria  Stepanov-na stoked with gilt chairs, and
remembering the Surinam toad.
     But all  things come to an end. So it was with 'twenty and 'twenty-one,
and in 'twenty-two a kind of reverse process began. Firstly, in place of the
dear departed  Vlas  there  appeared Pankrat, a  young,  but most  promising
zoological caretaker, and the Institute began to be  heated again a  little.
Then in  the summer  with Pankrat's  help  Persikov  caught  fourteen common
toads.  The  terrariums came to life again... In 'twenty-three Persikov gave
eight lectures a week, three at the Institute and five at the University, in
'twenty-four thirteen  a week, not including the ones  at  workers' schools,
and in the spring  of 'twenty-five distinguished himself by failing no  less
than seventy-six students, all on amphibians.
     "What, you don't know  the difference between amphibians and reptilia?"
Persikov  asked.  "That's quite  ridiculous,  young  man.  Amphibia  have no
kidneys. None at all. So  there. You should be ashamed of yourself. I expect
you're a Marxist, aren't you?"
     "Yes," replied the devastated student, faintly.
     "Well, kindly retake the  exam in  the autumn," Persikov said  politely
and shouted cheerfully to Pankrat: "Send in the next one!"
     Just as amphibians come  to  life after  a long drought, with the first
heavy shower of rain, so Professor  Persikov revived in  1926  when a  joint
Americano-Russian  company built fifteen fifteen-storey apartment blocks  in
the centre of Moscow, beginning at the corner of Gazetny Lane and Tverskaya,
and 300  workers' cottages  on the outskirts, each  with  eight  apartments,
thereby putting  an- end once and for  all  to the terrible  and  ridiculous
accommodation  shortage which made  life such a  misery  for Muscovites from
1919 to 1925.
     In   fact,  it  was  a  marvellous  summer  in  Persikov's  life,   and
occasionally he  would  rub his  hands  with'  a  quiet,  satisfied  giggle,
remembering how he and Maria Stepanovna had been cooped up in two rooms. Now
the Professor  had  received  all  five back,  spread  himself, arranged his
two-and-a-half thousand  books, stuffed animals, diagrams and specimens, and
lit the green lamp on the desk in his study.
     You would  not have recognised the  Institute  either.  They painted it
cream, equipped  the  amphibian room with  a  special  water supply  system,
replaced all  the plate glass with mirrors and donated five new microscopes,
glass laboratory  tables,  some 2,000-amp. arc lights, reflectors and museum
cases.
     Persikov came  to life again, and  the  whole world suddenly learnt  of
this when  a  brochure  appeared  in December  1926 entitled "More About the
Reproduction  of  Polyplacophora  or  Chitons",  126 pp, Proceedings of  the
Fourth University.
     And in the autumn  of 1927 he published a definitive work of 350 pages,
subsequently  translated  into  six  languages, including Japanese.  It  was
entitled "The Embryology of  Pipae, Spadefoots and Frogs", price 3  roubles.
State Publishing House.
     But in the summer of 1928 something quite appalling happened...


        CHAPTER II. A Coloured Tendril

     So, the Professor switched  on  the  light and looked  around. Then  he
turned on  the reflector  on the  long  experimental table, donned his white
coat, and fingered some instruments on the table...
     Of the thirty thousand mechanical carriages  that  raced" around Moscow
in 'twenty-eight many  whizzed  down Herzen Street, swishing over the smooth
paving-stones, and  every  few minutes a  16,22, 48  or 53 tram would career
round  the corner from  Herzen Street  to  Mokhovaya with  much grinding and
clanging. A pale and misty crescent moon cast reflections of coloured lights
through the laboratory windows and was visible far away  and high  up beside
the dark and heavy dome of the Church of Christ the Saviour.
