Professor Dowell's Head

Alexander Romanovich Belyaev

First meeting

-- Please sit down.

Marie Laurent sank into a deep leather chair.

While Professor Kern was opening the envelope and reading the letter, she briefly examined the office.

What a gloomy room! But it’s good to study here: nothing distracts attention. A lamp with a solid lampshade illuminates only a desk littered with books, manuscripts, and proof prints. The eye can barely discern the solid furniture of black oak. Dark wallpaper, dark drapri. In the twilight, only the gold of the embossed bindings in the heavy cabinets glistens. The long pendulum of an ancient wall clock moves measuredly and smoothly.

Looking at Kern, Laurent involuntarily smiled: the professor himself completely corresponded to the style of the office. As if carved from oak, Kern's ponderous, stern figure seemed part of the furnishings. The large turtle-rimmed glasses resembled two watch dials. Like pendulums, his gray-ash eyes moved, moving from line to line of writing. The rectangular nose, straight incision of the eyes, mouth, and square, forward-projecting chin gave the face the appearance of a stylized decorative mask sculpted by a cubist sculptor.

"Decorate the fireplace with such a mask," Laurent thought.

"colleague Sabatier has already talked about you.". Yes, I need an assistant. Are you a doctor? Great. Forty francs a day. Calculation is weekly. Breakfast, lunch. But I set one condition...

After drumming his dry finger on the table, Professor Kern asked an unexpected question:

--You know how to keep quiet? All women are talkative. You are a woman - this is bad. You are beautiful - it's even worse.

-- But what attitude...

--The closest. A beautiful woman is a doubly beautiful woman. This means that it has doubly female disadvantages. You can have a husband, a friend, a fiancé. And then all the secrets to hell.

-- But...

--No "buts"! You must be dumb as a fish. You must remain silent about everything you see and hear here. Do you accept this condition? I must warn you: failure to comply will entail extremely unpleasant consequences for you. Extremely unpleasant.

Laurent was embarrassed and interested...

"I agree if it’s not all that...

-- Crimes, would you say? You can be completely calm. And you do not face any liability... Are your nerves okay?

-- I'm healthy...

Professor Kern nodded his head.

-- Were there any alcoholics, neurasthenics, epileptics, or crazy people in the family?

-- No.

Kern nodded his head once again.

His dry, sharp finger dug into the electric bell button.

The door opened silently.

In the twilight of the room, as on a photographic plate being developed, Laurent saw only the whites of her eyes, then the glare of the black man’s shiny face gradually appeared. Black hair and costume blended into the dark drapri of the door.

-- John! Show Mademoiselle Laurent the laboratory.

The Negro nodded his head, offering to follow himself, and opened the second door.

Laurent entered a completely dark room.

The switch clicked and the bright light of the four matte hemispheres flooded the room. Laurent involuntarily closed her eyes. After the twilight of the gloomy office, the whiteness of the walls dazzled... The glass of cabinets with shiny surgical instruments sparkled. The steel and aluminum of Laurent's unfamiliar devices burned with cold light. Warm, yellow highlights were applied to the polished copper parts. Pipes, coils, flasks, glass cylinders... Glass, rubber, metal...

In the middle of the room there is a large prosector's table. Next to the table is a glass box; a human heart pulsated in it. There were tubes going from the heart to the cylinders.

Laurent turned her head to the side and suddenly saw something that made her shudder, as if from an electric shock.

A human head looked at her - one head without a torso.

It was attached to a square glass board. The board was supported by four tall, shiny metal legs. From the cut arteries and veins, through holes in the glass, tubes were connected in pairs to the cylinders. A thicker tube came out of the throat and communicated with a larger cylinder. The cylinder and cylinders were equipped with taps, pressure gauges, thermometers and instruments unknown to Laurent.

Her head looked attentively and mournfully at Laurent, blinking for centuries. There could be no doubt: the head lived, separated from the body, by an independent and conscious life.

Despite the stunning impression, Laurent could not help but notice that this head was surprisingly similar to the head of the recently deceased famous surgical scientist, Professor Dowell, famous for his experiments in reviving organs cut from a fresh corpse. Laurent attended his brilliant public lectures more than once, and she remembered well this high forehead, characteristic profile, wavy, gray-haired thick brown hair, blue eyes... Yes, it was Professor Dowell's head. Only his lips and nose became thinner, his temples and cheeks retracted, his eyes sank deeper into the orbits and his white skin acquired the yellow-dark shade of a mummy. But there was life in the eyes, there was thought.

Laurent, as if enchanted, could not take her eyes off these blue eyes.

My head moved my lips silently.

...It was too much for Laurent's nerves. She was close to fainting. The Negro supported her and took her out of the laboratory.

"It’s terrible, it’s terrible..." - Laurent repeated, lowering herself into her chair.

Professor Kern silently drummed his fingers on the table.

"Say, is it really the head?".

--Professor Dowell? Yes, this is his head. The head of Dowell, my deceased respected colleague, brought back to life by me. Unfortunately, I could have resurrected one head. Not everything comes at once. Poor Dowell suffered from an as yet incurable illness. Dying, he bequeathed his body for the scientific experiments that we conducted with him. "My whole life has been about science. May my death also serve science. I prefer to have a scientist friend digging through my corpse rather than a grave worm' - that's the will Professor Dowell left. And I got his body. I managed not only to revive his heart, but also to resurrect his consciousness, to resurrect his "soul," in the language of the crowd. What's terrible about that? People still considered death terrible. Wasn't the resurrection from the dead a thousand-year dream for humanity?

"I would prefer death to such a resurrection.".

Professor Kern made an indefinite hand gesture.

"Yes, it has its inconveniences for the resurrected. Poor Dowell would be uncomfortable appearing to the public like this... incomplete. That's why we keep this experience a secret. I say "we" because that is Dowell's own desire. Moreover, the experience has not yet been completed.

"and how did Professor Dowell, that is, his head, express this wish? Can your head talk?

Professor Kern was momentarily embarrassed.

'-No... professor Dowell's head doesn't speak. But she hears, understands and can respond with facial expressions...

And to move the conversation to another topic, Professor Kern asked

"so, do you accept my offer? Great. I'm expecting you tomorrow at nine in the morning. But remember: silence, silence and silence.

The secret of the forbidden crane

Life was not easy for Marie Laurent. She was seventeen years old when her father died. The care of her sick mother fell on Marie's shoulders. The small funds left after my father did not last long; I had to study and support my family. She worked as a night proofreader for a newspaper for several years. Having received the title of doctor, she tried in vain to find a place. There was a proposal to go to the dying places of New Guinea, where yellow fever was raging. Marie did not want to go there with her sick mother or be separated from her. Professor Kern's proposal was a way out for her.

Despite the strangeness of the work, she agreed almost without hesitation.

Laurent did not know that Professor Kern had made thorough inquiries about her before accepting her.

She had been working for Kern for two weeks. Her responsibilities were not difficult. During the day, she had to monitor the devices that supported the life of her head. At night she was replaced by John.

Professor Kern explained to her how to handle taps on cylinders. Pointing to a large cylinder, from which a thick tube ran to the throat of the head, Kern strictly forbade it to open the cylinder valve.

--Turning the faucet will kill the head immediately. Someday I will explain to you the entire head power supply system and the purpose of this cylinder. For now, it’s enough for you to know how to handle the devices.

Kern, however, was in no hurry to provide the promised explanations.

A small thermometer was deeply inserted into one of the nostrils of the head. At certain hours it was necessary to remove it and record the temperature. The cylinders were also equipped with thermometers and pressure gauges. Laurent monitored the temperature of the liquids and the pressure in the cylinders. Well-adjusted devices did not cause any trouble, operating with the precision of a clockwork mechanism. Of particular sensitivity, a device placed to the temple of the head noted pulsation by mechanically drawing a curve. A day later the tape was changed. The contents of the cylinders were replenished in Laurent's absence, before her arrival.

Marie gradually got used to her head and even became friends with her.

When Laurent entered the laboratory in the morning with her cheeks pink from walking and fresh air, her head smiled faintly and her eyelids trembled in greeting.

My head couldn't speak. But between her and Laurent a conventional language was soon established, although very limited. Lowering the head of the eyelid meant "yes", raising it to the top meant "no". Silently moving lips also helped somewhat.

"How are you feeling today?" asked Laurent.

The head smiled with a "shadow of a smile" and lowered its eyelids: "Okay, thank you.".

--How did you spend the night?

Same facial expressions.

Asking questions, Laurent quickly performed her morning duties. I checked the devices, temperature, pulse. I made notes in the magazine. Then, with the greatest caution, she washed the face of her head with water and alcohol using a soft sponge and wiped the ears with hygroscopic cotton wool. I took off a piece of cotton wool hanging on my eyelashes. I washed my eyes, ears, nose, mouth - special tubes were inserted into my mouth and nose for this. I tidied up my hair.

Her hands nimbly and deftly touched her head. There was an expression of contentment on the face of his head.

"Today is a wonderful day", said Laurent. -Blue-blue sky. Clean frosty air. I just want to breathe with my whole chest. Look how bright the sun shines, just like spring.

Professor Dowell's lip corners have fallen sadly. The eyes looked longingly out the window and stopped at Laurent.

She blushed with slight annoyance at herself. With the instinct of a sensitive woman, Laurent avoided talking about everything that was unattainable for the head and could once again remind of the squalor of her physical existence.

Marie felt some kind of maternal pity for her head, as for a helpless child offended by nature.

"Well, let’s study!" Laurent said hastily to correct the mistake.

In the mornings, before Professor Kern arrived, my head was reading. Laurent brought a bunch of the latest medical journals and books and showed them to her head. My head was looking through it. On the right article I moved my eyebrows. Laurent put the magazine on the music stand, and her head sank into reading. Laurent is used to following the eyes of her head, guessing which line her head is reading and turning the pages in time.

When it was necessary to make a mark in the margins, the head made a sign, and Laurent ran her finger along the lines, following the eyes of the head and marking the line in the margins with a pencil.

Laurent did not understand why her head forced her to make marks in the margins, but with the help of their poor facial language she did not hope to receive an explanation and therefore did not ask.

But one day, passing through Professor Kern's office in his absence, she saw magazines on her desk with marks she had made at the direction of her head. And on a piece of paper, Professor Kern’s hand rewrote the marked places. This made Laurent think.

Remembering this now, Marie could not resist asking. Maybe the head will be able to answer somehow.

"why do we mark some places in scientific articles?

An expression of displeasure and impatience appeared on Professor Dowell's face. Her head looked expressively at Laurent, then at the tap from which the tube went to the throat of her head, and raised her eyebrows twice. This meant a request. Laurent realized that her head wanted this forbidden tap to be opened. This was not the first time her head approached her with such a request. But Laurent explained the desire of the head in her own way: the head obviously wants to end its bleak existence. And Laurent did not dare to open the forbidden tap. She did not want to be guilty of death of the head, she was also afraid of responsibility, she was afraid of losing her place.

"No, no", Laurent answered her head's request with fear. -If I open this tap, you will die. I don't want, I can't, I don't dare kill you.

I suffered a cramp from impatience and a consciousness of powerlessness in the face of my head.

Three times she vigorously raised her eyelids and eyes up...

"No, no, no. I won't die!" - that's what Laurent understood. She hesitated.

The head began to silently move its lips, and Laurent thought that his lips were trying to say: "Open. Open it. I beg you!.."

Laurent's curiosity was aroused to the extreme. She felt that there was some kind of secret hidden here.

Limitless melancholy shone in my head's eyes. The eyes asked, begged, demanded. It seemed that all the power of human thought, all the tension of will was concentrated in this gaze.

Laurent made up her mind.

Her heart was beating violently, her hand trembling as she carefully opened the tap.

Immediately a hissing sound was heard from the throat of the head. Laurent heard a weak, dull, cracked voice, rattling and hissing like a damaged gramophone:

-- Blah-ho-da-ryu... you...

The forbidden valve passed air compressed in the cylinder. Passing through the throat of the head, the air drove the throat ligaments, and the head was able to speak. The muscles of the throat and ligaments could no longer work normally: air hissed through the throat even when the head did not speak. And the dissection of nerve trunks in the neck area disrupted the normal functioning of the muscles of the vocal cords and gave the voice a dull, rattling timbre.

The face of the head expressed satisfaction.

But at that moment, steps were heard from the office and the sound of a lock being opened (the laboratory door was always closed with a key from the office side). Laurent barely had time to turn off the tap. The hissing in the throat of the head stopped.

Professor Kern came in.

The head spoke

About a week has passed since Laurent revealed the secret of the forbidden tap.

During this time, even more friendly relations were established between Laurent and his head. During those hours when Professor Kern went to university or clinic, Laurent opened the tap, directing a small stream of air into the throat of her head so that her head could speak in a clear whisper. Laurent also spoke quietly. They were afraid that the black man would hear their conversation.

Their conversations apparently worked well on Professor Dowell's head. The eyes became more lively, and even the mournful wrinkles between the eyebrows smoothed out.

The head spoke a lot and willingly, as if rewarding itself for the time of forced silence.

Last night, Laurent saw Professor Dowell's head in a dream and, waking up, thought: "Does Dowell's head dream?"

"Dreams..." - my head whispered quietly. -- Yes, I see dreams. And I don’t know what more they give me: grief or joy. I see myself healthy, full of energy in my dreams and wake up doubly destitute. Disadvantaged both physically and mentally. After all, I am deprived of everything that is available to living people. And only the ability to think is left to me. "I'm thinking. Therefore, I exist," the head quoted the philosopher Descartes as saying with a bitter smile. -I exist...

--What do you see in your dream?

"I’ve never seen myself in my current form.". I see myself as I once was... I see family, friends... I recently saw my late wife and experienced the spring of our love with her. Betty once came to me as a patient, injuring her leg while getting out of a car. Our first acquaintance was in my office. Somehow we immediately became close to her. After the fourth visit, I invited her to look at the portrait of my bride lying on the desk. "I will marry her if I get her consent," I said. She went to the table and saw a small mirror on it; looking at him, she laughed and said: "I think... she won’t refuse.". A week later she was my wife. This scene recently flashed before me in my sleep... Betgy died here in Paris. You know,I came here from America as a surgeon during the European War. I was offered a pulpit here, and I stayed to live near the expensive grave. My wife was an amazing woman...

The face of the head brightened with memories, but was immediately darkened.

-- How infinitely far away is this time!

My head began to think. The air hissed quietly in my throat.

'"I saw my son in a dream last night. I would really like to look at it again. But I don't dare put him to this test... For him I died.

-- Is he an adult? Where is he now?

--Yes, adult. He's almost the same age as you or a little older. Graduated from university. Currently he must be in England, with his maternal aunt. No, it would be better not to dream. But it’s not just dreams that torment me," the head continued, after a pause. In reality, I am tormented by false feelings. Oddly enough, sometimes it seems to me that I feel my body. I suddenly want to breathe deeply, stretch, spread my arms wide, as a person who has been sitting too long does. And sometimes I feel gouty pain in my left leg. Isn't it funny? Although as a doctor this should be clear to you. The pain is so real that I involuntarily lower my eyes down and, of course, through the glass I see an empty space under me, stone floor slabs... From time to time it seems to me that now a seizure of suffocation will begin, and then I am almost satisfied with my "posthumous existence",saving me at least from asthma... All this is purely reflex activity of brain cells once associated with the life of the body...

"-- Terrible!..." - Laurent couldn’t resist.

-- Yeah, horrible... It’s strange, during my lifetime it seemed to me that I lived only by the work of thought. I really somehow didn’t notice my body, completely immersed in scientific activities. And only after losing my body did I feel what I had lost. Now, more than ever in my entire life, I think about the smells of flowers, fragrant hay somewhere on the edge of the forest, about long walks, the noise of the sea surf... I have not lost my sense of smell, touch and other feelings, but I am cut off from all the diversity of the world of sensations. The smell of hay is good on the field when it is associated with a thousand other sensations: the smell of the forest, the beauty of the burning dawn, and the songs of forest birds. Artificial smells could not replace natural ones for me. The smell of Rose perfume instead of a flower? It would satisfy me as little as the hungry smell of pate without pate. Having lost my body, I lost the world - all immense,a wonderful world of things that I didn't notice, things that you can take, touch, and at the same time feel your body, yourself. Oh, I would willingly give my chimerical existence for the joy of feeling the weight of a simple cobblestone in my hand! If only you knew the pleasure it gives me to touch a sponge when you wash my face in the morning. After all, touch is the only opportunity for me to feel like I am in the world of real things... All I can do myself is touch the tip of my tongue to the edge of my parched lips. what a pleasure the touch of a sponge gives me when you wash my face in the morning. After all, touch is the only opportunity for me to feel like I am in the world of real things... All I can do myself is touch the tip of my tongue to the edge of my parched lips. what a pleasure it gives me to touch a sponge when you wash my face in the morning. After all, touch is the only opportunity for me to feel like I am in the world of real things... All I can do myself is touch the tip of my tongue to the edge of my parched lips.

That evening, Laurent came home distracted and excited. The old mother, as usual, prepared her tea with a cold appetizer, but Marie did not touch the sandwiches, quickly drank a glass of tea with lemon and got up to go to her room. The mother's attentive eyes settled on her.

"are you upset about something, Marie?" asked the old lady. - Perhaps there are troubles at work?

'-No, nothing, Mom, just tired and headache... I'll go to bed early and everything will go away.

Her mother did not detain her, sighed and, left alone, thought.

Since Marie entered the service, she has changed a lot. She became nervous and withdrawn. Mother and daughter have always been great friends. There were no secrets between them. And now a secret has appeared. Old Laurent felt that her daughter was hiding something. Marie answered her mother's questions about the service very briefly and vaguely.

"Professor Kern has a home hospital for particularly medically interesting patients.". And I take care of them.

--What kind of patients are these?

-- Different. There are very difficult cases... - Marie frowned and moved the conversation to other topics.

The old woman was not satisfied with these answers. And she even began to make inquiries from the side, but she was unable to find out anything except what was already known from her daughter.

"Isn’t she in love with Kern, and perhaps hopelessly, without an answer from him?.." - the old woman thought. But she immediately refuted herself: her daughter would not hide her feelings from her. And then, isn't Marie pretty? And Kern is a bachelor. And if only Marie loved him, then, of course, Kern would not have resisted. You won't find another Marie like her in the whole world. No, there's something else here... And the old woman could not sleep for a long time, tossing and turning on the high-whipped feather beds.

Marie didn't sleep either. After turning off the lights to make her mother think she was already asleep, Marie sat on the bed with her eyes wide open. She remembered every word of her head and tried to imagine herself in its place: she quietly touched her lips, palate, teeth with her tongue and thought: "This is all the head can do. You can bite your lips, the tip of your tongue. You can move your eyebrows. Turn your eyes. Close, open them. Mouth and eyes. No more movement. No, you can still move the skin on your forehead a little. And nothing else..."

Marie closed and opened her eyes and made grimaces. Oh, if only at that moment her mother would look at her! The old lady would have decided that her daughter was crazy.

Then suddenly Marie began to grab her shoulders, knees, arms, stroked her chest, put her fingers in her thick hair and whispered:

-- My God! How happy I am! How much I have! How rich I am! And I didn’t know, I didn’t feel it!

The fatigue of the young body took its toll. Marie's eyes involuntarily closed. And then she saw Dowell's head. Her head looked at her attentively and mournfully. My head was falling off my table and flying through the air. Marie ran ahead of her head. Kern, like a kite, threw himself on his head. Winding corridors... Tight doors... Marie hurried to open them, but the doors did not give in, and Kern caught up with his head, his head whistled, hissed near his ear... Marie felt that she was suffocating. The heart is pounding in the chest, its frequent blows resonate painfully throughout the body. A cold shiver runs down your spine... It opens more and more new doors... Oh, what a horror!..

-- Marie! Marie! What's wrong with you? Wake up, Marie! You moan...

This is no longer a dream. The mother stands at the head of the house and anxiously strokes her hair.

--Nothing, Mom. I was just having a bad dream.

"You started having bad dreams too often, my child...

The old lady leaves sighing, and Marie lies for a few more times with her eyes open and her heart beating violently.

"however, my nerves are becoming worthless", she whispers quietly, and this time falls into a sound sleep.

Death or murder?

One day, while looking through medical journals before bed, Laurent read an article by Professor Kern about new scientific research. In this article, Kern referred to the work of other scientists in the same field. All these excerpts were taken from scientific journals and books and coincided exactly with those that Laurent, at the direction of her head, emphasized during their morning classes.

The next day, as soon as the opportunity to talk to her head presented itself, Laurent asked

"What does Professor Kern do in the lab in my absence?"

After some hesitation, the head replied:

"He and I continue our research.

"so you make all these marks for him?" But do you know that he publishes your work on his own behalf?

-- I guessed.

-- But it's outrageous! How do you allow this?

--What can I do?

"If you can't, then I can do it!" cried Laurent angrily.

-- Hush... In vain... It would be ridiculous in my position to have a claim on copyright. Money? What do I need them for? Glory? What can fame give me?.. And then... if all this opens up, the work will not be completed.

And I myself am interested in seeing it completed. Frankly, I want to see the results of my work.

Laurent thought about it.

"Yes, a man like Kern is capable of anything," she said quietly. - Professor Kern told me when I entered his service that you died of an incurable disease and bequeathed your body for scientific work. Is this true?

--I find it hard to talk about it. I could be wrong. It's true, but maybe... not everything is true. We worked with him to revive human organs taken from a fresh corpse. Kern was my assistant. The ultimate goal of my labors at that time was to revive the human head cut off from the body. I completed all the preparatory work. We have already revived animal heads, but we decided not to announce our successes until we managed to revive and demonstrate the human head. Before this last experience, the success of which I had no doubt, I handed over to Kern the manuscript with all the scientific work I had done for preparation for printing. At the same time, we worked on another scientific problem, which was also close to being resolved. At this time, I had a terrible attack of asthma - one of the diseaseswhich I, as a scientist, tried to defeat. There was a long-standing struggle between me and her. The whole question was in time: which of us would be the first to emerge victorious? I knew that victory could remain on her side. And I actually bequeathed my body for anatomical work, although I did not expect that it would be my head that would be revived. So... During this last seizure, Kern was near me and provided me with medical assistance. He injected me with adrenaline. Maybe... the dose was too high, or maybe asthma did its job. during this last seizure, Kern was near me and providing me with medical assistance. He injected me with adrenaline. Maybe... the dose was too high, or maybe asthma did its job. during this last seizure, Kern was near me and providing me with medical assistance. He injected me with adrenaline. Maybe... the dose was too high, or maybe asthma did its job.

-- Well, then?

-- Asphyxia (suffocation), short agony - and death, which for me was only a loss of consciousness... And then I went through some pretty strange transitional states. Consciousness began to return to me very slowly. It seems to me that my consciousness was awakened by a sharp feeling of pain in the neck area. The pain gradually subsided. At that time I didn't understand what this meant. When Kern and I did experiments to revive dog heads cut off from the body, we noticed that dogs experience extremely acute pain after waking up. The dog's head beat on the dish with such force that sometimes tubes fell out of the blood vessels through which the nutrient liquid was supplied. Then I suggested anesthetizing the cut site. To prevent it from drying out and being exposed to bacteria, the dog's neck was immersed in a special Ringen-Locke-Dowell solution.This solution contains nutrients, antiseptics, and anesthetic substances. The section of my neck was immersed in this liquid. Without this precautionary measure, I could have died a second time very quickly after waking up, just as the heads of dogs died in our first experiments. But, I repeat, at that moment I did not think about all this. Everything was vague, as if someone had woken me up after being very intoxicated, when the effect of the alcohol had not yet passed. But a joyful thought still began to flow in my brain that if consciousness, albeit vague, returned to me, then it means that I did not die. Even without opening my eyes, I thought about the strangeness of the last seizure. Usually my asthma attacks ended suddenly. Sometimes the intensity of shortness of breath weakened gradually. But I've never lost consciousness after a seizure. It was something new.Also new was the feeling of severe pain in the neck area. And one more oddity: it seemed to me that I was not breathing at all, and at the same time I was not experiencing suffocation. I tried to breathe, but I couldn't. Moreover, I lost the feeling of my breasts. I could not dilate my chest, although I thought I was straining my pectoral muscles. "Something strange," I thought, "-either I’m sleeping or I’m dreaming..." I had difficulty opening my eyes. Darkness. There is a vague noise in my ears. I closed my eyes again... You know that when a person dies, his senses do not fade away at the same time. First a person loses his sense of taste, then his vision goes out, then his hearing goes out. Apparently, their restoration was in the opposite order. After a while I raised my eyelids again and saw a cloudy light. It was as if I had sunk into the water to a very great depth.Then the greenish darkness began to disperse, and I vaguely distinguished Kern’s face in front of me and at the same time heard his voice quite clearly: "Have you come to your senses? I'm very glad to see you alive again.". By an effort of will, I made my consciousness clear as soon as possible. I looked down and saw a table right under my chin - at that time this table did not yet exist, but there was a simple table, like a kitchen table, hastily adapted by Kern for experience. I wanted to look back, but I couldn’t turn my head. Next to this table, higher than it, there was a second table - a prosector's table. On this table lay someone's headless corpse. I looked at him, and the corpse seemed strangely familiar to me, despite the fact that he did not have a head and his chest was opened. Right next to me, someone’s human heart was beating in a glass box... I looked at Kern with bewilderment.I still couldn’t understand why my head was rising above the table and why I couldn’t see my body. I wanted to extend my hand, but I didn’t feel it. "What's the matter?.." - I wanted to ask Kern and just silently moved my lips. And he looked at me and smiled. "Will you recognize me?" he asked me, nodding towards the prosector’s table. - This is your body. Now you're out of asthma forever'. He could still joke!.. And I understood everything. I confess that at first I wanted to scream, break off the table, kill myself and Kern... No, not at all. I knew with my mind that I had to be angry, screaming, indignant, and at the same time I was amazed at the icy calm that controlled me. Perhaps I was indignant, but somehow looking at myself and the world from the outside. There have been changes in my psyche. I just frowned and... was silent. Could I have been so worriedhow worried did you feel before, if now my heart was beating in a glass vessel, and the new heart was a motor?

