Michail Bulgakov
translation: Kathleen Gook-Horujy

THE FATEFUL EGGS
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CHAPTER V. The Tale of the Chickens

In the small provincial town formerly called Trinity, but now Glassworks, in Kostroma Province (Glassworks District), a woman in a grey dress with a kerchief tied round her head walked onto the porch of a little house in what was formerly Church, but now Personal Street and burst into tears. This woman, the widow of Drozdov, the former priest of the former church, sobbed so loudly that soon another woman's head in a fluffy scarf popped out of a window in the house across the road and exclaimed:

"What's the matter, Stepanovna? Another one?"

"The seventeenth!" replied the former Drozdova, sobbing even louder.

"Dearie me," tutted the woman in the scarf, shaking her head, "did you ever hear of such a thing? Tis the anger of the Lord, and no mistake! Dead, is she?"

"Come and see, Matryona," said the priest's widow, amid loud and bitter sobs. "Take a look at her!"

Banging the rickety grey gate, the woman padded barefoot over the dusty hummocks in the road to be taken by the priest's widow into the chicken run.

It must be said that instead of losing heart, the widow of Father Sawaty Drozdov, who had died in twenty-six of anti-religious mortification, set up a nice little poultry business. As soon as things began to go well, the widow received such an exorbitant tax demand that the poultry business would have closed down had it not been for certain good folk. They advised the widow to inform the local authorities that she, the widow, was setting up a poultry cooperative. The cooperative consisted of Drozdova herself, her faithful servant Matryoshka and the widow's dear niece. The tax was reduced, and the poultry-farm prospered so much that in twenty-eight the widow had as many as 250 chickens, even including some Cochins. Each Sunday the widow's eggs appeared at Glassworks market. They were sold in Tambov and were even occasionally displayed in the windows of the former Chichkin's Cheese and Butter Shop in Moscow.

And now, the seventeenth brahmaputra that morning, their dear little crested hen, was walking round the yard vomiting. The poor thing gurgled and retched, rolling her eyes sadly at the sun as if she would never see it again. In front of her squatted co-operative-member Matryoshka with a cup of water.

"Come on, Cresty dear... chuck-chuck-chuck... drink some water," Matryoshka begged, thrusting the cup under the hen's beak, but the hen would not drink. She opened her beak wide, threw back her head and began to vomit blood.

"Lord Jesus!" cried the guest, slapping her thighs. "Just look at that! Clots of blood. I've never seen a hen bring up like that before, so help me God!"

These words accompanied the poor hen on her last journey. She suddenly keeled over, digging her beak helplessly into the dust, and swivelled (...)

(......)