Mikhail Bulgakov. The Fateful Eggs -
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"Dearie me," tutted the woman in the scarf, shaking her head, "did you
ever hear of such a thing? Tis the anger of the Lord, and no mistake! Dead,
is she?"
"Come and see, Matryona," said the priest's widow, amid loud and bitter
sobs. "Take a look at her!"
Banging the rickety grey gate, the woman padded barefoot over the dusty
hummocks in the road to be taken by the priest's widow into the chicken run.
It must be said that instead of losing heart, the widow of Father
Sawaty Drozdov, who had died in twenty-six of anti-religious mortification,
set up a nice little poultry business. As soon as things began to go well,
the widow received such an exorbitant tax demand that the poultry business
would have closed down had it not been for certain good folk. They advised
the widow to inform the local authorities that she, the widow, was setting
up a poultry cooperative. The cooperative consisted of Drozdova herself, her
faithful servant Matryoshka and the widow's dear niece. The tax was reduced,
and the poultry-farm prospered so much that in twenty-eight the widow had as
many as 250 chickens, even including some Cochins. Each Sunday the widow's
eggs appeared at Glassworks market. They were sold in Tambov and were even
occasionally displayed in the windows of the former Chichkin's Cheese and
Butter Shop in Moscow.
And now, the seventeenth brahmaputra that morning, their dear little
crested hen, was walking round the yard vomiting. The poor thing gurgled and
retched, rolling her eyes sadly at the sun as if she would never see it
again. In front of her squatted co-operative-member Matryoshka with a cup of
water.
"Come on, Cresty dear... chuck-chuck-chuck... drink some water,"
Matryoshka begged, thrusting the cup under the hen's beak, but the hen would
not drink. She opened her beak wide, threw back her head and began to vomit