Laurent looked at her head in horror.

--And after that... after that, you keep working with him. If it weren't for him, you would have overcome asthma and were now a healthy person... He is a thief and a murderer, and you help him rise to the pinnacle of glory. You work for him. He, like a parasite, feeds on your brain activity, he made some kind of accumulator of creative thought out of your head and makes money and fame from it. And you!.. What does he give you? What is your life like?.. You are deprived of everything. You are an unfortunate stump in which, on your mountain, desires still live. The whole world has stolen Kern from you. Forgive me, but I don't understand you. And do you really work obediently and resignedly for him?

The head smiled a sad smile.

-- Head riot? It's spectacular. What could I do? After all, I am deprived of even the last human opportunity: to commit suicide.

-- But you could refuse to work with him!

--I've been through it, if you will. But my rebellion was not caused by Kern using my thinking apparatus. After all, what does the author's name matter? It is important that the idea enters the world and does its job. I rebelled only because it was hard for me to get used to my new existence. I preferred death to life... I will tell you one incident that happened to me at that time. Once I was alone in the laboratory. Suddenly a large black beetle flew out the window. Where could it have come from in the center of a huge city? I do not know. Maybe he was brought in by a car returning from a country trip. The beetle circled above me and sat on the glass board of my table, next to me. I squinted my eyes and followed this disgusting insect, unable to throw it off. The beetle's legs slid across the glass, and it, rustling its joints, slowly approached my head.I don’t know if you will understand me... I always felt some kind of special disgust, a feeling of disgust for such insects. I could never bring myself to touch them with my finger. And so I was powerless even in the face of this insignificant enemy. And for him, my head was only a convenient springboard for takeoff. And he continued to approach slowly, rustling his legs. After some effort, he managed to catch his beard hair. He floundered for a long time, entangled in his hair, but stubbornly rose higher and higher. So he crawled along his compressed lips, along the left side of his nose, through his covered left eye, until finally, having reached his forehead, he fell onto the glass, and from there to the floor. An empty case. But he made an amazing impression on me... And when Professor Kern came, I categorically refused to continue scientific work with him. I knew,that he would not dare to publicly display my head. Without benefit, he will not keep his head, which can be evidence against him. And he will kill me.

This was my calculation. A struggle ensued between us. He resorted to rather cruel measures. Late one evening he came in to me with an electrical apparatus, put electrodes to my temples and, not yet turning on the current, gave a speech. He stood with his arms crossed over his chest and spoke in a very affectionate, soft tone, like a real inquisitor. "Dear colleague," he began. -- We are here alone, face to face, behind thick stone walls. However, if they were thinner, this does not change things, since you cannot scream. You are completely in my power. I can inflict the most terrible torture on you and I will go unpunished. But why torture? You and I are both scientists and can understand each other. I know life is not easy for you, but it is not my fault. I need you, and I cannot free you from the painful life, and you yourself are not able to escape from me even into oblivion.So wouldn't it be better for us to end the matter peacefully? You will continue our scientific studies..." I moved my eyebrows negatively, and my lips silently whispered: "No!" - "You are very upsetting me. Would you like a cigarette? I know you can't feel completely satisfied because you don't have lungs through which nicotine can be absorbed into the blood, but still familiar sensations..." And he, taking two cigarettes out of the cigarette case, lit one himself, and inserted the other into my mouth. With what pleasure I spat out this cigarette! "Okay, colleague," he said in the same polite, calm voice, "you are forcing me to resort to measures of influence..." And he started the electric current. It was like a red-hot drill had pierced my brain... "How are you feeling?" - he asked me carefully, like the patient’s doctor.--Head hurts? Maybe you want to cure her? All you have to do is..." - "No!" - answered my lips. "Very, very sorry. We'll have to step up the current a little. You make me very sad'. And he let out such a strong current that it seemed to me that my head was igniting. The pain was unbearable. I gritted my teeth. My consciousness was clouded. How I wanted to lose him! But, unfortunately, I didn’t lose it. I just closed my eyes and pursed my lips. Kern smoked, blowing smoke in my face, and kept toasting my head over low heat. He no longer convinced me. And when I opened my eyes slightly, I saw that he was furious with my persistence. "Damn it! If I didn't need your brains so much, I would fry them and feed them to my pinscher today. Ew, you stubborn one!" And he unceremoniously tore off all the wires from my head and left.However, it was too early for me to rejoice. Soon he returned and began to let irritating substances into the solutions that nourished my head, which caused me severe excruciating pain. And when I involuntarily winced, he asked me: "So, colleague, do you decide? Still not?" I was unshakable. He left even more furious, showering me with a thousand curses. I celebrated victory. Kern did not appear in the laboratory for several days, and any day now I was expecting a deliverer-death. On the fifth day he came as if nothing had happened, cheerfully whistling a song. Without looking at me, he began to continue working. For two or three days I watched him without taking part in it. But the work could not help but interest me. And when, while conducting experiments, he made several mistakes that could ruin the results of all our efforts, I could not resist and made a sign to him. "It would have been like this a long time ago!" - he said with a satisfied smile and blew air through my throat. I explained the mistakes to him and have continued to lead the work ever since... He outsmarted me.

Victims of the big city

S since Laurent learned the secret of the head, she hated Kern. And this feeling grew every day. She fell asleep with this feeling and woke up with it. She saw Kern in her dreams in terrible nightmares. She was downright sick with hatred. Lately, when meeting with Kern, she could barely resist throwing in his face: "Murderer!"

She kept it tense and cold with him.

"Kern is a monstrous criminal!" cried Marie, left alone with her head. - I'll report him... I will shout about his crime, I will not rest until I debunk this stolen glory, I reveal all his atrocities. I won't spare myself.

-- Hush!.. Calm down," Dowell persuaded. - I already told you that there is no feeling of revenge in me. But if your moral sense is outraged and thirsts for retribution, I will not dissuade you... just don't rush. I ask you to wait until the end of our experiments. After all, I also need Kern now, just as he needs me. He cannot finish his work without me, but so can I without him. But that's all I have left. I can’t create more, but the work that has begun must be completed.

Footsteps were heard in the office.

Laurent quickly closed the tap and sat down with the book in her hand, still outraged. Dowell's head lowered its eyelids like a man in a slumber.

Professor Kern came in.

He looked at Laurent suspiciously.

--What's the matter? Are you upset about something? Is everything okay?

-- No... nothing... everything is fine... family troubles...

--Give your pulse...

Laurent reluctantly extended her hand.

--Fights fast... Nerves are playing tricks... For the nervous, this is probably hard work. But I'm happy with you. I'm doubling your reward.

"I don’t need it, thank you.".

-- "I don't need to." Who doesn't need money? After all, you have a family.

Laurent did not answer.

-- That's what. We need to make some preparations. We will place Professor Dowell's head in a room behind the laboratory... Temporarily, colleague, temporarily. Are you awake? - he turned to his head. - And tomorrow they will bring two fresh corpses here, and we will make a couple of well-speaking heads from them and demonstrate them in scientific society. It's time to make our discovery public.

And Kern looked at Laurent again testily. In order not to discover the full force of her hostility ahead of time, Laurent forced herself to take on an indifferent appearance and hastened to ask the question, the first one that came to her mind:

--Whose corpses will be brought?

'-I don't know, and nobody knows. Because now these are not corpses yet, but living and healthy people. Healthier than you and me. I can say this with confidence. I need the heads of absolutely healthy people. But tomorrow they will die. And in an hour, no later, after that they will be here, on the prosector’s table. I'll take care of it.

Laurent, who expected everything from Professor Kern, looked at him with such a frightened look that he mingled for a moment and then laughed loudly.

--There's nothing simpler. I ordered a couple of fresh corpses from the morgue. The point, you see, is that the city, this modern moloch, requires daily human sacrifices. Every day, with the immutability of the laws of nature in the city, several people die from street traffic, not counting accidents in factories, factories, and buildings. Well, these doomed, cheerful people, full of strength and health, will sleep peacefully today, not knowing what awaits them tomorrow. Tomorrow morning they will get up and, humming cheerfully, will dress to go, as they think, to work, but in reality - towards their inevitable death. At the same time, at the other end of the city, their unwitting executioner will dress, singing just as carefree: a driver or a carriage driver. Then the victim will leave his apartmentthe executioner will leave the opposite end of the city from his garage or tram depot. Overcoming the flow of street traffic, they will stubbornly approach each other, not knowing each other, until the fateful point of intersection of their paths. Then for one short moment one of them gape - and you're done. In statistical accounts indicating the number of victims of street traffic, one bone will be added. Thousands of accidents must lead them to this fatal intersection point. And yet, all this will steadily happen with the precision of a clock mechanism, momentarily shifting two clock hands, moving at different speeds, into one plane. In statistical accounts indicating the number of victims of street traffic, one bone will be added. Thousands of accidents must lead them to this fatal intersection point. And yet, all this will steadily happen with the precision of a clock mechanism, momentarily shifting two clock hands, moving at different speeds, into one plane. In statistical accounts indicating the number of victims of street traffic, one bone will be added. Thousands of accidents must lead them to this fatal intersection point. And yet, all this will steadily happen with the precision of a clock mechanism, momentarily shifting two clock hands, moving at different speeds, into one plane.

Never before has Professor Kern been so talkative with Laurent. And where did he get this unexpected generosity? "I'm doubling your reward..."

"He wants to appease me, buy me," Laurent thought. - He seems to suspect that I guess or even know a lot. But he won't be able to buy me'.

New inhabitants of the laboratory

The next morning, two fresh corpses actually lay on the prosector's table in Professor Kern's laboratory.

The two new heads intended for public display should not have known about the existence of Professor Dowell's head, and therefore it was prudently moved by Professor Kern to the adjacent room.

The man's corpse belonged to a thirty-year-old worker who died in the traffic. His mighty body was crushed. Frightened eyes froze in the half-open, glazed eyes.

Professor Kern, Laurent and John in white coats worked on the corpses.

"There were a few more corpses", said Professor Kern. - One worker fell from the scaffolding. Rejected. He may have had brain damage from a concussion. I also rejected several suicides who were poisoned by poisons. This guy turned out to be suitable. Yes, this one is still... night beauty.

He nodded his head to the corpse of a woman with a beautiful but withered face. There are still traces of blushes and a makeup pencil on the face. The face was calm. Only raised eyebrows and a half-open mouth expressed some kind of childish surprise.

--The bar singer. She was killed on the spot by a stray bullet during a quarrel between drunken Apaches. Right in the heart, - see? You can't get there on purpose.

Professor Kern worked quickly and confidently. The heads were separated from the body, the corpses were carried away.

A few more minutes - and the heads were placed on high tables. Tubes are inserted into the throat, veins and carotid arteries.

Professor Kern was in a pleasantly excited state. The moment of his triumph was approaching. He had no doubt about success.

Luminaries of science were invited to the upcoming demonstration and report of Professor Kern in the scientific society. The press, led by a skillful hand, published preliminary articles in which they extolled the scientific genius of Professor Kern. Magazines placed his portraits. Kern's speech, with his amazing experience in reviving dead human heads, was given the significance of the triumph of national science.

Whistling cheerfully, Professor Kern washed his hands, lit a cigar and looked smugly at the heads standing in front of him.

-- Hehe! The head of not only John, but also Salome herself fell on the dish. It won't be a bad meeting. All that remains is to open the tap and... the dead will come to life. Well, mademoiselle? Revive. Open all three taps. This big cylinder contains compressed air, not poison, hehe...

This has not been news to Laurent for a long time. But she, due to an almost unconscious trick, did not show it.

Kern frowned and suddenly became serious. Coming close to Laurent, he, striking every word, said

"but I ask Professor Dowell not to open the air tap.". He has... damaged vocal cords and...

Catching Laurent's incredulous gaze, he added irritably

-- Whatever... I forbid you. Be obedient if you don't want to get yourself into big trouble.

And, having amused himself again, he sang drawn-outly to the tune of the opera "Pagliacci":

--So we begin!

Laurent opened the taps.

The worker's head was the first to show signs of life. The eyelids barely trembled noticeably. The pupils became transparent.

-- Circulation is. Everything is going well...

Suddenly the eyes of the head changed their direction and turned towards the light of the window. Consciousness slowly returned.

"Lives!" Kern shouted cheerfully. -- Give the air stream stronger.

Laurent opened the tap more. The air whistled in my throat.

--What's that?.. Where am I?.. - the head said indistinctly.

"in the hospital, my friend", said Kern.

-- In the hospital?.. - The head looked, lowered them down and saw an empty space underneath.

--Where are my legs? Where are my hands? Where is my body?

--He's gone, my dear. It's shattered. Only the head survived, but the body had to be cut off.

--How to cut it off? Well, no, I don't agree. What kind of operation is this? Where am I good for? You can't earn a piece of bread with one head. I need hands. No one will take you to work without arms, without legs... You will leave the hospital... Ugh! And there’s nothing to get out on. How now? You need to drink and eat. I know our hospitals. Hold it a little and kick it out: it’s cured. No, I don’t agree," he repeated.

His reprimand, wide, tanned, freckled face, hairstyle, naive look of blue eyes - everything denounced him as a villager.

Need tore him away from his native fields, the city tore to pieces his young, healthy body.

"maybe at least some kind of benefit?". Where is he?.. - he suddenly remembered, and his eyes widened.

-- Who?

--Yes, the one... that ran over me... There’s a tram here, another one here, a car here, and it’s right on top of me...

-- Don't worry. He will get his. The truck number is written: four thousand seven hundred and eleven, if you are interested. What is your name? - asked Professor Kern.

-- Me? Tom's name was. Tom Bush, that's how it is.

"So that’s it, Tom... You will not need anything, and you will not suffer from hunger, cold, or thirst. You won't be thrown out into the street, don't worry.

"Well, are you going to feed for nothing or show it at fairs for money?

--We'll show it, just not at fairs. We'll show it to scientists. Well, now rest. -- And, looking at the woman’s head, Kern remarked anxiously: "Something Salome is making itself wait a long time.".

"Well, is this also a head without a body?" asked Tom's head.

"as you can see, so that you don’t get bored, we’ve taken care to invite a young lady to join us... Close, Laurent, his air tap so as not to interfere with your chatter.

Kern took a thermometer out of the woman's nostrils.

--The temperature is higher than cadaveric, but still low. The revival is slow...

Time passed. The woman's head did not come to life. Professor Kern began to worry. He walked around the laboratory, looked at his watch, and every step he took on the stone floor sounded loudly in the large room.

Tom's head looked at him in bewilderment and silently moved his lips.

Finally, Kern went to the woman’s head and carefully examined the glass tubes that terminated the rubber tubes inserted into the carotid arteries.

--That's where the reason is. This tube enters too freely and therefore circulation is slow. Give the phone wider.

Kern replaced the tube, and a few minutes later his head came to life.

Bricke's head - that was the woman's name - reacted more violently to its revival. When she finally came to her senses and spoke, she began to scream hoarsely, begging her to kill her better, but not leave her such a freak.

-- Ah, ah, ah!.. My body... my poor body!.. What did you do to me? Save me or kill me. I can't live without a body!.. Let me at least look at him... no, no, no. It's without a head... what horror!.., what horror!..

When she calmed down a little, she said:

"you say you brought me to life.". I am poorly educated, but I know that the head cannot live without the body. What is this, a miracle or witchcraft?

-- Neither one nor the other. This is an achievement of science.

--If your science is capable of performing such miracles, then it must be able to do others. Give me another body. The donkey Georges made a hole in me with a bullet... But many girls put a bullet in their foreheads. Cut off their body and put it to my head. Just show me earlier. You need to choose a beautiful body. And so I can't... A woman without a body. It's worse than a man without a head.

And turning to Laurent, she asked:

--Kindly give me a mirror.

Looking in the mirror, Bricke studied herself for a long time and seriously.

-- Awful!.. Can I ask you to straighten my hair? I can't do my own hair...

"You, Laurent, have more work to do," Kern chuckled. - Your remuneration will be increased accordingly. I have to go.

He looked at his watch and, coming close to Laurent, whispered

"in their presence", he pointed his eyes at the heads, "not a word about Professor Dowell's head!".

When Kern left the laboratory, Laurent went to visit Professor Dowell's head.

Dowell's eyes looked at her sadly. A sad smile twisted my lips.

"My poor, poor..." whispered Laurent, But soon you will be avenged!

The head made a sign, Laurent opened the air tap.

"you’d better tell me how the experience went," his head hissed, smiling faintly.

Heads are having fun

Tom and Brick's heads had even more difficulty getting used to their new existence than Dowell's. His brain was now engaged in the same scientific work that interested him before. Tom and Bricke were simple people, and there was no point in living without a body. It’s no wonder that they became sad very soon.

"Is this life?" Toma complained. -You stick out like a stump. I overlooked all the walls to holes...

The depressed mood of the "prisoners of science," as Kern jokingly called them, greatly worried him. Their heads could wither with melancholy before the day of their demonstration came.

And Professor Kern tried his best to entertain them.

He took out a movie camera, and Laurent and John held cinematic screenings in the evenings. The screen was the white wall of the laboratory.

Tom's head especially liked the comic films featuring Charlie Chaplin and Monty Banks. Looking at their antics, Toma forgot for a while about his wretched existence. Something similar to laughter even burst out of his throat, and tears welled up in his eyes.

But then Banks jumped away, and an image of a farm appeared on the white wall of the room. Little girl feeding chickens. The Crested Chicken has a troublesome time treating its chicks. Against the backdrop of a barn, a young healthy woman milks a cow, driving away a calf with her elbow, which she pokes at the udder with her muzzle. A shaggy dog ran by, waving its tail merrily, and a farmer appeared after it. He led the horse.

Toma somehow wheezed in an unusually high, false voice and suddenly shouted:

-- Don't! Don't!..

John, who was busy near the device, did not immediately understand what was going on.

--Stop the demonstration! - Laurent shouted and hurried to turn on the light. The pale image still flashed for some time and finally disappeared. John stopped the projection apparatus.

Laurent looked at Tom. Tears were visible in his eyes, but these were no longer tears of laughter. His whole plump face gathered in a grimace, like that of an offended child, his mouth grimaced.

-- Like we have... in the village... -- whining, he said. -- Cow... chicken... It's gone, everything is now gone...

Laurent was already busy with the device. Soon the lights were turned off and shadows flashed on the white wall. Harold Lloyd ran away from the policemen pursuing him. But Tom's mood was already spoiled. Now the sight of moving people began to make him even more sad.

"Look, he’s running around like crazy," Tom’s head grumbled. - I wish I could put him down like that, I wouldn’t jump.

Laurent once again tried to change the program. The sight of the high society ball completely upset Bricke. Beautiful women and their luxurious toilets irritated her.

"- Don’t... "I don’t want to watch others live," she said.

The cinema was removed.

The radio entertained them for a little longer.

They were both worried about music, especially dance motifs and dancing.

"god, how I danced that dance!" cried Bricke one day, bursting into tears.

I had to move on to other entertainment. Bricke was capricious, demanded a mirror every minute, invented new hairstyles, asked to line her eyes with a pencil, whitewash and blush her face. Laurent was irritated by the stupidity, which could not comprehend the secrets of cosmetics.

"can't you see", said Bricquet's head irritably, "that the right eye is set darker than the left". Raise the mirror higher.

She asked to be brought fashion magazines and fabrics, and forced to drape a table on which her head was mounted.

She reached the point of eccentricity, suddenly declaring with belated bashfulness that she could not sleep in the same room with a man.

'-Fence me off at night with a screen, or at least a book.

And Laurent made a "screen" from a large open book, installing it on a glass board near Bricquet’s head.

Tom was no less troublesome.

One day he demanded wine. And Professor Kern was forced to give him the pleasure of intoxication by injecting small doses of intoxicants into the feeding solutions.

Sometimes Toma and Bricke sang a duet. The weakened vocal cords did not obey. It was a terrible duet.

--My poor voice... If only you could hear me sing before! - Bricke said, and her eyebrows rose painfully.

In the evenings they were attacked by thought. The extraordinary nature of existence forced even these simple natures to think about issues of life and death.

Briquet believed in immortality. Toma was a materialist.

"Of course we are immortal", said Bricquet's head "If the soul died with the body, it would not return to the head".

"and where did your soul sit: in your head or in your body?" - Tom asked sarcastically.

"of course I was in my body... I was everywhere..." - Bricquet’s head answered hesitantly, suspecting some kind of catch in the question.

'-So, does the soul of your body go headless in the next world now?

"you yourself are headless," Bricke was offended.

--I'm headlong. "I only have her alone," Toma did not let up. - But the soul of your head did not remain in the next world? Did you use this rubber intestine to return to the ground? No," he said seriously, "we are like a machine.". I let off steam and started working again. And it was shattered - no steam will help...

And everyone was immersed in their own thoughts...

Heaven and earth

Tom's arguments did not convince Bricke. Despite her careless lifestyle, she was a devout Catholic. Leading a rather hectic life, she did not have time not only to think about the afterlife, but even to go to church. However, the religiosity instilled in childhood was firmly entrenched in her. And now, it seemed, the most opportune moment had come for these seeds of religiosity to sprout. Her real life was terrible, but death - the possibility of a second death - frightened her even more. At night she was tormented by the nightmares of the afterlife.

She saw tongues of hellish flame. She saw how her sinful body was already fried in a huge frying pan.

Bricke woke up in horror, chattering her teeth and suffocating. Yes, she definitely felt suffocated. Her excited brain required an increased flow of oxygen, but she was deprived of a heart - that living engine that so perfectly regulates the supply of the required amount of blood to all organs of the body. She tried to scream to wake up John, who was on duty in their room. But John was tired of frequent calls, and in order to sleep peacefully for at least a few hours, contrary to the demands of Professor Kern, he sometimes turned off the air taps at his heads. Bricke opened her mouth like a fish pulled out of water and tried to scream, but her scream was no louder than the dying yawn of a fish... And the black shadows of the chimeras continued to wander around the room, the hellish flames illuminated their faces. They approached her and extended their terrible clawed paws. Bricke closed her eyes, but this did not help: she continued to see them.And strange: it seemed to her that her heart was freezing and chilling with horror.

"Lord, Lord, will you not forgive your servant, you are omnipotent", her lips moved silently, "your kindness is immeasurable". I sinned a lot, but am I to blame? After all, you know how it all turned out. I don’t remember my mother, there was no one to teach me goodness... I was starving. How many times have I asked you to come to my aid. "Don’t be angry, Lord, I’m not reproaching you," she continued fearfully her silent prayer, "I want to say that it’s not so much my fault.". And by your mercy, perhaps you will send me to purgatory... Not to hell! I will die of horror... How stupid I am, because people don’t die there! - And she began her naive prayers again.

Tom slept poorly too. But he was not haunted by the nightmares of hell. He was consumed by longing for earthly things. Just a few months ago, he left his native village, leaving there everything that was dear to his heart, taking with him on the road only a small bag of flatbreads and his dreams - to raise money in the city to buy a piece of land. And then he marries the red-cheeked, healthy Marie... Oh, then her father will not oppose their marriage.

And then everything collapsed... On the white wall of his unexpected prison, he saw a farm and saw a cheerful, healthy woman, so similar to Marie, milking a cow. But instead of him, Tom, some other man led through the yard, past a troublesome chicken with chickens, a horse that measuredly brushed off flies with its tail. And he, Tom, was killed, destroyed, and his head was raised on a stake, like a crow’s scarecrow. Where are his strong hands and healthy body? In despair, Toma squeaked his teeth. Then he cried quietly, and tears fell on the glass stand.

""What is this?" asked Laurent in surprise during the morning cleaning. -Where does this water come from?

Although the air valve had already been prudently turned on by John, Toma did not answer. He looked gloomily and unfriendly at Laurent, and when she retreated to Bricke’s head, he quietly wheezed after her:

-- Murderer! - He had already forgotten about the driver who crushed him and transferred all his anger to the people around him.

"What did you say, Toma?" - Laurent turned around, turning her head towards him. But Tom’s lips were already tightly compressed again, and his eyes looked at her with undisguised anger.

Laurent was surprised and wanted to ask John about the reason for her bad mood, but Bricke had already captured her attention.

'-Kindly scratch my nose on the right side. This helplessness is terrible... Isn't there a pimple? But why then does it itch like that? Please give me a mirror.

Laurent held the mirror to Bricquet's head.

--Turn right, I can't see. More... Like this. There is beauty. Perhaps anoint with cold cream?

Laurent patiently smeared cream.

--Like that. Now please powder it. Thank you... Laurent, I wanted to ask you about one thing...

-- Please.

"tell me, if... a very sinful person confesses to a priest and repents of his sins, can such a person receive absolution and go to heaven?

"of course it can", Laurent answered seriously.

"I’m so afraid of hellish torment... - Bricquet admitted. - - Please invite me to curate... I want to die a Christian...

And Bricke's head, with the air of a dying martyr, rolled its eyes up. Then she lowered them and exclaimed

--What an interesting style of your dress! Is this the latest fashion? You haven't brought me fashion magazines for a long time.

Bricke's thoughts returned to earthly interests.

-- Short hem... Beautiful legs benefit greatly with short skirts. My legs! My unfortunate legs! Have you seen them? Oh, when I danced, those legs drove men crazy!

Professor Kern entered the room.

"How are you?" he asked cheerfully.

"Listen, Mr. Professor", Bricke addressed him, "I can't do that"... you have to attach someone's body to me... I already asked you about this once and now I ask for more. I beg you very much. I'm sure that if only you want, you can do it...

"Damn it, why not?" - thought Professor Kern. Although he took full credit for reviving the human head, separated from the body, he was aware in his soul that this successful experience was entirely the merit of Professor Dowell. But why not go further than Dowell? To make one living person out of two dead people would be grandiose! And all the honor, given the success of the experience, would rightfully belong to Kern alone. However, some advice from Dowell's head could still be used. Yes, this should be thought about decisively.

