Mikhail Bulgakov. The Fateful Eggs -
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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 with them!" cried Persikov wretchedly, pushing his way with
the ton weight out of the crowd. "Hey, taxi! Prechistenka Street!"
A battered old jalopy, a 'twenty-four model, chugged to a stop, and the
Professor climbed in, trying to shake off the fat man.
"Let go!" he hissed, shielding his face with his hands to ward off the
violet light.
"Have you read it? What they're shouting? Professor Persikov and his
children've had their throats cut in Malaya Bronnaya!" people were shouting
in the crowd.
"I don't have any children, blast you!" yelled Persikov, suddenly
coming into the focus of a black camera which snapped him in profile with
his mouth wide open and eyes glaring.
"Chu... ug, chu... ug," revved the taxi and barged into the crowd.
The fat man was already sitting in the cab, warming the Professor's
side.
In the small provincial town formerly called Trinity, but now
Glassworks, in Kostroma Province (Glassworks District), a woman in a grey
dress with a kerchief tied round her head walked onto the porch of a little
house in what was formerly Church, but now Personal Street and burst into
tears. This woman, the widow of Drozdov, the former priest of the former
church, sobbed so loudly that soon another woman's head in a fluffy scarf
popped out of a window in the house across the road and exclaimed:
"What's the matter, Stepanovna? Another one?"
"The seventeenth!" replied the former Drozdova, sobbing even louder.