Monday Starts on Saturday by Arkady Strugatsky & Boris Strugatsky

Author:Arkady Strugatsky & Boris Strugatsky
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Tags: Fantasy, Humour, Fiction
ISBN: 9781613739266
Publisher: Chicago Review Press
Published: 1965-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

4

Woe is me, I am not a strong fellow

And the upyr will gobble me right up . . .

—A. S. Pushkin

“He’s hatched,” Roman said calmly, looking up at the ceiling.

“Who?” I was really on edge: it was a woman who had screamed.

“Vybegallo’s upyr,” said Roman. “Or rather, cadaver.”

“But why did that woman scream?”

“You’ll see soon enough,” said Roman.

He took hold of my arm and jumped into the air, and we went soaring up through the stories of the Institute building, piercing the ceilings and slicing through the floors like a hot knife through frozen butter, bursting out into the air with a plopping sound and tearing into the next ceiling. In the darkness between the floors little gnomes and mice shied away from us with startled squeaks, and as we flew through laboratories and offices Institute staff looked up with puzzled faces.

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.

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