"From the pheasant family ...phasianus.

They are birds with a fleshy skin crown and two gills under the lower jaw...

Hm, although some have only one in the middle under the beak. Now, what else. Their wings are short and rounded. The tail is of medium length, somewhat stepped and even, I would say, roof-shaped. The middle feathers are bent in the form of a sickle... Pankrat... bring me model No. 705 from the model room, the cross-section of the domestic cock. You don't need it? Don't bring the model, Pankrat. I repeat, I am not a specialist. Go to Portugalov.

Now let me see, I personally know of six types of wild fowl... Hm, Portugalov knows more... In India and on the Malaysian archipelago. For example, the Bankiva fowl, or Callus bankiva. It is found in the foothills of the Himalayas, throughout India, in Assam and Burma... The Java fowl, or Gallus varius on Lombok, Sumbawa and Flores. And on the island of Java there is the splendid Gallus eneus fowl. In south-east India I can recommend the very beautiful Sonneratii. I'll show you a drawing of it later. As for Ceylon, here we have the Stanley fowl, which is not found anywhere else."

Bronsky sat there, eyes popping, and scribbled madly.

"Anything else I can tell you?"

"I'd like to hear something about fowl diseases," Alfred whispered quietly.

"Hm, it's not my subject. You should ask Portugalov. But anyway...

Well, there are tape-worms, leeches, the itchmite, bird-mite, chicken louse, Eomenacanthus stramineus, fleas, chicken cholera, inflammation of the mucous membrane, Pneumonomicosis, tuberculosis, chicken mange... all sorts of things (Persikov's eyes flashed.) ... poisoning, tumours, rickets, jaundice, rheumatism, Ahorion Schonlein's fungus - that's a most interesting disease.

Small spots like mould appear on the crown..."

Bronsky wiped the sweat off his brow with a coloured handkerchief.

"And what in your opinion, Professor, is the cause of the present catastrophe?"

"What catastrophe?"

"Haven't you read about it, Professor?" exclaimed Bronsky in surprise, pulling a crumpled page of Izvestia out of his briefcase.

"I don't read newspapers," Persikov pouted.

"But why not, Professor?" Alfred asked gently.

"Because they write such rubbish," Persikov replied, without thinking.

"But surely not, Professor?" Bronsky whispered softly, unfolding the page.

"What's the matter?" asked Persikov, even rising to his feet. Bronsky's eyes were flashing now. He pointed a sharp painted finger at an incredibly large headline which ran right across the whole page: "Chicken plague in the Republic".

"What?" asked Persikov, pushing his spectacles onto his forehead...

 


 

 

 

CHAPTER VI.

Moscow. June 1928

 

 

 

 

The city shone, the lights danced, going out and blazing on. In Theatre Square the white lamps of buses mingled with the green lights of trams; above the former Muir and Merilees, its tenth floor added later, skipped a multi-coloured electrical woman, tossing out letter by letter the multicoloured words:

"Workers' Credit". A crowd thronged and murmured in the small garden opposite the Bolshoi Theatre, where a multicoloured fountain played at night. And over the Bolshoi itself a huge loudspeaker kept making announcements.

"Anti-fowl vaccinations at Lefortovo Veterinary Institute have produced brilliant results. The number of... fowl deaths for today has dropped by half..."

Then the loudspeaker changed its tone, something growled inside it, a spray of green blazed up over the theatre, then went out and the loudspeaker complained in a deep bass:

"An extraordinary commission has been set up to fight the fowl plague consisting of the People's Commissar of Health, the People's Commissar of Agriculture, the head of animal husbandry, Comrade Ptakha-Porosyuk, Professors Persikov and Portugalov... and Comrade Rabinovich! New attempts at intervention," the loudspeaker giggled and cried, like a jackal, "in connection with the fowl plague!"

Theatre Passage, Neglinnaya and Lubyanka blazed with white and violet neon strips and flickering lights amid wailing sirens and clouds of dust.

People crowded round the large notices on the walls, lit by glaring red reflectors.

"All consumption of chickens and chicken eggs is strictly forbidden on pain of severe punishment. Any attempt by private traders to sell them in markets is punishable by law with confiscation of all property. All citizens in possession of eggs are urgently requested to take them to local police stations."

A screen on the roof of the Workers' Paper showed chickens piled up to the sky as greenish firemen, fragmenting and sparkling, hosed them with kerosene. Red waves washed over the screen, deathly smoke belched forth, swirling in clouds, and drifted up in a column, then out hopped the fiery letters:

"Dead chickens being burnt in Khodynka."

Amid the madly blazing windows of shops open until three in the morning, with breaks for lunch and supper, boarded-up windows with signs saying "Eggs for sale.