"do you really want to dance again?" - Kern smiled and let a stream of cigar smoke into Brika’s head.

-- Do I want to? I will dance day and night. I will wave my arms like a windmill, I will flutter like a butterfly... Give me a body, young, beautiful female body!

"But why certainly a woman's?" asked Kern playfully. - If you only want, I can give you a man's body.

Bricke looked at him with surprise and horror.

-- A man's body? A woman's head on a man's body! No, no, it will be a terrible disgrace! It's hard to even come up with a suit...

"But then you’re no longer a woman.". You will turn into a man. Your mustache and beard will grow, and your voice will change. Don't you want to turn into a man? Many women regret that they were not born a man.

-"These are probably the kind of women that men didn't pay any attention to. Such people, of course, would benefit from becoming a man. But I... I don't need it. -- And Brique proudly pulled up her beautiful eyebrows.

--Well, let it be your way. You will remain a woman. I will try to find you a suitable body.

"Oh, professor, I will be eternally grateful to you.". Can I do this today? I can imagine the effect I will have when I return to Chanoir again...

--It's not done so soon.

Bricke continued to chat, but Kern had already moved away from her and turned to Tom:

--How are you, buddy?

Toma had not heard the professor talk to Bricke. Busy with his thoughts, he gloomily looked at Kern and did not answer.

Since Professor Kern promised to give Brick a new body, her mood has changed dramatically. Hellish nightmares no longer haunted her. She no longer thought about the afterlife. All her thoughts were absorbed in worries about the upcoming new earthly life. Looking in the mirror, she worried that her face had become thin and her skin had taken on a yellowish tint. She tormented Laurent by forcing her to curl her hair, do her hair and put makeup on her face.

"Professor, will I really remain so thin and yellow?" she asked Kerna with concern.

"you will become more beautiful than you were," he reassured her.

"No, you can’t help with paints here, it’s self-deception," she said after the professor left. - Mademoiselle Laurent, we will do cold washes and massages. I got new wrinkles in my eyes and from nose to lips. I think if you massage well, they will be destroyed. One of my friends... Oh yes, I forgot to ask you, did you find gray silk on the dress? The gray color suits me very well. Did they bring fashion magazines? Great! What a pity that you can’t do fittings yet. I don't know what kind of body I will have. It’s good that he gets taller, with narrow hips... Expand the log.

And she delved into the secrets of the beauty of women's outfits. Laurent did not forget about Professor Dowell's head. She still looked after her head and read in the morning, but there was no time left for conversations, and Laurent still wanted to talk about a lot with Dowell. She became increasingly overworked and nervous. Bricke's head did not give her a moment of peace. Sometimes Laurent would interrupt her reading and be forced to run to Bricquet's scream, only to straighten her lowered curl or answer whether Laurent was in a lingerie store.

"But you don’t know the size of your body," Laurent said, holding back her irritation, hastily straightening the curl on Bricke’s head and hurrying towards Dowell’s head.

The thought of producing a bold operation captured Kern.

Kern worked hard to prepare for this complex operation. He locked himself with Professor Dowell's head for a long time and talked with her. Kern could not do without Dowell's advice, no matter how hard he wanted. Dowell pointed out to him a number of difficulties that Kern did not think about and which could affect the outcome of the experiment, advised him to do several preliminary experiments on animals and supervised these experiments. And - such was the strength of Dowell's intelligence - he himself became extremely interested in the upcoming experience. Dowell's head seemed even refreshed. His thought worked with extraordinary clarity.

Kern was pleased and dissatisfied with Dowell's help so widely. The further the work progressed, the more convinced Kern was that without Dowell he would not have been able to cope with it.

And he could only console his pride with the fact that the implementation of this new experience would be carried out by him.

"you are a worthy successor to the late Professor Dowell", Dowell's head once said to him, with a barely perceptible ironic smile - Ah, if I could take a more active part in this work!

This was neither a request nor a hint. Dowell's head knew too well that Kern would not want to, would not dare to give her a new body.

Kern frowned, but pretended not to hear the exclamation.

So, experiments with animals were crowned with success," he said. - I operated on two dogs. Beheading them, he sewed the head of one to the body of the other. Both are alive, the stitches on their necks are fused.

"- Nutrition?" asked the head.

-- Still artificial. I give only a disinfectant solution with iodine through my mouth. But I’ll soon switch to normal nutrition.

A few days later, Kern announced:

--Dogs eat normally. The bandages have been removed, and I think in a day or two they will be able to run.

"wait for a week," the head advised. -Young dogs make sudden movements with their heads, and the seams may come apart. Don't force it. "You’ll have time to shake the laurels," my head wanted to add, but I held on. - And one more thing: keep the dogs in different rooms. The two of them will start a fuss and may harm themselves.

The day finally came when Professor Kern, with a solemn look, brought a dog with a black head and a white torso into Dowell's head room. The dog apparently felt good. Her eyes were alive, she waved her tail cheerfully. Seeing Professor Dowell's head, the dog suddenly ruffled its fur, grumbled and barked in a wild voice. The extraordinary sight apparently struck and frightened her.

"Show the dog around the room", said the head.

Kern walked around the room, leading the dog. Nothing escaped Dowell's trained, keen eye.

"What is this?" asked Dowell. - The dog falls a little on his back left leg. And the voice is not in order.

Kern was embarrassed.

"the dog was limping before the operation", he said, "the leg is broken".

--The deformity is not visible to the eye, and, alas, I cannot feel it. Could you find a pair of healthy dogs? - the head asked doubtfully in her voice. - I think you can be quite frank with me, dear colleague. Probably, the revitalization operation took a long time to tinker with and delayed too much the "death pause" of cardiac and respiratory arrest, and this, as you should know from my experiments, often leads to disruption of the functions of the nervous system. But calm down, such phenomena may disappear. Just try to prevent your Bricke from limping on both legs.

Kern was furious, but tried not to show it. He recognized the former Professor Dowell in his head - direct, demanding and self-confident.

"Outrageous!" thought Kern. - This head, hissing like a punctured tire, continues to teach me and mock my mistakes, and I am forced, like a schoolboy, to listen to her teachings... Turn the tap and the spirit will fly out of this rotten pumpkin..." However, instead, Kern, without betraying his mood, listened with attention to a few more tips.

"thank you for your instructions", said Kern, and nodding his head, left the room. Outside the doors he became cheerful again. "No", Kern consoled himself, "the work has been done perfectly". Pleasing Dowell is not easy. The dog's falling leg and wild voice are nothing compared to what's done'.

Passing through the room where Bricquet's head fit, he stopped and, pointing at the dog, said

-- Mademoiselle Bricquet, your wish will soon be fulfilled. Do you see this dog? She, just like you, was a head without a body, and look, she lives and runs as if nothing had happened.

""I’m not a dog," Bricke’s head answered offendedly.

"but this is a necessary experience.". If a dog comes to life in a new body, then you will come to life too.

"I don’t understand what the dog has to do with it," Bricke stubbornly repeated. -- I don't care about the dog. You better tell me when I'm alive. Instead of reviving me quickly, you are messing with some dogs.

Kern waved his hand hopelessly and, continuing to smile cheerfully, said

--Now soon. You just need to find a suitable corpse... that is, a body, and you will be in full shape, as they say.

Taking the dog away, Kern returned with a centimeter in his hands and carefully measured the circumference of Bricke's neck.

"Thirty-six centimeters," he said.

"God, have I lost so much weight?" cried Bricquet's head, "I had thirty-eight". And the size of the shoes I wear...

But Kern, without listening to her, quickly went to his place. Before he had time to sit down at his desk in the office, there was a knock on the door.

-- Enter.

The door opened. Laurent entered. She tried to stay calm, but her face was excited.

Vice and virtue

-- What's the matter? Did anything happen to your heads? - Kern asked, raising his head from the papers.

-- No... but I wanted to talk to you, Mr. Professor.

Kern leaned back in his chair.

"I’m listening to you, Mademoiselle Laurent.

"tell me, are you seriously considering giving Brick’s head a body or are you just consoling her?"

--Quite seriously.

-- And you hope for the success of this operation?

-- Quite. You saw the dog, right?

"Aren’t you thinking about Tom?" - Laurent began from afar.

--Why not? He already asked me about this. Not all at once.

"and Dowell..." - Laurent suddenly spoke quickly and excitedly: "Of course, everyone has the right to life, to a normal human life, both Tom and Bricke.". But you, of course, understand that the value of Professor Dowell's head is much higher than the rest of your heads... And if you want to return Tom and Bricke to a normal existence, then how much more important is it to return Professor Dowell's head to the same normal life.

Kern frowned. The whole expression on his face became wary and harsh.

"Professor Dowell, or rather his professor’s head, has found a wonderful defender in your face," he said, smiling ironically. - But there is probably no need for such a defender, and you are in vain getting excited and worried. Of course, I also thought about reviving Dowell's head.

'-But why don't you start the experience with it?

--Yes, precisely because Dowell's head is more valuable than a thousand other human heads. I started with a dog before giving Bricke's head a body. Bricke's head is as much more expensive than a dog's head as Dowell's head is more expensive than Bricke's head.

--The life of man and dog is incomparable, professor...

"just like the heads of Dowell and Bricke.". You don't have anything else to say?

"nothing, Mr. Professor", replied Laurent, on her way to the door.

"in that case, mademoiselle, I have some questions for you. Wait, mademoiselle.

Laurent stopped at the door, looking questioningly at Kern.

"I beg you, come to the table and sit down.".

Laurent sank into a deep chair with vague anxiety. Kern's face did not promise anything good. Kern leaned back in his chair and looked testily into Laurent's eyes for a long time until she lowered them. Then he quickly rose to his full height, rested his fists firmly on the table, tilted his head towards Laurent and asked quietly and impressively:

"tell me, didn't you activate the overhead tap on Dowell's head? Have you talked to him?

Laurent felt her fingertips cold. Thoughts swirled in her head. The anger that Kern aroused in her bubbled and was ready to break out.

"Should I tell him the truth or not?" - Laurent hesitated. Oh, what a pleasure it is to throw the word "murderer" in this man’s face, but such an open attack could ruin everything.

Laurent did not believe that Kern would give Dowell's head a new body. She already knew too much to believe such a possibility. And she dreamed of only one thing: to debunk Kern, who had appropriated the fruits of Dowell’s labors, in the eyes of society and solve his crime. She knew that Kern would stop at nothing, and by declaring herself open to his enemy, she put her life in danger. But it was not the feeling of self-preservation that stopped her. She didn't want to die before Kern's crime was solved. And for this you had to lie. But her conscience and her entire upbringing did not allow her to lie. Never before in her life had she lied and now she was experiencing terrible excitement.

Kern kept his eyes on her face.

"don't lie", he said mockingly, "don't burden your conscience with the sin of lying". You talked to your head, don't deny it, I know that. John overheard everything...

Laurent bowed her head and remained silent.

"I’m only interested in knowing what you were talking about?

Laurent felt the blood flow to her cheeks. She raised her head and looked straight into Kern's eyes.

--About everything.

"so", said Kern, without taking his hands off the table. - So I thought. About everything.

There was a pause. Laurent looked down again and now sat with the air of a man waiting for the verdict.

Kern suddenly quickly headed towards the door and locked it with a key. He walked several times along the soft carpet of the office, placing his hands behind his back. Then he silently approached Laurent and asked:

--So what do you think you'll do, sweet girl? Bring the bloodthirsty monster Kerna to justice? Smear his name in the mud? Expose his crime? Dowell probably asked you to?

"No, no", Laurent spoke fervently, forgetting all her fear, "I assure you that Professor Dowell's head is utterly devoid of a sense of vengeance". Oh, this is a noble soul! He even... dissuaded me. It's not like you, you can't judge by yourself! - She finished defiantly, her eyes sparkling.

Kern grinned and walked around the office again.

--Okay, so, great. This means that you still had revealing intentions, and if not for Dowell’s head, Professor Kern would already be in prison. If virtue cannot triumph, then at least vice must be punished. This is how all the virtuous novels you read ended, didn't it, sweet girl?

"and the vice will be punished!" she exclaimed, almost losing her will over her feelings.

"Oh, yes, of course, there in heaven." - Kern looked at the ceiling, lined with large black oak checkers. -- But here on earth, let it be known to you, a naive creature, vice triumphs, and only vice! And virtue... Virtue stands with an outstretched hand, begging for pennies from vice, or sticks out there," Kern pointed towards the room where Dowell’s head was, "like a crow’s scarecrow, thinking about the frailty of everything earthly.

And coming close to Laurent, he lowered his voice and said:

"you know that I can literally turn both you and Dowell’s head into ashes, and no soul will know about it.".

'-I know you're ready for anything...

-- Crime? And it’s very good that you know this. - Kern walked around the room again and continued to speak in an ordinary voice, as if reasoning out loud: "However, what do you order to do with you, beautiful avenger? Unfortunately, you are from that breed of people who stop at nothing and are ready to accept the crown of martyrdom for the sake of truth. You are fragile, nervous, impressionable, but you will not be intimidated. Kill you? Today, now? I will be able to cover up the traces of the murder, but I will still have to tinker with it. And my time is expensive. Bribe you? It's harder than intimidating you... Well, you say, what should I do with you?

--Leave it the way it was... after all, I haven’t reported you until now.

-- And you won't report?

Laurent slowed down with her answer, then answered quietly but firmly:

-- To Dones.

Kern stamped his foot.

-- Ooh, stubborn girl! So I'll tell you what. Sit down at my desk now... Don't be afraid, I'm not going to strangle or poison you yet. Well, sit down.

Laurent looked at him in bewilderment, thought and moved into a chair at the desk.

"I need you, after all.". If I kill you now, I'll have to hire a deputy or a deputy. I am not guaranteed that in your place there will not be some blackmailer who, having discovered the secret of Dowell’s head, will not suck money out of me in order to eventually denounce me. At least I know you... So write. "Dear mommy, - or what do you call your mother? - the condition of the patients I care for requires my constant presence in Professor Kern’s house..."

--Do you want to deprive me of my freedom? Detain in your house? - Laurent asked indignantly, without starting to write.

"That’s it, my virtuous assistant.".

"i will not write such a letter," Laurent said decisively.

"Enough!" - Kern suddenly shouted so loudly that the spring hummed in the clock. -- Understand that I have no other choice. Don't finally be stupid.

-- I won't stay with you and I won't write this letter!

-- Ah, so! It's good. You can go all four ways. But before you leave here, you will witness me take a life from Dowell's head and dissolve that head in chemical solution. Then go and shout all over the world that you saw Dowel's head on me. Nobody will believe you. They will laugh at you. But beware! I will not leave your denunciation without retribution. Let's go!

Kern grabbed Laurent's hand and dragged him to the door. She was too physically weak to resist this brutal onslaught.

Kern unlocked the door, quickly walked through Tom and Bricke's room and entered the room where Professor Dowell's head was.

Dowell's head looked at this unexpected visit with bewilderment. And Kern, not paying attention to his head, quickly approached the devices and sharply turned the tap from the blood supply cylinder.

The eyes of the head turned incomprehensibly but calmly towards the tap, then the head looked at Kern and the confused Laurent. The air tap was not open and the head could not speak. She just moved her lips, and Laurent, accustomed to the facial expressions of her head, realized: it was a silent question: "The end?"

Then the eyes of the head, fixed on Laurent, began to fade as if, and at the same time the eyelids opened wide, the eyeballs bulged, and the face began to twitch convulsively. My head was experiencing the pangs of suffocation.

Laurent shouted hysterically. Then, staggering, she approached Kern, clung to his hand and, almost losing consciousness, spoke in an interrupted voice, compressed by the spasm:

--Open, quickly turn on the tap... I agree to everything!

With a barely noticeable grin, Kern opened the tap. A life-giving jet flowed down the tube into Dowell's head. The convulsive twitching of the face stopped, the eyes took on a normal expression, and the gaze brightened. The fading life returned to Dowell's head. Consciousness also returned, because Dowell looked at Laurent again with an expression of bewilderment and, as if even disappointment. Laurent staggered with excitement.

"let me offer you a hand", said Kern gallantly, and the strange couple withdrew.

When Laurent sat down at the table again, Kern said as if nothing had happened:

'-So where did we stop? Yes... "The condition of the patients requires my constant, - or not, write: inexistent stay in the house of Professor Kern. Professor Kern was so kind that he put at my disposal a beautiful room with a window to the garden. Also, as my workday has increased, then Professor Kern has tripled my salary'.

Laurent looked at Kern reproachfully.

"It is not a lie", said he, "necessity makes me take away your liberty, but I must reward you with something". I'm really increasing your salary. Write further: "The care here is wonderful, and although there is a lot of work, I feel great. Don't come to me: the professor doesn't host anyone. But don't be bored, I'll write to you..." So. Well, add some more tenderness on your own that you usually write so that the letter does not arouse any suspicion.

And, as if having already forgotten about Laurent, Kern began to think out loud:

"This can’t continue for long. But I hope I won't keep you long. Our work comes to an end, and then... That is, I wanted to say that the head is short-lived. And when she ends her existence... Well, what's there, you know everything. It’s easier to say that when Dowell and I finish our work, the existence of Dowell’s head will end. Not even ashes will remain from your head, and then you can return to your respected mother. You won't be dangerous to me anymore. And once again: keep in mind, if you decide to chat, I have witnesses who, if necessary, will show under oath that the mortal remains of Professor Dowell, along with his head, legs and other professorial attributes, were burned by me after an anatomical autopsy in the crematorium. For these cases, a crematorium is a very convenient thing.

Kern called. John came in.

"John, you take Mademoiselle Laurent to the white room facing the garden.". Mademoiselle Laurent is moving into my house because there is a lot of work ahead now. Ask mademoiselle what she needs to get comfortable and get everything she needs. You can order on my behalf by phone in stores. I'll pay the bills. Don't forget to order lunch for Mademoiselle.

And, bowing away, Kern left.

John escorted Laurent to the room allotted to her.

Kern didn't lie: the room was really very nice - bright, spacious and comfortably furnished. A huge window overlooked the garden. But the darkest prison could not bring more melancholy to Laurent than this cheerful, elegant room. As a seriously ill woman, Laurent reached the window and looked into the garden.

"The second floor... high... you can’t run away from here..." - she thought. Yes, even if she could have run away, she would not have run away, since her flight would have been tantamount to a death sentence for Dowell’s head.

Laurent, exhausted, sank onto the couch and plunged into heavy thought. She could not determine how long she had been in this state.

"It’s served to eat," she heard John’s voice as if through a dream and raised her tired eyelids.

"Thank you, I’m not hungry, take it off the table.".

The well-trained servant unquestioningly carried out the order and left.

And she again plunged into her thoughts. When the lights flashed in the window of the opposite house, she felt such loneliness that she decided to visit her heads immediately. She especially wanted to see Dowell's head.

Laurent's unexpected visit made Bricquet's head extremely happy.

"finally!" she exclaimed. - Already? Did you bring it?

-- What?

"my body," said Bricke in such a tone as if the question was about a new dress.

"No, they haven’t brought it yet," Laurent answered, smiling involuntarily. - But they will bring it soon, now you won’t have long to wait.

-- Ah, hurry up!..

"Will they also sew another body on me?" asked Tom.

"Yes, of course," Laurent reassured him. -- And you will be as healthy and strong as you were. You will raise money, go to your village and marry your Marie.

Laurent already knew all the hidden desires of the head.

Tom smacked his lips.

-- Rather.

Laurent hurried to the room of Dowell's head. As soon as the overhead crane was open, Laurent's head asked

--What does all this mean?

Laurent told her head about her conversation with Kern and her imprisonment.

"This is outrageous!" said the head. - If only I could help you... And I probably can, if only you yourself help me...

There was anger and determination in the eyes of the head.

--It's very simple. Close the tap from the feed pipes and I will die. Believe me, I was even disappointed when Kern reopened the tap and revived me. I'll die and Kern will let you go home.

"I will never return home at this price!" cried Laurent.

"I would like to have all the eloquence of Cicero to convince you to do this.".

Laurent shook her head negatively.

"even Cicero wouldn’t convince me.". I will never dare to end a person's life...

"Well, am I a human being?" asked the head with a sad smile.

"remember, you yourself repeated Descartes' words:" I think. Therefore, I exist," Laurent replied.

--Suppose it is, but then this is what. I'll stop instructing Kern. And no more torture will he force me to help him. And then he will finish me off himself.

"No, no, I beg you." - Laurent came to her head. -- Listen to me. I used to think about revenge, now I think about something else. If Kern manages to put the body of the corpse to Bricke’s head and the operation goes well, then there is hope to bring you back to life... Not Kern, but different.

"Unfortunately, this hope is very weak," answered Dowell. -It’s unlikely that even Kern will succeed. He is an evil and criminal man, vain as a thousand Herostrati. But he is a talented surgeon and perhaps the most capable of all the assistants I have had. If he, who has used my advice to this day, does not do this, then no one will do it. However, I doubt that he would have performed this unprecedented operation.

-- But dogs...

--Dogs are a different matter. Both dogs, alive and well, were lying on the same table before performing the head transplant operation. All this happened very quickly. And even then, Kern, apparently, managed to bring only one dog back to life, otherwise he would have brought them both to me to brag. And the body of the corpse can be brought only after a few hours, when, perhaps, the rotting processes have already begun. You can judge the complexity of the operation itself as a doctor. It's not like sewing on a half-cut finger. All arteries, veins and, most importantly, nerves and spinal cord must be tied up and carefully sutured, otherwise you will get a cripple; then resume blood circulation... No, this is an infinitely difficult task, impossible for modern surgeons.

--Wouldn't you have done such an operation yourself?

"I’ve thought about everything, I’ve already done experiments with dogs, and I think I could do it...

The door suddenly opened. Kern stood on the threshold.

-- Conspirators' meeting? I won't bother you. -- And he slammed the door.

Dead Diana

It seemed to Bricke’s head that picking up and sewing a new body to a person’s head was as easy as trying on and sewing a new dress. The volume of the neck has been removed, all that remains is to select the same volume of the neck from the corpse.

However, she soon became convinced that the matter was not so simple. In the morning, Professor Kern, Laurent and John came to her in white coats. Kern directed that Bricke's head be carefully removed from the glass stand and placed face up so that the entire neck slice could be seen. The supply of oxygenated blood to the head did not stop. Kern delved into study and measurements.

"For all the monotony of human anatomy", said Kern, "each human body has its own individual characteristics". Sometimes it is difficult to distinguish whether, for example, the external or internal carotid artery is present. The thickness of the artery and the width of the windpipe are also unequal, even in people with the same neck volume. You will have to tinker with your nerves a lot.

"But how will you operate?" asked Laurent. -- By placing a cut of the neck to the cut of the torso, you will immediately cover the entire surface of the cut.

--That's the point. Dowell and I have worked through this issue. You will have to make a whole series of longitudinal sections - go from the center to the periphery. This is a very difficult job. You will have to make fresh sections on the neck of the head and corpse in order to get to the not yet dead, vital cells. But this is not the main difficulty. The main thing is how to destroy the products of rotting or places of infectious infection in the body of a corpse, how to clean the blood vessels of coagulated blood, fill them with fresh blood and force the body’s "motor" to work - the heart... What about the spinal cord? The slightest touch to it causes a strong reaction, often with the most severe consequences.

-- And how do you expect to overcome all these difficulties?

-- Oh, for now, it's my secret. When the experience succeeds, I will publish the entire story of the resurrection from the dead. Well, that's enough for today. Put your head in place. Let the air stream in. How are you feeling, mademoiselle? - Kern asked, turning to Bricke’s head.

--Thank you, all right. But look, Mr. Professor, I'm very concerned... You talked about various incomprehensible things here, but one thing I realized is that you are going to shred my neck up and down. After all, this will be a complete disgrace. Where will I show myself with a neck that looks like a cutlet?

"I’ll try to keep the scars less visible.". But, of course, it will not be possible to completely hide traces of the operation. Don't make desperate eyes, mademoiselle, you can wear a velvet or even a necklace around your neck. So be it, I will give it to you on the day of your "birth". Yes, here's another thing. Now your head has shrunk somewhat. When you live a normal life, your head should replenish. To find out your normal neck volume, you will have to "feed" you now, otherwise troubles may occur.

"But I can’t eat," the head answered pitifully.

"We’ll feed you a tube.". "I have prepared a special composition," he turned to Laurent. - In addition, the blood supply will have to be strengthened.

--Do you include fatty substances in the nutrient fluid?

Kern made an indefinite hand gesture.

"if your head doesn’t get fat, it will swell," and that’s what we need. So," he finished, "the most important thing remains: pray to God, Mademoiselle Briquet, that some beauty who will lend you her beautiful body after death will quickly perish.".

--Don't say that, it's terrible! A person must die for me to get the body... And, doctor, I'm afraid. After all, this is the body of a dead man. What if she comes and demands to give her her body?

--Who is she?

-- Dead.

"But she won’t have legs to come," Kern answered, laughing. - "And if she comes, you will tell her that it was you who gave her body the head, and not she who gave you the body, and she, of course, will be grateful for this gift. I'm going to the morgue on duty. Wish me luck!

The success of the experience depended largely on finding a possibly fresh corpse, and so Kern dropped everything and almost moved to the morgue, waiting for a lucky break.

With a cigar in his mouth, he walked through the long building as calmly as if he were walking along the boulevards. Matte light fell from the ceiling onto long rows of marble tables. On each table lay a corpse, already washed with a stream of water and undressed.

With his hands in his coat pockets and puffing on a cigar, Kern walked around long rows of tables, looked into faces and lifted leather blankets from time to time to examine his body.

Relatives or friends of the dead people also walked with him. Kern treated them unkindly, fearing that they would snatch a suitable corpse from under his hands. Getting a corpse for Kern wasn't that easy. Before the expiration of the three-day period, relatives could claim rights to each corpse, but after three days the half-decomposed corpse was of no interest to Kern. He needed a completely fresh, if possible even uncooled corpse.

Kern did not skimp on bribes to be able to obtain a fresh corpse immediately. The number of the corpse could be replaced, and some loser would eventually be registered as "missing".

