The ray in the chamber had been switched off.
The frogs in the terrariums were silent, for they were already asleep.
The Professor was not working or reading.
At his side, under his left elbow, lay the evening edition of telegrams in the narrow column, which announced that Smolensk was in flames and artillery were bombarding the Mozhaisk forest section by section, destroying deposits of crocodile eggs in all the damp ravines.
It also reported that a squadron of aeroplanes had carried out a highly successful operation near Vyazma, spraying almost the whole district with poison gas, but there were countless human losses in the area because instead of leaving it in an orderly fashion, the population had panicked and made off in small groups to wherever the fancy took them.
It also said that a certain Caucasian cavalry division on the way to Mozhaisk had won a brilliant victory against hordes of ostriches, killing the lot of them and destroying huge deposits of ostrich eggs.
The division itself had suffered very few losses.
There was a government announcement that if it should prove impossible to keep the reptiles outside the 120-mile zone around Moscow, the capital would be completely evacuated.
Office- and factory-workers should remain calm.
The government would take the strictest measures to avoid a repetition of the Smolensk situation, as a result of which, due to the pandemonium caused by a sudden attack from rattlesnakes numbering several thousands, the town had been set on fire in several places when people had abandoned burning stoves and begun a hopeless mass exodus.
It also announced that Moscow's food supplies would last for at least six months and that a committee under the Commander-in-Chief was taking urgent measures to armour apartments against attacks by reptiles in the streets of the capital, if the Red Army and aeroplanes did not succeed in halting their advance.
The Professor read none of this, but stared vacantly in front of him and smoked.
Apart from him there were only two other people in the Institute, Pankrat and the house-keeper, Maria Stepanovna, who kept bursting into tears. This was her third sleepless night, which she was spending in the Professor's laboratory, because he flatly refused to leave his only remaining chamber, even though it had been switched off.
Maria Stepanovna had taken refuge on the oilcloth-covered divan, in the shade in the corner, and maintained a grief-stricken silence, watching the kettle with the Professor's tea boil on the tripod of a Bunsen Burner.
The Institute was quiet. It all happened very suddenly.
Some loud angry cries rang out in the street, making Maria Stepanovna jump up and scream.
Lamps flashed outside, and Pankrat's voice was heard in the vestibule.
The Professor misinterpreted this noise.
He raised his head for a moment and muttered:
"Listen to them raving... what can I do now?"
Then he went into a trance again.
But he was soon brought out of it.
There was a terrible pounding on the iron doors of the Institute in Herzen Street, and the walls trembled.
Then a whole section of mirror cracked in the neighbouring room.
A window pane in the Professor's laboratory was smashed as a grey cobble-stone flew through it, knocking over a glass table.
The frogs woke up in the terrariums and began to croak.
Maria Stepanovna rushed up to the Professor, clutched his arm and cried:
"Run away, Vladimir Ipatych, run away!" The Professor got off the revolving chair, straightened up and crooked his finger, his eyes flashing for a moment with a sharpness which recalled the earlier inspired Persikov.
"I'm not going anywhere," he said. "It's quite ridiculous. They're rushing around like madmen. And if the whole of Moscow has gone crazy, where could I go?
And please stop shouting.
What's it got to do with me?
Pankrat!" he cried, pressing the button.
He probably wanted Pankrat to stop all the fuss, which he had never liked.
But Pankrat was no longer in a state to do anything.
The pounding had ended with the Institute doors flying open and the sound of distant gunfire. But then the whole stone building shook with a sudden stampede, shouts and breaking glass.
Maria Stepanovna seized hold of Persi-kov's arms and tried to drag him away, but he shook her off, straightened himself up to his full height and went into the corridor, still wearing his white coat.
"Well?" he asked.
The door burst open, and the first thing to appear on the threshold was the back of a soldier with a red long-service stripe and a star on his left sleeve.
He was firing his revolver and retreating from the door, through which a furious crowd was surging.
Then he turned and shouted at Persikov:
"Run for your life, Professor! I can't help you anymore."
His words were greeted by a scream from Maria Stepanovna.
The soldier rushed past Persikov, who stood rooted to the spot like a white statue, and disappeared down the dark winding corridors at the other end.
People rushed through the door, howling:
"Beat him!
Kill him..."
"The villain!"
"You let the reptiles loose!"
The corridor was a swarming mass of contorted faces and torn clothes. A shot rang out.
Sticks were brandished.