e, 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.


        CHAPTER IX. A Writhing Mass

     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.


        CHAPTER X. Catastrophe

     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
its  cream-painted  walls.  Neither  the  absurd rumours  circulating around
Moscow about  terrible dragons, nor  the  newsboys'  shouts about a  strange
telegram in the evening paper reached his  ears. Docent  Ivanov had  gone to
see TsarFyodor  Ivanovich at the Arts Theatre, so  there was no  one to tell
the Professor the news.
     Around midnight Persikov arrived at Prechistenka and went to bed, where
he  read  an  English article in the Zoological  Proceedings  received  from
London. Then  he fell asleep, like the rest of  late-night  Moscow. The only
thing that did not sleep  was the big grey  building  set  back in Tverskaya
Street where  the  Izvestia rotary  presses clattered noisily,  shaking  the
whole block. There was an incredible din and confusion in the office  of the
duty editor. He was rampaging  around with bloodshot eyes like a madman, not
knowing what to do, and sending everyone to the devil. The maker-up followed
close on his heels, breathing out wine fumes and saying:
     "It  can't be helped, Ivan Vonifatievich. Let them  bring out a special
supplement tomorrow. We can't take the paper off the presses now."
     Instead  of  going home, the compositors clustered together reading the
telegrams that  were now arriving in a steady  stream, every fifteen minutes
or so, each  more eerie and disturbing than the one before. Alfred Bronsky's
pointed hat flashed  by in the blinding pink light  of  the printing office,
and the  fat man with  the artificial leg  scraped and hobbled around. Doors
slammed in the  entrance  and  reporters  kept  dashing  up  all night.  The
printing  office's  twelve telephones were busy non-stop,  and the  exchange
almost automatically replied  to the mysterious calls by  giving the engaged
signal, while  the signal horns beeped  constantly before the sleepless eyes
of the lady telephonists.
     The  compositors  had  gathered  round  the  metal-legged   ocean-going
captain, who was saying to them:
     "They'll have to send aeroplanes with gas."
     "They  will  and  all," replied  the  compositors.  "It's  a  downright
disgrace,  it  is!" Then the air  rang with foul  curses and a shrill  voice
cried:
     "That Persikov should be shot!"
     "What's  Persikov got to do with it?" said someone in  the crowd. "It's
that son-of-a-bitch at the farm who should be shot."
     "There should have been a guard!" someone shouted.
     "Perhaps it's not the eggs at all."
     The whole building thundered and shook from the rotary machines, and it
felt as if the ugly grey block was blazing in an electrical conflagration.
     Far from ceasing with the break of a new day, the pandemonium grew more
intense than ever, although the electric lights  went out. One after another
motorbikes  and automobiles  raced into the  asphalted courtyard. All Moscow
rose to  don white sheets of newspapers like birds. They fluttered down  and
rustled in everyone's hands. By eleven a.m. the newspaper-boys had sold out,
although that month they were printing a million  and  a half copies of each
issue of Izvestia. Professor Persikov took the bus from  Prechistenka to the
Institute. There he was  greeted by  some news. In the vestibule stood three
wooden crates neatly bound with metal strips and covered with foreign labels
in German, over which someone had  chalked in  Russian:  "Eggs. Handle  with
care!"
     The Professor was overjoyed.
     "At last!" he cried. "Open the crates at once, Pankrat, only be careful
not to damage the eggs. And bring them into my office."
     Pankrat  carried out these instructions straightaway, and a  quarter of
an hour later in the  Professor's office, strewn with sawdust and scraps  of
paper, a voice began shouting angrily.
     "Are they trying  to make fun of me?" the Professor howled, shaking his
fists and  waving a couple of eggs.  "That Poro-syuk's a real beast. I won't
be treated like this. What do you think they are, Pankrat?"
     "Eggs, sir," Pankrat replied mournfully.
     "Chicken eggs, see, the devil take them! What good are they to me? They
should be sent to that rascal on his state farm!"
