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

"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...


CHAPTER VI. Moscow. June 1928

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,
Professors Persikov and Portugalov... and Comrade Rabinovich! New attempts
at intervention," the loudspeaker giggled and cried, like a jackal, "in
connection with the fowl plague!"
Theatre Passage, Neglinnaya and Lubyanka blazed with white and violet
neon strips and flickering lights amid wailing sirens and clouds of dust.
People crowded round the large notices on the walls, lit by glaring red
reflectors.
"All consumption of chickens and chicken eggs is strictly forbidden on
pain of severe punishment. Any attempt by private traders to sell them in
markets is punishable by law with confiscation of all property. All citizens
in possession of eggs are urgently requested to take them to local police
stations."
A screen on the roof of the Workers' Paper showed chickens piled up to
the sky as greenish firemen, fragmenting and sparkling, hosed them with
kerosene. Red waves washed over the screen, deathly smoke belched forth,
swirling in clouds, and drifted up in a column, then out hopped the fiery
letters:
"Dead chickens being burnt in Khodynka."
Amid the madly blazing windows of shops open until three in the
morning, with breaks for lunch and supper, boarded-up windows with signs
saying "Eggs for sale. Quality guaranteed" stared out blindly. Hissing