     But neither the moon nor the Moscow spring bustle were of the slightest
concern to the Professor. He sat on his three-legged revolving stool turning
with tobacco-stained fingers the knob  of a  splendid Zeiss  microscope,  in
which there was an ordinary unstained specimen of fresh amoebas. At the very
moment  when  Persikov  was  changing the magnification  from  five  to  ten
thousand,  the  door  opened  slightly,  a pointed  beard  and  leather  bib
appeared, and his assistant called:
     "I've set up the  mesentery, Vladimir Ipatych. Would you care to take a
look?"
     Persikov slid quickly  down from  the  stool,  letting  go of the  knob
midway, and  went into  his assistant's room, twirling a cigarette slowly in
his  fingers. There,  on the glass table,  a half-suffocated frog stiff with
fright  and  pain lay crucified on  a  cork mat,  its transparent  micaceous
intestines pulled out of the bleeding abdomen under the microscope.
     "Very  good,"  said  Persikov,  peering   down  the  eye-piece  of  the
microscope.
     He could  obviously  detect  something very interesting  in the  frog's
mesentery,  where live drops  of blood were racing merrily along the vessels
as clear as daylight. Persikov quite forgot about his amoebas. He and Ivanov
spent the next hour-and-a-half taking turns at the microscope and exchanging
animated remarks, quite incomprehensible to ordinary mortals.
     At last Persikov dragged himself away, announcing:
     "The blood's coagulating, it can't be helped."
     The frog's head twitched painfully and its dimming eyes  said  clearly:
"Bastards, that's what you are..."
     Stretching his stiff legs, Persikov got up, returned to his laboratory,
yawned, rubbed his permanently  inflamed eyelids, sat down on  the stool and
looked into the microscope, his  fingers about to move the knob. But move it
he  did not. With  his  right eye Persikov saw the  cloudy white  plate  and
blurred  pale amoebas on it, but in the middle  of the plate sat  a coloured
tendril, like a female curl. Persikov himself  and hundreds  of his students
had  seen this  tendril many times before  but taken no interest in it,  and
rightly so. The coloured streak of light merely got in the way and indicated
that  the  specimen  was  out  of focus. For this  reason  it was ruthlessly
eliminated with a single turn of the knob, which spread  an even white light
over the plate. The zoologist's  long fingers had already  tightened on  the
knob,  when  suddenly  they trembled and  let go. The  reason for  this  was
Persikov's right eye. It tensed,  stared in amazement and filled with alarm.
No mediocre mind to burden  the Republic sat by the microscope. No, this was
Professor Persikov! All his mental powers were now concentrated in his right
eye. For five  minutes or so in petrified silence  the higher being observed
the lower one, peering hard at the out-of-focus specimen. There was complete
silence  all around. Pankrat  had gone to  sleep in his  cubby-hole  in thes
vestibule, and only once there came a far-off gentle and musical tinkling of
glass in cupboards-that was Ivanov going out and locking his laboratory. The
entrance door groaned behind him. Then came  the  Professor's voice. To whom
his question was addressed no one knows.
     "What on earth is that? I don't understand..."
     A late lorry rumbled  down Herzen  Street, making the old walls of  the
Institute shake. The shallow glass bowl with pipettes  tinkled on the table.
The  Professor  turned pale and  put his hands over  the microscope,  like a
mother whose child is  threatened  by danger. There could now be no question
of Persikov turning  the knob.  Oh no, now he  was afraid that some external
force might push what he had seen out of his field of vision.
     It  was a full white morning with a strip of  gold which cut across the
Institute's cream porch when  the Professor left the microscope  and  walked
over to  the window  on  stiff  legs.  With trembling  fingers  he pressed a
button,  dense  black shutters blotted out the morning and a  wise scholarly
night descended on the room. Sallow and inspired, Persikov placed  his  feet
apart, staring at the parquet floor with his watering eyes, and exclaimed:
     "But  how can it be? It's  monstrous!  Quite monstrous,  gentlemen," he
repeated, addressing the toads in the terrarium, who were asleep and made no
reply.
     He paused,  then went over to the button,  raised the shutters,  turned
out  all  the lights and looked into the microscope. His face grew tense and
he raised his bushy yellow eyebrows.
