As time went on things got worse. After Vlas died, the windows of the institute froze right through, and ice-blossoms covered the inner surface of the glass. The rabbits died, then the foxes, wolves, fish, and every last one of the garter snakes. Persikov started going around in silence for whole days through; then he caught pneumonia, but did not die. When he recovered he went to the institute twice a week, and in the amphitheater, where the temperature for some reason never changed from its constant five degrees below freezing regardless of the temperature outside, wearing his galoshes, a hat with earflaps, and a woolen muffler, exhaling clouds of white steam, he read a series of lectures on “The Reptilia of the Torrid Zone” to eight students. Persikov spent the rest of his time at his place on Prechistenka, covered with a plaid shawl, lying on the sofa in his room, which was crammed to the ceiling with books, coughing, staring into the open maw of the fiery stove which Maria Stepanovna fed gilded chairs, and thinking about the Surinam toad.
But everything in this world comes to an end. Nineteen twenty and 1921 ended, and in 1922 a kind of reverse trend began. First, Pankrat appeared, to replace the late Vlas; he was still young, but he showed great promise as a zoological guard; the institute building was now beginning to be heated a little. And in the summer Persikov managed, with Pankrat’s help, to catch fourteen specimens of the toad vulgairs in the Kliazma River. The terraria once again began to teem with life … In 1923 Persikov was already lecturing eight times a week—three at the institute and five at the university; in 1924 it was thirteen times a week, including the workers’ schools, and in the spring of 1925 he gained notoriety by flunking seventy-six students, all of them on amphibians.
“What? How is it you don’t know how amphibians differ from reptiles?” Persikov would ask. “It’s simply ridiculous, young man. Amphibians have no pelvic buds. None. So, sir, you ought to be ashamed. You’re a Marxist, probably?”
“Yes, a Marxist,” the flunked student would answer, crushed.
“Very well, come back in the fall, please,” Persikov would say politely, and then shout briskly to Pankrat, “Give me the next one!”
As amphibians come back to life after the first heavy rain following a long drought, so Professor Persikov came back to life in 1926 when the united Russo-American Company built fifteen fifteen-story houses in the center of Moscow, starting at the corner of Gazetny Lane [Newspaper Lane] and Tverskaia, and 300 eight-apartment cottages for workers on the outskirts of town, ending once and for all the terrible and ridiculous housing crisis which had so tormented Muscovites in the years 1919 to 1925.
In general, it was a remarkable summer in Persikov’s life, and sometimes he rubbed his hands with a quiet and contented chuckle, recalling how he and Maria Stepanovna had been squeezed into two rooms. Now the professor had gotten all five rooms back; he had spread out, arranged his 2,500 books, his stuffed animals, diagrams, and specimens in their places, and lit the green lamp on the desk in his study.
The institute was unrecognizable too: it had been covered with a coat of cream-colored paint, water was conducted to the reptile room by a special pipeline, all ordinary glass was replaced by plate glass, five new microscopes had been sent to the institute, as had glass-topped dissecting tables, 2,000-watt lamps with indirect lighting, reflectors, and cases for the museum.
Persikov came to life, and the whole world unexpectedly learned of it in December 1926, with the publication of his pamphlet: More on the Problem of the Propagation of the Gastropods, 126 pp., “Bulletin of the Fourth University.”
And in the fall of 1927 his major opus, 350 pages long, later translated into six languages, including Japanese: The Embryology of the Pipidae, Spadefoot Toads, and Frogs, State Publishing House: price, three rubles.
But in the summer of 1928 the incredible, horrible events took place …
II. THE COLORED HELIX
And so, the professor turned on the globe and looked around. He switched on the reflector on the long experiment table, donned a white smock, and tinkled with some instruments on the table …
Many of the thirty thousand mechanical carriages which sped through Moscow in 1928 darted along Herzen Street, wheels humming on the smooth paving stones; and every few minutes a trolley marked 16 or 22 or 48 or 53 rolled, grinding and clattering, from Herzen Street toward Mokhovaia. Reflections of varicolored lights were thrown on the plate-glass windows of the office, and far and high above, next to the dark, heavy cap of the Cathedral of Christ, one could see the misty, pale sickle of the moon.
