Mikhail Bulgakov. The Fateful Eggs -
49 >
me!"
"There," Persikov repeated, and his lips trembled like a little boy's
whose favourite toy has suddenly been taken away from him.
"You know, my dear Pankrat," Persikov went on, turning away to face the
window. "My wife who left me fifteen years ago and joined an operetta
company has now apparently died... So there, Pankrat, dear chap... I got a
letter..."
The toads croaked mournfully, and darkness slowly engulfed the
Professor. Night was falling. Here and there white lamps went on in the
windows. Pankrat stood to attention with fright, confused and miserable.
"You can go, Pankrat," the Professor said heavily, with a wave of the
hand. "Go to bed, Pankrat, my dear fellow."
And so night fell. Pankrat left the study quickly on tiptoe for some
reason, ran to his cubby-hole, rummaged among a pile of rags in the corner,
pulled out an already opened bottle of vodka and gulped down a large
glassful. Then he ate some bread and salt, and his eyes cheered up a bit.
Late that evening, just before midnight, Pankrat was sitting barefoot
on a bench in the poorly lit vestibule, talking to the indefatigable bowler
hat on duty and scratching his chest under a calico shirt.
"Honest, it would've been better if he'd done me in..."
"Was he really crying?" asked the bowler hat, inquisitively.
"Honest he was," Pankrat insisted.
"A great scientist," the bowler hat agreed. "A frog's no substitute for
a wife, anyone knows that."
"It sure isn't," Pankrat agreed.
Then he paused and added:
"I'm thinking of bringing the wife up here... No sense her staying in
the country. Only she couldn't stand them there reptiles..."
"I'm not surprised, the filthy things," agreed the bowler hat.
Not a sound could be heard from the Professor's study. The light was
not on either. There was no strip under the door.