The Fatal Eggs (9 page)

Alexander Semyonovich put down his flute and
went onto the veranda.

"Hear that, Manya? It's those blasted
dogs... What do you think set them off like that?"

"How should I know?" she replied,
gazing at the moon.

"Hey, Manya, let's go and take a look at
the eggs," Alexander Semyonovich suggested.

"For goodness sake,
Alexander Semyonovich.
You're darned crazy about those eggs and
chickens. Have a rest for a bit."

"No, Manya, let's go."

A bright light was burning in the
conservatory. Dunya came in too with a burning face and shining eyes. Alexander
Semyonovich opened the observation windows carefully, and they all began
peeping into the chambers.

On the white asbestos floor lay neat
rows of bright-red eggs with spots on them. There was total silence in the
chambers, except for the hissing of the 15,000 candle-power light overhead.

"I'll hatch those chicks out
alright!" exclaimed Alexander Semyonovich excitedly, looking now through
the observation windows at the side, now through the wide ventilation hatches
overhead. "You'll see. Eh? Don't you think so?"

"You know what, Alexander
Semyonovich," said Dunya, smiling. "The men in Kontsovka think you're
the Antichrist. They say your eggs are from the devil. It's a sin to hatch eggs
with machines. They want to kill you."

Alexander Semyonovich shuddered and turned to
his wife. His face had gone yellow.

"Well, how about that? Ignorant lot! What
can you do with people like that? Eh? We'll have to fix up a meeting for them,
Manya. I'll phone the district centre tomorrow for some Party workers. And I'll
give 'em a speech myself. This place needs a bit of working over alright. Stuck
away at the back of beyond..."

"Thick as posts," muttered the
guard, who had settled down on his greatcoat in the conservatory doorway.

The next day was heralded by some strange and
inexplicable events. In the early morning, at the first glint of sunlight, the
groves, which usually greeted the heavenly body with a strong and unceasing
twitter of birds, met it with total silence. This was noticed by absolutely
everybody. It was like the calm before a storm. But no storm followed.
Conversations at the state farm took on a strange and sinister note for
Alexander Semyonovich, especially because according to the well-known Kontsovka
trouble-maker and sage nicknamed Goat Gob, all the birds had gathered in flocks
and flown away northwards from Sheremetevo at dawn, which was quite ridiculous.
Alexander Semyonovich was most upset and spent the whole day putting a phone
call through to the town of Grachevka. Eventually they promised to send him in
a few days' time two speakers on two subjects, the international situation and
the question of Volunteer-Fowl.

The evening brought some more surprises.
Whereas in the morning the woods had fallen silent, showing clearly how
suspiciously unpleasant it was when the trees were quiet, and whereas by midday
the sparrows from the state farmyard had also flown off somewhere, that evening
there was not a sound from the Sheremetevka pond either. This was quite extraordinary,
because everyone for twenty miles around was familiar with the croaking of the
Sheremetev frogs. But now they seemed to be extinct. There was not a single
voice from the pond, and the sedge was silent. It must be confessed that this
really upset Alexander Semyonovich. People had begun to talk about these
happenings in a most unpleasant fashion, i.e., behind his back.

"It really is strange," said
Alexander Semyonovich to his wife at lunch. "I can't understand why those
birds had to go and fly away."

"How should I know?" Manya replied.
"Perhaps it's because of your ray."

"Don't be so silly, Manya!"
exclaimed Alexander Semyonovich, flinging down his spoon. "You're as bad
as the peasants. What's the ray got to do with it?" "I don't know.
Stop pestering me." That evening brought the third surprise. The dogs
began howling again in Kontsovka and how! Their endless whines and angry,
mournful yelping wafted over the moonlit fields.

Alexander Semyonovich rewarded himself
somewhat with yet another surprise, a pleasant one this time, in the
conservatory. A constant tapping had begun inside the red eggs in the chambers.
"Tappity-tappity-tappity,"

came
from
one, then another, then a third.

The tapping in the eggs was a triumph for
Alexander Semyonovich. The strange events in the woods and on the pond were
immediately forgotten.

Everyone gathered in the
conservatory, Manya, Dunya, the watchman and the guard, who left his rifle by
the door.

"Well, then? What about that?" asked
Alexander Semyonovich
triumphantly.
Everyone put their
ears eagerly to the doors of the first chamber. "That's them tapping with
their little beaks, the chickens,"

Alexander Semyonovich went on,
beaming. "So you thought I wouldn't hatch out any chicks, did you? Well,
you were wrong, my hearties." From an excess of emotion he slapped the
guard on the shoulder. "I'll hatch chickens that'll take your breath away.
Only now I must keep alert," he added strictly. "Let me know as soon
as they start hatching."

"Right you are," replied the
watchman, Dunya and the guard in a chorus.

"Tappity-tappity-tappity," went one
egg, then another, in the first chamber. In fact this on-the-spot spectacle of
new life being born in a thin shining shell was so intriguing that they all sat
for a long time on the upturned empty crates, watching the crimson eggs mature
in the mysterious glimmering light. By the time they went to bed it was quite
late and a greenish night had spread over the farm and the surrounding
countryside. The night was
mysterious,
one might even
say frightening, probably because its total silence was broken now and then by
the abject, excruciating howls of the dogs in Kontsovka. What on earth had got
into those blasted dogs no one could
say.

An unpleasant surprise awaited Alexander
Semyonovich the next morning.

The guard was extremely upset and
kept putting his hands on his heart, swearing that he had not fallen asleep but
had noticed nothing.

"I can't understand it," the guard
insisted. "It's through no fault of mine, Comrade Feight."

"Very grateful to you, I'm sure,"
retorted Alexander Semyonovich heatedly. "What do you think, comrade? Why
were you put on guard?
To keep an eye on things.
So
tell me where they are. They've hatched out, haven't they?

