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

The newly born amoebas tore one another to pieces and gobbled the pieces up.
Among the newly born lay the corpses of those who had perished in the fight
for survival. It was the best and strongest who won. And they were
terrifying. Firstly, they were about twice the size of ordinary amoebas and,
secondly, they were far more active and aggressive. Their movements were
rapid, their pseudopodia much longer than normal, and it would be no
exaggeration to say that they used them like an octopus's tentacles.
On the second evening the Professor, pale and haggard, his only
sustenance the thick cigarettes he rolled himself, studied the new
generation of amoebas. And on the third day he turned to the primary source,
i.e., the red ray.
The gas hissed faintly in the Bunsen burner, the traffic clattered
along the street outside, and the Professor, poisoned by a hundred
cigarettes, eyes half-closed, leaned back in his revolving chair.
"I see it all now. The ray brought them to life. It's a new ray, never
studied or even discovered by anyone before. The first thing is to find out
whether it is produced only by electricity, or by the sun as well," Persikov
muttered to himself.
The next night provided the answer to this question. Persikov caught
three rays in three microscopes from the arc light, but nothing from the
sun, and summed this up as follows:
"We must assume that it is not found in the solar spectrum... Hm, well,
in short we must assume it can only be obtained from electric light." He
gazed fondly at the frosted ball overhead, thought for a moment and invited
Ivanov into the laboratory, where he told him all and showed him the
amoebas.
Decent Ivanov was amazed, quite flabbergasted. Why on earth hadn't a
simple thing as this tiny arrow been noticed before? By anyone, or even by
him, Ivanov. It was really appalling! Just look...
"Look, Vladimir Ipatych!" Ivanov said, his eye glued to the microscope.
"Look what's happening! They're growing be" fore my eyes... You must take a
look..."
"I've been observing them for three days," Persikov replied animatedly.
Then a conversation took place between the two scientists, the gist of
which was as follows. Decent Ivanov undertook with the help of lenses and
mirrors to make a chamber in which they could obtain the ray in magnified
form without a microscope. Ivanov hoped, was even convinced, that this would
be extremely simple. He would obtain the ray, Vladimir Ipatych need have no
doubts on that score. There was a slight pause.
"When I publish a paper, I shall mention that the chamber was built by
you, Pyotr Stepanovich," Persikov interspersed, feeling that the pause
should be ended.
"Oh, that doesn't matter... However, if you insist..."
And the pause ended. After that the ray devoured Ivanov as well. While
Persikov, emaciated and hungry, spent all day and half the night at his
microscope, Ivanov got busy in the brightly-lit physics laboratory, working
out a combination of lenses and mirrors. He was assisted by the mechanic.
Following a request made to the Commissariat of Education, Persikov
received three parcels from Germany containing mirrors, convexo-convex,
concavo-concave and even some convexo-concave polished lenses. The upshot of