"Mikhail Bulgakov. The Fateful Eggs ("Роковые яйца")" - читать интересную книгу автораcertainly not... And I'm extremely busy. I really must ask you to..."
"Any old one will do. And we'll return it straightaway." "Pankrat!" the Professor yelled in a fury. "Your humble servant," said the young man and vanished. Instead of Pankrat came the strange rhythmic scraping sound of something metallic hitting the floor, and into the laboratory rolled a man of unusual girth, dressed in a blouse and trousers made from a woollen blanket. His left, artificial leg clattered and clanked, and he was holding a briefcase. The clean-shaven round face resembling yellowish meat-jelly was creased into a welcoming smile. He bowed in military fashion to the Professor and drew himself up, his leg giving a springlike snap. Persikov was speechless. "My dear Professor," the stranger began in a pleasant, slightly throaty voice, "forgive an ordinary mortal for invading your seclusion." "Are you a reporter?" Persikov asked. "Pankrat!" "Certainly not, dear Professor," the fat man replied. "Allow me to introduce myself-naval captain and contributor to the Industrial Herald, newspaper of the Council of People's Commissars." "Pankrat!" cried Persikov hysterically, and at that very moment a red light went on in the corner and the telephone rang softly. "Pankrat!" the Professor cried again. "Hello." "Verzeihen Sie bitte, Herr Professor," croaked the telephone in German, "das ich store. Ich bin Mitarbeiter des Berliner Tageblatts..." "Pankrat!" the Professor shouted down the receiver. "Bin momental sehr beschaftigt und kann Sie deshalb jetzt nicht empfangen. Pankrat!" And just at this moment the bell at the main door started ringing. darting about between wheels and flashing headlights on the hot June roadway. "Terrible illness of chickens belonging to the priest's widow Drozdova with a picture of her! Terrible discovery of life ray by Professor Persikov!" Persikov dashed out so quickly that he almost got run over by a car in Mokhovaya and grabbed a newspaper angrily. "Three copecks, citizen!" cried the newsboy, squeezing into the crowd on the pavement and yelling: "Red Moscow Evening News, discovery of X-ray!" The flabbergasted Persikov opened the newspaper and huddled against a lamp-post. On page two in the left-hand corner a bald man with crazed, unseeing eyes and a hanging lower jaw, the fruit of Alfred Bronsky's artistic endeavours, stared at him from a smudged frame. The caption beneath it read: "V I. Persikov who discovered the mysterious ray." Lower down, under the heading World-Wide Enigma was an article which began as follows: "'Take a seat,' the eminent scientist Persikov invited me hospitably..." The article was signed with a flourish "Alfred Bronsky (Alonso)". A greenish light soared up over the University roof; the words "Talking Newspaper" lit up in the sky, and a crowd jammed Mokhovaya. "Take a seat!' an unpleasant thin voice, just like Alfred Bronsky's magnified a thousand times, yelped from a loudspeaker on the roof, "the eminent scientist Persikov invited me hospitably. 'I've been wanting to tell the workers of Moscow the results of my discovery for some time...'" |
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