     Persikov rushed to the phone, but did not have time to make a call.
     "Vladimir  Ipatych!  Vladimir  Ipatych!" Ivanov's voice called urgently
down the Institute's corridor.
     Persikov put down the  phone and Pankrat hopped aside to  make  way for
the decent. The latter hurried  into the office and,  contrary to  his usual
gentlemanly practice, did  not even remove the grey hat sitting on his head.
In his hand he held a newspaper.
     "Do you  know  what's  happened,  Vladimir Ipatych?"  he  cried, waving
before Persikov's face  a sheet with the headline "Special Supplement" and a
bright coloured picture in the middle.
     "Just listen to what they've done!" Persikov shouted  back at him,  not
listening.  "They've sent  me some  chicken  eggs  as a nice  surprise. That
Porosyuk's a positive cretin, just look!"
     Ivanov  stopped short. He stared in horror at the open crates, then  at
the newspaper, and his eyes nearly popped out of his head.
     "So  that's  it," he gasped. "Now  I understand. Take a  look at  this,
Vladimir Ipatych." He quickly unfolded  the paper and pointed with trembling
fingers  at  the  coloured  picture. It showed an  olive-coloured snake with
yellow spots  swaying like terrible fire hose in  strange smudgy foliage. It
had been  taken  from  a light aeroplane flying cautiously  over  the snake.
"What is that in your opinion, Vladimir Ipatych?"
     Persikov pushed the spectacles onto his forehead, then pulled them back
onto his nose, stared at the photograph and said in great surprise:
     "Well, I'll be damned. It's ... it's an anaconda. A boa constrictor..."
     Ivanov pulled off his hat, sat down  on  a chair and said, banging  the
table with his fist to emphasise each word:
     "It's  an  anaconda from Smolensk Province, Vladimir  Ipatych.  What  a
monstrosity!  That  scoundrel has hatched  out snakes instead  of  chickens,
understand, and they are reproducing at the same fantastic rate as frogs!"
     "What's that?"  Persikov exclaimed, his  face  turning  ashen.  "You're
joking, Pyotr Stepanovich. How could he have?"
     Ivanov  could  say  nothing  for a  moment,  then regained the power of
speech and said, poking a  finger into the open crate where tiny white heads
lay shining in the yellow sawdust:
     "That's how."
     "Wha-a-at?" Persikov howled, as the truth gradually dawned on him.
     "You can be sure of it. They sent your order for snake and ostrich eggs
to the state farm by mistake, and the chicken eggs to you."
     "Good  grief  ...  good grief," Persikov repeated,  his face turning  a
greenish white as he sank down onto a stool.
     Pankrat stood petrified by the door, pale and speechless. Ivanov jumped
up,  grabbed the newspaper and, pointing at the  headline with a sharp nail,
yelled into the Professor's ear:
     "Now the fun's going to start alright! What  will happen now,  I simply
can't imagine. Look here, Vladimir Ipatych." He yelled out the first passage
to catch  his eye on the crumpled newspaper: "The snakes are swarming in the
direction of Mozhaisk  ...  laying vast  numbers of  eggs.  Eggs  have  been
discovered in Dukhovsky District... Crocodiles and  ostriches have appeared.
Special armed units... and GPU detachments put an end to the panic in Vyazma
by  burning  down  stretches of  forest  outside the town  and  checking the
reptiles' advance..."
     With  an  ashen blotched face and demented eyes, Persikov rose from the
stool and began to gasp:
     "An  anaconda!  A  boa  constrictor! Good  grief!" Neither  Ivanov  nor
Pankrat had ever seen him in such a state before.
     The  Professor  tore off his  tie,  ripped  the buttons off his  shirt,
turned a strange paralysed purple and staggered out with vacant glassy eyes.
His howls echoed beneath the Institute's stone vaulting.
     "Anaconda! Anaconda!" they rang.