"However, it’s not easy to find Diana to Bricke’s taste," Kern thought, looking at the wide feet and calloused hands of the corpses. Most of those lying here were not those who drive cars. The core went from end to end. During this time, several corpses were identified and taken away, and new ones were already being dragged into their places. But even among the newcomers, Kern could not find the material suitable for the operation. There were corpses without a head, but either of unsuitable build, or with wounds on the body, or, finally, beginning to decompose. The day was running out. Kern felt bouts of hunger and happily imagined chicken cutlets in steaming peas.

"Bad day", thought Kern, taking out his watch. And he headed towards the exit among the crowd moving near the corpses, full of despair, melancholy and horror. Employees carried the corpse of a woman without a head towards him. The washed young body shone like white marble.

"Oh, this is something suitable," he thought and followed the guards. When the corpse was laid, Kern briefly examined it and became even more convinced that he had found what was needed. Kern was about to whisper to the employees to carry away the corpse, when suddenly a poorly dressed old man with a mustache and beard that had not been shaved for a long time approached the corpse.

"here she is, Martha!" cried he, and wiped the sweat from his forehead with his hand.

"Damn him!" - Kern got out and, approaching the old man, said:

--You identified the corpse? After all, he has no head.

The old man pointed to a large mole on his left shoulder.

"notable," he replied.

Kern was surprised that the old man spoke so calmly.

"Who was she?" Your wife or daughter?

"god is merciful", replied the talkative old man. - she was my niece, and not my own. There are three of them left from my cousin," my cousin died, and they are on my neck. I have four of my own. Need. But what will you do, sir? After all, they’re not kittens, you can’t throw them under the fence. That's how they lived. And then a misfortune happened. We live in an old house, we were evicted from it a long time ago, but where can you go? And now they made it. The roof collapsed. The rest of the children escaped with bruises, but this head was completely cut off. The old woman and I were not at home; she and I sell fried chestnuts. I came home, and Martha had already been taken to the morgue. And why go to the morgue? They say that for company, people were also suppressed in other apartments, and some of them were lonely, here they are all. I came home, fuit, and I can’t enter, like an earthquake.

"It's the right thing to do", thought Kern, and taking the old man aside, he said to him

--What happened, you can't fix it. See, I'm a doctor and I need a dead body. I'll speak directly. If you want to get a hundred francs, you can go home.

"will you gut it?" - The old man shook his head disapprovingly and thought. - She, of course, will still disappear... We are poor people... But still, it’s not someone else’s blood...

-- Two hundred.

-- And the need is great, the kids are hungry... but still pathetic... She was a good girl, very good, very kind, and her face was like a rose, not like this rubbish... - The old man waved disdainfully at the tables with corpses.

"Well, old man! He seems to be starting to praise his merchandise," Kern thought and decided to change tactics.

"however, whatever you want," he said casually. -- There are a lot of corpses here, and there are no worse than your niece. -- And Kern walked away from the old man.

"no, how can that be, let me think about it..." - the old man followed him, clearly leaning towards a deal.

Kern had already triumphed, but the situation suddenly changed again.

"Are you here yet?" an excited senile voice was heard.

Kern turned around and saw a plump old woman in a clean white cap quickly approaching. The old man involuntarily grunted at the sight of her.

"Did you find it?" asked the old lady, looking around wildly and whispering prayers.

The old man silently pointed to the corpse.

"You are our dove, unfortunate martyr!" cried the old woman, approaching the headless corpse.

Kern saw that it would be difficult to deal with the old woman.

"Listen, madam", said he affably, addressing the old woman. - I was talking to your husband here and found out that you are in great need.

"whether we need it or not, we don’t ask others," the old woman snapped, not without pride.

'-Yes, but... you see, I'm a member of a charitable funeral society. I can accept your niece's funeral at the expense of society and take all the trouble upon myself. If you want, you can entrust this to me, and go to your own business, your children and orphans are waiting for you.

"What are you talking about?" - the old woman attacked her husband. And, turning to Kern, she said: "Thank you, sir, but I must do everything as expected.". Somehow we can cope without your charitable society. What are you turning your eyes around? - she switched to the usual tone in a conversation with her husband. - Take the dead woman. Let's go. I brought a car too.

All this was said in such a decisive tone that Kern bowed dryly and walked away.

"It's a shame! No, it’s definitely a bad day.".

He went to the exit and, taking the gatekeeper aside, quietly said to him

"So see if there's anything suitable, call me on the phone immediately.

"O sir, surely", nodded the gatekeeper, who had received a good jackpot from Kern.

Kern had a hearty lunch at the restaurant and returned to his place.

When he entered Bricquet's room, she met him with the usual question of late:

-- Found it?

"I found it, but it’s bad, damn it!" - he answered. -Be patient.

"But was there really nothing suitable?" - Bricke did not let up.

"There were these crooked-legged cuttlefish." If you want, then I...

"Oh no, I’d rather be patient.". I don't want to be a cuttlefish.

Kern decided to go to bed earlier than usual so that he could get up early and go to the morgue again. But before he had time to fall asleep, the phone crackled by the bed. Kern got out and picked up the phone.

-- Hello! I'm listening. Yes, Professor Kern. What is it? A train crash near the station itself? Mass of corpses? Well, yes, of course, immediately. Thank you.

Kern began to dress quickly, called John and shouted

-- A car!

Fifteen minutes later he was already racing through the streets at night, like a fire.

The gatekeeper did not deceive The night death reaped a great harvest. The corpses were dragged continuously. All the tables were flooded. Soon I had to put them on the floor. Kern was delighted. He blessed fate because this disaster did not happen during the day. The news of her had probably not yet spread in the city. There were no strangers in the morgue yet. Kern looked at the corpses that had not yet been undressed or washed. They were all completely fresh. An extremely successful case. One bad thing is that this beneficial incident did not really take into account Kern’s special requirements. Most of the bodies were crushed or damaged in many places. But Kern did not lose hope, as the corpses kept coming.

"show me this one," he turned to the employee carrying the corpse of a girl in a gray suit. The skull was broken from the back of the head. Hair is bloody, and so is the dress. But the dress is not wrinkled. "Apparently the body damage is not great... It's coming. The physique is rather plebeian, "probably some lady of the bedchamber, but a body like this is better than nothing", thought Kern "And this?" - Kern pointed to the other stretchers. -Yes, this is a whole find! Treasure! Damn it, it’s still a shame that such a woman died!

The corpse of a young woman with an unusually beautiful aristocratic face, on which only one deep surprise froze, was lowered to the floor. Her skull was pierced above her right ear. Obviously, death occurred instantly. A pearl necklace was visible on the white neck. The graceful black silk dress was only slightly torn at the bottom and from the gate to the shoulder. A mole was visible on the exposed shoulder.

"Like that one," Kern thought. "But this is... what beauty!" - Kern quickly measured his neck. - "As if ordered.".

Kern tore off an expensive necklace of real large pearls, threw it to the employees, and said

"I’m taking this corpse.". But since I don’t have time to carry out a thorough examination of the corpses here, just in case I take this one too," he pointed to the girl’s first corpse. - Rather, rather. Wrap them in canvas and take them out. Do you hear? The crowd is gathering. You have to open the morgue, and in a few minutes there will be real pandemonium.

The corpses were carried away, placed on a car and quickly transported to Kern's house.

Everything necessary for the operation had already been prepared in advance. Day, or rather the night of Bricke's resurrection, has arrived. Kern didn't want to waste a single minute.

Both corpses were washed and brought to Briquet's room wrapped in sheets and placed on the operating table.

Bricke's head was eager to look at his new body, but Kern deliberately set the table so that his head would not see the corpses until all preparations were completed.

Kern quickly performed a cross-section of the heads of the corpses. These heads were wrapped in canvas and carried out by John, the edges of the cut and the table were washed, the bodies were put in order.

After examining the bodies again critically, Kern shook his head with concern. The body with a mole on the shoulder was of impeccable beauty of shape and was especially advantageous compared to the body of the "chamber girl" - wide-boned, angular, poorly tailored, but tightly sewn. Bricke, of course, will choose the body of this aristocratic Diana. However, upon careful examination of the body, Kern noticed some defect in Diana, as he called her: there was a small wound on the foot of her right leg, caused by some piece of iron. This did not pose a great danger. Kern burned the wound; there was no reason to fear blood poisoning yet. But still, he was calmer for the success of the operation with the body of the "chamber maid".

"turn Bricke's head", said Kern, addressing Laurent. To prevent Bricke from being disturbed by her talkativeness during preparatory work, she was gagged, that is, the compressed air cylinder was turned off. - Now you can launch an air stream.

When Bricquet's head saw the corpses, she screamed as if she had been unexpectedly burned. Her eyes widened in horror. One of these corpses should become her own body. For the first time, she acutely, painfully felt the extraordinary nature of this operation and began to hesitate.

-- Well, what are you doing? How do you like tru... these bodies?

-- I'm... I'm afraid... - - my head wheezed. -- No, no, I didn't think it was so scary... I don't want to...

-- Don't you want to? In that case, I'll sew Tom's head to the corpse. Tom will become a woman. Do you want, Tom, to get the body now?

"No, wait", Bricke's head was frightened. -I agree. I want to have that body... with a mole on the shoulder.

"and I advise you to choose this one. It's not so beautiful, but without a single scratch.

"I’m not a laundress, but an artist," Bricke’s head proudly remarked. - I want to have a beautiful body. And a mole on the shoulder... Men like it so much.

"let it be your way", replied Kern "Mademoiselle Laurent, move Mademoiselle Bricquet's head to the operating table". Do this carefully, artificial circulation of the head should continue until the last moment.

Laurent fiddled with the final preparations of Bricquet's head. Extreme tension and excitement were written on Bricke's face. When the head was transferred to the table, Bricke could not stand it and suddenly screamed in a way that she had never screamed before:

-- Don't want to! I do not want! Don't! Better kill me! I'm afraid! Ah-ah-ah!..

Kern, without interrupting his work, shouted sharply to Laurent:

-- Close the air tap quickly! Inject hedonal into the nutrient solution and she will fall asleep.

-- No, no, no!

The tap closed, my head fell silent, but I continued to move my lips and look with an expression of horror and supplication.

"mr. Professor, can we perform an operation against her will?" asked Laurent.

"Now is not the time to deal with ethical issues," Kern answered dryly. -She will thank us later. Do your thing or leave and don't bother me.

But Laurent knew that she could not leave - without her help, the outcome of the operation would have been even more doubtful. And she, having overpowered herself, continued to help Kern. Bricke's head was beating so hard that the tubes almost came out of the blood vessels. John came to the rescue and held his head with his hands. Gradually, the twitching of the head stopped, the eyes closed: the hedonal produced its action.

Professor Kern began the operation.

The silence was interrupted only by short orders from Kern, who demanded one or another surgical instrument. The tension on Kern even swelled the veins on his forehead. He used all his brilliant surgical technique, combining speed with extraordinary care and care. For all her hatred of Kern, Laurent could not help but admire him at that moment. He worked like an inspired artist. His deft sensitive fingers performed miracles.

The operation lasted an hour and fifty-five minutes.

"Of course", said Kern at last, straightening up, "from now on, Bricquet ceased to be the head of the body". All that remains is to blow her life: make her heart beat, excite blood circulation. But I can handle this alone. You can rest, Mademoiselle Laurent.

""I can still work", she replied.

Despite her fatigue, she was eager to watch the last act of this extraordinary operation. But Kern apparently did not want to let her in on the mystery of animation. He once again persistently offered her a rest, and Laurent obeyed.

Kern called her again an hour later. He looked even more tired, but his face expressed deep self-satisfaction.

"try your pulse", he suggested to Laurent.

The girl, not without an inner shudder, took Bricke’s hand; by the hand that just three hours ago belonged to a cold corpse. The hand was already warm, and the beat of the pulse was felt. Kern put a mirror to Bricke's face. The surface of the mirror is foggy.

-- Breathes. Now we need to swaddle our newborn well. She will have to lie completely motionless for several days.

Over the bandages, Kern placed a plaster splint on Bricke's neck. The whole body was swaddled and the mouth was tightly tied.

"So that she doesn’t even think about talking," Kern explained. - "For the first 24 hours we will keep her sleepy if her heart allows it.".

Briquet was moved to a room adjacent to Laurent's, carefully put into bed and subjected to electro-anesthesia.

--We'll feed it artificially until the seams are fused. You'll have to look after her.

Only on the third day did Kern allow Brick to "come to his senses.".

It was four o'clock in the afternoon. A slanting ray of sun cut through the room and illuminated Bricquet's face. She easily moved her eyebrows and opened her eyes. Still vaguely thinking, she looked at the illuminated window, then turned her gaze to Laurent and finally lowered her eyes down. There was no longer emptiness there. She saw a faintly swaying chest and body, her body covered with a sheet. A faint smile lit up her face.

"Don't try to talk and lie quietly", said Laurent. -The operation went very well, and now it all depends on how you behave. The calmer you lie down, the sooner you will rise to your feet. For now, we will explain ourselves with facial expressions. If you lower your eyelids down, it will mean "yes", up - "no". Do you feel pain anywhere? Here. Neck and leg. It will pass. Do you want to drink? Is there?

Briquet did not feel hungry, but was thirsty. Laurent called Kern. He immediately came from his office.

"Well, how is the newborn feeling?" - He examined her and was pleased. - Everything is fine. Patience, mademoiselle, and you will dance soon. - He made several orders and left.

The days of "recovery" dragged on very slowly for Briquet. She was an exemplary patient: she restrained her impatience, lay calmly and followed all orders. The day came when she was finally cut up, but was not yet allowed to speak.

"Do you feel your body?" asked Kern with some excitement.

Bricke lowered her eyelids.

--Try moving your toes very carefully.

Briquet apparently tried it, as there was tension on her face, but her fingers did not move.

"obviously, the functions of the central nervous system have not yet been fully restored," Kern said authoritatively, "but I hope that they will soon recover, and with them the movement will be restored." - I thought to myself: "Lest Bricke really limps on both legs.".

"It will recover - how strange this word sounds," Laurent thought, remembering the cold corpse on the operating table.

Bricke has a new concern. Now she spent hours trying to move her toes. Laurent followed this with almost less interest.

And one day Laurent cried out joyfully:

-- It's moving! The big toe on my left foot is moving.

Then things went faster. Other fingers and toes began to move. Soon Bricke could raise her arms and legs a little.

Laurent was amazed. A miracle happened before her eyes.

"No matter how criminal Kern is," she thought, "he is an extraordinary person. True, without Dowell's head he would not have succeeded in this double resurrection of the dead. But still, Kern himself is a talented person - after all, this was also stated by Dowell’s head. Oh, if only Kern would resurrect him too! But no, he won't do it'.

A few more days later, Brika was allowed to speak. She turned out to have a rather pleasant voice, but a somewhat breaking timbre.

"he’ll get better," Kern assured. -You’ll still sing.

And Bricke soon tried to sing. Laurent was very amazed by this singing. Bricke hit the top notes in a rather squeaky and not very pleasant voice; in the middle register the voice sounded very dull and even hoarse. But the bottom notes were charming. It was an excellent breast contralto.

"After all, the throat ligaments lie above the cut of the neck and belong to Bricquet," Laurent thought, "where does this double voice, different timbres of the upper and lower registers come from? A physiological mystery. Doesn't this depend on the process of rejuvenating Bricke's head, which is older than her new body? Or perhaps this has something to do with dysfunction of the central nervous system? Completely incomprehensible... It is interesting to know whose young, graceful body this is, what unfortunate head it belonged to..."

Laurent, without saying anything to Briquet, began looking through the issues of newspapers that published lists of those killed in the train crash. Soon she came across a note that the famous Italian artist Angelica Guy, who was traveling on the train that crashed, disappeared without a trace. Her body was not found, and newspaper correspondents were sophisticated in solving this mystery. Laurent was almost sure that Briquet's head received the body of the deceased artist.

Runaway exhibit

Finally, a great day came in Bricke's life. Her last bandages were removed and Professor Kern allowed her to stand up.

She stood up and, leaning on Laurent's hand, walked around the room. Her movements were uncertain and somewhat impetuous. Sometimes she made strange gestures with her hand: to a certain extent, her hand moved smoothly, then there was a delay and a seemingly forced movement, which again turned into a smooth one.

"all this will pass," Kern said with conviction. The only thing that bothered him a little was a small wound on Bricke’s foot. The wound healed slowly. But over time, she also healed so much that Bricke did not experience pain, even stepping on her sore leg. And a few days later Bricke was already trying to dance.

"I don’t understand what’s going on," she said, "some movements are given to me freely, while others are difficult.". I'm probably not used to controlling my new body yet... And it's great! Look at your feet, Mademoiselle Laurent. And the growth is excellent. Except these scars on the neck... We'll have to close them. But this mole on the shoulder is charming, isn’t it? I will sew a dress in such a style that it is visible... No, I'm absolutely happy with my body.

"With your body!" thought Laurent. -- Poor Angelica Guy!"

Everything that Bricke had held back in herself for so long broke out at once. She bombarded Laurent with demands, orders, requests for suits, underwear, shoes, hats, fashion magazines, and cosmetics supplies.

Wearing a new gray silk dress, she was introduced by Kern to Professor Dowell's head. And since it was a man’s head, Bricke could not help but flirt. And she was very flattered when Dowell’s head wheezed:

-- Great! You did an excellent job, colleague, congratulations!

And Kern, arm in arm with Bricke, beaming like a newlywed, left the room.

"Sit down, mademoiselle", said Kern gallantly as they came to his study.

"I don’t know how I can thank you, Mr. Professor," she said, lowering her eyes languidly and then glancing coquettishly at Kern. -- You have done so much for me... And I can't reward you with anything.

--That's not necessary. I'm rewarded more than you think.

"I’m very happy." -And Bricke looked at Kern with an even more radiant look. -Now let me leave... discharge from the hospital.

-- How to leave? From which hospital? - Kern didn’t even understand right away.

-- Go home. I can imagine what a sensation my appearance among my friends will create!

She's going to leave! Kern did not allow the thought of this. He did a lot of work, solved a very difficult task, did the impossible not at all so that Bricke would make a splash among her frivolous friends. He himself wanted to make a splash by demonstrating to the learned society with Bricquet. Subsequently, he may give her some freedom, but now there is nothing to think about it.

"Unfortunately, I cannot let you go, Mademoiselle Briquet. You must remain in my house for some time, under my supervision.

-- But why? "I feel great," she objected, playing with her hand.

-- Yeah, but you might get worse.

'-I'll come to you then.

"let me know better when it will be possible for you to leave here", said Kern, already abruptly. - Don't forget what you would be without me.

"I already thanked you for that.". But I am not a girl or a slave and I can control myself!

"Wow, she has character!" - Kern thought with surprise.

"Well, we'll talk more about that", he said. -In the meantime, please go to your room. John probably already brought you some broth.

Bricke pouted her lips, got up and, without looking at Kern, came out.

Briquet dined with Laurent in her room. When Briquet entered, Laurent was already sitting at the table. Bricke sat down on a chair and made a careless, graceful gesture with her right hand. Laurent noticed this gesture more than once and reflected on who it actually belongs to: the body of Angelique Guy or Bricquet? But couldn’t the automaticity of movements, somehow fixed in the motor nerves, remain in Angelica Guy’s body?..

For Laurent, all these questions were too complicated.

"The physiologists will probably be interested in them," she thought.

-- Broth again! "I’m tired of these hospital dishes," Bricquet said capriciously. - "I would love to eat a dozen oysters now and wash it down with a glass of chablis." "She took a few sips of broth from the cup and continued: "Professor Kern told me now that he won’t let me leave the house for a few more days.". No matter how it is! I'm not a pet bird breed. Here you can die of melancholy. No, I love living in such a way that everything spins like a wheel. Lights, music, flowers, champagne...

Continuously chattering, Bricke had a quick lunch, got up from her chair and, approaching the window, looked down carefully.

"Good night, Mademoiselle Laurent", said she, turning around. -I'll go to bed early today. Please don't wake me up tomorrow morning. In this house, sleep is the best pastime.

And, nodding her head, she went into her room.

And Laurent sat down to write a letter to her mother.

All letters were controlled by Kern. Laurent knew how strictly he monitored her, and therefore did not even try to send any letter without his censorship.

However, in order not to worry her mother, she decided - even if she could send the letter without Kern's censorship - not to write her the truth about her involuntary imprisonment.

That night Laurent slept especially poorly. She tossed and turned in bed for a long time, thinking about the future. Her life was in danger. What will Kern do to "neutralize" her?

Apparently Brika couldn’t sleep either. There was some rustling coming from her room.

"Trying on new dresses," Laurent thought. Then everything calmed down. Vaguely, through sleep, Laurent heard a seemingly drowned out scream and woke up. "However, my nerves are no good," she thought and fell asleep again in a deep pre-morning sleep.

She woke up, as always, at seven o'clock in the morning. Bricke's room was still quiet. Laurent decided not to disturb her and went into Tom's head room. Tom's head was still gloomy. After Kern "sewn the body" onto Bricke’s head, Tom’s melancholy intensified. He asked, begged, demanded that he also be given a new body as soon as possible, and finally cursed rudely. Laurent had to work hard to calm him down. She breathed a sigh of relief after finishing the morning toilet of Tom's head and headed to the room of Dowell's head, who greeted Laurent with a friendly smile.

"This is a strange thing - life!" said Dowell's head. - Until recently I wanted to die. But my brain continues to work, and just the third day I came up with an unusually bold and original idea. If I could implement my thought, it would create a whole revolution in medicine. I communicated my idea to Kern, and you should have seen how his eyes lit up. He probably imagined a lifetime monument erected by grateful contemporaries... And so I must live for him, for the idea, and therefore for myself. Really, this is some kind of trap.

--And what is this idea?

--I'll tell you someday when all this takes shape more in my brain...

At nine o'clock Laurent decided to knock on Bricquet's door, but received no answer. Worried, Laurent tried to open the door, but it was locked from the inside. Laurent had no choice but to report all this to Professor Kern.

Kern acted quickly and decisively, as always.

"Break down the door!" he ordered John. The black man hit him with his shoulder. The heavy door cracked and fell off its hinges. Kern, Laurent and John entered the room.

Bricke's crumpled bed was empty. Kern ran to the window. A string of torn sheets and two towels descended from the frame handle. The flowerbed under the window was crumpled.

"This is your trick!" cried Kern, turning his formidable face toward Laurent.

"I assure you that I did not take any part in Mademoiselle Briquet’s escape," Laurent said firmly.

"Well, we’ll talk to you again," Kern replied, although Laurent’s decisive answer immediately convinced him that Briquet acted without accomplices. - Now we need to take care of catching the fugitive.

Kern walked into his office and walked in excitement from the fireplace to the table. His first thought was to call the police. But he immediately abandoned this thought. The police should have been the least involved. We'll have to turn to private detective agencies.

"Hell, it's my own fault... It was necessary to take security measures. But who would have thought. Yesterday's corpse - - ran away! - Kern laughed angrily. - And now, why the hell will she talk about everything that happened to her... After all, she was talking about the sensation that her appearance would create... This story will reach newspaper correspondents, and then... Shouldn't have shown it to Dowell's head... It caused trouble. Thank you!"

Kern called an agent of a private detective office by phone, handed him a large sum for expenses, promising even more money in the event of a successful search, and gave a detailed description of the missing person.

The agent examined the escape site and the tracks leading to the iron fence of the garden. The fence was high and ended in sharp rods. The agent shook his head: "Well done girl!" On one rod he noticed a piece of gray silk, took it off and carefully placed it in his wallet.

"she was wearing this dress on the day of her escape.". We will look for a woman in gray.

And, assuring Kern that he would find the "woman in gray" no later than in a day, the agent left.

The detective was an experienced man in his field. He found out the address of Briquet’s last apartment and the addresses of several of her former friends, made an acquaintance with them, found a photographic card of Briquet from one of her friends, and found out which cabarets Briquet performed in. Several agents were sent around these cabarets in search of the fugitive.

"the bird won’t fly far," the detective said confidently.

However, this time he was wrong. Two days passed, and Bricke was unable to get on the trail. Only on the third day of the search did a regular at a zucchini in Montmartre tell the agent that on the night of the escape there was a "resurrected" Briquet. But no one knew where she then disappeared.

Kern was increasingly worried. Now he feared not only that Bricke would talk about his secrets. He was afraid of losing a valuable "exhibit" forever. True, he could have made the second one out of Tom’s head, but it took time, a colossal expenditure of effort. And the new experience could not have ended so brilliantly. Showing a lively dog, of course, would not have such an effect. No, Bricke must be found at all costs. And he doubled and tripled the bonus amount for searching for a "runaway exhibit.".

Every day agents reported to him the results of the search, but these results were disappointing. Bricke definitely fell through the ground.

Finished song

After Bricke, with the help of her new dexterous, flexible and strong body, climbed over the fence and went outside, she called a taxi and gave a strange address:

--Père Lachaise Cemetery.

But, before reaching Place de la Bastille, she changed taxis and headed towards Montmartre. For her first expenses, she took with her Laurent's purse, which contained several dozen francs. "One more sin, one less, and this is necessary," she reassured herself. Repentance for the sins committed was postponed for a long time. She again felt like a whole, alive, healthy person, and even younger than she was. Before the operation, according to her female account, she was close to thirty. The new body was hardly more than twenty years old. The glands of this body rejuvenated Bricquet's head: the wrinkles on his face disappeared, his color improved. "Now all I can do is live," thought Bricke, looking dreamily in the small mirror that was in her purse.

"stop here", she ordered the chauffeur, and, after paying him, set off on foot.

It was about four o'clock in the morning. She approached the familiar cabaret "Cha-noir", where she performed on that fateful night when a stray bullet stopped mid-sentence the cheerful chansonette she was singing. The cabaret windows were still lit with bright lights.

