"Mikhail Bulgakov. The Fateful Eggs ("Роковые яйца")" - читать интересную книгу автора

Mikhail Bulgakov.


The Fateful Eggs


("Роковые яйца")

Translated by Kathleen Gook-Horujy
OCR: http://home.freeuk.net/russica2/



Mikhail Bulgakov (1891-1940) was born in Kiev into the family of a
teacher at a religious academy, endured the hardships of wars and
revolutions, starved, became a playwright for the country's finest theatre,
knew fame, persecution, public ovations and forced muteness. His best works,
including the famous The Master and Margarita, were not published until
after his death. His dramas were struck off the repertoire-The Days of the
Turbins at the Moscow Arts Theatre and his plays about Moliere and Pushkin.
During his lifetime, not a single major anthology of his short stories was
ever published
Bulgakov's works have since been recognised as classics; his books have
been published in all the languages of the civilised world, studies of him
have reached the four-figure mark and the number is still rising; editions
of his books in the USSR have run into millions. He has won the highest
praise from Gabriel Garcia Marquez of Columbia and Kendzaburo Oe of Japan.
Kirghiz writer Chinghiz Aitmatov looks on Bulgakov as his teacher. Mikhail
Bulgakov's books have at last come into their own with their wild fantasy
and their prophetic ideas about man and humanity. Our collection includes
one of his most vivid stories, "The Fateful Eggs".


CHAPTER I. Professor Persikov's Curriculum Vitae

On the evening of 16 April, 1928, the Zoology Professor of the Fourth
State University and Director of the Moscow Zoological Institute, Persikov,
went into his laboratory at the Zoological Institute in Herzen Street. The
Professor switched on the frosted ceiling light and looked around him.
This ill-fated evening must be regarded as marking the beginning of the
appalling catastrophe, just as Professor Vladimir Ipatievich Persikov must
be seen as the prime cause of the said catastrophe.
He was fifty-eight years old. With a splendid bald head, like a pestle,
and tufts of yellowish hair sticking out at the sides. His face was
clean-shaven, with a slightly protruding lower lip which gave it a slightly
cantankerous expression. Tall and round-shouldered, he had small bright eyes
and tiny old-fashioned spectacles in silver frames on a red nose. He spoke
in a grating, high, croaking voice and one of his many idiosyncrasies was to
crook the index finger of his right hand and screw up his eyes, whenever he
was saying something weighty and authoritative. And since he always spoke