     "Aha, aha," he muttered.  "It's gone. I see. I understand," he drawled,
staring  with crazed  and inspired  eyes at the extinguished light overhead.
"It's simple."
     Again  he  let  down the hissing  shutters and put on the  light.  Then
looked into the microscope and grinned happily, almost greedily.
     "I'll catch  it," he  said solemnly and  gravely, crooking his  finger.
"I'll catch it. Perhaps the sun will do it too."
     The shutters shot  up once more.  Now  you could  see  the sun. It  was
shining  on  the walls of the Institute and slanting down onto the pavements
of Herzen Street. The Professor looked through the window, working out where
the sun would be in the afternoon. He kept stepping back and forwards, doing
a little dance, and eventually lay stomach down on the window-sill.
     After  that  he  got down  to some important  and  mysterious  work. He
covered  the  microscope with  a  bell  glass.  Then  he melted  a  piece of
sealing-wax  in the bluish  flame of the Bun-sen  burner, sealed the edge of
the glass to the table and made a thumb print on  the blobs of  wax. Finally
he turned off  the gas and  went out,  locking  the laboratory  door  firmly
behind him.
     There was semi-darkness in the Institute corridors.
     The Professor reached Pankrat's door and knocked for  a long time to no
effect.  At  last  something  inside  growled like a  watchdog,  coughed and
snorted  and  Pankrat appeared in  the  lighted doorway wearing long striped
underpants tied at  the ankles. His  eyes glared wildly at the scientist and
he whimpered softly with sleep.
     "I must apologise for waking you up, Pankrat," said the
     Professor, peering  at  him over his  spectacles.  "But please don't go
into my laboratory this  morning, dear chap. I've left some work  there that
must on no account be moved. Understand?"
     "Grrr, yessir," Pankrat replied, not understanding a thing.
     He staggered a bit and growled.
     "Now listen here,  Pankrat,  you just  wake up," the zoologist ordered,
prodding  him  lightly in  the  ribs,  which  produced  a look  of fright on
Pankrat's face and a glimmer of comprehension in his eyes. "I've  locked the
laboratory," Persikov went on, "so you need  not clean it until I come back.
Understand?"
     "Yessir," Pankrat croaked.
     "That's fine then, go back to bed."
     Pankrat  turned round, disappeared inside  and collapsed onto the  bed.
The Professor  went into the vestibule. Putting  on his grey summer coat and
soft hat, he remembered what he had observed in the microscope and stared at
his galoshes for a  few seconds, as if seeing them for the first time.  Then
he put on the  left  galosh and tried to put  the  right one over it, but it
wouldn't go on.
     "What  an incredible coincidence  that  he  called  me  away," said the
scientist. "Otherwise I would never have noticed it. But  what does it mean?
The devil only knows!.."
     The Professor smiled, squinted  at his galoshes, took off the left  one
and  put  on  the  right. "Good heavens!  One  can't  even imagine  all  the
consequences..."  The  Professor  prodded  off  the  left  galosh, which had
irritated him by not going on top of the right, and walked to the front door
wearing  one  galosh  only. He  also  lost his  handkerchief and  went  out,
slamming the heavy  door. On  the porch he searched  in his pockets for some
matches, patting  his  sides, found them eventually  and  set  off  down the
street with an unlit cigarette in his mouth.
     The scientist did not  meet a soul all the  way to the church. There he
threw back his  head and stared at the golden  dome. The sun  was licking it
avidly on one side.
     "Why  didn't  I  notice it before? What  a coincidence! Well, I  never!
Silly ass!" The Professor looked down and  stared pensively at his strangely
shod  feet. "Hm, what shall  I do? Go back to Pankrat? No, there's no waking
him. It's a pity to throw the wretched  thing away. I'll have to carry  it."
He removed the galosh and set off carrying it distastefully.