Not without excitement, Bricke entered the familiar lobby. The weary doorman apparently did not recognize her. She quickly walked through the side door and entered the artists' room adjacent to the stage through the corridor. Red Martha was the first to meet her. Scared out, Martha disappeared into her restroom. Bricke laughed and knocked on the door, but Red Martha did not open it.

"Oh, Swallow!" Bricke heard a man's voice. She was known by this name in cabarets for her addiction to cognac with a swallow on the label. -- So are you alive? And we thought you were dead for a long time!

Briquet turned around and saw a handsome, elegantly dressed man with a very pale shaved face. People who rarely see the sun have such pale faces. It was Jean, Red Martha's husband. He didn't like to talk about his profession. His friends and drinking buddies did not consider it tactful to ask about the source of his existence. It was enough that Jean often had money and that he was a "soul guy.". On those nights when Jean's pocket opened, wine flowed like a river and Jean paid for everyone.

--Where did it come from, Swallow?

"from the hospital", replied Bricke.

Fearing that her new body would not be taken away from her by relatives or friends of the one to whom it belonged, Bricke decided not to tell anyone about the extraordinary operation.

"my situation was very serious," she continued to compose. - I was considered dead and was even sent to the morgue. But there, one student who examined the corpse took me by the hand and felt a weak pulse. I was still alive. The bullet passed near the heart without hitting it. I was immediately sent to the hospital, and everything turned out well.

-- Splendidly! - exclaimed Jean. - Ours will all be terribly surprised. We need to spray your resurrection.

The door lock snapped Red Martha, who was eavesdropping from behind the doors on this conversation, became convinced that Bricke was not a ghost and opened the door. The friends hugged and kissed deeply.

"it is as if you have become thinner, taller, and more graceful, Swallow;" said Red Martha, looking with curiosity and some surprise at the figure of a friend who so unexpectedly appeared.

Bricke was slightly embarrassed by this inquisitive female gaze.

"I lost weight, of course", she answered. "I was fed only broth". What about growth? I bought myself shoes with very high heels. Well, the style of the dress...

--But why did you show up here so late?

-- Oh, that's a whole story... Have you already performed? Can you sit with me for a minute?

Martha nodded her head affirmatively. The friends sat down near a table with a large mirror, lined with boxes of makeup pencils and paints, bottles of perfume, powder compacts, and all kinds of boxes with stilettos and pins.

Jean perched himself nearby, smoking an Egyptian cigarette.

'"I escaped from the hospital. In a formal manner," Bricke said.

-- But why?

--Tired of the broths. You see, broth, broth and broth... I was downright afraid of choking on the broth. And the doctor didn’t want to let me go. He also had to show me to the students. I'm afraid the police will be looking for me... I can't go back to myself and would like to stay with you. Better yet, leave Paris completely for a few days... But I have so little money.

Red Martha even clasped her hands - it was so interesting.

"Well, of course you'll stay with me", she said.

"I’m afraid that the police will also be looking for me," Jean said thoughtfully, blowing a ring of smoke. - "I, too, should have disappeared from the horizon for a few days.".

The swallow was his own, and Jean did not hide his profession from her. Swallow knew that Jean was a bird of the "great flight". His specialty was breaking safes.

"let’s fly, Swallow, south with us.". You, me and Martha. To the Riviera, breathe the sea air. I've been sitting too long, I need to get some air. Believe me, I haven’t seen the sun for more than two months and I’m already starting to forget what it looks like.

"That’s great," Red Martha clapped her hands.

Jean looked at the expensive gold bracelet watch.

-- But we still have an hour of time. Damn it, you have to finish our song... And then we fly, and let them look for you.

Briquet accepted this offer with pleasure. Her performance created a sensation, as she expected.

Jean took to the stage as an entertainer, recalled the tragic story that happened here with Bricquet several months ago, and then stated that Mademoiselle Bricquet, at the request of the public, came to life after he, Jean, poured a glass of Swallow cognac into her throat.

-- Swallow! Swallow! - the audience roared. Jean made a sign with his hand and, when the screams fell silent, continued: "The swallow will sing a chansonette from the very place where she was so unexpectedly interrupted.". Orchestra, "Pussycat"!

The orchestra began to play, and from half the verse, to thunderous applause, Bricke finished her song. True, the noise was such that she herself could not hear her voice, but this was not necessary. She felt happier than ever and reveled in not being forgotten and being greeted so warmly. That this warmth was greatly heated by wine fumes did not bother her.

After finishing singing, she made an unexpectedly graceful gesture with her right hand. It was new. The audience applauded even louder.

"Where did she get this from? What beautiful manners. We need to adopt this gesture..." - thought Red Martha.

Bricke stepped off the stage into the hall. Her friends kissed her, her friends held out glasses and clinked glasses. Bricke blushed, her eyes sparkled. Success and wine turned her head. She, forgetting about the danger of persecution, was ready to sit here all night. But Jean, who drank no less than others, did not lose control of himself.

From time to time he glanced at his watch and finally approached Brika and touched her hand.

-- It's time!

-- But I don't want to. You can leave alone. "I won’t go," Bricke answered, languidly rolling her eyes. Then Jean silently picked her up and carried her to the exit. The audience started murmuring.

"The session is over!" shouted Jean at the door already. - Until next Sunday!

He carried Brique, who was fighting him off, out into the street and put him in a car. Soon Martha came with small suitcases.

"to the Place de la République," Jean told the driver, not wanting to indicate the final destination. He is used to driving with transfers.

A woman of mystery

The waves of the Mediterranean Sea rhythmically ran onto the sandy beach. A light wind barely inflated the sails of white yachts and fishing boats. Above, in the blue air depth, gray seaplanes grumbled affectionately as they made short pleasure voyages between Nice and Menton.

A young man in a white tennis suit sat in a wicker chair and read a newspaper. Near the chair lay a tennis racket and several fresh English scientific journals in a case.

Next to him, under a huge white umbrella, his friend, the artist Armand Lare, was fiddling around at the easel.

Arthur Dowell, son of the late Professor Dowell, and Armand Laray were inseparable friends, a friendship that best proved the veracity of the proverb that extremes converge.

Arthur Dowell was somewhat silent and cold. He loved order and knew how to study diligently and systematically. He had only one year left before graduating from university, and he was already being left at the university at the Department of Biology.

Lare, as a true French southerner, was extremely fond of nature, chaotic, eccentric. He threw brushes and paints for whole weeks, so that he could then start working binge-watching again, and then no amount of strength could tear him away from the easel.

Only in one thing were the friends similar to each other: both of them were talented and knew how to achieve their once set goal, although they walked towards this goal in different ways: one - with impulses, leaps, the other - with measured steps.

Arthur Dowell's biological works attracted the attention of major experts, and he was promised a brilliant scientific career. And Lare’s paintings caused a lot of talk at exhibitions, and some of them have already been acquired by the most famous museums in different countries.

Arthur Dowell threw a newspaper on the sand, leaned his head against the back of the chair, covered his eyes and said

--Angelica Guy's body never found.

Lare shook his head inconsolably and sighed heavily.

"You still can't forget about her?" asked Dowell.

Lare turned so quickly towards Arthur that he involuntarily smiled. In front of him was no longer an ardent artist, but a knight armed with a shield - a palette, with a spear - a mousetable in his left hand and a sword - a brush in his right - an insulted knight, ready to destroy the one who inflicted a mortal insult on him.

--Forget Angelica!.. - Lara shouted, shaking his weapon. -- Forget the one who...

Suddenly a creeping wave hissed and doused his legs almost to his knees, and he finished melancholy:

--Is it possible to forget Angelica? The world has become more boring since her songs fell silent...

For the first time, Lare learned about the death, or rather, about the disappearance of Angelica Guy without a trace in London, where he came to write a "symphony of the London fog.". Lare was not only a fan of the singer's talent, but also her friend, her knight. No wonder he was born in southern Provence, among the ruins of medieval castles.

Having learned about the misfortune that happened to Guy, he was so shocked that for the only time in his life he interrupted his "picturesque binge" in the midst of creativity.

Arthur, who came to London from Cambridge, wanting to distract his friend from gloomy thoughts, came up with this trip to the Mediterranean coast.

But here too Lara could not find a place for himself. Returning from the beach to the hotel, he changed clothes and, taking the train, went to the most crowded place - the Monte Carlo gambling house. He wanted to forget himself.

Despite the relatively early hour, an audience was already crowding near the squat building. Lare entered the first hall. There was little audience.

"do your game", invited the croupier, armed with a spatula to rake in the money.

Lare walked without stopping into the next hall, the walls of which were painted with paintings depicting half-naked women engaged in hunting, horse racing, fencing - in a word, everything that excites excitement. The paintings reeked of the tension of passionate struggle, excitement, and greed, but even more and more sharply these feelings were written on the faces of living people gathered around the gambling table.

Here is a fat businessman with a pale face holding out money with shaking, plump, freckled hands covered with reddish fluff. He breathes heavily, like an asthmatic. His eyes are tensely watching the spinning ball. Lare unmistakably determines that the fat man has already lost big and is now betting his last money in the hope of winning back. And if not, this loose man, perhaps, will go to the alley of suicides, and there will be a final reckoning with life...

Behind the fat man is a poorly dressed, shaved old man with disheveled gray hair and manic eyes. In his hands is a notebook and a pencil. He records winnings and numbers coming out, makes some calculations... He had long since lost his entire fortune and became a slave to roulette. The administration of the gambling house gives him a small monthly allowance - for life and play: a kind of advertisement. Now he is building his "probability theory" and studying the capricious nature of fortune. When he makes a mistake in his assumptions, he angrily hits the notebook with a pencil, jumps up on one leg, mutters something and again delves into the calculations. If his assumptions are justified, his face shines, and he turns his head to the neighbors, as if wanting to say: you see, I have finally managed to discover the laws of chance.

Two footmen are led by the arms and seated in a chair at the table of an old woman in a black silk dress, with a diamond necklace on her wrinkled neck. Her face is so whitened that it can no longer turn pale. At the sight of a mysterious ball distributing grief and joy, her bursting eyes light up with the fire of greed and her thin fingers, humiliated by rings, begin to tremble.

A young, beautiful, slender woman, dressed in an elegant dark green suit, passes the table, throws a thousand-franc ticket with a careless gesture, loses, grins carelessly and goes into the next room.

Lare bet one hundred francs on red and won. "I have to win today," he thought, betting a thousand, "and lost.". But the confidence that he would win in the end did not leave him. He was already overcome with excitement.

Three people approached the roulette table: a man, tall and stately, with a very pale face, and two women, one red-haired and the other in a gray suit... Glancing at her briefly, Lare felt some kind of anxiety. Not yet realizing what he cared about, the artist began to follow the woman in gray and was amazed by one gesture she made with her right hand. "Something familiar! Oh, that's the gesture Angelique Guy made!' This thought struck him so much that he could no longer play. And when the three unknown men, laughing, finally walked away from the table, Lare, forgetting to take the money he had won from the table, followed them.

At four o'clock in the morning someone knocked hard on Arthur Dowell's door. Angrily throwing his robe over himself, Dowell opened it.

Lare entered the room with a staggering gait and, tiredly lowering himself into the chair, said:

"I seem to be going crazy.".

"What's the matter, old man?" cried Dowell.

"The fact is, I don’t know how to tell you... I played from yesterday until two o'clock in the morning. Winning gave way to losing. And suddenly I saw a woman, and one gesture struck me to the point that I quit the game and followed her to the restaurant. I sat down at the table and asked for a cup of strong black coffee. Coffee always helps me when my nerves get too loose... The stranger was sitting at the next table. With her were a young man, decently dressed, but not inspiring much confidence, and a rather vulgar red-haired woman. My neighbors drank wine and chatted merrily. A stranger in gray began to hum a chansonette. She had a squeaky voice of rather unpleasant timbre. But suddenly she hit some low chest notes... - Lare squeezed his head. - Dowell! It was the voice of Angelica Guy. I would recognize him from a thousand voices.

"The unfortunate one! What has he come to," thought Dowell, and, placing his hand affectionately on Lara's shoulder, said

"you imagined it, Lara. Pull yourself together. Random resemblance...

-- No, no! "I assure you," Lara objected warmly. - I began to look closely at the singer. She is quite beautiful, has a clear profile and cute sly eyes. But her figure, her body! Dowell, let the devils tear me to pieces with their teeth if the singer’s figure does not look like two peas in a pod to the figure of Angelique Guy.

'-That's what, Lare, drink bromine, take a cold shower and go to bed. Tomorrow, or rather today, when you wake up...

Lare looked reproachfully at Dowell.

'-You're making up the idea that I'm crazy?.. Don't rush to make a final conclusion. Listen to me to the end. That's not all. When the singer sang her song, she made this gesture with her hand. This is Angelica's favorite gesture, a completely individual, unique gesture.

-- But what do you want to say? Don't you think that the unknown singer has Angelica's body?

Lare rubbed his forehead:

--I don't know... it really makes you crazy... But listen further. The singer wears an intricate necklace around her neck, or rather not even a necklace, but an entire side collar, decorated with small pearls, at least four centimeters wide. And her chest has a fairly wide neckline. The cutout opens a mole on the shoulder - the birthmark of Angelique Guy. The necklace looks like a bandage. Above the necklace is the head of a woman unknown to me, below is the familiar body of Angelica Guy, which I have studied down to the smallest details, lines and shapes. Don't forget, I'm an artist, Dowell. I know how to remember the unique lines and individual characteristics of the human body... I made so many sketches and sketches from Angelica, painted so many portraits of her that I cannot be mistaken.

-- No, it's impossible! - exclaimed Dowell. - After all, Angelica...

-- Did she die? The fact of the matter is that no one knows this. She herself or her corpse disappeared without a trace. And now...

"are you encountering Angelica’s corpse come to life?"

-- Ooh!.. -- Lare moaned. -I was thinking about exactly that.

Dowell got up and walked around the room. Obviously, today you won’t be able to go to bed.

"let us reason coolly", said he, You say that your unknown singer has, as it were, two voices, one of her own, more than mediocre, and the other of Angelique Guy?

"low register is her unique contralto," Lara replied, nodding his head affirmatively.

"But that’s not physiologically possible.". Don’t you assume that a person extracts high notes from his throat with the upper ends of the ligaments, and the lower ones with the lower ones? The pitch of the sound depends on more or less tension in the vocal cords throughout. After all, it’s like on a string: with greater tension, the vibrating string gives more vibrations and a higher sound, and vice versa. Moreover, if such an operation were performed, the vocal cords would be shortened, which means the voice would become very high. And it’s unlikely that a person could sing after such an operation: the scars would have to interfere with the correct vibration of the ligaments, and the voice would be very hoarse at best... No, this is absolutely impossible. Finally, in order to "revive" Angelica’s body, you would have to have a head, someone’s head without a body.

Dowell suddenly fell silent, as he remembered what to a certain extent supported Lare's assumption.

Arthur himself was present at some of his father's experiments. Professor Dowell poured a nutrient liquid heated to thirty-seven degrees Celsius with adrenaline, a substance that irritates and causes them to contract, into the vessels of a dead dog. When this liquid entered the heart under some pressure, it restored its activity, and the heart began to drive blood through the vessels. Little by little, blood circulation was restored, and the animal came to life.

"The most important cause of the death of the body," Arthur’s father said then, "is the cessation of the supply of blood and oxygen to the organs.".

"So, this way you can revive a person?" - asked Arthur.

"Yes," his father answered cheerfully, "I undertake to perform the resurrection and someday I will perform this "miracle.". This is what I’m leading my experiments to.".

The revival of the corpse is therefore possible. But is it possible to revive a corpse in which the body belonged to one person and the head to another? Is such an operation possible? Arthur doubted this. True, he saw how his father performed unusually bold and successful tissue and bone transplantation operations. But all this was not so difficult, and his father did it.

"If my father had been alive, I would probably have believed that Lara's guess about someone else's head on Angelica Guy's body was plausible. Only the father could dare to perform such a complex and extraordinary operation. Maybe these experiments were continued by his assistants? - thought Dowell. "But it’s one thing to revive a head or even a whole corpse, and another thing to sew the head of one person to the corpse of another.".

"what do you want to do next?" asked Dowell.

"I want to track down this woman in gray, meet her, and uncover the secret. Will you help me with this?

"Of course", replied Dowell.

Lare shook his hand tightly and they began to discuss the plan of action.

A fun walk

A few days later, Lare was already familiar with Briquet, her friend and Jean. He invited them to take a yacht trip, and the offer was accepted.

While Jean and Red Martha were talking on deck with Dowell, Lare suggested that Bricquet go downstairs to inspect the cabins. There were only two of them, very small, and one of them contained a piano.

"Oh, there's even a tool here!" cried Bricquet.

She sat down at the piano and played a foxtrot. The yacht swayed measuredly on the waves. Lare stood near the piano, looked carefully at Bricke and thought about where to begin his investigation.

"Sing something", he said.

Bricke was not forced to beg. She began to sing, glancing coquettishly at Lara. She liked him.

"What a strange voice you have", said Lara, looking testily into her face. -It is as if there are two voices in your throat: the voices of two women...

Bricke was embarrassed, but, quickly taking control of herself, she laughed forcedly...

-- Oh, yeah!.. I've had this since childhood. One singing professor found me a contralto, and the other a mezzo-soprano. Everyone put their voice differently, and it turned out... Moreover, I recently caught a cold...

"Aren't there too many explanations for one fact? - thought Lare. -And why was she so embarrassed? My assumptions are justified. There's something here'.

"When you sing on low notes", he spoke sadly, "it's as if I hear the voice of one of my good friends... She was a famous singer. The poor thing died in a train crash. To everyone's surprise, her body was not found... Her figure is extremely reminiscent of yours, like two peas in a pod... You'd think it was her body.

Bricke looked at Lara with undisguised fear. She realized that this conversation was being conducted by Lara for a reason.

"there are people who look a lot like each other..." she said in a trembling voice.

"yes, but I haven’t seen such similarities.". And then... your gestures... this gesture with your hand... And yet... You have now grabbed your head with your hands, as if straightening lush strands of hair. Angelica Guy had this kind of hair. And so she straightened her capricious curl at her temple... But you don't have long curls. You have short hair cut to the latest fashion.

"I used to have long hair too," said Bricke, rising. Her face turned pale, her fingertips trembled noticeably. - It's stuffy here... Let's go upstairs...

"wait", Lara stopped her, also worried. -I need to talk to you.

He forcibly seated her in a chair by the porthole.

--I'm sick... I'm not used to pitching! - Bricke exclaimed, trying to leave. But Lare accidentally touched her neck with his hands, turning away the edge of the necklace. He saw pink scars.

Bricke staggered. Lare barely had time to catch her: she was fainting.

The artist, not knowing what to do, sprayed her in the face directly from the standing decanter. She soon came to her senses. Indescribable horror shone in her eyes. For several long moments they looked at each other silently. It seemed to Bricke that the hour of retribution had come. A terrible hour of retribution for the fact that she appropriated someone else's body. Bricke's lips trembled, and she whispered barely audibly:

--Don't ruin me!.. Have pity...

"calm down, I’m not going to ruin you... but I have to find out this secret." - Lare raised Brika’s hand, which was hanging like a whip, and squeezed it hard. -Admit it, is this not your body? Where did you get it from? Tell me the whole truth!

-- Jean! - tried to shout to Bricquet, but Lare put his palm over her mouth, hissing into her very ear:

'-If you shout again, you won't leave this cabin.

Then, leaving Briquet, he quickly locked the cabin door and tightly covered the window frame.

Bricke cried like a child. But Lare was relentless.

--Tears won't help you! Speak quickly before I lose patience.

""I'm not guilty of anything," Bricke spoke, sobbing. -I was killed... But then I came to life... One of my heads... on a glass stand... It was so terrible!.. And Tom's head was standing there... I don't know how this happened... Professor Kern - he was the one who brought me to life... I asked him to return my body. He promised... And he brought this body from somewhere... - She looked at her shoulders and arms almost in horror. - But when I saw the dead body, I refused... I was so scared... I didn’t want to, I begged not to put my head to the corpse... Laurent can confirm this: she courted us, but Kern did not listen. He put me to sleep and I woke up like this. I didn’t want to stay with Kern and ran away to Paris and then here... I knew Kern would be after me... I beg you, don't kill me and don't tell anyone...Now I don’t want to be left without a body, it has become mine... I have never felt such ease of movement. Only my leg hurts... But it will pass... I don't want to go back to Kern!

Listening to this incoherent speech, Lare thought: "Brique really doesn’t seem to be to blame. But this Kern... How could he get Guy's body and use it for such a terrible experiment? Kern! I heard about this name from Arthur. Kern seems to have been his father's assistant. This secret must be revealed.".

"stop crying and listen to me carefully", said Lara sternly, "I will help you, but on one condition, if you do not tell anyone what has happened to you up to the present moment". To no one except one person who is coming here now. This is Arthur Dowell - you already know him. You must obey me in everything. If only you disobey, you will suffer a terrible punishment. You have committed a crime that is punishable by death. And you will not be able to hide your head and the alien body you have appropriated anywhere. You will be found and guillotined. Listen to me. First, calm down. Second, sit down at the piano and sing. Sing as loud as possible so that you can hear it up there. You're having a lot of fun and you're not going to go on deck.

Bricke walked up to the piano, sat down and sang, accompanying herself with barely obeying fingers.

"louder, more fun," Lare commanded, opening the porthole and door.

It was a very strange singing - a cry of despair and horror, transferred to a major mode.

--Louder, drum on the keys! So! Play and wait. You will go to Paris with us. Don't even think about running. In Paris you will be out of danger, we will be able to hide you.

With a cheerful face, Lare climbed onto the deck. The yacht, leaning to the starboard side, quickly glided along a light wave. The humid sea wind refreshed Lare. He approached Arthur Dowell, and, quietly pulling him aside, said

"go downstairs to the cabin and make Mademoiselle Briquet repeat to you everything she told me.". And I'll keep the guests busy.

"Well, how do you like the yacht, madam?" he turned to Red Martha and began to have a casual conversation with her.

Jean, lounging in a wicker chair, was blissful away from the police and detectives. He didn't want to think or observe anymore, he wanted to forget about eternal wariness. Sipping the excellent cognac slowly from a small glass, he plunged even more into a contemplative, half-asleep state. This could not have been more beneficial for Lara. Red Martha also felt great. Hearing a friend singing from the cabin, she herself, in between phrases, added her voice to the playful chant coming from her.

Whether the game calmed Bricke down, or whether Arthur seemed to her a less dangerous interlocutor, but this time she more coherently and intelligently told him the story of her death and resurrection.

--That's it. Well, is it my fault? - she asked with a smile and sang the short chansonette "Am I to blame," repeated on deck by Martha.

"describe to me the third head that lived with Professor Kern", said Dowell.

-- Tom?

"No, the one Professor Kern showed you to! However...

Arthur Dowell hastily took his wallet out of his side pocket, rummaged through it, took out a photographic card and showed it to Bricke.

"Tell me, does the man pictured here look like the head of my... friend you saw at Kern’s?

"Yes, it’s absolutely him!" cried Bricquet. She even quit playing. - Amazing! And with shoulders. Head with body. Have they really already managed to sew on his body? What's wrong with you, my dear? - she asked sympathetically and frightenedly.

Dowell staggered. His face turned pale. He, having difficulty controlling himself, took a few steps, sank heavily into a chair and covered his face with his hands.

""What's wrong with you?" asked Bricke again.

But he didn't answer. Then his lips whispered: "Poor father," but Briquet did not hear these words.

Arthur Dowell took control of himself very quickly. When he raised his head, his face was almost calm.

"sorry, I think I scared you," he said. -I sometimes have such mild heart-related seizures. That's all gone already.

-- But who is this man? He looks so much like... Your brother? - Bricke became interested.

"whoever he is, you must help us track down this head. You will come with us. We will place you in such a secluded corner where no one will find you. When can you go?

"even today," answered Bricke. --And you... won't take my body away from me?

Dowell didn't understand right away, then he smiled and replied

--Of course not... unless you listen to us and help us. Let's go to the deck.

"well, how is your voyage?" he asked cheerfully, going up to the deck. Then he looked at the horizon with the look of an experienced sailor and, shaking his head with concern, said: "I don’t like the sea... Do you see this dark stripe near the horizon?.. If we don't return in time, then...

-- Oh, hurry back! "I don’t want to drown," Bricke exclaimed half-jokingly and half-seriously.

No storm was expected. Dowell simply decided to scare his land guests in order to return to shore as quickly as possible.

Lare agreed to meet Bricke at the tennis court in the afternoon, "if there is no storm.". They only parted for a few hours.

"Look, Lare, we've suddenly been on the trail of big secrets", said Dowell, as they returned to the hotel, Do you know whose head Kern had? My father, Professor Dowell's head!

Lare, already seated on a chair, jumped up like a ball.

-- Head? Your father's living head! But is this possible? And that's all Kern! He... I'll tear him to pieces! We will find your father's head.

"i’m afraid that we won’t find her alive," Arthur answered sadly. - The father himself proved the possibility of reviving heads cut off from the body, but these heads lived no more than an hour and a half, then they died because the blood coagulated, and artificial nutrient solutions could support life for even less time.

Unknown to Arthur Dowell, his father had invented a drug he named Dowell 217 shortly before his death and renamed Kern Kern 217. Introduced into the blood, this drug completely eliminates blood clotting and therefore makes the longer existence of the head possible.

"But we must find our father’s head alive or dead.". Hurry to Paris!

Lare rushed to his room to pack his things.

To Paris!

Having quickly had lunch, Lare ran to the tennis court.

The somewhat belated Bricquet was very happy to see that he was already waiting for her. Despite all the fear that this man instilled in her, Bricke continued to find him a very interesting man.

"Where is your racket?" she asked him in disappointment. -Won't you teach me today?

