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

"Are you crazy, playing in this heat?" came Manya's cheerful voice, and
out of the corner of his eye Alexander Semyonovich glimpsed a patch of
white.
Then a terrible scream shattered the farm, swelling, rising, and the
waltz began to limp painfully. The head shot out of the burdock, its eyes
leaving Alexander Semyonovich's soul to repent of his sins. A snake about
thirty feet long and as thick as a man uncoiled like a spring and shot out
of the weeds. Clouds of dust sprayed up from the path, and the waltz ceased.
The snake raced past the state farm manager straight to the white blouse.
Feight saw everything clearly: Manya went a yellowish-white, and her long
hair rose about a foot above her head like wire. Before Feight's eyes the
snake opened its mouth, something fork-like darting out, then sank its teeth
into the shoulder of Manya, who was sinking into the dust, and jerked her up
about two feet above the ground. Manya gave another piercing death cry. The
snake coiled itself into a twelve-yard screw, its tail sweeping up a
tornado, and began to crush Manya. She did not make another sound. Feight
could hear her bones crunching. High above the ground rose Manya's head
pressed lovingly against the snake's cheek. Blood gushed out of her mouth, a
broken arm dangled in the air and more blood spurted out from under the
fingernails. Then the snake opened its mouth, put its gaping jaws over
Manya's head and slid onto the rest of her like a glove slipping onto a
finger. The snake's breath was so hot that Feight could feel it on his face,
and the tail all but swept him off the path into the acrid dust. It was then
that Feight went grey. First the left, then the right half of his jet-black
head turned to silver. Nauseated to death, he eventually managed to drag
himself away from the path, then turned and ran, seeing nothing and nobody,
with a wild shriek that echoed for miles around.


CHAPTER IX. A Writhing Mass

Shukin, the GPU agent at Dugino Station, was a very brave man. He said
thoughtfully to his companion, the ginger-headed Polaitis:
"Well, let's go. Eh? Get the motorbike." Then he paused for a moment
and added, turning to the man who was sitting on the bench: "Put the flute
down."
But instead of putting down the flute, the trembling grey-haired man on
the bench in the Dugino GPU office, began weeping and moaning. Shukin and
Polaitis realised they would have to pull the flute away. His fingers seemed
to be stuck to it. Shukin, who possessed enormous, almost circus-like
strength, prised the fingers away one by one. Then they put the flute on the
table.
It was early on the sunny morning of the day after Manya's death.
"You come too," Shukin said to Alexander Semyonovich, "and show us
where everything is." But Feight shrank back from him in horror, putting up
his hands as if to ward off some terrible vision.
"You must show us," Polaitis added sternly. "Leave him alone. You can
see the state he's in."
"Send me to Moscow," begged Alexander Semyonovich, weeping.
"You really don't want to go back to the farm again?"