Mikhail Bulgakov. The Fateful Eggs -
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visiting card.
"Is this supposed to be a joke?" squeaked Persikov, his voice shrill
with rage.
"Sez 'e's from the Gee-Pee-Yoo," Pankrat replied, white as a sheet.
Persikov snatched the card with one hand, almost tearing it in half,
and threw his pincers onto the table with the other. The card bore a message
in ornate handwriting: "Humbly request three minutes of your precious time,
esteemed Professor, on public press business, correspondent of the satirical
magazine Red Maria, a GPU publication."
"Send him in," said Persikov with a sigh.
A young man with a smoothly shaven oily face immediately popped out
from behind Pankrat's back. He had permanently raised eyebrows, like a
Chinaman, over agate eyes which never looked at the person he was talking
to. The young man was dressed impeccably in the latest fashion. He wore a
long narrow jacket down to his knees, extremely baggy trousers and
unnaturally wide glossy shoes with toes like hooves. In his hands he held a
cane, a hat with a pointed top and a note-pad.
"What do you want?" asked Persikov in a voice which sent Pankrat
scuttling out of the room. "Weren't you told that I am busy?"
In lieu of a reply the young man bowed twice to the Professor, to the
left and to the right of him, then his eyes skimmed over the whole
laboratory, and the young man jotted a mark in his pad.
"I am busy," repeated the Professor, looking with loathing into the
visitor's eyes, but to no avail for they were too elusive.
"A thousand apologies, esteemed Professor," the young man said in a
thin voice, "for intruding upon you and taking up your precious time, but
the news of your incredible discovery which has astounded the whole world
compels our journal to ask you for some explanations."
"What explanations, what whole world?" Persikov whined miserably,