Lare taught Bricke to play tennis for several days. She turned out to be a very capable student. But Lare knew the secret of this ability more than Briquet herself: she possessed the trained body of Angelique, who was a wonderful tennis player. She once taught Lara some of the strokes herself. And now Lara could only bring Guy’s already trained body into line with Bricke’s not yet trained brain - consolidate her usual body movements in her brain. Sometimes Bricquet's movements were uncertain and angular. But often, unexpectedly for herself, she made unusually deft movements. For example, she extremely surprised Lara when she began to serve "cut balls" - no one taught her this. And this deft and difficult reception was a kind of pride for Angelica. And, looking at Bricquet’s movements, Lare sometimes forgot that he was not playing with Angelique.It was while playing tennis that Lara developed a tender feeling for the "revived Angelique", as he sometimes called Bricquet. True, this feeling was far from the adoration and admiration with which he was filled with Angelica.

Briquet stood near Lare, shielded by her racket from the setting sun - one of Angelique's gestures.

--We won't play today.

--How pathetic! "And I wouldn’t mind playing, although my leg hurts more than usual," Bricke said.

-- Come with me. We are going to Paris.

-- Now?

--Immediately.

-- But I need to at least change clothes and grab some things.

-- Okay. I give you forty minutes to get ready, and not a minute more. We will pick you up in the car. Go get ready quickly.

"She's really limping," Lare thought, looking after Bricke as he walked away.

On the way to Paris, Bricquet’s leg hurt seriously. Bricke lay in her compartment and moaned quietly. Lare calmed her down as best he could. This journey brought them even closer together. True, he looked after with such care, as it seemed to him, not Bricke, but Angelique Guy. But Bricke took Lara’s worries entirely to herself. This attention touched her very much.

"you are so kind", she said sentimentally. -There, on the yacht, you scared me. But now I'm not afraid of you. -- And she smiled so charmingly that Lara could not help but smile back. This return smile already belonged entirely to the head: after all, Bricke’s head was smiling. She made progress without noticing it.

And not far from Paris, a small event happened that made Bricquet even more happy and surprised the culprit of this event. During a particularly violent bout of pain, Briquet reached out and said

--If you knew how I suffer...

Lare unwittingly took his outstretched hand and kissed her. Bricke blushed, and Lare was embarrassed.

"Damn it," he thought, "I think I kissed her. But it was only a hand - Angelica’s hand. However, my head feels pain, which means that after kissing my hand, I felt sorry for my head. But the head feels pain because Angelica’s leg hurts, but Angelica’s head feels Angelica’s head..." He became completely confused and even more embarrassed.

"How did you explain your sudden departure to your friend?" asked Lara, to put an end to the awkwardness as soon as possible.

-- Nothing. She got used to my unexpected actions. However, she and her husband will also soon arrive in Paris. I want to see her... Please invite her to my place. -- And Bricke gave the address to Red Martha.

Laray and Arthur Dowell decided to place Bricquet in a small vacant house owned by Laray's father at the end of Avenue du Maine.

--Near the cemetery! - Bricquet exclaimed superstitiously as the car drove her past the Montparnasse cemetery.

"so you’ll live a long time," Lara reassured her.

"Is there such a sign?" asked the superstitious Bricquet.

-- The most faithful.

And Bricke calmed down.

The patient was laid in a rather cozy room on a huge old four-poster bed.

Bricke sighed as she leaned back onto the pile of pillows.

"you need to get a doctor and a nurse," Lara said. But Briquet strongly objected. She was afraid that new people would report her.

With great difficulty, Lare persuaded her to show her leg to her friend, a young doctor, and invite her concierge’s daughter to the nurses.

"This concierge has been with us for twenty years. You can easily rely on him and his daughter.

The invited doctor examined the swollen and very red leg, ordered compresses, calmed Bricke down and went out with Lare into another room.

"Well, how?" asked Lara, not without excitement.

"there’s nothing serious yet, but we need to keep an eye on it.". I'll visit her in a day. The patient must maintain absolute peace.

Lare visited Bricquet every morning. One day he quietly entered the room. There was no nurse. Briquet dozed off or lay with her eyes closed. Strangely, her face seemed to be getting younger. Now Bricke could be given no more than twenty years. The facial features somehow softened and became more delicate.

Lare tiptoed up to the bed, bent down, looked at this face for a long time and... suddenly kissed me tenderly on the forehead. This time, Lare did not analyze whether he was kissing Angelica's "remains", Bricquet's head, or the whole of Bricquet.

Bricke slowly raised her eyelids and looked at Lara, a pale smile flashed on her lips.

"How are you feeling?" asked Lare. -I didn't wake you up?

--No, I wasn't sleeping. Thank you, I feel good. If it weren't for this pain...

"The doctor says it’s nothing serious.". Lie still and you will get better soon...

A nurse came in. Lare nodded his head and left. Bricke led him with a gentle look. Something new came into her life. She wanted to get better quickly. Cabarets, dances, chansonettes, cheerful drunken visitors to "Chanoir" - all this went somewhere far, lost its meaning and price. New dreams of happiness were born in her heart. Perhaps this was the biggest miracle of "reincarnation", which she herself did not suspect, and Lara did not suspect either! Angelique Guy's pure, virginal body not only rejuvenated Bricquet's head, but also changed her train of thought. The cheeky cabaret singer turned into a modest girl.

Victim of Kern

While Lare was completely absorbed in caring for Brick, Arthur Dowell collected information about Kern's house. From time to time, the friends conferred with Briquet, who told them everything she knew about the house and the people who inhabited it.

Arthur Dowell decided to act very carefully. Since Bricke's disappearance, Kern must be on his guard. It is unlikely that it will be possible to take him by surprise. It is necessary to conduct business in such a way that until the last moment Kern does not suspect that he is already under attack.

"We will act as cunningly as possible", he said to Lara. -First of all, we need to find out where Mademoiselle Laurent lives. If she is not at one with Kern, then she will help us in many ways - much more than Bricke.

It was not difficult to find out Laurent's address. But when Dowell visited the apartment, he was disappointed. Instead of Laurent, he found only her mother, a cleanly dressed handsome old woman, tearful, distrustful, heartbroken.

"may I see Mademoiselle Laurent?" he asked.

The old woman looked at him in bewilderment.

-- My daughter? Do you know her?.. Who do I have the honor to talk to and why do you need my daughter?

-- If you'll allow me...

'- Please. -- And Mother Laurent let the visitor into the small living room, lined with upholstered antique furniture in white covers with lace capes on the backs. There is a large portrait on the wall. "Interesting girl," thought Arthur.

""My last name is Radier," he said. "I’m a doctor from the provinces, I just arrived from Toulon yesterday.". I once knew one of Mademoiselle Laurent’s friends from university. Already here in Paris, I met this friend by chance and learned from her that Mademoiselle Laurent works for Professor Kern.

"What’s the last name of my daughter’s university friend?

-- Last name? Rish!

-- Rish! Rish!.. "I’ve never heard one like this," Laurent noted and asked with obvious distrust: "Aren’t you from Kern?"

"no, I’m not from Kern," Arthur answered with a smile. - But I would really like to meet him. The fact is that he works in an area that I am very interested in. I know that he performs a number of experiments, and the most interesting ones, at home. But he is a very reserved person and does not want to let anyone into his holy of holies.

Old Laurent decided that this seemed to be true: when she went to work for Professor Kern, her daughter said that he lived very secluded and did not accept anyone. "What is he doing?" - she asked her daughter and received an vague answer: "With all sorts of scientific experiments.".

"and so", continued Douelle, I decided to meet first Mademoiselle Laurent, and to consult her on how I should rather attain the goal. She could prepare the ground, talk to Professor Kern first, introduce me to him and bring me into the house.

The sight of the young man was conducive to trust, but everything connected with the name of Kern aroused such anxiety and anxiety in Madame Laurent’s soul that she did not know how to continue the conversation. She sighed heavily, and restraining herself so as not to cry, said

--My daughter's not home. She's in the hospital.

-- In the hospital? In which hospital?

Madame Laurent could not stand it. She had been alone for too long with her grief, and now, forgetting all care, she had told her guest everything: how her daughter had unexpectedly sent a letter that work was forcing her to stay for a while in Kern's house to care for the seriously ill; how she, the mother, had made fruitless attempts to see her daughter in Kern's house; how worried; how, finally, Kern informed her that her daughter fell ill with a nervous disorder and was taken to a hospital for the mentally ill.

"I hate this Kern," said the old woman, wiping away her tears with a handkerchief. -It was he who drove my daughter to madness. I don’t know what she saw in Kern’s house and what she was doing - she didn’t even tell me about it - but I know one thing: as soon as Marie got this job, she started to get nervous. I didn't recognize her. She came pale, excited, she lost her appetite and sleep. At night she was suffocated by nightmares. She screamed and said through her sleep that some Professor Dowell's head and Kern were following her... Kern sends me his daughter’s salary by mail, quite a significant amount, and still sends it. But I don't touch money. You can't buy health for any money... I lost my daughter... -- And the old woman burst into tears.

"No, there can be no Kern accomplices in this house," thought Arthur Dowell. He decided to no longer hide the true purpose of his parish.

"madam", said he, "I now confess frankly that I have no less reason to hate Kern". I needed your daughter to settle some scores with Kern and... discover his crimes.

Madame Laurent screamed.

'-Oh, don't worry, your daughter isn't involved in these crimes.

"my daughter would rather die than commit a crime", Laurent answered proudly.

"I wanted to use the services of Mlle Laurent, but now I see that she herself needs to do the favor.". I have reason to believe that your daughter is not crazy, but imprisoned in an insane asylum by Professor Kern.

-- But why? For what?

--Precisely because your daughter would rather die than commit a crime, as you deigned to say. Obviously, she was dangerous for Kern.

-- But what crimes are you talking about?

Arthur Dowell did not yet know Laurent enough and was afraid of her old lady talkativeness, and therefore decided not to reveal everything.

-- Kern was doing illegal operations. Please say which hospital Kern sent your daughter to?

An excited Laurent barely gathered her strength to continue speaking coherently. Interrupting her words with sobs, she replied:

"for a long time, Kern didn’t want to tell me that.". He didn't let me into his house. I had to write letters to him. He answered evasively, tried to calm me down and assure me that my daughter was getting better and would soon return to me. When my patience was exhausted, I wrote to him that I would write a complaint against him if he did not immediately answer where my daughter was. And then he gave the address of the hospital. It is located in the vicinity of Paris, in Sko. The hospital is owned by private physician Ravino. Oh, I went there! But they didn’t even let me into the yard. This is a real prison surrounded by a stone wall... "We have such orders," the gatekeeper answered me, "that we don’t let anyone in our relatives, even our own mother.". I called the doctor on duty, but he answered me the same. "Madam", he said, "visits by relatives of the sick always excite and worsen their state of mind.I can only tell you that your daughter is better off'. And he slammed the gate in front of me.

"I’ll still try to see your daughter.". Maybe I can free her too.

Arthur carefully wrote down the address and took his leave.

"I’ll do whatever it takes.". Believe me, I am as interested in this as if Mademoiselle Laurent were my sister.

And, admonished with all sorts of advice and good wishes, Dowell left the room.

Arthur decided to see Lare immediately. His friend spent whole days with Briquet, and Douel headed to Avenue du Maine. Lara's car was parked near the house.

Dowell quickly went up to the second floor and entered the living room.

"Arthur, what a misfortune!" met him Lare. He was extremely upset, darting around the room and ruffling his black curly hair.

--What's the matter, Lare?

-- Oh!.. - his friend moaned. -She ran...

-- Who?

-- Mademoiselle Bricquet, of course!

-- Did you run? But why? Finally, speak really!

But it wasn't easy to get Lara to talk. He continued to rush, sigh, moan and groan. At least ten minutes passed before Lare spoke:

"Yesterday, Mademoiselle Briquet complained of increasing pain in her leg in the morning. The leg is very swollen and blue. I called the doctor. He examined his leg and said the situation had deteriorated sharply. Gangrene began. Surgery is required. The doctor did not undertake to operate at home and insisted that the patient be immediately transported to the hospital. But Mademoiselle Briquet never agreed. She was afraid that the hospital would pay attention to the scars on her neck. She cried and said that she had to return to Kern. Kern warned her that she needed to stay with him until she fully "recovered.". She did not listen to him and is now severely punished. And she believes Kern as a surgeon. "If he managed to bring me back from the dead and give me a new body, he can cure my leg too. It's nothing for him'. All my persuasion led to nothing.I didn't want to let her go to Kern. And I decided to use a trick. I said that I would send her to Kern myself, intending to transport her to the hospital. But I had to take measures to ensure that the mystery of Bricke's "resurrection" was not really revealed before time - I did not forget about you, Arthur. And I left for an hour, no more, to come to an agreement with the doctors I knew. I wanted to outsmart Bricke, but she outsmarted me and the nurse. When I arrived, she was no longer there. All that was left of her was this note lying on the table next to her bed. Here, look. -- And Lara handed Arthur a piece of paper, on which a few words were hastily written in pencil: Bricke really didn't reveal herself before her time - - I didn't forget about you, Arthur. And I left for an hour, no more, to come to an agreement with the doctors I knew. I wanted to outsmart Bricke, but she outsmarted me and the nurse. When I arrived, she was no longer there. All that was left of her was this note lying on the table next to her bed. Here, look. -- And Lara handed Arthur a piece of paper, on which a few words were hastily written in pencil: Bricke really didn't reveal herself before her time - - I didn't forget about you, Arthur. And I left for an hour, no more, to come to an agreement with the doctors I knew. I wanted to outsmart Bricke, but she outsmarted me and the nurse. When I arrived, she was no longer there. All that was left of her was this note lying on the table next to her bed. Here, look. -- And Lara handed Arthur a piece of paper, on which a few words were hastily written in pencil:

"Lara, forgive me, I can't do otherwise. I'll go back to Kern. Don't visit me. Kern will get me back on my feet, like he did once before. See you soon, "this thought comforts me".

--Not even a signature.

"note", said Lara, "to the handwriting". This is Angelica's handwriting, although somewhat altered. This is what Angelica could write if she wrote at dusk or her hand hurt: larger, more sweeping.

"But how did it happen?" How could she run?

"alas, she was running from Kern so that she could now run from me to Kern. When I arrived here and saw that the cage was empty, I almost killed the nurse. But she explained that she herself was misled. Bricke, getting up with difficulty, answered the phone and called me. It was a trick. She didn't call me. After talking on the phone, Bricke told the nurse that it was as if I had arranged everything and asked her to go to the hospital immediately. And Bricke asked the nurse to call a car, then with her help she got to the car and drove away, refusing the services of a nurse. "It’s not far away, and there the orderlies will take me off," she said. And the nurse was completely confident that everything was being done on my orders and with my knowledge. Arthur! - Lara suddenly shouted, getting excited again. - I'm going to Kern immediately. I can't leave her there.I have already called my car by phone. Let's go with me, Arthur!

Arthur walked around the room. What an unexpected complication! Let's say Bricke has already reported everything she knew about Kern's house. But still, her advice would be necessary in the future, not to mention the fact that she herself was evidence against Kern. And this distraught Lare. Now he's a bad helper.

"listen, my friend", said Arthur, with his hands on the artist's shoulders. "now more than ever we need to pull ourselves together firmly and refrain from rash acts". It's done. Briquet at Kern. Should we disturb the beast in his den before time? Do you think he'll tell Brick Kern everything that's happened to her since she ran away from him, our acquaintance with her, and how we've learned a lot about Kern?

"I can guarantee that she won’t say anything," Lara answered with conviction. - She gave me her word there, on the yacht, and repeatedly repeated that she would keep the secret. Now she will do this not only under the influence of fear, but also... for other reasons.

Arthur understood these motives. He had long noticed that Lare had shown increasing attention to Bricke.

"The unfortunate romantic," thought Dowell, "is lucky for his tragic love. This time he loses not only Angelica, but also his newly emerging love. All is not lost, however.".

"be patient, Lare", said he, Our aims converge. Let's join our efforts and play a careful game. We have two options: either strike Kern immediately, or try to first find out in a roundabout way about the fate of my father’s head and about Brick. After Bricke runs away from him, Kern must remain on his guard. If he hasn't destroyed my father's head yet, he probably hid it well. You can destroy your head in a few minutes. If only the police start knocking on his door, he will destroy all traces of the crime before opening the door. And we won't find anything. Don't forget, Lara, that Bricke also "traces of a crime.". Kern carried out illegal transactions. Not only that, but he illegally stole Angelica's body. And Kern is a man who will stop at nothing. After all, he secretly dared to revive my father’s head from everyone.I know that his father allowed his body to be anatomized in his will, but I have never heard him agree to the experience of reviving his head. Why does Kern hide from everyone, even from me, the existence of a head? Why does he need it? And why does he need Bricke? Perhaps he is vivisecting people and Bricke played the role of a rabbit for him?

"Moreover, she must be saved as soon as possible," Lara objected warmly.

'-Yes, save, but not hasten her death. And our visit to Kern could hasten this fateful end.

-- But what to do?

--Go the second, slower way. We will try to make this path as short as possible. Marie Laurent can give us much more useful information than Briquet. Laurent knows the location of the house, she took care of the heads. Perhaps she was talking to my father... that is, with his head.

"So let’s get Laurent on quickly.".

"alas, she must be released first.".

'-Kern has her?

-- At the hospital. Obviously, in one of those hospitals where, for good money, sick people like you and me are kept locked up. We'll have a lot of work to do, Lara. -- And Dowell told his friend about his date with his mother Laurent.

-- Damn Kern! He sows misfortune and horror around himself. Get him for me...

--We'll try to get him caught. And the first step towards this is - we need to see Laurent.

'-I'm going there immediately.

--That would be careless. We personally only need to show ourselves in cases where there is nothing else left. For now we will use the services of other people. You and I must represent a kind of secret committee that directs the actions of reliable people, but remains unknown to the enemy. We need to find a faithful person who would go to Sko, make acquaintances with orderlies, nurses, cooks, gatekeepers - with whom it turns out to be possible. If you manage to bribe even one, the job will be half done.

Lara couldn't wait. He himself wanted to take action immediately, but he obeyed the more judicious Arthur and eventually came to terms with the policy of cautious action.

-- But who are we going to invite? Oh, Schaub! A young artist who recently arrived from Australia. My friend, a wonderful person, a great athlete. For him, the assignment will also be a kind of sport. Damn it," Lare got out, "why can’t I take on this myself?

"is it so romantic?" asked Dowell, smiling.

Ravino Hospital

Schaub, a young man of twenty-three years old, a pink-faced, athletic blond, accepted the "conspirators’" offer with delight. He has not yet been told all the details, but they said that he can do his friends a great service. And he nodded his head cheerfully, not even asking Lara if there was anything reprehensible in this whole story: he believed in the honesty of Lara and his friend.

"Great!" cried Schaub. - I'm going to Sko immediately. The sketch box will serve as an excellent excuse for the appearance of a new person in a small town. I will paint portraits of orderlies and nurses. If they are not very ugly, I will even look after them a little.

"if necessary, offer your hand and heart," Lara said with enthusiasm.

"I’m not handsome enough for this," the young man modestly remarked. - But I will willingly use my biceps if necessary.

The new ally set off.

Remember, act with possible speed and extreme caution," Dowell gave him his last advice.

Schaub promised to arrive in three days. But the very next day in the evening he, very upset, came to Lara.

"Impossible", he said. -Not a hospital, but a prison surrounded by a stone wall. And none of the employees go beyond this wall. All products are delivered by contractors who are not even allowed into the yard. The farm manager comes to the gate and accepts everything he needs... I walked around this prison like a wolf around a sheepfold. But I couldn’t even look behind the stone fence with one eye.

Lare was disappointed and annoyed.

"I had hoped", said he, with ill-concealed annoyance, "that you would show great ingenuity and resourcefulness, Schaub.

"would you like to show this ingenuity yourself", replied Schaub, no less irritably. - I would not give up my attempts so soon. But I accidentally managed to meet a local artist who knows the city and the customs of the hospital well. He told me that this is a completely special hospital. She keeps many crimes and secrets behind her walls. The heirs place their rich relatives there, who have been healed for too long and do not think about dying, declare them mentally ill and establish guardianship over them. Guardians of minors send their wards there before they reach adulthood in order to continue to "guard", freely disposing of their capital. This is a prison for rich people, life imprisonment for unfortunate wives, husbands, elderly parents and wards. Hospital owner,he is also the chief physician and receives enormous income from interested parties. The entire staff is well paid. Even the law is powerless here, from the invasion of which it is no longer a stone wall that protects, but gold. Everything here is based on bribery. Agree that under such conditions I could sit in Sko for a whole year and not advance a single centimeter to the hospital.

"I shouldn’t have sat, but acted," Lare remarked dryly.

Schaub defiantly raised his leg and pointed to his trousers torn at the bottom.

""He acted, as you can see," he said with bitter irony. - Last night I tried to climb over the wall. This is not a difficult matter for me. But before I had time to jump on the other side of the wall, huge Great Danes attacked me - and this is the result... If I didn’t have monkey agility and dexterity, I would have been torn to pieces. Immediately, a roll call from the watchmen was heard throughout the huge garden, and lit electric lights flashed. But this is not enough. When I had already moved back, the jailers released their dogs out of the gate. The animals are trained in the same way as dogs were once trained on South American plantations to catch fugitive blacks... Lara, you know how many prizes I took in the running speed competition. If I always ran the way I ran away last night to escape the damning dogs, I would be a world champion. Enough to tell you,that I had little difficulty jumping on the step of a passing car racing along the road at a speed of at least thirty kilometers per hour, and only this saved me!

-- Damn! What to do now? - Lara exclaimed, ruining his hair. - We'll have to call Arthur. - And he rushed to the phone.

A few minutes later, Arthur was already shaking hands with his friends.

"that was to be expected", he said on learning of the failure. - Kern knows how to bury his victims in safe places. What should we do? - he repeated the question to Lara. - - Go ahead, act with the same weapon as Kern, - bribe the chief doctor and...

"I won't regret giving away my entire fortune!" cried Lara.

--I'm afraid it won't be enough. The fact is that the commercial enterprise of the venerable Dr. Ravino is based on the huge sums that he receives from his clients, on the one hand, and on the trust that his clients have in him, quite confident that if Ravino received a good bribe, then under no circumstances will he sell their interests. Ravino will not want to undermine his reputation and thereby shake all the foundations of his enterprise. Or rather, he would do this if he could immediately receive an amount that would be equal to all his future income for twenty years in advance. And I’m afraid there won’t be enough money for this, even if we added up our capital. Ravino deals with millionaires, don't forget that. It would be much easier and cheaper to bribe one of his smaller employees. But all the misfortune is thatthat Ravino monitors his employees no less than his prisoners. Schaub is right. I myself made some inquiries about the Ravino hospital. It is easier for a stranger to enter a convict prison and escape than to do the same in Ravino prison. He recruits into his service with great analysis, in most cases people who do not have relatives. He does not disdain those who have not gotten along with the law and want to hide from the watchful eye of the police. He pays well, but undertakes that none of the employees will leave the hospital during their service, and this time is determined at ten and twenty years, no less. He recruits into his service with great analysis, in most cases people who do not have relatives. He does not disdain those who have not gotten along with the law and want to hide from the watchful eye of the police. He pays well, but undertakes that none of the employees will leave the hospital during their service, and this time is determined at ten and twenty years, no less. He recruits into his service with great analysis, in most cases people who do not have relatives. He does not disdain those who have not gotten along with the law and want to hide from the watchful eye of the police. He pays well, but undertakes that none of the employees will leave the hospital during their service, and this time is determined at ten and twenty years, no less.

"But where will he find people who would decide on such almost life imprisonment?" - asked Lare.

-- Finds. Many are tempted by the thought of providing for themselves in old age. Most are driven by need. But, of course, not everyone can stand it. Ravino experiences, although very rarely - once every few years - escapes of employees. Not long ago, one employee, yearning for a free life, fled. On the same day, his body was found in the vicinity of Sko. The Sko police are at the mercy of Ravino. A protocol was drawn up stating that the employee committed suicide. Ravino took the corpse and transferred it to his hospital. You can guess the rest. Ravino probably showed the corpse to his employees and made a corresponding speech, hinting that the same fate awaited any violator of the contract. That's all.

Lare was stunned.

--Where did you get this information?

Arthur Dowell smiled smugly.

"Well, you see", said a cheering Schaub. - I told you it wasn't my fault.

"I can imagine how fun Laurent lives in this damn place. But what should we do, Arthur? Blow up the walls with dynamite? Make a tunnel?

Arthur sat down in a chair and thought. The friends were silent, looking at him.

"Eureka!" cried Dowell suddenly.

"Crazy"

Small room with window to garden. Gray walls. Gray bed covered with a light gray fluffy blanket. White table and two white chairs.

Laurent sits by the window and looks absentmindedly into the garden. A ray of sunshine gilds her brown hair. She lost a lot of weight and turned pale.

From the window you can see an alley along which groups of patients walk. Between them flash the sisters' white and black-bordered robes.

"The crazy..." Laurent says quietly, looking at the patients walking. -- And I'm crazy... What an absurdity! That's all I've achieved...

She clenched her hands, cracking her fingers.

How did this happen?..

Kern called her into the office and said

"I need to talk to you, Mademoiselle Laurent.". Do you remember our first conversation when you came here wanting a job?

She nodded her head.

"you promised to keep quiet about everything you saw and heard in this house, didn’t you?

-- Yes.

--Repeat this promise now and you can go visit your mother. See how I trust your word.

Kern successfully found the string he was playing. Laurent was extremely embarrassed. She was silent for several minutes. Laurent is used to doing this word, but after what she learned here... Kern saw her hesitation and anxiously followed the outcome of her internal struggle.

"Yes, I made you a promise to keep quiet", she said at last quietly. - But you deceived me. You hid a lot from me. If you had told the whole truth right away, I would not have made such a promise to you.

"so you consider yourself free from this promise?"

-- Yes.

--Thank you for being frank. It's good to deal with you just because at least you're not lying. You have the civil courage to tell the truth.

Kern didn't just say this to flatter Laurent. Despite the fact that Kern considered honesty stupid, at that moment he really respected her for her masculinity of character and moral fortitude. "Hell, it would be a shame if you had to get this girl out of the way. But what can you do about it?"