     An old car  drove out of Prechistenka with  three passengers. Two  men,
slightly tipsy,  with a  garishly made-up woman in those baggy silk trousers
that were all the rage in 1928 sitting on their lap.
     "Hey, Dad!" she  shouted in a low husky voice. "Did  you sell the other
galosh for booze?"
     "The old boy got sozzled at the Alcazar,"  howled the man  on the left,
while the one on the right leaned out of the car and shouted:
     "Is  the  night-club  in Volkhonka still open, Dad? That's where  we're
making for!"
     The Professor looked at them sternly  over the  top of his glasses, let
the  cigarette  fall  out  of  his  mouth and  then immediately forgot  they
existed. A beam was cutting its way through Prechistensky Boulevard, and the
dome of Christ the Saviour had begun to burn. The sun had come out.



        CHAPTER III. Persikov Catches It

     What had  happened  was this. When the Professor put his discerning eye
to the  microscope,  he  noticed  for the first  time in his  life  that one
particular ray in  the coloured tendril stood  out  more vividly  and boldly
than the others.  This  ray was bright red and stuck out of the tendril like
the tiny point of a needle, say.
     Thus,  as ill luck would have it,  this ray attracted the  attention of
the great man's experienced eye for several seconds.
     In it, the ray, the Professor detected something a thousand
     times  more  significant  and  important  than  the  ray  itself,  that
precarious offspring accidentally engendered by the movement of a microscope
mirror  and  lens. Due to  the  assistant calling  the Professor away,  some
amoebas had been subject to the action of the ray for an hour-and-a-half and
this is what had happened: whereas the blobs of amoebas on the plate outside
the ray simply lay there limp and helpless, some very strange phenomena were
taking place on the spot over  which  the sharp red  sword  was poised. This
strip of red was teeming with life. The old amoebas were forming pseudopodia
in a desperate effort to reach the red strip, and when they did they came to
life,  as if by  magic. Some force  seemed to  breathe life into  them. They
flocked there, fighting  one another for a place in  the ray, where the most
frantic  (there was no other word for  it) reproduction was taking place. In
defiance of all the laws which Persikov knew like the back of his hand, they
gemmated  before his eyes with lightning speed. They split into  two  in the
ray,  and each  of the  parts  became a new, fresh organism  in a  couple of
seconds.  In  another  second or  two these organisms  grew  to maturity and
produced a new  generation  in their turn. There was soon  no room at all in
the red strip or  on the plate, and inevitably a bitter struggle  broke out.
The newly born amoebas tore one another to pieces and gobbled the pieces up.
Among the newly born  lay the corpses of those who had perished in the fight
for  survival.  It was the  best  and  strongest  who  won.  And  they  were
terrifying. Firstly, they were about twice the size of ordinary amoebas and,
secondly, they  were far  more active and  aggressive. Their movements  were
rapid,  their  pseudopodia much  longer than  normal, and  it  would  be  no
exaggeration to say that they used them like an octopus's tentacles.
     On  the  second  evening the  Professor,  pale  and haggard,  his  only
sustenance   the  thick  cigarettes  he  rolled  himself,  studied  the  new
generation of amoebas. And on the third day he turned to the primary source,
i.e., the red ray.
     The  gas  hissed faintly in  the  Bunsen burner,  the traffic clattered
along  the  street  outside,  and  the  Professor,  poisoned  by  a  hundred
cigarettes, eyes half-closed, leaned back in his revolving chair.
     "I see it all  now. The ray brought them to life. It's a new ray, never
studied or even discovered by anyone before. The first  thing is to find out
whether it is produced only by electricity, or by the sun as well," Persikov
muttered to himself.
     The next  night provided the answer  to this question. Persikov  caught
three  rays in  three microscopes from  the arc light,  but nothing from the
sun, and summed this up as follows:
     "We must assume that it is not found in the solar spectrum... Hm, well,
in  short we  must assume it can only  be obtained  from electric light." He
gazed  fondly at the frosted ball overhead, thought for a moment and invited
Ivanov  into  the  laboratory, where  he  told  him  all  and showed him the
amoebas.
