Mikhail Bulgakov. The Fateful Eggs -
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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