failure ... and you're taking up my time."

"We'll give the chambers back to you. Don't you worry!"

"When?"

"After I've hatched out the first batch."

"How confidently you said that! Very well! Pankrat!"

"I've brought some people with me," said Feight. "And a guard..."

By evening Persikov's study was desolate. The tables were empty.

Feight's people took away the three big chambers, only leaving the Professor the first, the small one which he had used to begin the experiments.

The July dusk was falling. A greyness invaded the Institute, creeping along the corridors. Monotonous steps could be heard in the study. Persikov was pacing the large room from window to door, in the dark... And strange though it may seem all the inmates of the Institute, and the animals too, were prey to a curious melancholy that evening. For some reason the toads gave a very mournful concert, croaking in a most sinister, ominous fashion.

Pankrat had to chase a grass-snake that slipped out of its chamber, and when he caught it in the corridor the snake looked as if it would do anything just to get away from there.

Late that evening the bell from Persikov's study rang. Pankrat appeared on the threshold to be greeted by a strange sight. The scientist was standing alone in the middle of the study, staring at the tables. Pankrat coughed and froze to attention.

"There, Pankrat," said Persikov, pointing at the empty table. Pankrat took fright. It looked in the dark as if the Professor had been crying. That was unusual, terrifying.

"Yessir," Pankrat replied plaintively, thinking, "If only you'd bawl at me!"

"There," Persikov repeated, and his lips trembled like a little boy's whose favourite toy has suddenly been taken away from him.

"You know, my dear Pankrat," Persikov went on, turning away to face the window. "My wife who left me fifteen years ago and joined an operetta company has now apparently died... So there, Pankrat, dear chap... I got a letter..."

The toads croaked mournfully, and darkness slowly engulfed the Professor. Night was falling. Here and there white lamps went on in the windows. Pankrat stood to attention with fright, confused and miserable.

"You can go, Pankrat," the Professor said heavily, with a wave of the hand. "Go to bed, Pankrat, my dear fellow."

And so night fell. Pankrat left the study quickly on tiptoe for some reason, ran to his cubby-hole, rummaged among a pile of rags in the corner, pulled out an already opened bottle of vodka and gulped down a large glassful. Then he ate some bread and salt, and his eyes cheered up a bit.

Late that evening, just before midnight, Pankrat was sitting barefoot on a bench in the poorly lit vestibule, talking to the indefatigable bowler hat on duty and scratching his chest under a calico shirt.

"Honest, it would've been better if he'd done me in..."

"Was he really crying?" asked the bowler hat, inquisitively.

"Honest he was," Pankrat insisted.

"A great scientist," the bowler hat agreed. "A frog's no substitute for a wife, anyone knows that."

"It sure isn't," Pankrat agreed.

Then he paused and added:

"I'm thinking of bringing the wife up here... No sense her staying in the country. Only she couldn't stand them there reptiles..."

"I'm not surprised, the filthy things," agreed the bowler hat.

Not a sound could be heard from the Professor's study. The light was not on either. There was no strip under the door.

 


 

 

 

CHAPTER VIII.

The Incident at the State Farm

 

 

 

 

There is no better time of the year than mid-August in Smolensk Province, say. The summer of 1928 was a splendid one, as we all know, with rains just at the right time in spring, a full hot sun, and a splendid harvest... The apples on the former Sheremetev family estate were ripening, the forests were a lush green and the fields were squares of rich yellow...

Man becomes nobler in the lap of nature.