In the “Nursery” we elbowed our way through a crowd of curious onlookers and saw Professor Vybegallo sitting at the laboratory table, absolutely naked. His bluish-white skin glistened damply, his wet wedge-shaped beard drooped limply, and his wet hair was glued to his low forehead, on which an actively volcanic pustule blazed bright red. His empty, transparent eyes blinked occasionally as they roamed senselessly around the room.
Professor Vybegallo was eating. On the table in front of him steam was rising from a large photographic developing tray, filled up to the top with steamed bran. Without paying any particular attention to anyone else, he scooped the bran up with his broad palm, kneaded it in his fingers like pilaf, and dispatched the resulting lump into the cavity of his mouth, sprinkling his beard liberally with crumbs in the process. At the same time he crunched, squelched, grunted, and snorted, inclining his head to one side and grimacing as though in immense delight. From time to time, without stopping his swallowing and choking, he would get excited and grab hold of the edges of the tub of bran and one of the buckets of skim milk that were standing on the floor beside him, every time pulling them closer and closer to himself. Standing at the other end of the table, pale and tearful, her lips trembling, was the pretty young trainee witch Stella, with her pristine pink ears. She was slicing loaves of bread in immense slabs and presenting them to Vybegallo, turning her face away from him. The central autoclave was open and there was a wide green puddle surrounding it.
Vybegallo suddenly muttered indistinctly, “Hey, girl… er… give me some milk! Pour it… you know… right in here, in the bran… S’il vous plaît…”
Stella hastily snatched up the bucket and splashed skim milk into the tray.
“Eh!” exclaimed Professor Vybegallo. “The crock’s too small, you know. You, girl, whatever your name is… er… pour it straight in the tub. We’ll eat, you know, straight from the tub.”
Stella began emptying the bucket into the tub of bran, and the professor grabbed the tray like a spoon and began scooping up bran and dispatching it into his jaws, which had suddenly opened incredibly wide.
“Phone him, will you!” Stella shouted plaintively. “He’ll finish everything in a minute!”
“We have phoned him already,” said someone in the crowd. “But you’d better move away from him. Come over here.”
“Well, is he coming? Is he coming?”
“He said he was just leaving. Putting on his galoshes… you know… and leaving. Come away from him, I told you.”
I finally realized what was going on. It wasn’t Professor Vybegallo, it was a newborn cadaver, a model of Gastrically Unsatisfied Man. Thank God for that—there I was thinking the professor had developed palsy as a result of his intensive labors. Stella cautiously moved away. People grabbed her by the shoulders and pulled her into the crowd. She hid behind my back, clutching my elbow tight, and I immediately straightened up my shoulders, although I still didn’t understand what the problem was and what she was afraid of. The cadaver guzzled. The lab was full of people, but an astonished silence reigned and the only sound that could be heard was the cadaver snorting and munching like a horse and the scraping of the tray on the walls of the tub. We watched. He got down off his chair and stuck his head into the tub. The women turned away. Lilechka Novosmekhova began to feel unwell, and they took her out into the corridor. Then Edik Amperian’s clear voice spoke up: “All right. Let’s be logical. First he’ll finish the bran, then he’ll eat the bread. And then?”
There was a movement in the front rows. The crowd pressed toward the doors. I began to understand. Stella said in a thin little voice, “There are the herring heads as well…”
“Are there a lot of them?”
“Two tons.”
“Riiight,” said Edik, “And where are they?”
“They’re supposed to be delivered by the conveyor,” said Stella. “But I tried and the conveyor’s broken.”
“By the way,” Roman said loudly, “I’ve been trying to pacificate him for two minutes now, with absolutely no result.”
“Me too,” Edik.
“Therefore,” said Roman, “it would be a very good idea if one of the more squeamish among us were to try to repair the conveyor belt. To give us a bit of time. Are there any of the masters here? I can see Edik. Is there anybody else? Korneev! Victor Pavlovich, are you here?”
“He’s not here. Maybe someone ought to go for Fyodor Simeonovich?”
“I don’t think there’s any need to bother him yet. We’ll manage somehow. Edik, let’s try focusing on it together.”
“What mode?”
“Physiological inhibition mode. All the way down to tetanic contraction. All of you guys who can, give us a hand.”
“Just a moment,” said Edik. “What happens if we damage him?”
“Oh yes, yes,” I said. “You’d better not do that. Better just let him eat me instead.”
“Don’t worry, don’t worry. We’ll be careful. Edik, let’s do it with rapid strokes. In a single flurry.”
“OK, let’s go,” said Edik.
It went even quieter. The cadaver was scrabbling in the tub, and on the other side of the wall the volunteers were talking as they fiddled with the conveyor. A minute went by. The cadaver pulled his head out of the tub, wiped his beard, looked at us sleepily, and suddenly, stretching out his arm an unbelievable distance, grabbed up the last loaf of bread. Then he belched thunderously and leaned back against his chair, folding his arms across his massive, swollen belly. Bliss flooded across his features. He snuffled and smiled inanely. He was undoubtedly happy, in the way an extremely tired man is happy when he finally reaches his longed-for bed.
“Looks like it worked,” someone in the crowd said with a sigh of relief.
Roman pressed his lips together doubtfully.
“That’s not quite the impression I get,” Edik said politely.
“Perhaps his spring’s run down?” I said hopefully.
Stella announced plaintively, “It’s just temporary relaxation… an acute fit of satisfaction. He’ll wake up again soon.”
“You masters are a useless waste of time,” said a manly voice. “Let me through there, I’ll go and call Fyodor Simeonovich.”
Everyone looked around, smiling uncertainly. Roman was toying pensively with the plywitsum, rolling it around on his palm. Stella shuddered and whispered, “What’s going to happen? Sasha, I’m afraid!” As for me, I thrust out my chest, knitted my brows, and struggled with a compulsive urge to phone Modest Matveevich. I desperately wanted to shift the responsibility on to somebody else. It was a weakness, and I was powerless against it. Modest Matveevich appeared to me now in a very special light, and I recalled with a feeling of hope the master’s degree thesis someone had recently defended on the subject of “The Correlation Between the Laws of Nature and the Laws of Administration,” which attempted to demonstrate that by virtue of their specific inflexibility, administrative laws are frequently more efficacious than the laws of nature and magic. I was convinced that Modest Matveevich only had to turn up and yell at the upyr, “Now that’s enough of that, comrade Vybegallo!” for the upyr to decide it really was enough.
“Roman,” I said casually, “I suppose that in an emergency you can dematerialize it?”
Roman laughed and slapped me on the shoulder. “Don’t be such a coward,” he said. “This is just a bit of fun and games. Only I don’t much fancy getting involved with Vybegallo… It’s not this guy you ought to be afraid of, but that one!” He pointed to the second autoclave crackling peacefully in the corner.