“But why?” the mysterious voice asked, laughing condescendingly.
In general everybody spoke to Persikov either with respect and terror, or laughing indulgently, as though he were a small, though overgrown, child.
“It’s faster,” Persikov replied, to which the resonant bass replied into the telephone, “Well, as you wish.”
Another week passed, during which Persikov, withdrawing still further from the receding chicken problems, engrossed himself completely in the study of the ray. From the sleepless nights and overexertion his head felt light, as if it were transparent and weightless. The red circles never left his eyes now, and Persikov spent almost every night at the institute. Once he abandoned his zoological retreat to give a lecture at the huge Tsekubu Hall on Prechistenka—about his ray and its effect on the egg cell. It was a tremendous triumph for the eccentric zoologist. The applause was so thunderous that something crumbled and dropped down from the ceilings of the colonnaded hall; hissing arc lights poured light over the black dinner jackets of the Tsekubu members and the white gowns of the ladies. On the stage, on a glass-topped table next to the lectern, a moist frog as big as a cat sat on a platter, gray and breathing heavily. Many notes were thrown onto the stage. They included seven declarations of love, and Persikov tore them up. The Tsekubu chairman dragged him forcibly onto the stage to bow to the audience. Persikov bowed irritably; his hands were sweaty, and the knot of his black tie rested not beneath his chin, but behind his left ear. There amid the sounds of respiration and the mist before him were hundreds of yellow faces and white shirtfronts and suddenly the yellow holster of a revolver flashed and disappeared somewhere behind a white column. Persikov dimly perceived it, and forgot it. But as he was departing after the lecture, walking down the raspberry-colored carpet of the staircase, he suddenly felt sick. For a moment the dazzling chandelier in the vestibule turned black, and Persikov felt faint and nauseated … He thought he smelled something burning; it seemed to him that blood was dripping, sticky and hot, down his neck … And with a shaky hand the professor caught at the handrail.
“Are you sick, Vladimir Ipatich?” anxious voices flew at him from all sides.
“No, no,” replied Persikov, recovering. “I am just overtired … yes … May I have a glass of water?”
It was a very sunny August day. That bothered the professor, so the shades were lowered. A reflector on a flexible stand threw a sharp beam of light onto a glass table piled with instruments and slides. Leaning against the backrest of the revolving chair in exhaustion, Persikov smoked, and his eyes, dead tired but satisfied, looked through the billows of smoke at the partly open door of the chamber where, faintly warming the already close and impure air of the office, the red sheaf of his ray lay quietly.
Someone knocked on the door.
“Well?” asked Persikov.
The door creaked softly, and Pankrat entered. He put his arms stiffly at his sides, and blanching with fear before the divinity, he said, “Mr. Professor, out there Feit has come to you.”
A semblance of a smile appeared on the scientist’s cheeks. He narrowed his eyes and said, “That’s interesting. But I’m busy.”
“He says he has an official paper from the Kremlin.”
“Fate with a paper? A rare combination,” uttered Persikov, adding, “oh, well, get him in here.”
“Yes, sir,” said Pankrat, and he disappeared through the door like an eel.
A minute later it creaked again and a man appeared on the threshold. Persikov squeaked around an his swivel chair, and, above his spectacles, fixed his eyes on the visitor over his shoulder. Persikov was very remote from life—he was not interested in it—but even Persikov was struck by the predominant, the salient characteristic of the man who had entered: he was peculiarly old-fashioned. In 1919 the man would have been entirely in place in the streets of the capital; he would have passed in 1924, in the beginning of the year—but in 1928 he was odd. At a time when even the most backward section of the proletariat—the bakers—wore ordinary jackets, and the military service jacket was a rarity in Moscow—an old-fashioned outfit irrevocably discarded by the end of 1924—the man who had entered was wearing a double-breasted leather coat, olive-green trousers, puttees, and gaiters on his legs, and at his hip a huge Mauser of antiquated make in a cracked yellow holster. His face produced the same kind of impression on Persikov that it did on everyone else—an extremely unpleasant impression. His little eyes looked at the whole world with surprise, but at the same time with assurance; there was something bumptious in the short legs with their flat feet. His face was blue from close shaving. Persikov immediately frowned. He squeaked the screw of his chair mercilessly, and looking at the man no longer over his spectacles but through them, he asked, “You have some paper? Where is it?”