"so, Mademoiselle Laurent, at the first opportunity, will you go and report me? You should know what consequences this will have for me. I'm being executed. Moreover, my name will be disgraced.

"you should have thought about this earlier", replied Laurent.

"Listen, mademoiselle", continued Kern, as if without hearing her words. -You will be detached from your narrow moral point of view. Understand, if it weren’t for me, Professor Dowell would have rotted in the ground long ago or burned down in the crematorium. It would be his job. What the head is doing now is, in essence, posthumous creativity. And I created it. Agree that in this situation I have some rights to the "production" of Dowell’s head. Moreover, without me, Dowell - his head - would not have been able to make his discoveries. You know that the brain cannot be operated on or fused. And yet, the operation of "fusing" Bricke’s head with his body was a great success. The spinal cord passing through the cervical vertebrae has fused. Dowell's head and Kern's hands worked to solve this problem. And these hands," Kern extended his hands, looking at them, "are also worth something.".They have saved hundreds of human lives and will save many hundreds more, unless you bring the sword of retribution over my head. But that's not all. Our latest works should revolutionize not only medicine, but also the life of all humanity. From now on, medicine can restore a person’s faded life. How many great people can be resurrected after their death, their lives can be extended for the benefit of humanity! I will lengthen the life of a genius, return my father to my children and my wife to her husband. Subsequently, such operations will be performed by an ordinary surgeon. The sum of human grief will decrease... From now on, medicine can restore a person’s faded life. How many great people can be resurrected after their death, their lives can be extended for the benefit of humanity! I will lengthen the life of a genius, return my father to my children and my wife to her husband. Subsequently, such operations will be performed by an ordinary surgeon. The sum of human grief will decrease... From now on, medicine can restore a person’s faded life. How many great people can be resurrected after their death, their lives can be extended for the benefit of humanity! I will lengthen the life of a genius, return my father to my children and my wife to her husband. Subsequently, such operations will be performed by an ordinary surgeon. The sum of human grief will decrease...

-- At the expense of other unfortunate people.

--Let it be so, but where two cried, one will cry. Where there were two dead people, there will be one. Aren't these great prospects? And what do my personal files, even crimes, represent in comparison? Why does a patient care that a crime lies on the soul of the surgeon saving his life? You will not only kill me, you will kill thousands of lives that in the future I could save. Have you thought about it? You will commit a crime a thousand times greater than I committed, if only I committed it. Think again and tell me your answer. Now go. I won't rush you.

"I’ve already given you an answer." "And Laurent left the office.

She came to Professor Dowell's head room and gave him the contents of the conversation with Kern. Dowell's head thought.

"Wasn't it better to hide your intentions, or at least give an uncertain answer?" the head finally whispered.

""I don't know how to lie", Laurent replied.

"it does you credit, but... you doomed yourself. You may die and your sacrifice will not benefit anyone.

""I..." "I can’t do otherwise," Laurent said and, nodding sadly to her head, left.

"The lot has been cast", she repeated the same phrase, sitting by the window of her room.

"Poor mother," suddenly flashed through her head. "But she would have done the same," Laurent answered herself. She wanted to write a letter to her mother and in it outline everything that happened to her. Last letter. But there was no way to forward it. Laurent had no doubt that she must die. She was ready to face death calmly. She was saddened only by worries about her mother and the thought that Kern’s crime would remain unavenged. However, she believed that sooner or later retribution would not escape him.

What she was waiting for happened sooner than she expected.

Laurent turned off the light and went to bed. Her nerves were tense. She heard some rustling behind the closet standing against the wall. This rustle surprised more than scared her. The door to her room was locked. They could not enter her without her hearing. "What kind of rustle is this? Perhaps mice?"

What happened next happened with extraordinary speed. Following the rustle, a creaking sound was heard. Someone's footsteps quickly approached the bed. Laurent stood up in fear on her elbows, but at the same moment someone’s strong hands pressed her to the pillow and pressed a mask with chloroform to her face.

"Death!.." - flashed through her brain, and, trembling with her whole body, she instinctively rushed.

"calmer", she heard Kern's voice, quite the same as during normal operations, and then lost consciousness.

She came to her senses already in the hospital...

Professor Kern carried out the threat of "extremely dire consequences for her" if she did not keep the secret. She expected everything from Kern. He took revenge, but he himself did not receive retribution. Marie Laurent sacrificed herself, but her sacrifice was fruitless. The knowledge of this further disturbed her mental balance.

She was close to despair. Even here she felt Kern's influence.

For the first two weeks, Laurent was not even allowed to go out into the large shady garden, where the "quiet" sick walked. Quiet - these were those who did not protest against the imprisonment, did not prove to the doctors that they were completely healthy, did not threaten to expose them and did not try to escape. In the entire hospital there were no more than a dozen percent of truly mentally ill people, and even those were driven crazy already in the hospital. For this purpose, Ravino developed a complex system of "mental poisoning.".

"A difficult case in practice."

For Dr. Ravino, Marie Laurent was a "difficult case in practice.". True, during her work, Kern’s nervous system was greatly depleted, Laurent’s will was not shaken. Ravino took on this matter.

So far he has not taken up the "processing of the psyche" of Laurent closely, but has only carefully studied it from a distance. Professor Kern has not yet given Dr Ravino certain directives regarding Laurent: send her to her grave prematurely or drive her insane. The latter, at least to a greater or lesser extent, was required by the Ravino psychiatric "infirmary" system itself.

Laurent was excitedly awaiting the moment when her fate would be finally decided. Death or madness - there was no other way here for her, as for others. And she gathered all her mental strength to fight at least madness. She was very meek, obedient and even outwardly calm. But this made it difficult to deceive Dr. Ravino, who had extensive experience and remarkable abilities as a psychiatrist. This submissiveness of Laurent aroused in him only even greater anxiety and suspicion.

"A difficult case," he thought, talking to Laurent during his usual morning rounds.

"How are you feeling?" he asked.

"thank you, fine", replied Laurent.

-- We do our best for our patients, but still the unusual environment and relative deprivation of liberty have a depressing effect on some patients. Feeling lonely, melancholy.

--I'm used to being alone.

"She's not that easy to call for candor," Ravino thought, and continued:

"you’re basically fine. My nerves are a little loose, that's all. Professor Kern told me that you had to take part in scientific experiments that should make a rather difficult impression on a fresh person. You are so young. Overwork and slight neurasthenia... And Professor Kern, who values you very much, decided to give you a rest...

"I am very grateful to Professor Kern.

"A secretive nature," Ravino was angry. - We need to bring her together with other patients. Then she might reveal herself more, and thus it would be possible to study her character more quickly'.

"you've been sitting too long", said he, Why don't you go to the garden? We have a wonderful garden, not even a garden, but a real park of ten hectares.

"I wasn’t allowed to go for a walk.".

--Really? - Ravino exclaimed in surprise. - This is an oversight by my assistant. You are not one of those patients for whom walking can be harmful. Please take a walk. Meet our patients, there are interesting people among them.

--Thank you, I'll use your permission.

And when Ravino left, Laurent left her room and walked along a long corridor, painted in a gloomy gray tone with a black border, to the exit. From behind the locked doors of the rooms came crazy howls, screams, hysterical laughter, muttering...

-- O... O... O... - was heard on the left.

-- Uh-uh... Hahahahaha," they responded from the right.

"It’s like being in a menagerie," Laurent thought, trying not to succumb to this oppressive environment. But she accelerated her steps somewhat and hurried out of the house. In front of her was a flat path leading into the depths of the garden, and Laurent walked along it.

Dr. Ravino's "system" was felt even here. There was a gloomy tint to everything. The trees are only coniferous, with dark greenery. The wooden benches without backs are painted dark grey. But Laurent was especially struck by the flower beds. The flower beds were made like graves, and the flowers were dominated by dark blue, almost black pansies, bordered on the edges like a white mourning ribbon with daisies. Dark thujas complemented the picture.

"A real cemetery. Here thoughts of death must involuntarily be born. But you won’t fool me, Mr. Ravino, I guessed your secrets, and your "effects" won’t take me by surprise," Laurent encouraged herself and, quickly passing the "cemetery flower garden," entered the pine alley. Tall trunks, like temple columns, stretched upward, covered with dark green domes. The tops of the pines made a sound, uniform dry noise.

Gray coats of patients were visible in different places in the park.

"Which one is crazy and which one is normal?" This could be determined quite unmistakably, even after briefly observing them. Those who were not yet hopeless looked with interest at the "new girl" - Laurent. Patients with fading consciousness were deepened into themselves, cut off from the outside world, which they looked at with unseeing eyes.

Laurent was approached by a tall, dry old man with a long gray beard. The old man raised his fluffy eyebrows high, saw Laurent and said, as if continuing to speak out loud to himself:

"I’ve been counting for eleven years, then I lost track of it.". There are no calendars here, and time has come. And I don’t know how long I wandered along this alley. Maybe twenty, maybe a thousand years. In the face of God, one day is like a thousand years. It's hard to tell the time. And you, you too, will walk here for a thousand years there, to the stone wall, and a thousand years back. There is no way out of here. Give up all hope who comes here, as Mr. Dante said. Hahaha! Didn't expect it? Do you think I'm crazy? I'm cunning. Only crazy people have the right to live here. But you won't leave here, just like me. We are with you... -- And, seeing an orderly approaching, whose duty was to eavesdrop on the conversations of the sick, the old man, without changing his tone, continued, winking his eye slyly: -- I am Napoleon Bonaparte, and my hundred days have not yet arrived. Do you understand me? - he asked when the orderly moved on.

"Unhappy", thought Laurent, is he pretending to be insane to avoid a death sentence? I’m not the only one who, it turns out, is forced to resort to life-saving disguises.".

Another patient approached Laurent, a young man with a black goat's beard, and began to babble some nonsense about taking the square root from the quadrature of the circle. But this time the orderly did not approach Laurent - obviously, the young man was beyond the suspicion of the administration. He approached Laurent and spoke faster and more persistently, splashing saliva:

--A circle is infinity. The square of the circle is the square of infinity. Listen carefully. To take the square root of the squaring of a circle is to take the square root of infinity. This will be the part of infinity raised to the nth power, thus it will be possible to determine the quadrature... But you’re not listening to me," the young man suddenly got angry and grabbed Laurent’s hand. She broke free and almost ran towards the building in which she lived. Not far from the door she met Dr. Ravino. He held back his satisfied smile.

As soon as Laurent ran into her room, there was a knock on the door. It would have been easy to lock, but there were no internal locks at the door. She decided not to answer. However, the door opened and Dr. Ravino appeared on the doorstep.

His head, as usual, was tilted back, his convex eyes, somewhat dilated, round and attentive, looked through the glass of the pince-nez, his black mustache and his hispani moved along with his lips.

--Sorry for entering without permission. My medical duties give me some rights...

Dr. Ravino found it an opportune moment to begin Laurent's "destruction of moral values.". His arsenal included a wide variety of means of influence - from captivating sincerity, politeness and charming attentiveness to rudeness and cynical frankness. He decided to unbalance Laurent at all costs and therefore suddenly took on an unceremonious and mocking tone.

"why don’t you say: "Please come in and forgive me for not inviting you?". I thought about it and didn’t hear your knock...", or anything like that?

"No, I heard you knocking, but I didn’t answer because I wanted to be alone.".

"True, as always!" he said ironically.

"truthfulness is a bad object for irony," Laurent remarked with some irritation.

"He’s biting," Ravino thought cheerfully. He sat unceremoniously against Laurent and stared his crayfish unblinking eyes at her. Laurent tried to withstand this look, in the end she felt unpleasant, she lowered her eyelids, blushing slightly with annoyance at herself.

"you suppose", said Ravino in the same ironic tone, "that truthfulness is a bad object for irony". And I think it’s the most suitable. If you were so truthful, you would kick me out because you hate me, and yet you try to keep the kind smile of a hospitable hostess.

"This is... only courtesy instilled by upbringing," Laurent answered dryly.

"And if it weren’t for politeness, would they have kicked me out?" - And Ravino suddenly laughed with an unexpectedly high, barking laugh. - Great! Very good! Politeness is not in tune with truthfulness. Out of politeness, therefore, one can sacrifice truthfulness. This time. -- And he bent one finger. - Today I asked you how you feel and received the answer: "Great," although I saw in your eyes that it was time for you to hang yourself. Therefore, you lied then too. Out of politeness?

Laurent didn't know what to say. She had to either lie again or admit that she decided to hide her feelings. And she was silent.

"I will help you, Mademoiselle Laurent", continued Ravino. "it was, if I may say so, a disguise of self-preservation". Yes or no?

"Yes", replied Laurent defiantly.

-- So you lie in the name of decency - one, you lie in the name of self-preservation - two. If I continue this conversation, I'm afraid that I won't have enough fingers. You lie out of pity. Didn't you write reassuring letters to your mother?

Laurent was amazed. Does Ravino really know everything? Yes, he really knew everything. It was also part of his system. He demanded from his clients who supplied him with imaginary patients complete information both about the reasons for their placement in his hospital and about everything that concerned the patients themselves. The clients knew that this was necessary in their own interests, and did not hide the most terrible secrets from Ravino.

--You lied to Professor Kern in the name of the violated justice and wanting to punish the vice. You lied in the name of the truth. A bitter paradox! And if you do the math, it turns out that your truth has been feeding on lies all the time.

Ravino hit the target accurately. Laurent was depressed. It somehow never occurred to her that lying played such a huge role in her life.

"So think, my righteous woman, at your leisure of how much you have sinned?". And what have you achieved with your truth? I'll tell you: you achieved this very life sentence. And no forces will lead you out of here - neither earthly nor heavenly. What about lies? If the respected Professor Kern is considered a fiend of hell and the father of lies, then he continues to exist perfectly.

Ravino, who had not taken his eyes off Laurent, suddenly fell silent. "That’s enough for the first time, a good charge has been given," he thought with satisfaction and, without saying goodbye, came out.

Laurent didn't even notice him leaving. She sat with her hands over her face.

From that evening Ravino appeared to her every evening to continue his Jesuit conversations. To undermine the moral foundations, and at the same time the psyche of Laurent, became for Ravino a matter of professional pride.

Laurent suffered sincerely and deeply. On the fourth day she broke down, and rising with a flaming face, she cried out

--Get out of here! You are not a person, you are a demon!

This scene gave Ravino real pleasure.

"You're making progress", he grinned without moving. -You're becoming more truthful than before.

"go away!" said Laurent, gasping.

"Great, he’ll fight soon," the doctor thought and came out, whistling cheerfully.

Laurent, however, had not yet fought and probably would have been able to fight only in complete confusion, but her mental health was in great danger. Left alone with herself, she was horrified to realize that she would not last long.

And Ravino did not miss anything that could speed up the denouement. In the evenings, Laurent began to be haunted by the sounds of a plaintive song performed on an instrument unknown to her. It was as if the cello was sobbing somewhere, sometimes the sounds rose to the upper registers of the violin, then suddenly, without a break, not only the pitch, but also the timbre changed, and a human voice sounded, pure, beautiful, but infinitely sad. The aching melody made a kind of circle and repeated endlessly.

When Laurent first heard this music, she even liked the melody. Moreover, the music was so tender and quiet that Laurent began to doubt whether music was really playing somewhere or whether she was developing an auditory hallucination. Minutes passed by minutes, and the music continued to spin in its enchanted circle. The cello was replaced by a violin, the violin by a sobbing human voice... One note sounded sad in the accompaniment. An hour later, Laurent was convinced that this music did not really exist, that it only sounded in her head. There was nowhere to go from the dull melody. Laurent closed her ears, but it seemed to her that she continued to listen to music - cello, violin, voice... cello, violin, voice...

"you can go crazy about this," Laurent whispered. She started humming herself, tried to talk to herself out loud to drown out the music, but nothing helped. Even in her dreams, this music haunted her.

"People can't play and sing continuously. This is probably mechanical music... Some kind of obsession," she thought, lying awake with her eyes open and listening to an endless circle: cello, violin, voice... cello, violin, voice...

She couldn't wait until morning and was in a hurry to run away to the park, but the melody had already turned into an obsession. Laurent was really starting to hear the music not playing. And only the screams, moans and laughter of the insane people walking in the park somewhat drowned her out.

New kid

Gradually, Marie Laurent reached such a nerve disorder that for the first time in her life she began to think about suicide. On one of her walks, she began to think about a way to commit suicide and delved so deeply into these thoughts that she did not notice a madman who came close to her and, blocking the road, said:

--Those good ones who don't know about the unknown. All this, of course, is sentimentality...

Laurent shuddered in surprise and looked at the patient. He was dressed like everyone else in a gray robe. A brown-haired man, tall, with a beautiful, thoroughbred face, he immediately attracted her attention.

"Apparently new," she thought. - - Shaved for the last time no more than five days ago. But why does his face remind me of someone?.."

And suddenly the young man quickly whispered:

"I know you, you’re Mademoiselle Laurent. I saw your portrait at your mother's.

--How do you know me? Who are you? - Laurent asked in surprise.

--In the world -- very little. I'm my brother's brother. And my brother - I am! - the young man shouted loudly.

An orderly passed by, quietly but carefully looking at him.

When the orderly passed, the young man quickly whispered:

"I’m Arthur Dowell, son of Professor Dowell.". I'm not crazy and only introduced myself as crazy to...

The orderly approached them again.

Arthur suddenly ran away from Laurent shouting:

--Here's my late brother! You are me, I am you. You entered me after death. We were doubles, but you died, not me.

And Dowell chased after some melancholic man, frightened by this unexpected attack. The orderly rushed after them, wanting to protect the little frail melancholic from the violent patient. When they reached the end of the park, Dowell, leaving his victim behind, turned back towards Laurent. He ran faster than the orderly. Passing Laurent, Douel slowed down and finished the sentence:

'-I came here to save you. Be ready to escape tonight. -- And, bouncing to the side, he danced around some crazy old woman who did not pay the slightest attention to him. Then he sat down on the bench, lowered his head and thought.

He played his role so well that Laurent wondered if Dowell was really just faking madness. But hope had already crept into her soul. She had no doubt that the young man was the son of Professor Dowell. His resemblance to his father was now striking, although the gray hospital gown and unshaven face significantly "depersonalized" Dowell. And then, he recognized her from the portrait. Apparently her mother had it. It all seemed to be true. One way or another, Laurent decided not to undress that night and wait for her unexpected savior.

The hope of salvation inspired her and gave her new strength. She suddenly seemed to wake up after a terrible nightmare. Even the annoying song began to sound quieter, go into the distance, and disappear into thin air. Laurent took a deep breath, like a man released into the fresh air from a gloomy dungeon. The thirst for life suddenly flared up in her with unprecedented force. She wanted to laugh with joy. But now more than ever she needed to be careful.

When the gong rang for breakfast, she tried to put on a dull face - a common expression lately - and headed towards the house.

Near the front door, as always, stood Dr. Ravino. He followed the sick like a jailer followed prisoners returning from a walk to their cells. Not a single little thing escaped his gaze: not a stone hidden under the robe, not a torn robe, not scratches on the hands and face of the sick. But with special care he followed the expression on their faces.

Laurent, passing by him, tried not to look at him and lowered her eyes. She wanted to slip through quickly, but he delayed her for a minute and looked her in the face even more carefully.

"How are you feeling?" he asked.

"As always", she answered.

"What kind of lie is this and in the name of what?" - he asked ironically and, missing it, added after: "We’ll talk to you later in the evening.".

"I was expecting melancholy. Will she really fall into a state of ecstasy? Obviously, I looked at something in the course of her thoughts and moods. We'll have to find out..." - he thought.

And in the evening he came to look for it. Laurent was very afraid of this date. If she holds out, it could be the last. If she can't stand it, she died. Now in her heart she called Dr. Ravino "the Grand Inquisitor.". And indeed, if he had lived several centuries ago, he could have carried this title with honor. She was afraid of his sophisms, his interrogation with passion, unexpected trap questions, amazing knowledge of psychology, his diabolical analysis. He was truly the "great logician," the modern Mephistopheles, who can destroy all moral values and kill the most immutable truths with doubts.

And, in order not to give herself away, in order not to die, she decided, having gathered all her willpower, to remain silent, no matter what he said. This was also a dangerous step. This was a declaration of open war, the last rebellion of self-preservation, which was supposed to cause an intensification of the attack. But there was no choice.

And when Ravino came, he stared, as usual, at her with his round eyes and asked: "So, in the name of what did you lie?" - Laurent did not utter a sound. Her lips were tightly compressed and her eyes were downcast.

Ravino began his inquisitorial interrogation. Laurent turned pale and red, but continued to remain silent. Ravino, - which happened to him very rarely, - began to lose patience and get angry.

"Silence is gold," he said mockingly. - - Having lost all your values, you want to preserve at least this virtue of voiceless animals and round idiots, but you will not succeed. Silence will be followed by an explosion. You will burst with anger if you do not open the safety valve of accusatory eloquence. And what's the point of remaining silent? Like I can't read your mind? "You want to drive me crazy," you think now, "but you won’t succeed.". Let's be honest. No, it will work, dear young lady. Spoiling a human soul is no more difficult for me than damaging the mechanism of a pocket watch. I know all the cogs of this simple machine. The more you resist, the more hopeless and deeper your fall into the darkness of madness will be.

"Two thousand four hundred sixty-one, two thousand four hundred sixty-two..." - Laurent continued to count so as not to hear what Ravino was telling her.

It is unknown how long this torture would have continued if the nurse had not quietly knocked on the door.

"enter", said Ravino, displeased.

"In the seventh ward, the patient seems to be running out," said the nurse.

Ravino reluctantly stood up.

"it ends, so much the better", he grumbled quietly "Tomorrow we will finish our interesting conversation", said he, and with Laurent's head raised by his chin, snorted mockingly and left.

Laurent sighed heavily and leaned over the table almost exhausted.

And behind the wall the sobbing music of hopeless melancholy was already playing. And the power of this witchcraft music was so great that Laurent involuntarily succumbed to this mood. It already seemed to her that the meeting with Arthur Dowell was only the delirium of her sick imagination, that any struggle was useless. Death, only death will save her from torment. She looked around... But patient suicides were not part of Dr. Ravino's system. There was nothing to even hang myself with here. Laurent shuddered. Suddenly she saw her mother's face.

"No, no, I won't do it, I won't do it for her... at least this last night... I'll wait for Dowell. If he doesn't come..." - She didn’t think of a thought, but she felt with her whole being what would happen to her if he did not fulfill his promise to her.

Escape

It was the most agonizing night of all Laurent spent in Dr. Ravino's hospital. The minutes dragged on endlessly and tediously, like familiar music coming into the room.

Laurent walked nervously from window to door. Steeping footsteps were heard from the corridor. Her heart began to beat. It got clogged and froze," she recognized the steps of the nurse on duty, who was approaching the door to look into the top. The two-hundred-candle lamp did not go out in the room all night. "It helps insomnia," Dr. Ravino decided. Laurent hurriedly, without undressing, lay down in bed, covered herself with a blanket and pretended to be sleeping. And the unusual happened to her: she, who had not slept for many nights, immediately fell asleep, tired to the last degree of everything she had experienced. She slept only a few minutes, but it seemed to her that the whole night had passed. Jumping up in fear, she ran to the door and suddenly ran into Arthur Dowell entering. He didn't cheat She barely held on to not scream.

"Hurry up", he whispered. -The nurse is in the west hallway. Let's go.

He grabbed her hand and carefully led her. Their steps were drowned out by the groans and cries of patients suffering from insomnia. The endless corridor is over. Finally, leaving the house.

"There are watchmen on duty in the park, but we'll sneak past them..." Dowell whispered quickly, dragging Laurent into the depths of the park.

-- But dogs...

"I kept feeding them lunch leftovers, and they know me.". I've been here for several days, but I avoided you so as not to arouse suspicion.

The park was drowning in darkness. But at the stone wall, at some distance from each other, as if around a prison, burning lanterns were placed.

--There's thickets over there... there...

Suddenly, Dowell lay down on the grass and pulled Laurent's hand. She followed his example. One of the watchmen walked close past the fugitives. When the watchman left, they began to make their way to the wall.

Somewhere a dog grumbled, ran up to them and wagged its tail when it saw Dowell. He threw her a piece of bread.

"you see", whispered Arthur, "the most important thing is done". Now all we have to do is get over the wall. I will help you.

"and you?" asked Laurent, anxiously.

"don't worry, I'm behind you", replied Dowell.

'-But what am I going to do behind the wall?

"My friends are waiting for us there.". Everything is prepared. Well, please, a little gymnastics.

Dowell leaned against the wall and helped Laurent climb the ridge with one hand.

But at that moment one of the watchmen saw her and raised the alarm. Suddenly the whole garden was lit up with lanterns. The watchmen, calling each other and the dogs, approached the fugitives.

"jump!" ordered Dowell.

"and you?" cried Laurent, frightened.

"Yes, jump!" - he already screamed, and Laurent jumped. Someone's hands picked her up.

Arthur Dowell jumped, clung to the top of the wall with his hands and began to pull himself up. But two orderlies grabbed him by the legs. Dowell was so strong that he almost lifted them on his arm muscles. However, his hands slipped and he fell down, crushing the orderlies under him.

Behind the wall the noise of a running car engine was heard. Friends were apparently expecting Dowell.

-- Leave quickly! Full speed! - he shouted, fighting with the orderlies.

The car skipped in response, and you could hear it rushing away.

"let me in, I'll go myself", said Dowell, ceasing to resist.

However, the orderlies did not let him go. Clenching his hands tightly, they led him to the house. Dr. Ravino stood at the door in a robe, puffing on a cigarette.

--Into the isolation chamber. A straitjacket! - he said to the orderlies.

Dowell was brought into a small windowless room, with all the walls and floor upholstered in mattresses. This was placed during seizures of violent patients. The orderlies threw Dowell to the floor. After them, Ravino entered the cell. He no longer smoked. With his hands in the pockets of his robe, he leaned over Dowell and began to look at him point-blank with his round eyes. Dowell held his gaze. Then Ravino nodded his head to the orderlies and they came out.