     Decent Ivanov was amazed, quite flabbergasted. Why  on  earth hadn't  a
simple  thing as this tiny arrow been noticed  before? By anyone, or even by
him, Ivanov. It was really appalling! Just look...
     "Look, Vladimir Ipatych!" Ivanov said, his eye glued to the microscope.
"Look what's happening! They're growing be" fore my  eyes... You must take a
look..."
     "I've been observing them for three days," Persikov replied animatedly.
     Then a conversation took place between  the two scientists, the gist of
which  was as  follows. Decent  Ivanov undertook with the help of lenses and
mirrors to make a  chamber in which they  could  obtain the ray in magnified
form without a microscope. Ivanov hoped, was even convinced, that this would
be extremely  simple. He would obtain the ray, Vladimir Ipatych need have no
doubts on that score. There was a slight pause.
     "When  I publish a paper, I shall mention that the chamber was built by
you,  Pyotr Stepanovich,"  Persikov  interspersed,  feeling  that  the pause
should be ended.
     "Oh, that doesn't matter... However, if you insist..."
     And the pause ended.  After that the ray devoured Ivanov as well. While
Persikov,  emaciated and hungry, spent all day and  half  the night  at  his
microscope, Ivanov got busy in the brightly-lit  physics laboratory, working
out a combination of lenses and mirrors. He was assisted by the mechanic.
     Following  a  request made to  the Commissariat of  Education, Persikov
received three parcels  from  Germany  containing  mirrors,  convexo-convex,
concavo-concave and even some convexo-concave polished lenses. The upshot of
all this was that Ivanov not only built his chamber, but actually caught the
red ray in it.  And quite brilliantly, it must be said. The ray was a  thick
one, about four centimetres in diameter, sharp and strong.
     On June  1st  the  chamber was set up in Persikov's laboratory, and  he
began  experimenting  avidly  by  putting  frog  spawn  in  the  ray.  These
experiments produced amazing  results.  In  the  course of forty-eight hours
thousands of tadpoles  hatched  out from  the spawn. But  that was  not all.
Within another twenty-four hours the tadpoles  grew fantastically  into such
vicious, greedy frogs that half of them were devoured by the other half. The
survivors  then  began to  spawn  rapidly and two  days  later, without  the
assistance of the ray, a new generation appeared too numerous to count. Then
all hell was let loose in the Professor's laboratory. The tadpoles slithered
out  all over  the Institute. Lusty choirs croaked loudly in  the terrariums
and all the nooks and crannies, as in marshes. Pankrat, who was scared stiff
of Persikov as  it was, now went in  mortal terror of him. After a week  the
scientist himself felt he  was going  mad. The Institute reeked of ether and
potassium  cyanide,  which nearly finished off  Pankrat when he removed  his
mask  too   soon.  This   expanding  marshland  generation  was   eventually
exterminated with poison and the laboratories aired.
     "You know, Pyotr Stepanovich,"  Persikov said to Ivanov, "the effect of
the ray on deuteroplasm and on the ovule in general is quite extraordinary."
     Ivanov,  a cold and reserved gentleman, interrupted the Professor in an
unusual voice:
     "Why talk  of  such  minor details  as  deuteroplasm, Vladimir Ipatych?
Let's not beat about the bush. You  have discovered something unheard-of..."
With  a  great  effort  Ivanov  managed to force the  words  out. "You  have
discovered the ray of life, Professor Persikov!"
     A faint flush appeared on Persikov's pale, unshaven cheekbones.
     "Well, well," he mumbled.
     "You," Ivanov went on, "you will win such renown... It makes my head go
round. Do you understand, Vladimir Ipatych," he continued excitedly,  "H. G.
Wells's heroes  are nothing  compared  to you... And I thought that was  all
make-believe... Remember his Food for the Gods'!"
     "Ah, that's a novel," Persikov replied.
     "Yes, of course, but it's famous!"