     "Go  and catch the Professor!"  Ivanov cried to Pankrat who was hopping
up and down with terror on the spot. "Get him some water. He's had a fit."


        CHAPTER XI. Bloodshed and Death

     A frenzied  electrical  night blazed  in  Moscow. All  the  lights were
burning,  and the flats were full of lamps with the shades taken off. No one
was asleep  in  the  whole of Moscow  with  its population of  four million,
except for small children. In their apartments people ate and drank whatever
came to hand,  and  the  slightest cry  brought fear-distorted  faces to the
windows  on  all  floors  to  stare up  at the  night  sky criss-crossed  by
searchlights.  Now  and then  white lights flared  up,  casting pale melting
cones over Moscow before  they  faded away. There was the constant low drone
of aeroplanes. It was particularly frightening in Tverskaya-Yamskaya Street.
Every  ten  minutes trains  made up of  goods vans,  passenger carriages  of
different  classes  and  even  tank-trucks kept  arriving  at  Alexandrovsky
Station with  fear-crazed folk clinging to them,  and Tverskaya-Yamskaya was
packed with  people riding in buses and on the roofs of  trams, crushing one
another and getting run over. Now and then  came the anxious crack of  shots
being  fired  above  the  crowd  at  the  station.  That  was  the  military
detachments  stopping panic-stricken  demented people who were running along
the railway track from Smolensk  Province to Moscow. Now and then the  glass
in the station windows would fly out with a light frenzied sob and the steam
engines  start wailing. The streets were strewn with posters, which had been
dropped and trampled on, while the same posters  stared out  from the  walls
under  the hot red reflectors. Everyone knew what they said, and no one read
them  any  more.  They announced  that  Moscow was  now  under martial  law.
Panicking was  forbidden  on  threat  of severe  punishment,  and  Red  Army
detachments armed  with  poison  gas  were  already on their way to Smolensk
Province.  But  the  posters could  not  stop the  howling  night.  In their
apartments people dropped and broke dishes and vases, ran about banging into
things,  tied  and  untied bundles and cases in  the  vain  hope of  somehow
getting to Kalanchevskaya Square and Yaroslavl or Nikolayevsky Station. But,
alas,  all the  stations to  the north and east were surrounded  by  a dense
cordon  of  infantry, and huge  lorries, swaying and rattling  their chains,
piled high  with boxes on top of which sat Red Army men in pointed  helmets,
bayonets at  the ready, were  evacuating gold bullion from the vaults of the
People's  Commissariat  of  Finances  and  large  crates  marked  "Tretyakov
Gallery. Handle with care!" Cars were roaring and racing all over Moscow.
     Far away in  the sky was the reflected glow of a fire, and the constant
boom of cannons rocked the dense blackness of August.
     Towards morning,  a  huge snake of  cavalry,  thousands  strong, hooves
clattering  on  the  cobble-stones,  wended  its  way up  Tverskaya  through
sleepless Moscow, which had still not extinguished a  single light. Everyone
in its path huddled against entrances and shop-windows, knocking in panes of
glass.  The ends of crimson helmets dangled down  grey backs,  and pike tips
pierced the sky. At the  sight of these advancing columns  cutting their way
through the sea of madness, the frantic, wailing  crowds of people seemed to
come to their senses. There were hopeful shouts from the thronged pavements.
     "Hooray! Long live the cavalry!" shouted some frenzied women's voices.
     "Hooray!" echoed some men.
     "We'll be crushed to death!" someone wailed.
     "Help!" came shouts from the pavement.
     Packets  of  cigarettes, silver coins and watches flew into the columns
from the pavements.  Some women  jumped out into the roadway, at great risk,
and ran  alongside  the  cavalry, clutching the stirrups and  kissing  them.
Above the constant clatter of hooves rose occasional shouts from the platoon
commanders:
     "Rein in."