The visitor was apparently overwhelmed by what he saw. Generally he had little capacity for being taken aback, but here he was taken aback. Judging by his tiny eyes, he was struck most of all by the twelve-shelved bookcase, which reached to the ceiling and was crammed with books. Then, of course, there were the chambers, in which—as though in hell—he scarlet ray flickered, diffused and magnified through the glass. And Persikov himself in the penumbra beside the sharp needle of light emitted by the reflector was sufficiently strange and majestic in his revolving chair. The visitor fixed on the professor a glance in which sparks of deference were clearly leaping through the self-assurance. He presented no paper, but said, “I am Alexander Semionovich Feit!”
“Well? So what?”
“I have been appointed director of the model Sovkhoz—the ‘Red Ray’ Sovkhoz,” explained the visitor.
“And?”
“And so I’ve come to see you, comrade, with a secret memorandum.”
“Interesting to learn. Make it short, if you can.”
The visitor unbuttoned the lapel of his coat and pulled out an order printed on magnificent thick paper. He held it out to Persikov. Then, without invitation, he sat down on a revolving stool. “Don’t jiggle the table,” Persikov said with hatred.
The visitor looked around at the table in fright—at the far end, in a moist dark aperture, some sort of eyes gleamed lifelessly like emeralds. They exuded a chill.
No sooner had Persikov read the paper than he rose from his stool and rushed to the telephone. Within a few seconds he was already speaking hurriedly and with an extreme degree of irritation. “Excuse me … I cannot understand … How can this be? I … without my consent or advice … Why, the devil only knows what he’ll do with it!”
Here the stranger turned on his stool, extremely insulted. “Pardon me,” he began, “I am the direc …”
But Persikov waved him away with his hooked index finger and continued: “Excuse me, I can’t understand … And finally, I categorically refuse. I will not sanction any experiments with eggs … Until I try them myself….”
Something squawked and clicked in the receiver, and even from a distance one could understand that the condescending voice in the receiver was speaking to a small child. It ended with crimson Persikov slamming down the receiver and saying past it into the wall, “I wash my hands of this!”
He returned to the table, took the paper from it, read it once from top to bottom above his spectacles, then from bottom to top through them, and suddenly he yelled, “Pankrat!”
Pankrat appeared in the door as though rising up through a trap door at the opera. Persikov glanced at him and ejaculated, “Get out, Pankrat!”
And without showing the least surprise, Pankrat disappeared.
Then Persikov turned to his guest and began, “All right, sir … I submit. It’s none of my business. And I’m not even interested.”’
The professor not so much offended as amazed his guest. “But pardon me,” he began, “you are a comrade? …”
“Comrade … comrade…. Is that all you know how to say?” Persikov grumbled, and fell silent.
“Well!” was written on Feit’s face.
�
��Pard …”
“Now, sir, if you please,” interrupted Persikov. “This is the arc light. From it you obtain, by manipulating the ocular,” Persikov snapped the lid of the chamber, which resembled a camera, “a cluster which you can gather by adjusting object-lens No. 1, here, and mirror No. 2.” Persikov turned off the ray, turned it on again—aimed at the floor of the asbestos chamber. “And on the floor you can place whatever you please in the ray and conduct experiments. Extremely simple, don’t you think?”
Persikov meant to show irony and contempt, but his visitor did not notice, peering intently into the chamber with his glittering little eyes.
“But I warn you,” Persikov went on, “one should not put one’s hands in the ray, because, according to my observations, it causes growth of the epithelium—and I unfortunately have not yet been able to establish whether it is malignant or not.”
Here the visitor nimbly hid his hands behind his back, dropping his leather cap, and he looked at the professor’s hands. They were covered with iodine stains, and his right wrist was bandaged.
