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

tree, on the driver leather coat which was spread out on the ground. A lamp
shone in the kitchen, where the two market-gardeners were having supper, -
and Madame Feight was sitting in a white neglige on the columned veranda,
gazing at the beautiful moon and dreaming.
At ten o'clock in the evening when the sounds had died down in the
village of Kontsovka behind the state farm, the idyllic landscape was filled
with the charming gentle playing of a flute. This fitted in with the groves
and former columns of the Sheremetev palace more than words can say. In the
duet the voice of the delicate Liza from The Queen of Spades blended with
that of the passionate Polina and soared up into. the moonlit heights like a
vision of the old and yet infinitely dear, heartbreakingly entrancing
regime.
Do fade away... Fade away...
piped the flute, trilling and sighing.
The copses were hushed, and Dunya, fatal as a wood nymph, listened, her
cheek pressed against the rough, ginger and manly cheek of the driver.
"He don't play bad, the bastard," said the driver, putting a manly arm
round Dunya's waist.
The flute was being played by none other than the manager of the state
farm himself, Alexander Semyonovich Feight, who, to do him justice, was
playing it beautifully. The fact of the matter was that Alexander
Semyonovich had once specialised in the flute. Right up to 1917 he had
played in the well-known concert ensemble of the maestro Petukhov, filling
the foyer of the cosy little Magic Dreams cinema in the town of
Yekaterinoslav with its sweet notes every evening. But the great year of
1917, which broke the careers of so many, had swept Alexander Semyonovich
onto a new path too. He left the Magic Dreams and the dusty star-spangled
satin of its foyer to plunge into the open sea of war and revolution,
exchanging his flute for a death-dealing Mauser. For a long time he was
tossed about on waves which washed him ashore, now in the Crimea, now in
Moscow, now in Turkestan, and even in Vladivostok. It needed the revolution
for Alexander Semyonovich to realise his full potential. It turned out that
here was a truly great man, who should not be allowed to waste his talents
in the foyer of Magic Dreams, of course. Without going into unnecessary
detail, we shall merely say that the year before, 1927, and the beginning of
1928 had found Alexander Semyonovich in Turkestan where he first edited a
big newspaper and then, as a local member of the Supreme Economic
Commission, became renowned for his remarkable contribution to the
irrigation of Turkestan. In 1928 Feight came to Moscow and received some
well-deserved leave. The Supreme Commission of the organisation, whose
membership card this provincially old-fashioned man carried with honour in
his pocket, appreciated his qualities and appointed him to a quiet and
honorary post. Alas and alack! To the great misfortune of the Republic,
Alexander Semyonovich's seething brain did not quieten down. In Moscow
Feight learned of Persikov's discovery, and in the rooms of Red Paris in
Tverskaya Street Alexander Semyonovich had the brainwave of using the ray to
restore the Republic's poultry in a month. The Animal Husbandry Commission
listened to what he had to say, agreed with him, and Feight took his warrant
to the eccentric scientist.
The concert over the glassy waters, the grove and the park was drawing