     "I've forgotten it," Persikov said. "I  remember  reading it,  but I've
forgotten it."
     "How can you  have? Just look at that!" Ivanov  picked up an incredibly
large frog with a swollen belly  from the glass table by its leg. Even after
death its face had a vicious expression. "It's monstrous!"


        CHAPTER IV. Drozdova, the Priest's Widow

     Goodness only knows why, perhaps  Ivanov  was  to blame or perhaps  the
sensational news  just travelled through the air on its own, but in the huge
seething city  of Moscow people suddenly  started  talking about the ray and
Professor  Persikov.  True, only in passing and vaguely. The news  about the
miraculous discovery hopped like  a wounded bird round the  shining capital,
disappearing from time  to time, then popping up again,  until the middle of
July when a short item about  the ray appeared in the Science and Technology
News section on page 20 of the newspaper Izvestia. It announced briefly that
a well-known  professor at the Fourth University had invented  a ray capable
of  increasing the  activity of lower organisms to an incredible degree, and
that the phenomenon would  have to  be checked. There  was a  mistake in the
name, of course, which was given as "Pepsikov".
     Ivanov brought the newspaper and showed Persikov the article.
     "Pepsikov," muttered Persikov, as he busied himself with the chamber in
his laboratory. "How do those newsmongers find out everything?"
     Alas, the misprinted surname did not save the Professor from the events
that  followed,  and  they began  the  very  next day,  immediately  turning
Persikov's whole life upside down.
     After a discreet knock,  Pankrat appeared in the  laboratory and handed
Persikov a magnificent glossy visiting card.
     "'E's out there," Pankrat added timidly.
     The elegantly printed card said:

     Alfred Arkadyevich Bronsky
     Correspondent  for the  Moscow  magazines Red  Light,  Red Pepper,  Red
Journal and Red Searchlight and the newspaper Red Moscow Evening News

     "Tell  him to go  to  blazes," said Persikov  flatly, tossing the  card
under the table.
     Pankrat turned round  and went  out, only to  return five minutes later
with  a  pained expression on his face  and  a second  specimen of the  same
visiting card.
     "Is  this supposed to be a joke?"  squeaked Persikov,  his voice shrill
with rage.
     "Sez 'e's from the Gee-Pee-Yoo," Pankrat replied, white as a sheet.
     Persikov snatched the  card  with one hand,  almost tearing it in half,
and threw his pincers onto the table with the other. The card bore a message
in ornate handwriting: "Humbly request three  minutes of your precious time,
esteemed Professor, on public press business, correspondent of the satirical
magazine Red Maria, a GPU publication."
     "Send him in," said Persikov with a sigh.
     A  young man  with a smoothly shaven oily face  immediately popped  out
from  behind  Pankrat's  back.  He  had  permanently raised eyebrows, like a
Chinaman, over agate  eyes which  never looked at the person  he was talking
to. The young man  was dressed impeccably in  the latest fashion. He wore  a
long  narrow  jacket  down  to  his  knees,  extremely  baggy  trousers  and
unnaturally wide glossy shoes with toes like hooves. In his hands  he held a
cane, a hat with a pointed top and a note-pad.
     "What  do you want?"  asked  Persikov  in  a  voice which sent  Pankrat
scuttling out of the room. "Weren't you told that I am busy?"
     In lieu  of a reply the  young man bowed twice to the Professor, to the
left  and  to  the  right of  him,  then  his eyes  skimmed  over  the whole
laboratory, and the young man jotted a mark in his pad.
     "I am  busy," repeated the  Professor, looking with loathing  into  the
visitor's eyes, but to no avail for they were too elusive.
     "A  thousand apologies, esteemed  Professor," the young man said  in  a
thin voice, "for intruding upon you  and taking  up your precious time,  but
the news of your incredible discovery which  has astounded  the whole  world
compels our journal to ask you for some explanations."
     "What  explanations,  what  whole  world?"  Persikov whined  miserably,
turning yellow.  "I don't have to give you any explanations  or anything  of
the sort... I'm busy... Terribly busy."
