236
VLADIMIR DUDINTSEV
consciously I am exposing, and shall continue to expose, many
aspects of my character for your judgment, and I myself
shall
be the strictest judge. For some time past my eyes seem to have
been opened-in particular, ever since that day when the owl
in
person paid me the first visit. The owl opened my eyes. I am
very grateful to it.
For example, I saw in an entirely new light my long
disputation with a certain Mr. S., a corresponding member of
a certain provincial Academy of Sciences. Five years ago he had,
in an article, called my well-known published work "the fruit
of idle fancies." I was obliged to answer him. In a subsequent
article I refuted, as if in passing, S.'s fundamental premises and
threw in very appropriately, I believe, the following sentence:
"This is precisely what the doctoral candidate S. has attempted
unsuccessfully to prove." (I was perfectly well aware that, even
though he was
a:
corresponding member of the Academy, the
degree he held was the same as mine-that of a doctoral candi–
date.) S. immediately responded to my attack by publishing .a
brochure in which, just as casually, he affirmed that I was
forcing the results of my experiments into the framework of a
theory, and he put quotation marks round the word "theory."
Soon after, I printed a long article about my new observations
on the sun, confirming the theory he had put in quotation
marks and playing havoc with S.'s statistics. "The torpedo made
a direct hit," was the general opinion of my colleagues.
In the article I did not mention S. by name - I knew
that my enemy could not withstand the second torpedo. I simply
referred to "certain authors." But the battleship stood the shock
and answered back. . . .
And so forth. This war, which lasted for five years, had
shaken my nervous system to the roots, and not mine alone!
But let us get down to business. One morning we had
all
gathered in our laboratory, hung up our overcoats on our
hangers and, before proceeding with our research, stopped for
our usual morning chat. Our senior and most respected chief,