“And how do you do it, professor?”
“You can buy rubber gloves at Schwab’s on Kuznetsky,” the professor replied irritably. “I’m not obliged to worry about that.”
Here Persikov looked up at his visitor, as though studying him through a magnifying glass. “Where are you from? Why you? In general, why you?”
Feit was finally deeply offended, “Pard …”
“After all, one has to know what it’s all about … Why have you latched on to my ray? …”
“Because it’s a matter of utmost importance.”
“Oh. The utmost? In that case—Pankrat!”
And when Pankrat appeared: “Wait, I’ll think it over.”
And Pankrat obediently disappeared.
“I cannot understand one thing,” said Persikov. “Why are such rushing and secrecy necessary?”
“You have already got me muddled, professor,” Feit answered. “You know that every last chicken has died off?”
“Well, what about it?” shrieked Persikov. “Do you want to resurrect them instantly, or what? And why use a ray that has still been insufficiently studied?”
“Comrade Professor,” replied Feit, “I must say, you do mix me up I am telling you that it is essential for us because they’re writing a all kinds of nasty things about us abroad. Yes.”
“Let them write.”
“Well, you know!” Feit responded mysteriously, shaking his head.
“I’d like to know who got the idea of breeding chickens from eggs …”
“I did,” answered Feit.
“Uhmmm … So … And why, may I inquire? Where did you hear about the characteristics of this ray.
“I attended your lecture, professor.”
“I haven’t done anything with eggs yet! I am just getting ready to!”
“It’ll work, I swear it will,” Feit said suddenly with conviction and enthusiasm. “Your ray is so famous, you could hatch elephants with it, let alone chickens.”
“Tell me,” uttered Persikov. “You aren’t a zoologist, are you. No? A pity … you’d make a very bold experimenter … Yes, but you are risking failure. And you are just taking up my time …”
“We’ll return your chambers.”
“When?”
“Well, as soon as I breed the first group.”
“How confidently you say that! Very well, sir. Pankrat!”
“I have men with me,” said Feit. “And guards …”
By that evening Persikov’s office had been desolated … The tables were bare. Feit’s men had carried off the three large chambers, leaving the professor only the first, his own little one with which he had begun the experiments.
July twilight was settling over the institute; grayness filled it and flowed along the corridors. From the study came the sound of monotonous footsteps—this was Persikov pacing the large room from window to door without turning on the light. It was a strange thing: that evening an inexplicably dismal mood overcame both the people who inhabited the institute and the animals. The toads for some reason raised a particularly dismal concert, twittering ominously, premonitorily. Pankrat had to chase along the corridors after a garter snake that had escaped from its cage, and when he caught it, the snake looked as though it ad decided to flee wherever its eyes would lead it, if only to get away.
In the deep twilight the bell rang from Persikov’s office. Pankrat appeared on the threshold and he saw a strange sight. The scientist was standing solitarily in the center of the room, looking at the tables. Pankrat coughed once and stood still.
“There, Pankrat,” said Persikov, and he pointed to the bare table.
Pankrat was horrified. It seemed to him that the professor’s eyes were tear-stained in the twilight. It was so extraordinary and so terrible.
“Yes, sir,” Pankrat answered lugubriously, thinking, “It’d be better if you’d yell at me.”
“There,” repeated Persikov, and his lips quivered like a child’s when his favorite toy has suddenly, for no reason, been taken away from it. “You know, my good Pankrat,” Persikov went on, turning away to the window, “my wife … who left me fifteen years ago—she joined an operetta … and now it turns out she is dead … What a story, my dear Pankrat … I was sent a letter.”
The toads screamed plaintively, and twilight enveloped the professor. There it is … night. Moscow … here and there outside the windows some sort of white globes began to light up … Pankrat, confused and in anguish held his hands straight down his sides, stiff with fear …
“Go, Pankrat,” the professor murmured heavily, waving his hand. “Go to bed, my dear, kind Pankrat.”
