Free The Fatal Eggs by Mikhail Bulgakov Page B

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