     There  was  some  rowdy,  lewd singing and the faces in  cocked crimson
helmets  stared  from  their  horses  in   the  flickering  neon  lights  of
advertisements. Now and then, behind the columns of open-faced cavalry, came
weird  figures, also on horseback, wearing strange masks with pipes that ran
over  their  shoulders and cylinders  strapped to  their  backs. Behind them
crawled huge tank-trucks with  long hoses like  those on fire-engines. Heavy
tanks  on caterpillar  tracks, shut  tight, with  narrow shinning loopholes,
rumbled along  the  roadway. The cavalry columns  gave way to grey  armoured
cars with the same pipes sticking out and white skulls painted on  the sides
over the words "Volunteer-Chem. Poison gas".
     "Let 'em have it, lads!" the crowds on the pavements shouted. "Kill the
reptiles! Save Moscow!"
     Cheerful curses rippled along the ranks. Packets of cigarettes  whizzed
through  the lamp-lit night air, and white teeth grinned  from the horses at
the crazed people. A hoarse heartrending song spread through the ranks:
     ...No  ace,  nor queen, nor  jack have we, But we'll kill  the reptiles
sure as can be. And blast them into eternity...
     Loud  bursts of  cheering surged over the  motley throng as  the rumour
spread  that  out in front on horseback, wearing the  same crimson helmet as
all  the other  horsemen,  was  the  now  grey-haired  and  elderly  cavalry
commander who had become a legend ten years ago. The crowd howled, and their
hoorays  floated  up  into  the  sky,  bringing  a  little  comfort to their
desperate hearts.
     The  Institute  was dimly  lit. The events reached it only as isolated,
confused and  vague echoes. At one point  some shots rang out under the neon
clock  by  the Manege.  Some marauders who  had  tried to  loot  a  flat  in
Volkhonka were being shot on the spot There was little traffic in the street
here. It was all concentrated round the railway stations. In the Professor's
room,  where a single  lamp burned dimly casting a circle  of light  on  the
desk, Persikov sat silently, head in hands. Streak of smoke hung around him.
The ray in  the chamber had been switched off.  The  frogs in the terrariums
were silent, for they were already asleep. The Professor was not working  or
reading.  At his side,  under  his  left  elbow, lay the evening  edition of
telegrams in the narrow column, which announced that Smolensk was in  flames
and artillery  were bombarding  the  Mozhaisk  forest  section  by  section,
destroying deposits  of crocodile eggs  in  all  the damp  ravines.  It also
reported that a  squadron of  aeroplanes had carried out a highly successful
operation  near Vyazma, spraying almost the whole district  with poison gas,
but there were countless human losses in the area because instead of leaving
it  in an orderly fashion, the population had panicked and made off in small
groups to  wherever  the  fancy  took  them.  It  also  said that a  certain
Caucasian cavalry division  on the  way to  Mozhaisk  had  won  a  brilliant
victory against hordes of ostriches, killing the lot of them  and destroying
huge deposits of ostrich  eggs. The  division  itself  had suffered very few
losses.  There  was  a  government announcement  that  if  it  should  prove
impossible to keep the reptiles outside the 120-mile zone around Moscow, the
capital would be completely evacuated.  Office- and  factory-workers  should
remain  calm. The  government would  take  the strictest measures to avoid a
repetition  of the Smolensk  situation,  as a  result  of which, due to  the
pandemonium caused by  a  sudden attack from  rattlesnakes numbering several
thousands, the town had been set on  fire in several places when  people had
abandoned burning stoves and begun a hopeless mass exodus. It also announced
that  Moscow's food supplies would  last for at least  six months and that a
committee under the Commander-in-Chief  was taking urgent measures to armour
apartments against attacks by reptiles in the streets of the capital, if the
Red Army and aeroplanes did not succeed in halting their advance.
