266
VLADIMIR DUDINTSEV
"An error," I heard her say gently. "We have here only
a small lump of reddish coal."
"No,
it
isn't an error," I answered calmly. "It's merely a
variation. Everything has been checked in the other installations.
But we can exhibit this lump of coal . . . . Call the fellows.
Call the chief ...."
They entered, walking on tiptoe as people do when visit–
ing the sick. I had never let them in before; and now on
entering my room, which had become transformed into a labor–
atory, they halted near the door and began to look around them.
They did not know what to think of me. Everything amazed
them: the walls scribbled over with formulas and the furniture
scratched with a nail-I wrote on it too-and the glitter of
the apparatus, from which light puffs of warmth reached them.
Then they caught sight of me. My appearance must have
surprised them, and they moved with even greater care. Only
the practical joker, who did not take his eyes off my companion,
whispered something to the chief.
"Give them the report," I said.
And she, like a true scientist, gave them, within ten minutes,
a report on our work and showed them the small lump of coal
which refused to cool.
This lump of coal astonished everyone, the chief in par–
ticular. He was the first to advance solemnly to shake my hand.
Then all my colleagues began to talk and rushed pell-mell
towards me, seized my weak, thin hands and began to shake
them. And I felt as if my heart might burst at any moment.
"From today on, we are all joining in the work," the chief
announced. "The whole laboratory!"
From that day on, two of our colleagues were on duty in
my room day and night and, in addition, the laboratory kept
us informed every day by telephone. The project went ahead
rapidly. .
In
the icy month of December, my companion opened a
second copper container, in the presence of my chief.