But neither the moon nor Moscow’s springtime din interested Professor Persikov in the slightest. He sat on a three-legged revolving stool and with fingers stained brown from tobacco, he turned the adjustment screw of the magnificent Zeiss microscope under which an ordinary undyed culture of fresh amoebas had been placed. At the moment that Persikov was shifting the magnification from five to ten thousand, the door opened slightly, a pointed little beard and a leather apron appeared, and his assistant called, “Vladimir Ipatievich, the mesentery is set up—would you like to take a look?”
Persikov nimbly slid off the stool, leaving the adjustment screw turned halfway, and slowly turning a cigarette in his fingers, he went into his assistant’s office. There, on a glass table, a semi-chloroformed frog, fainting with terror and pain, was crucified on a cork plate, its translucent viscera pulled out of its bloody abdomen into the microscope.
“Very good,” said Persikov, bending down to the eyepiece of the microscope.
Apparently one could see something very interesting in the frog’s mesentery, where as clearly as if on one’s hand living blood corpuscles were running briskly along the rivers of the vessels. Persikov forgot his amoebas and for the next hour and a half took turns with Ivanov at the microscope lens. As they were doing this both scientists kept exchanging animated comments incomprehensible to ordinary mortals.
Finally, Persikov leaned back from the microscope, announcing, “The blood is clotting, that’s all there is to that.”
The frog moved its head heavily, and its dimming eyes were clearly saying, “You’re rotten bastards, that’s what …”
Stretching his benumbed legs, Persikov rose, returned to his office, yawned, rubbed his permanently inflamed eyelids with his fingers, and sitting down on his stool, he glanced into the microscope, put his fingers on the adjustment screw intending to turn it—but did not turn it. With his right eye Persikov saw a blurred white disk, and in it some faint, paleoamoebas—but in the middle of the disk there was a colored volute, resembling a woman’s curl. Persikov himself and hundreds of his students had seen this curl very many times, and no one had ever taken any interest in it, nor, indeed, was there any reason to. The little bundle of colored light merely interfered with observation and showed that the culture was not in focus. Therefore it was ruthlessly eliminated with a single turn of the knob, illuminating the whole field with an even white light.
The zoologist’s long fingers already rested firmly on the knob, but suddenly they quivered and slid away. The reason for this was Persikov’s right eye; it had suddenly become intent, amazed, and flooded with excitement. To the woe of the Republic, this was no talentless mediocrity sitting at the microscope. No, this was Professor Persikov! His entire life, all of his intellect, became concentrated in his right eye. For some five minutes of dead silence the higher being observed the lower one, tormenting and straining its eye over the part of the slide which was out of focus. Everything around was silent. Pankrat had already fallen asleep in his room off the vestibule, and only once the glass doors of the cabinets rang musically and delicately in the distance: that was Ivanov locking his office as he left. The front door groaned behind him. And it was only later that the professor’s voice was heard. He was asking, no one knows whom, “What is this? I simply don’t understand.”
A last truck passed by on Herzen Street, shaking the old walls of the institute. The flat glass bowl with forceps in it tinkled on the table. The professor turned pale and r
aised his hands over the microscope like a mother over an infant threatened by danger. Now there could be no question of Persikov turning the knob, oh no, he was afraid that some outside force might push what he had seen out of the field of vision.
It was bright morning with a gold strip slanting across the cream-colored entrance to the institute when the professor left the microscope and walked up to the window on his numb feet. With trembling fingers he pressed a button, and the thick black shades shut out the morning, and the wise, learned night came back to life in the study. The sallow and inspired Persikov spread his feet wide apart, and staring at the parquet with tearing eyes, he began: “But how can this be? Why, it’s monstrous! … It’s monstrous, gentlemen,” he repeated, addressing the toads in the terrarium—but the toads were sleeping and did not answer.