And night came. For some reason Pankrat ran out of the office on his tiptoes, hurried to his cranny, rummaged through the rags in the corner, pulled out a half-full bottle of Russian vodka, and gulped down almost a regular glassful in one breath. He chased it with some bread and salt, and his eyes cheered up a bit.
Later in the evening, close to midnight now, Pankrat was sitting bare-foot on a bench in the dimly lit vestibule, talking to the sleepless derby on duty, and scratching his chest under the calico shirt. “It’d be better if he’d kill me, I swear …”
“He really was crying?” inquired the derby with curiosity.
“I swear …” Pankrat assured him.
“A great scientist,” agreed the derby. “Obviously no frog can take the place of a wife.”
“Absolutely,” Pankrat agreed. Then he thought a bit and added, “I’m thinking of getting my woman permission to come out here” … why should she sit there in the village? Only she can’t stand them snakes no how …”
“Sure, they’re terribly nasty,” agreed the derby.
From the scientist’s office not a sound could be heard. And there was no light in it. No strip under the door.
VIII. EVENTS AT THE SOVKHOZ
There is absolutely no time of year more beautiful than mid-August in, let us say, the Smolensk province. The summer of 1928, as is well known, was one of the finest ever, with spring rains which had come at precisely the right time, a full hot sun, and a fine harvest … The apples were ripening in the former Sheremetiev estate … the woods stood green, the fields lay in yellow squares. A man becomes better in the bosom of nature. And Alexander Semionovich would not have seemed as unpleasant here as in the city. And he no longer wore that obnoxious coat. His face had a coppery tan, his unbuttoned calico shirt betrayed a chest overgrown with the thickest black hair, his legs were clad in canvas trousers. And his eyes had grown calmer and kinder.
Alexander Semionovich ran briskly down the stairs from the becolumned porch over which a sign was nailed, under a star: THE “RED RAY” SOVKHOZ. And he went straight to meet the pickup truck which had brought him three black chambers under guard.
All day Alexander Semionovich bustled around with his helpers, setting up the chambers in the former winter garden—the Sheremetiev greenhouse … By
evening all was in readiness. A frosted white globe glowed under the glass ceiling, the chambers were arranged on bricks, and the mechanic who had come with the chambers, clicking and turning the shiny knobs, turned the mysterious red ray onto the asbestos floor of the black boxes.
Alexander Semionovich bustled around, and even climbed the ladder himself to check out the wiring.
On the following day, the same pickup returned from the station and disgorged three crates made of magnificent smooth plywood and plastered all over with labels and warnings in white letters on black backgrounds: “Vorsicht: Eier! Handle with care: Eggs.”
“But why did they send so few?” wondered Alexander Semionovich—however, he immediately started bustling around and unpacking the eggs. The unpacking was done in the same greenhouse with the participation of: Alexander Semionovich himself; his wife Manya, a woman of extraordinary bulk; the one-eyed former gardener of the former Sheremetievs, currently working on the sovkhoz in the universal capacity of watchman; the guard, now condemned to life on the sovkhoz; and Dunia, the cleaning woman. This was not Moscow, and so the nature of everything here was simpler, friendlier, and more homely. Alexander Semionovich supervised, glancing affectionately at the crates, which looked like a really sturdy, compact present under the soft sunset light coming through the upper windows of the greenhouse. The guard, whose rifle rested peacefully by the door, broke open the clamps and metal bindings with a pair of pliers. Crackling filled the room. Dust flew. Flopping along in his sandals, Alexander Semionovich fussed around the crates.
“Take it easy,” he said to the guard. “Careful. Don’t you see the eggs?”
“Don’t worry,” the provincial warrior grunted, drilling away. “Just a second.” T-r-r-r … and the dust flew.
The eggs turned out to be exceedingly well packed: under the wooden lid there was a layer of wax paper, then absorbent paper, then a solid layer of wood shavings, and then sawdust, in which the white tips of the eggs gleamed.
“Foreign packing,” Alexander Semionovich said lovingly digging into the sawdust. “Not the way we do things here. Manya, careful, you’ll break them.”
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