Mikhail Bulgakov. The Fateful Eggs -
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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,