He was silent for a moment, then walked to the switch, raised the shades, turned off all the lights, and peered into the microscope. His face got tense, and his bushy yellow eyebrows came together. “Uhmmm, uhmmm,” he muttered. “Gone. I see. I see-e-e-e,” he drawled, looking at the extinguished globe overhead madly and inspiredly. “It’s very simple.” And again he lowered the swishing shades, and again he lit the globe. Having glanced into the microscope, he grinned gleefully, and almost rapaciously. “I’ll catch it,” he said solemnly and gravely, raising his finger in the air. “I’ll catch it. Maybe it’s from the sun.”
Again the shades rolled up. Now the sun was out. It poured across the institute walls and lay in slanting planes across the paving stones of Herzen Street. The professor looked out the window, calculating what the position of the sun would be during the day. He stepped away and returned again and again, dancing slightly, and finally he leaned over the windowsill on his stomach.
He got started on some important and mysterious work. He covered the microscope with a glass bell. Melting a chunk of sealing wax over the bluish flame of a Bunsen burner, he sealed the edges of the bell to the table, pressing down the lumps of wax with his thumb. He turned off the gas and went out, and he locked the office door with an English lock.
The institute corridors were in semidarkness. The professor made his way to Pankrat’s room and knocked for a long time with no result. At last there was a sound behind the door something like the growling of a chained dog, hawking and muttering, and Pankrat appeared in a spot of light, wearing striped longjohns tied at his ankles. His eyes fixed wildly on the scientist; he was still groaning somewhat from sleep.
“Pankrat,” said the professor, looking at him over his spectacles. “Forgive me for waking you up. Listen, my friend, don’t go into my office this morning. I left some work out which must not be moved. Understand?”
“U-hm-m, understand,” Pankrat replied, understanding nothing. He was swaying back and forth and grumbling.
“No, listen, wake up, Pankrat,” said the zoologist, and he poked Pankrat lightly in the ribs, which brought a frightened look into his face and a certain shadow of awareness into his eyes. “I locked the office,” continued Persikov. “So you shouldn’t clean up before my return. Understand?”
“Yes, sir-r,” gurgled Pankrat.
“Now that’s excellent, go back to bed.”
Pankrat turned, vanished behind the door, and immediately crashed back into bed, while the professor began to put his things on in the vestibule. He put on his gray summer coat and floppy hat. Then, recalling the picture in the microscope, he fixed his eyes on his galoshes and stared at the overshoes for several seconds, as if he were seeing them for the first time. Then he put on the left overshoe and tried to put the right one over it, but it would not go on.
“What a fantastic accident it was that he called me,” said the scientist, “otherwise I would never have noticed it. But what does it lead to? … Why, the devil only knows what it might lead to!”
The professor grinned, frowned at his galoshes, removed the left one, and put on the right one. “My God! Why, one can’t even imagine all the consequences.” The professor contemptuously kicked away the left overshoe, which annoyed him by refusing to fit over the right, and went to the exit wearing only one. At that point he dropped his handkerchief and walked out, slamming the heavy door. On the stairs he took a long time looking for matches in his pockets, patting his sides; then he found them and headed down the street with an unlit cigarette in his lips.
Not a single person did the scientist meet all the way to the cathedral. There the professor tilted his head back and gaped at the golden cupola. The sun was sweetly licking it on one side.
“How is it I have never seen it before, such a coincidence? … Pfuy, what an idiot.” The professor bent down and fell into thought, looking at his differently shod feet. “Hm … what should I do? Return to Pankrat? No, there’s no waking him up. It’d be a shame to throw it away, the vile thing. I’ll have to carry it.” He took off the overshoe and carried it in his hand with disgust.
Three people in an old fashioned automobile turned the corner from Prechistenka. Two tipsy men and a garishly painted woman wearing silk pajamas in the latest 1928 style, sitting on their knees.
