Mikhail Bulgakov. The Fateful Eggs -
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Professors Persikov and Portugalov... and Comrade Rabinovich! New attempts
at intervention," the loudspeaker giggled and cried, like a jackal, "in
connection with the fowl plague!"
Theatre Passage, Neglinnaya and Lubyanka blazed with white and violet
neon strips and flickering lights amid wailing sirens and clouds of dust.
People crowded round the large notices on the walls, lit by glaring red
reflectors.
"All consumption of chickens and chicken eggs is strictly forbidden on
pain of severe punishment. Any attempt by private traders to sell them in
markets is punishable by law with confiscation of all property. All citizens
in possession of eggs are urgently requested to take them to local police
stations."
A screen on the roof of the Workers' Paper showed chickens piled up to
the sky as greenish firemen, fragmenting and sparkling, hosed them with
kerosene. Red waves washed over the screen, deathly smoke belched forth,
swirling in clouds, and drifted up in a column, then out hopped the fiery
letters:
"Dead chickens being burnt in Khodynka."
Amid the madly blazing windows of shops open until three in the
morning, with breaks for lunch and supper, boarded-up windows with signs
saying "Eggs for sale. Quality guaranteed" stared out blindly. Hissing
ambulances with "Moscow Health Dept." on them raced past policemen and
overtook heavy buses, their sirens wailing.
"Someone else poisoned himself with rotten eggs," the crowd murmured.
The world-famous Empire Restaurant in Petrovsky Lines glowed with green
and orange lamps, and inside it by the portable telephones on the tables lay
liqueur-stained cardboard notices saying "No omelettes until further notice.
Try our fresh oysters."
In the Hermitage Gardens, where Chinese lanterns shone like sad beads
in dead choked foliage, on a blindingly lit stage the singers Shrams and