     "What are you working on?" the young man  asked ingratiatingly, putting
a second mark in his pad.
     "Well, I'm... Why? Do you want to publish something?"
     "Yes," replied the young man and suddenly started scribbling furiously.
     "Firstly, I do not intend to publish anything  until I have finished my
work ... and certainly not in your newspapers...  Secondly, how did you find
out about this?" Persikov suddenly felt at a loss.
     "Is it true that you have invented a new life ray?"
     "What  new  life?"  exploded the  Professor.  "You're  talking absolute
piffle! The ray I am working on has not been fully  studied,  and nothing at
all is known yet! It may be able to increase the activity of protoplasm..."
     "By how much?" the young man asked quickly.
     Persikov was really at a loss now. "The insolent devil! What the blazes
is going on?" he thought to himself.
     "What ridiculous questions! Suppose I say, well, a thousand times!"
     Predatory delight flashed in the young man's eyes.'
     "Does that produce gigantic organisms?" "Nothing of the sort!  Well, of
course, the organisms  I have  obtained are bigger than  usual. And  they do
have  some new  properties.  But the main  thing is  not the  size, but  the
incredible speed of reproduction," Persikov heard himself say to his  utmost
dismay. Having filled up a whole page, the young man turned over and went on
scribbling.
     "Don't write  it down!"  Persikov croaked in despair, realising that he
was in the young man's hands. "What are you writing?"
     "Is it  true  that  in  forty-eight  hours you can  hatch  two  million
tadpoles from frog-spawn?"
     "From  how much  spawn?"  exploded Persikov, losing  his  temper again.
"Have you ever seen the spawn of a tree-frog, say?"
     "From half-a-pound?" asked  the young man, unabashed.  Persikov flushed
with anger.
     "Whoever  measures it like  that? Pah! What are you  talking about?  Of
course,  if you  were to  take half-a-pound of frog-spawn,  then  perhaps...
Well, about that much, damn it, but perhaps a lot more!"
     Diamonds flashed  in the young man's eyes, as he filled  up yet another
page in one fell swoop.
     "Is  it  true that  this  will  cause  a  world  revolution  in  animal
husbandry?"
     "Trust the  press  to ask  a question like  that," Persikov  howled. "I
forbid you  to  write  such rubbish. I  can see from your  face that  you're
writing sheer nonsense!"
     "And now, if you'd  be so kind, Professor,  a photograph of  you," said
the young man, closing his note-pad with a snap.
     "What's that? A photograph of me? To put  in  those magazines of yours?
Together with all that  diabolical rubbish you've been scribbling down.  No,
certainly not... And I'm extremely busy. I really must ask you to..."
     "Any old one will do. And we'll return it straightaway." "Pankrat!" the
Professor  yelled in a fury. "Your  humble servant," said the young  man and
vanished. Instead  of  Pankrat  came the strange rhythmic  scraping sound of
something metallic  hitting the floor, and into the laboratory rolled a  man
of unusual  girth,  dressed in a blouse and  trousers  made from  a  woollen
blanket. His left, artificial leg clattered  and clanked, and he was holding
a briefcase. The clean-shaven round face resembling yellowish meat-jelly was
creased  into  a  welcoming  smile.  He  bowed  in  military  fashion to the
Professor and drew himself  up, his leg giving  a springlike  snap. Persikov
was speechless.
     "My dear Professor," the stranger began in a pleasant, slightly throaty
voice, "forgive an ordinary mortal for invading your seclusion."
     "Are you a reporter?" Persikov asked. "Pankrat!"
     "Certainly  not, dear  Professor," the  fat  man replied. "Allow me  to
introduce  myself-naval captain  and contributor  to the  Industrial Herald,
newspaper of the Council of People's Commissars."
     "Pankrat!" cried Persikov hysterically, and  at that very  moment a red
light went on in  the corner  and the telephone rang softly. "Pankrat!"  the
Professor cried again. "Hello."
