Mikhail Bulgakov. The Fateful Eggs -
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catastrophe?"
"What catastrophe?"
"Haven't you read about it, Professor?" exclaimed Bronsky in surprise,
pulling a crumpled page of Izvestia out of his briefcase.
"I don't read newspapers," Persikov pouted.
"But why not, Professor?" Alfred asked gently.
"Because they write such rubbish," Persikov replied, without thinking.
"But surely not, Professor?" Bronsky whispered softly, unfolding the
page.
"What's the matter?" asked Persikov, even rising to his feet. Bronsky's
eyes were flashing now. He pointed a sharp painted finger at an incredibly
large headline which ran right across the whole page: "Chicken plague in the
Republic".
"What?" asked Persikov, pushing his spectacles onto his forehead...
The city shone, the lights danced, going out and blazing on. In Theatre
Square the white lamps of buses mingled with the green lights of trams;
above the former Muir and Merilees, its tenth floor added later, skipped a
multi-coloured electrical woman, tossing out letter by letter the
multicoloured words:
"Workers' Credit". A crowd thronged and murmured in the small garden
opposite the Bolshoi Theatre, where a multicoloured fountain played at
night. And over the Bolshoi itself a huge loudspeaker kept making
announcements.
"Anti-fowl vaccinations at Lefortovo Veterinary Institute have produced
brilliant results. The number of... fowl deaths for today has dropped by
half..."
Then the loudspeaker changed its tone, something growled inside it, a
spray of green blazed up over the theatre, then went out and the loudspeaker
complained in a deep bass:
"An extraordinary commission has been set up to fight the fowl plague
consisting of the People's Commissar of Health, the People's Commissar of
Agriculture, the head of animal husbandry, Comrade Ptakha-Porosyuk,