“Hey, Pops!” she cried in a low, rather hoarse voice. “Did ‘ja drink up the other boot!”
“The old boy must have loaded up at the Alcazar,” howled the drunk on the left, while the one on the right leaned out of the car and shouted, “Is the all-night tavern on Volkhonka open, buddy? We’re headed there!”
The professor looked at them sternly above his spectacles, dropped the cigarette from his lips, and immediately forgot their existence. Slanting rays of sunshine appeared, cutting across Prechistensky Boulevard, and the helmet on the Cathedral of Christ began to flame. The sun had risen.
III. PERSIKOV CAUGHT IT
The facts of the matter were as follows. When the professor had brought his eye of genius to that eyepiece, for the first time in his life he had paid attention to the fact that one particularly vivid and thick ray stood out in the multicolored spiral. This ray was a bright red color and it emerged from the spiral in a little sharp point, like a needle, let us say.
It is simply very bad luck that this ray fixed the skilful eye of the virtuoso for several seconds.
In it, in this ray, the professor caught sight of something which was a thousand times more significant and important than the ray itself, that fragile offshoot born accidentally of the movement of the microscope’s lens and mirror. Thanks to the fact that his assistant had called the professor away, the amoebas lay about for an hour and a half subject to the action of the ray, and the result was this: while the granular amoebas outside the ray lay about limp and helpless, strange phenomena were taking place within the area where the pointed red sword lay. The red strip teemed with life. The gray amoebas, stretching out their pseudopods, strove with all their might toward the red strip, and in it they would come to life as if by sorcery. Some force infused them with the spirit of life. They crawled in flocks and fought each other for a place in the ray. Within it a frenzied (no other word can properly describe it) process of multiplication went on. Smashing and overturning all the laws that Persikov knew as well as he knew his own five fingers, the amoebas budded before his eyes with lightning speed. In the ray they split apart, and two seconds later each part became a new, fresh organism. In a few seconds these organisms attained full growth and maturity, only to immediately produce new generations in their turn. The red strip and the entire disk quickly became overcrowded, and the inevitable struggle began. The newborn ones went furiously on the attack, shredding and swallowing each other up. Among the newly-born lay corpses of those which had perished in the battle for existence. The best and strongest were victorious. And the best ones were terrifying. First, they were approximately twice the size of ordinary amoebas, and second, they were distinguished by a special viciousness and motility. Their movements were speedy, their pseudopods much longer than normal, and they used them, without exaggeration, as an octopus uses its tentacles.
The next evening, the profess
or, drawn and pale, studied the new generation of amoebas—without eating, keeping himself going only by smoking thick, roll-your-own cigarettes. On the third day, he shifted to the prime source—the red ray.
The gas hissed softly in the burner, again the traffic whizzed along the street, and the professor, poisoned by his hundredth cigarette, his eyes half-shut, threw himself back in his revolving chair. “Yes, everything is clear now. The ray brought them to life. It is a new ray, unresearched by anyone, undiscovered by anyone. The first thing to be clarified is whether it is produced only by electric light or by the sun as well,” Persikov muttered to himself.
In the course of one more night this was clarified. He captured three rays in three microscopes, he obtained none from the sun, and he expressed himself thus: “We must hypothesize that it does not exist in the sun’s spectrum … hmmm … in short, we must hypothesize that it can be obtained only from electric light.” He looked lovingly at the frosted globe above him, thought for a moment, inspired, and invited Ivanov into his office. He told him everything and showed him the amoebas.
Assistant Professor Ivanov was astounded, completely crushed; how was it that such a simple thing as this slender arrow had never been noticed before! By anyone, dammit. Not even by him, Ivanov, himself, and this really was monstrous! “You just look! … Just look, Vladimir Ipatievich!” cried Ivanov, his eye gluing itself to the eyepiece in horror. “What’s happening? … They’re growing before my very eyes … Look, look!”
Worlds Apart Page 66