     The Professor  read none  of this, but stared vacantly in  front of him
and  smoked.  Apart  from  him  there were  only  two  other people  in  the
Institute, Pankrat and the house-keeper, Maria Stepanovna, who kept bursting
into  tears. This was her third sleepless  night, which she  was spending in
the  Professor's  laboratory, because he flatly refused  to leave  his  only
remaining chamber, even though  it  had been switched  off. Maria Stepanovna
had taken refuge on the oilcloth-covered divan, in the  shade in the corner,
and maintained  a  grief-stricken  silence,  watching  the  kettle  with the
Professor's tea boil  on the  tripod of a Bunsen  Burner. The  Institute was
quiet. It all happened very suddenly.
     Some loud angry cries rang  out in the street,  making Maria Stepanovna
jump up  and scream. Lamps flashed outside, and Pankrat's voice was heard in
the  vestibule. The Professor misinterpreted this noise. He  raised his head
for a  moment and muttered: "Listen  to them raving...  what can  I do now?"
Then he  went into a trance again. But  he was soon brought out of it. There
was a terrible pounding on the iron doors of the Institute in Herzen Street,
and  the  walls  trembled. Then a whole  section  of  mirror cracked in  the
neighbouring room. A window pane in the Professor's  laboratory  was smashed
as a  grey cobble-stone  flew  through it, knocking over a  glass table. The
frogs woke up in the terrariums and began to croak. Maria Stepanovna  rushed
up  to  the  Professor, clutched  his arm and  cried:  "Run  away,  Vladimir
Ipatych, run away!" The Professor got off the  revolving chair, straightened
up and crooked  his finger,  his eyes flashing for a moment with a sharpness
which recalled the earlier inspired Persikov.
     "I'm not  going  anywhere,"  he said. "It's quite  ridiculous.  They're
rushing around like madmen. And if the whole of Moscow has gone crazy, where
could I go? And please stop shouting. What's it got to do with me? Pankrat!"
he cried, pressing the button.
     He probably  wanted Pankrat to stop all the fuss,  which  he  had never
liked. But Pankrat was no longer in a state to do anything. The pounding had
ended with the Institute doors flying open and the sound of distant gunfire.
But  then the  whole stone building shook with a sudden stampede, shouts and
breaking glass. Maria Stepanovna  seized  hold of Persi-kov's arms and tried
to drag  him away, but he shook her off, straightened himself up to his full
height and went into the corridor, still wearing his white coat.
     "Well?" he asked. The door burst open, and the first thing to appear on
the threshold was the back of a soldier with a red long-service stripe and a
star on his left sleeve. He  was firing his revolver and retreating from the
door, through  which a furious crowd was surging. Then he turned and shouted
at Persikov:
     "Run for your life, Professor! I can't help you anymore."
     His words were greeted by  a scream from Maria  Stepanovna. The soldier
rushed past Persikov, who stood rooted to the spot like  a white statue, and
disappeared down the dark winding corridors at the other  end. People rushed
through the door, howling:
     "Beat him! Kill him..."
     "The villain!"
     "You let the reptiles loose!"
     The corridor was a swarming mass of contorted faces and torn clothes. A
shot rang out. Sticks were brandished. Persikov stepped back and half-closed
the door  of his room,  where Maria Stepanovna was kneeling  on the floor in
terror, then stretched out his arms like one  crucified. He did  not want to
let the crowd in and shouted angrily:
     "It's positive madness. You're  like wild animals. What  do you  want?"
Then he  yelled:  "Get out  of  here!" and finished with the  curt, familiar
command: "Get rid of them, Pankrat."
     But Pankrat could not get rid of anyone now. He was lying motionless in
the vestibule, torn and trampled, with a smashed skull. More and more people
swarmed past him, paying no attention to the police firing in the street.
     A  short man  on crooked ape-like legs, in a tattered jacket  and  torn
shirt-front all  askew,  leapt out  of the crowd at  Persikov and  split the
Professor's  skull  open  with  a  terrible blow  from  his  stick. Persikov
staggered and collapsed slowly onto one side. His last words were:
     "Pankrat. Pankrat."
