Authors: Mikhail Bulgakov
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."
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.