So they must have run away. That
means you must have left the door open and gone off somewhere. Get me those
chickens!"

"Where could I have gone? I know my
job." The guard took offence.

"Don't you go accusing me
unfairly, Comrade Feight!"

"Then where are they?"

"How the blazes should I know!" the
guard finally exploded. "I'm not supposed to guard them, am I? Why was I
put on duty? To see that nobody pinched the chambers, and that's what I've
done. Your chambers are safe and sound. But there's no law that says I must
chase after your chickens.

Goodness only knows what they'll be
like. Maybe you won't be able to catch them on a bicycle."

This somewhat deflated Alexander Semyonovich.
He muttered something else,
then
relapsed into a state
of perplexity. It was a strange business indeed. In the first chamber, which
had been switched on before the others, the two eggs at the very base of the
ray had broken open. One of them had even rolled to one side. The empty shell
was lying on the asbestos floor in the ray.

"The devil only knows," muttered
Alexander Semyonovich. "The windows are closed and they couldn't have
flown away over the roof, could they?"

He threw back his head and looked at some big
holes in the glass roof.

"Of course, they couldn't, Alexander
Semyonovich!" exclaimed Dunya in surprise. "Chickens can't fly. They
must be here somewhere. Chuck, chuck, chuck," she called, peering into the
corners of the conservatory, which were cluttered with dusty flower pots, bits
of boards and other rubbish. But no chicks answered her call.

The whole staff spent about two hours running
round the farmyard, looking for the runaway chickens and found nothing. The day
passed in great excitement. The duty guard on the chambers was reinforced by
the watchman, who had strict orders to look through the chamber windows every
quarter of an hour and call Alexander Semyonovich if anything happened. The
guard sat huffily by the door, holding his rifle between his knees. What with
all the worry Alexander Semyonovich did not have lunch until nearly two. After
lunch he slept for an hour or so in the cool shade on the former She-remetev
ottoman, had a refreshing drink of the farm's kvass and slipped into the
conservatory to make sure everything was alright. The old watchman was lying on
his stomach on some bast matting and staring through the observation window of
the first chamber. The guard was keeping watch by the door.

But there was a piece of news: the eggs in the
third chamber, which had been switched on last, were making a kind of gulping,
hissing sound, as if something inside them were whimpering.

"They're hatching out alright," said
Alexander Semyonovich. "That's for sure. See?" he said to the
watchman.

"Aye, it's most extraordinary," the latter
replied in a most ambiguous tone, shaking his head.

Alexander Semyonovich squatted by the chambers
for a while, but nothing hatched out. So he got up, stretched and announced
that he would not leave the grounds, but was going for a swim in the pond and
must be called if there were any developments. He went into the palace to his
bedroom with its two narrow iron bedsteads, rumpled bedclothes and piles of
green apples and millet on the floor for the newly-hatched chickens, took a
towel and, on reflection, his flute as well to play at leisure over the still
waters. Then he ran quickly out of the palace, across the farmyard and down the
willow-lined path to the pond. He walked briskly, swinging the towel, with the
flute under his arm. The sky shimmered with heat through the willows, and his
aching body begged to dive into the water. On the right of Feight began a dense
patch of burdock, into which he spat en passant. All at once there was a
rustling in the tangle of big leaves, as if someone was dragging a log. With a
sudden sinking feeling in his stomach, Alexander Semyonovich turned his head
towards the burdock in surprise. There had not been a sound from the pond for
two days. The rustling stopped, and above the burdock the smooth surface of the
pond flashed invitingly with the grey roof of the changing hut. Some
dragon-flies darted to and fro in front of Alexander Semyonovich. He was about
to turn off to the wooden platform, when there was another rustle in the
burdock accompanied this time by a short hissing like steam coming out of an
engine. Alexander Semyonovich tensed and stared at the dense thicket of weeds.

At that moment the voice of Feight's wife rang
out, and her white blouse flashed in and out through the raspberry bushes.
"Wait for me, Alexander Semyonovich. I'm coming for a swim too."

His wife was hurrying to the pond, but
Alexander Se-myonovich's eyes were riveted on the burdock and he did not reply.
A greyish olive-coloured log had begun to rise out of the thicket, growing ever
bigger before his horrified gaze. The log seemed to be covered with wet
yellowish spots. It began to straighten up, bending and swaying, and was so
long that it reached above a short gnarled willow. Then the top of the log
cracked, bent down slightly, and something about the height of a Moscow
electric lamp-post loomed over Alexander Semyonovich. Only this something was
about three times thicker that a lamp-post and far more beautiful because of
its scaly tattooing. Completely mystified, but with shivers running down his
spine, Alexander Semyonovich looked at the top of this terrifying lamp-post,
and his heart almost stopped beating. He turned to ice on the warm August day,
and everything went dark before his eyes as if he were looking at the sun
through his summer trousers.

On the tip of the log was a head. A flattened,
pointed head adorned with a round yellow spot on an olive background. In the
roof of the head sat a pair of lidless icy narrow eyes, and these eyes
glittered with indescribable malice. The head moved as if spitting air and the
whole post slid back into the burdock, leaving only the eyes which glared at
Alexander Semyonovich without blinking.
Drenched with sweat,
the latter uttered five incredible fear-crazed words.
So piercing were
the eyes between the leaves.

"What the devil's going on...
"

Then he remembered about fakirs... Yes, yes,
in India, a wicker basket and a picture.
Snake-charming.

The head reared up again, and the body began
to uncoil. Alexander Semyonovich raised his flute to his lips, gave a hoarse
squeak and, gasping for breath, began to play the waltz from Eugene Onegin. The
eyes in the burdock lit up at once with implacable hatred for the opera.

"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.