     "Verzeihen Sie bitte, Herr Professor," croaked the telephone in German,
"das ich store. Ich bin Mitarbeiter des Berliner Tageblatts..."
     "Pankrat!" the Professor shouted down  the receiver. "Bin momental sehr
beschaftigt und kann Sie deshalb jetzt nicht empfangen. Pankrat!"
     And just at this moment the bell at the main door started ringing.
     "Terrible murder in Bronnaya Street!" yelled unnaturally hoarse voices,
darting about  between  wheels  and flashing  headlights  on  the  hot  June
roadway.  "Terrible  illness  of  chickens  belonging to  the priest's widow
Drozdova with  a picture of her! Terrible discovery of life ray by Professor
Persikov!"
     Persikov dashed out so quickly that he almost got run over by a  car in
Mokhovaya and grabbed a newspaper angrily.
     "Three  copecks, citizen!" cried the newsboy, squeezing  into the crowd
on the pavement and yelling: "Red Moscow Evening News, discovery of X-ray!"
     The  flabbergasted Persikov opened the  newspaper and huddled against a
lamp-post.  On page two  in  the left-hand  corner  a  bald man with crazed,
unseeing  eyes  and  a  hanging  lower  jaw,  the fruit of Alfred  Bronsky's
artistic endeavours,
     stared at him from a  smudged frame. The caption beneath it read: "V I.
Persikov who discovered the  mysterious ray." Lower down,  under the heading
World-Wide Enigma was an article which began as follows:
     "'Take   a   seat,'   the   eminent   scientist   Persikov  invited  me
hospitably..."
     The article was signed with a flourish "Alfred Bronsky (Alonso)".
     A greenish light soared up over the University roof; the words "Talking
Newspaper" lit up in the sky, and a crowd jammed Mokhovaya.
     "Take a seat!' an  unpleasant  thin  voice,  just like Alfred Bronsky's
magnified  a thousand times,  yelped  from a loudspeaker on  the roof,  "the
eminent scientist Persikov invited me hospitably. 'I've been wanting to tell
the workers of Moscow the results of my discovery for some time...'"
     There was a faint metallic scraping behind Persikov's back, and someone
tugged at his  sleeve. Turning round  he  saw the yellow rotund face of  the
owner of  the artificial leg. His  eyes  were glistening  with tears and his
lips trembled.
     "You  wouldn't  tell  me  the  results  of your  remarkable  discovery,
Professor,"  he said sadly with a deep  sigh.  "So that's farewell to a  few
more copecks."
     He gazed  miserably at the University  roof, where the invisible Alfred
raved  on  in the loudspeaker's  black jaws.  For  some reason Persikov felt
sorry for the fat man.
     "I never asked him to  sit down!" he  growled, catching words from  the
sky furiously. "He's an utter scoundrel! You must excuse me, but really when
you're working like that and people come bursting in... I'm not referring to
you, of course..."
     "Then perhaps you'd just describe your chamber to  me,  Professor?" the
man  with  the  artificial  leg wheedled  mournfully.  "It  doesn't make any
difference now..."
     "In three days half-a-pound of frog-spawn  produces more  tadpoles than
you could possibly count," the invisible man in the loudspeaker boomed.
     "Toot-toot," cried the cars on Mokhovaya.
     "Ooo! Ah! Listen to that!" the crowd murmured, staring upwards.
     "What a  scoundrel! Eh?" hissed Persikov,  shaking  with anger, to  the
artificial  man. "How do you  like that? I'll  lodge  an  official complaint
against him."
     "Disgraceful!" the fat man agreed.
     A  blinding  violet  ray  dazzled  the Professor's  eyes,  lighting  up
everything around-a lamp-post, a section  of pavement, a yellow wall and the
avid faces.
     "They're   photographing   you,   Professor,"  the  fat  man  whispered
admiringly and hung  on  the  Professor's arm like  a ton weight.  Something
clicked in the air.
     "To blazes w