     The totally innocent Maria Stepanovna was killed  and torn to pieces in
the Professor's room. They also smashed  the  chamber with the  extinguished
ray and  the  terrariums, after killing and  trampling on the  crazed frogs,
then the glass tables and the reflectors. An hour later the Institute was in
flames. Around lay corpses cordoned off by  a column of soldiers  armed with
electric revolvers, while fire-engines sucked up water and sprayed it on all
the windows through which long roaring tongues of flame were leaping.


        CHAPTER XII. A Frosty God Ex Machina

     On the  night  of 19th August, 1928, there was an  unheard-of frost the
likes of which no elderly  folk could recall within living memory. It lasted
forty-eight  hours and reached eighteen degrees below. Panic-stricken Moscow
closed all its doors and windows. Only towards the end of the  third day did
the  public realise that the frost  had saved  the capital and  the  endless
expanses  under  its  sway afflicted  by the  terrible disaster of 1928. The
cavalry army by Mozhaisk, which  had lost three-quarters of its  men, was on
its last legs,  and  the  poison  gas  squads had been  unable to  halt  the
loathsome reptiles, who were advancing  on Moscow in a  semi-circle from the
west, south-west and south.
     They were killed off by the frost.  The  foul  hordes could not survive
two days of minus eighteen degrees  centigrade, and  come  the  last week of
August,  when the  frost disappeared  leaving only  damp  and wet behind it,
moisture in the air  and trees  with leaves dead  from the unexpected  cold,
there was  nothing to fight. The catastrophe was  over. The  forests, fields
and  boundless  marshes were still covered  with coloured eggs, some bearing
the  strange  pattern  unfamiliar  in these parts,  which  Feight,  who  had
disappeared no one knew where, had taken to be muck, but these eggs were now
completely  harmless.  They were  dead, the  embryos inside  them  had  been
killed.
     For a long time afterwards  these  vast  expanses were  heavy with  the
rotting  corpses  of  crocodiles  and  snakes brought  to  life by  the  ray
engendered in  Herzen Street under a genius's eye, but they  were no  longer
dangerous. These precarious creations of putrid  tropical swamps perished in
two  days, leaving  a  terrible  stench, putrefaction  and decay  over three
provinces. There were epidemics  and widespread diseases from the corpses of
reptiles  and people, and  the  army was  kept  busy  for  a long time,  now
supplied not with poison gas, but with engineering equipment, kerosene tanks
and hoses to clean the ground. It completed this work by the spring of 1929.
     And in the  spring of 'twenty-nine  Moscow  began  to dance, whirl  and
shimmer with lights again. Once  more you could hear the old shuffling sound
of the mechanical carriages, a crescent  moon hung, as if by  a thread, over
the dome of  Christ the Saviour, and on the site of the two-storey Institute
which burnt down in August 'twenty-eight they built a new zoological palace,
with Docent  Ivanov  in charge. But Persikov was no more. No more did people
see  the  persuasive  crooked  finger  thrust at them  or  hear  the rasping
croaking voice. The world went on talking and writing about the  ray and the
catastrophe  of '28  for  a  long  time  afterwards,  but then  the name  of
Professor   Vladimir   Ipatievich  Persikov   was  enveloped  in   mist  and
extinguished, like  the  red  ray discovered by him  on  that fateful  April
night. No one succeeded in producing this  ray  again, although that refined
gentleman,  Pyotr Stepanovich Ivanov, now  a  professor, occasionally tried.
The  first  chamber  was destroyed by  the  frenzied crowd on  the  night of
Persikov's  murder. The other three chambers were burnt on the Red Ray State
Farm  in Nikolskoye  during  the first  battle  of  the aeroplanes with  the
reptiles, and it did  not prove possible to reconstruct  them. Simple though
the combination of the lenses with the mirror-reflected light may have been,
it  could not  be  reproduced  a second time, in spite of  Ivanov's efforts.
Evidently,  in  addition to  mere knowledge  it required  something special,
something possessed by one man alone in the whole world, the late  Professor
Vladimir Ipatievich Persikov.