"you are not a bad malingerer", Ravino addressed Dowell, "but I am hard to fool". I figured you out on the very first day of your appearance here and followed you, but, I admit, I did not guess your intentions. You and Laurent will pay dearly for this trick.

"No more expensive than you", replied Dowell.

Ravino stirred his cockroach mustache.

-- A threat?

""To the threat," Dowell said succinctly.

"I'm hard to fight with", said Ravino. - I didn't break suckers like you. Complain to the authorities? It won't help, my friend. Moreover, you may disappear before the authorities arrive. There will be no trace of you left. By the way, what is your real name? DuBarry is a fiction.

-"Arthur Dowell, Professor Dowell's son.

Ravino was clearly surprised.

"very good to meet you", said he, desiring to conceal his embarrassment behind the mockery. - I had the honor of being acquainted with your venerable dad.

"thank God that my hands are tied", answered Dowell, "otherwise you would have a bad time". And don't you dare mention my father... scoundrel!

"I thank God very much for being strongly connected and for a long time, my dear guest!

Ravino turned sharply and left. The lock clicked loudly. Dowell was left alone.

He wasn't too worried about himself. His friends will not leave him and will tear him out of this dungeon. But still he was aware of the danger of his position. Ravino had to understand perfectly well that the fate of his entire enterprise could depend on the outcome of the struggle between him and Dowell. No wonder Ravino broke off the conversation and unexpectedly left the cell. A good psychologist, he immediately figured out who he was dealing with and did not even try to use his inquisitorial talents. Arthur Dowell had to be fought not with psychology, not with words, but only with decisive actions.

Between life and death

Arthur loosened the knots that bound him. He succeeded because when he was straitjacketed, he deliberately strained his muscles. Slowly he began to free himself from his diapers. But he was being watched. And as soon as he made an attempt to take out his hand, the lock clicked, the door opened, two orderlies entered and bandaged it again, this time placing several more belts over the straitjacket. The orderlies treated him rudely and threatened to beat him if he resumed attempts to free himself. Dowell didn't answer. Having bandaged him tightly, the orderlies left.

Since there were no windows in the cell and it was illuminated by an electric light on the ceiling, Dowell did not know whether morning had come. The clock dragged on slowly. Ravino has not done or appeared anything yet. Dowell was thirsty. Soon he felt bouts of hunger. But no one entered his cell or brought food or drink.

"Does he really want to starve me to death?" - thought Dowell. Hunger tormented him more and more, but he did not ask to eat. If Ravino decided to starve him, then there is no need to humiliate himself with a request.

Unknown to Dowell, Ravino is experiencing the power of his character. And, to Ravino's displeasure, Dowell passed this exam.

Despite his hunger and thirst, Dowell, who had spent a long time without sleep, fell asleep unnoticed He slept serenely and soundly, unaware that this would cause Ravino new trouble. Neither the bright light of the lamp nor Ravino's musical experiments made any impression on Dowell. Then Ravino resorted to stronger means of influence, which he applied to strong natures. In the next room, the orderlies began to hit iron sheets with wooden hammers and crack on special rattles. At this hellish roar, the strongest people usually woke up and looked around in horror. But Dowell was obviously stronger than the strong ones. He slept like a baby. This extraordinary incident struck even Ravino.

"Amazing," Ravino wondered, "and this man knows that his life hangs by a thread.". Nor will the trumpets of the archangels wake him up'.

"Enough!" he shouted to the orderlies, and the infernal music stopped.

Unbeknownst to Ravino, the incredible rumbling roared Dowell. But, as a man of great will, he mastered himself at the first glimpses of consciousness and did not discover with a single sigh, not a single movement that he was no longer sleeping.

"Dowell can only be destroyed physically," was Ravino’s sentence.

And Dowell, when the roar stopped, fell asleep for real again and slept until the evening. He woke up fresh and cheerful. Hunger was already tormenting him less. He lay with his eyes open and, smiling, looked at the top of the door. Someone's round eye could be seen there, watching him closely.

Arthur, in order to tease his enemy, began to hum a cheerful song. It was too much even for Ravino. For the first time in his life, he felt that he was unable to master someone else's will. A man tied up and lying helplessly on the floor mocked him. There was some hissing outside the door. The eye has disappeared.

Dowell continued to sing louder, but suddenly choked. Something irritated his throat. Dowell pulled his nose and smelled it. My throat and nasopharynx tickled, and soon a cutting pain in my eyes joined in. The smell intensified.

Dowell got colder. He realized that his hour of death had come. Ravino poisoned him with chlorine. Dowell knew that he was unable to escape from the belts and straitjacket that tightly tied him. But this time the instinct of self-preservation was stronger than the arguments of reason. Dowell began making incredible attempts to free himself. He writhed his whole body like a worm, arched, twisted, rolled from wall to wall. But he didn’t scream, didn’t beg for help, he was silent, gritting his teeth tightly. The darkened consciousness no longer controlled the body, and it was defended instinctively.

Then the lights went out and Dowell seemed to have fallen somewhere...

He woke up from the fresh wind that was fraying his hair. With an extraordinary effort of will, he tried to open his eyes: for a moment, someone's familiar face flashed before him, as if to Lara, but in a police suit. The noise of a car engine reached the ear. My head was cracking in pain. "Nonsense, but that means I’m still alive," thought Dowell. His eyelids closed again, but immediately opened again. Daylight hit my eyes painfully. Arthur squinted and suddenly heard a woman’s voice:

-- How are you feeling?

Dowell was paraded through his inflamed eyelids with a damp piece of cotton wool. Having finally opened his eyes, Arthur saw Laurent bending over him. He smiled at her and, looking around, saw that he was lying in the very bedroom in which Bricke once lay.

"I am not dead, then?" asked Dowell quietly.

"fortunately, you didn't die, but you were on the verge of death," Laurent said.

Quick footsteps were heard in the next room, and Arthur saw Lare. He waved his arms and shouted:

--Hear the conversation! So he came to life. Hello my friend! How are you feeling?

"thank you", replied Dowell, and feeling a pain in his chest, said: "Head hurts... and chest...

"don’t say much," Lara warned him, "it’s bad for you.". That Ravino gallows almost gassed you like a rat in the hold of a ship. But, Dowell, how great we had it!

And Lare began to laugh so that Laurent looked at him reproachfully, fearing that his too noisy joy would disturb the patient.

"I won’t, I won’t," he replied, catching her gaze. -I’ll tell you everything in order now. After kidnapping Mademoiselle Laurent and waiting a little, we realized that you were unable to follow her...

"You... heard my cry?" asked Arthur.

-- They heard. Be silent! And they hastened to drive away before Ravino sent out a chase. The fuss with you delayed his pack, and with this you greatly helped us escape unnoticed. We knew very well that you would be in trouble there. Open game. We, that is, me and Schaub, wanted to come to your aid as soon as possible. However, it was necessary to first arrange for Mademoiselle Laurent, and only then come up with and carry out a plan for your salvation. After all, your capture was unforeseen... Now we also had to penetrate the stone fence at all costs, and this, you yourself know, is not an easy task. Then we decided to do this: Schaub and I took out police suits, drove up in a car and said that we had come for a sanitary inspection. Schaub even depicted the mandate with all its seals. Luckily for us, at the gate there was not a permanent gatekeeper, but a simple orderly who,obviously, he was not familiar with Ravino’s instructions, which required anyone to first call him by phone when entering. We kept ourselves up to the occasion and...

"So it wasn’t nonsense..." interrupted Arthur. - I remember seeing you in a police uniform and hearing the noise of a car.

"Yes, yes, you were blown by a fresh wind in the car, and you came to your senses, but then fell into unconsciousness. So listen further. The orderly opened the gate for us, we entered. The rest was not difficult to do, although not as easy as we expected. I demanded that we be taken to Ravino's office. But the second orderly we approached was obviously an experienced man. He looked at us suspiciously, said that he would report, and entered the house. A few minutes later, some hump-nosed man in a white robe came out to us, with turtle glasses on his nose...

--Ravino's assistant, Dr. Bush.

Lare nodded his head and continued:

"He announced to us that Dr. Ravino was busy and that we could talk to him, Bush. I insisted that we needed to see Ravino himself. Bush repeated that this is now impossible, since Ravino is with a seriously ill patient. Then Schaub, without thinking twice, took Bush by the hand like this," Lare took the wrist of his left hand with his right hand, "and turned like this.". Bush screamed in pain, and we walked past him and entered the house. Damn it, we didn't know where Ravino was and we were in a lot of trouble. Fortunately, he himself was walking along the corridor at that time. I recognized him because I saw him when I brought you as my mentally ill friend. "What do you want?" - Ravino asked sharply. We realized that we had nothing else to play the comedy, and, approaching Ravino, we quickly took out our revolvers and pointed them at his forehead.But at this time, big-nosed Bush - who would have expected such agility from this ruin! - hit Schaub’s hand, so hard and unexpectedly that he knocked out the revolver, and Ravino grabbed my hand. Then fun began, which is perhaps difficult to talk about in a coherent way. Orderlies had already fled from all sides to help Ravino and Bush. There were many of them, and they, of course, would have dealt with us quickly. But, fortunately for us, many were confused by the police uniform. They knew about the heavy punishment for resisting the police, and even more so if it involved violent actions against government officials. No matter how much Ravino shouted that our police suits were a masquerade, most orderlies preferred the role of observers, and only a few dared to put their hands on the sacred and inviolable police uniform. Our second trump card was firearmswhich the orderlies did not have. And, perhaps, our strength, dexterity and despair were no less trump cards. This equalized the forces. One orderly sat on Schaub, who bent down to pick up a fallen revolver. Schaub turned out to be a great master at all sorts of wrestling techniques. He shook off the enemy and, delivering deft blows, threw away the revolver with his foot, behind which someone’s hand had already stretched out. We must give him justice, he fought with extreme composure and self-control. Two orderlies also hung on my shoulders. And it is unknown how this battle would have ended if not for Schaub. He turned out to be great. He managed to raise the revolver, and without thinking twice, he used it. Several shots immediately cooled the ardor of the orderlies. After one of them screamed, grabbing his bloody shoulder, the rest instantly retreated. But Ravino did not give up.Even though we put revolvers to both of his temples, he shouted: "I also have weapons. I'll have my men shoot you if you don't get out of here now!' Then Schaub, without saying another word, began to twist Ravino’s hand. This technique causes such damn pain that even huge bandits roar like hippos and become meek and obedient. Ravino's bones were crunching and tears appeared in his eyes, but he still did not give up. "What are you looking at?" he shouted to the orderlies standing in the distance. - To arms!" Several orderlies ran, probably for weapons, others approached us again. I pulled the revolver away from Ravino's head for a moment and fired a couple of shots. The servants became petrified again, except for one, who fell to the floor with a dull groan... "I'll have guns too. I'll have my men shoot you if you don't get out of here now!' Then Schaub, without saying another word, began to twist Ravino’s hand. This technique causes such damn pain that even huge bandits roar like hippos and become meek and obedient. Ravino's bones crunched and tears appeared in his eyes, but he still did not give up. "What are you looking at?" he shouted to the orderlies standing in the distance. - To arms!" Several orderlies ran, probably for weapons, others approached us again. I pulled the revolver away from Ravino's head for a moment and fired a couple of shots. The servants became petrified again, except for one, who fell to the floor with a dull groan... "I'll have guns too. I'll have my men shoot you if you don't get out of here now!' Then Schaub, without saying another word, began to twist Ravino’s hand. This technique causes such damn pain that even huge bandits roar like hippos and become meek and obedient. Ravino's bones crunched and tears appeared in his eyes, but he still did not give up. "What are you looking at?" he shouted to the orderlies standing in the distance. - To arms!" Several orderlies ran, probably for weapons, others approached us again. I pulled the revolver away from Ravino's head for a moment and fired a couple of shots. The servants became petrified again, except for one, who fell to the floor with a dull groan... he began to turn Ravino’s hand out. This technique causes such damn pain that even huge bandits roar like hippos and become meek and obedient. Ravino's bones crunched and tears appeared in his eyes, but he still did not give up. "What are you looking at?" he shouted to the orderlies standing in the distance. - To arms!" Several orderlies ran, probably for weapons, others approached us again. I pulled the revolver away from Ravino's head for a moment and fired a couple of shots. The servants became petrified again, except for one, who fell to the floor with a dull groan... he began to turn Ravino’s hand out. This technique causes such damn pain that even huge bandits roar like hippos and become meek and obedient. Ravino's bones crunched and tears appeared in his eyes, but he still did not give up. "What are you looking at?" he shouted to the orderlies standing in the distance. - To arms!" Several orderlies ran, probably for weapons, others approached us again. I pulled the revolver away from Ravino's head for a moment and fired a couple of shots. The servants became petrified again, except for one, who fell to the floor with a dull groan... What are you looking at? - he shouted to the orderlies standing in the distance. - To arms!" Several orderlies ran, probably for weapons, others approached us again. I pulled the revolver away from Ravino's head for a moment and fired a couple of shots. The servants became petrified again, except for one, who fell to the floor with a dull groan... What are you looking at? - he shouted to the orderlies standing in the distance. - To arms!" Several orderlies ran, probably for weapons, others approached us again. I pulled the revolver away from Ravino's head for a moment and fired a couple of shots. The servants became petrified again, except for one, who fell to the floor with a dull groan...

Lare took a break and continued:

"Yes, it was a hot case.". The unbearable pain increasingly weakened Ravino, and Schaub continued to twist his arm. Finally, Ravino, writhing in pain, wheezed: "What do you want?" - "Immediate release of Arthur Dowell," I said. "Of course," Ravino answered, gritting his teeth, "I recognized your face.". Let go of your hand, damn it! I'll take you to him..." Schaub let go of his hand just enough to bring him to his senses: he was already losing consciousness. Ravino led us to the cell in which you were imprisoned and pointed his eyes at the key. I unlocked the doors and entered the cell, accompanied by Ravino and Schaub. A gloomy sight appeared to our eyes: swaddled like a baby, you writhed in the last convulsions, like a half-crushed worm. There was a suffocating smell of chlorine in the cell. Schaub, so as not to bother with Ravino anymore,he dealt him a slight blow from below to the jaw, from which the doctor rolled to the floor like a stump. We ourselves, out of breath, pulled you out of the cell and slammed the door.

--And Ravino? He...

"If it suffocates, it’s not a big deal," we decided. But he was probably released and brought to his senses after we left... We got out of this wasp nest quite safely, except for the fact that we had to shoot the remaining cartridges at the dogs... And here you are.

'-How long did I lie unconscious?

-- Ten o'clock. The doctor only recently left when your pulse and breathing were restored and he was convinced that you were out of danger. Yes, my dear," Lara continued, rubbing his hands, "loud trials lie ahead.". Ravino will sit in the dock with Professor Kern. I won't leave this matter.

"But first we need to find - living or dead - my father’s head," Arthur said quietly.

Again without a body

Professor Kern was so happy about Bricke's unexpected return that he even forgot to scold her. However, there was no time for that. John had to carry Brica in his arms, and she moaned in pain.

"doctor, forgive me", said she, seeing Kern. - I didn't listen to you...

"and they punished themselves," Kern replied, helping John lay the fugitive on the bed.

"God, I didn’t even take off my coat.".

"let me help you do this?".

Kern began carefully removing Bricke's coat while watching her with an experienced eye. Her face became unusually younger and fresher. There was no trace of wrinkles left.

"The work of the endocrine glands," he thought. "Angelica Guy’s young body rejuvenated Bricquet’s head.".

Professor Kern has long known whose body he stole from the morgue. He followed the newspapers closely and chuckled ironically as he read about the search for the "unknown missing" Angelique Guy.

-- Be careful... "My leg hurts," Bricke winced as Kern turned her to the other side.

-- We jumped! After all, I warned you.

A nurse came in, an elderly woman with a dull expression on her face.

"undress her", Kern nodded at Brick.

"Where is Mademoiselle Laurent?" - Bricquet was surprised.

--She's not here. She is sick.

Kern turned away, drummed his fingers on the back of the bed and left the room.

"have you been serving Professor Kern for a long time?" asked Bricke, the new nurse.

She mumbled something incomprehensible, pointing to her mouth.

"Mute," Bricke guessed. "And there won’t be anyone to talk to..."

The nurse silently put away her coat and left. Kern reappeared.

-- Show your leg.

""I danced a lot," Bricke began her penitential confession. - Soon a wound opened on the sole of her foot. I didn't pay attention...

-- And they kept dancing?

-- No, dancing hurt. But I still played tennis for several days. This is such a charming game!

Kern, listening to Bricke chat, carefully examined his leg and frowned more and more. The leg was swollen to the knee and blackened. He pressed in several places.

"Oh, it hurts!.." cried Bricke.

-- Fever?

--Yes, since last night.

-- So... - Kern took out his cigar and lit a cigarette. - The situation is very serious. This is what disobedience leads to. Who did you want to play tennis with?

Briquet was embarrassed.

--With one... young man I know.

"Will you tell me what has happened to you since you ran away from me?

"I was visiting my friend.". She was very surprised to see me alive. I told her that my wound was not fatal and that I was treated in the hospital.

-- About me and... did you say anything to your head?

"Of course not", replied Bricke with conviction. - It would be strange to say. I would be considered crazy.

Kern breathed a sigh of relief. "Everything turned out better than I could have expected," he thought.

"But what’s wrong with my leg, professor?"

'-I'm afraid she'll have to be cut off.

Brique's eyes lit up with horror.

-- Cut off the leg! My leg? To cripple me?

Kern himself did not want to disfigure the body, obtained and revived with such difficulty. And the effect of the demonstration will lose a lot if you have to show a cripple. It would be good to do without amputating the leg, but this is hardly possible.

"maybe I can have a new leg attached?"

--Don't worry, we'll wait until tomorrow. "I’ll visit you again," Kern said and left.

He was again replaced by a silent nurse. She brought a cup of broth and croutons. Bricke had no appetite. She was feverish, and despite the nurse’s persistent facial persuasion, she was unable to eat more than two spoons.

--Bring it away, I can't.

The nurse came out.

"it was necessary to measure the temperature first", heard Bricke's voice from Kern coming from another room, Don't you know such simple things? I told you so.

The nurse came in again and handed Brika a thermometer.

The patient resignedly placed a thermometer. And when she took him out and looked, he showed thirty-nine.

The nurse recorded the temperature and sat down next to the patient.

Bricke, in order not to see the stupid and indifferent face of the nurse, turned her head towards the wall. Even this slight turn caused pain in the leg and lower abdomen. Briquet groaned dully and closed her eyes. She thought of Lara, "Honey, when will I see him?.."

At nine o'clock in the evening the fever intensified and delirium began. It seemed to Brika that she was in the yacht's cabin. The excitement intensifies, the yacht rocks, and this causes a sickening ball to rise in the chest and rise to the throat... Lare rushes at her and strangles her. She screams, rushes across the bed... Something wet and cold touches her forehead and heart. Nightmares disappear.

She sees herself on the tennis court with Lare. The sea turns blue through the light barrier mesh. The sun is burning mercilessly, my head hurts and it's spinning. "If only my head didn’t hurt so much... This is a terrible sun!.. I can't miss the ball..." -- and she watches with tension the movements of Lara, raising her racket to strike. "Play!" - Lara shouts, sparkling her teeth in the bright sun, and before she can answer, throws the ball. "Out," Bricke answers loudly, rejoicing at Lara’s mistake...

"Are you still playing tennis?" she hears someone's unpleasant voice and opens her eyes. Kern stands in front of her, leaning over, and holds her hand. He counts the pulse. Then he examines her leg and shakes his head disapprovingly.

"What time is it?" asks Briquet, turning his tongue with difficulty.

--Two o'clock in the morning. That's what, sweet jumper, you're gonna have to have your leg amputated.

--What does that mean?

-- Cut off.

-- When?

-- Now. You can’t delay a single hour anymore, otherwise a general infection will begin.

Bricke's thoughts are confused. She hears Kern's voice as if in a dream and has difficulty understanding his words.

"and cut high?" she says almost indifferently.

"like this", Kern quickly runs the edge of his palm at the bottom of his abdomen. This gesture makes Bricke's stomach cold. Her consciousness is becoming increasingly clearer.

"No, no, no", she says horrified. -I won't allow it! I do not want!

"Do you want to die?" Kern asks calmly.

-- No.

-- Choose one of two, then.

--What about Lara? After all, he loves me... - Brique babbles. -- I want to live and be healthy. And you want to take everything away... You are scary, I'm afraid of you! Save! Save me!..

She was already delirious again, screaming and trying to get up. The nurse had difficulty holding her. Soon John was called to help.

Meanwhile, Kern worked quickly in the next room, preparing for surgery.

At exactly two o'clock in the morning, Brique was placed on the operating table. She came to her senses and silently looked at Kern the way those sentenced to death look at their executioner.

"spare", she finally whispered. -- Save...

The mask fell on her face. The nurse took her pulse.

John pressed his mask more and more tightly. Bricke lost consciousness.

She came to her senses in bed. My head was spinning. She was sick. She vaguely remembered the operation and, despite her terrible weakness, raised her head, looked at her leg and moaned quietly. The leg was cut off above the knee and tightly bandaged. Kern kept his word: he did everything to disfigure Bricke's body as little as possible. He took a risk and performed the amputation in such a way that a prosthesis could be made.

All day after the operation, Bricke felt satisfactory, although the fever did not stop, which greatly worried Kern. He went to her every hour and examined her leg.

"what am I going to do now without my leg?" asked Bricke.

"Don’t worry, I’ll make you a new leg, better than the previous one," Kern reassured her. -- You will dance. - But his face frowned: his leg turned red above the amputated area and swollen.

By evening the heat intensified. Bricke began to rush around, moan and rave.

At eleven o'clock in the evening the temperature rose to forty and six tenths.

Kern angrily got out: it became clear to him that general blood poisoning had begun. Then, without thinking about saving Bricke’s body, Kern decided to win at least part of the exhibit from death. "If you rinse her blood vessels with antiseptic and then saline and release fresh, healthy blood, her head will live.".

And he ordered Bricke to be moved to the operating table again.

Briquet lay unconscious and did not feel the sharp scalpel quickly make an incision in her neck above the red stitches left over from the first operation. This incision separated not only Bricke's head from her beautiful young body. He cut off the whole world from Bricke, all the joys and hopes with which she lived.

Toma dies a second time

Tom's head was fading every day. Toma was not adapted to the life of consciousness alone. To feel good, he needed to work, move, lift weights, tire his powerful body, then eat something else and sleep soundly.

He often closed his eyes and imagined that, straining his back, he lifted and carried heavy bags. It seemed to him that he felt every tense muscle The feeling was so real that he opened his eyes in the hope of seeing his strong body. But only the legs of the table were still visible under it.

Toma grinded his teeth and closed his eyes again.

To entertain himself, he began to think about the village. But he immediately remembered his bride, who was forever lost to him. More than once he asked Kern to quickly give him a new body, and he made the excuse with a grin:

'-Still not finding the right one, be patient a little.

"at least some lying body," asked Tom: "so great was his desire to return to life.".

--With a body lying around, you'll be lost. "You need a healthy body," Kern answered.

Tom was waiting, days passed by days, and his head was still sticking out on the high table.

The nights without sleep were especially painful. He began to hallucinate. The room spun, fog spread, and a horse's head appeared from the fog. The sun was rising. A dog was running around in the yard, chickens were making a fuss... And suddenly a roaring truck flew out from somewhere and rushed towards Tom. This picture repeated itself endlessly, and Toma died an infinite number of times.

To get rid of nightmares, Toma began to whisper songs - it seemed to him that he was singing - or count.

Somehow he was fascinated by one thing. Toma tried to hold the air stream with his mouth. When he then suddenly opened his mouth, the air burst out with a funny noise.

Tom liked it and started his game again. He retained the air until it itself broke through his clenched lips. Toma began to turn his tongue at the same time: very funny sounds were produced. How many seconds can he hold a stream of air? Tom started counting. Five, six, seven, eight... Shhhh - the air has broken through. More... We need to get to a dozen... One, two, three... six, seven... nine, eleven... twelve...

The compressed air suddenly hit the sky with such force that Toma felt his head rise on its stand.

"So, perhaps, you’ll fall off your pole," Toma thought.

He squinted his eyes and saw that blood had spilled on the glass surface of the stand and was dripping onto the floor. Apparently, the air stream, raising his head, weakened the tubes inserted into the blood vessels of his neck. Tom's head was horrified: is it really over? And indeed, consciousness began to turbid. Tom felt as if he didn't have enough air: it was the blood that fed his head that could no longer penetrate his brain in sufficient quantities, bringing life-giving oxygen. He saw his blood, felt his slow extinction. He didn't want to die! Consciousness clung to life. Live at all costs! Wait for the new body promised by Kern...

Toma tried to put his head down, contracting the muscles of his neck, tried to swing, but only worsened his position: the glass tips of the tubes came out of the veins even more. With the last glimmers of consciousness, Tom began to scream, screaming in a way that he had never screamed in his life.

But it was no longer a scream. It was a death wheezing...

When John, who was lightly asleep, woke up to these unfamiliar sounds and ran into the room, Tom's head could barely move his lips. John, as best he could, put his head in place, inserted the tubes deeper and thoroughly wiped the blood so that Professor Kern would not see any traces of the night's incident.

In the morning, Bricke's head, separated from her body, was already standing in its old place, on a metal table with a glass board, and Kern brought her back to consciousness.

When he "washed" his head from the remains of spoiled blood and released a stream of fresh, healthy blood heated to thirty-seven degrees, Briquet’s face turned pink. A few minutes later she opened her eyes and, not yet understanding, stared at Kern. Then she looked down with visible effort, and her eyes widened.

--No body again... - Bricke's head whispered, and her eyes filled with tears. Now she could only hiss: the vocal cords were cut above the old section.

"Great", thought Kern, the vessels fill quickly with moisture, unless it's residual moisture in the tear canals. However, you should not lose precious liquid to tears'.

'-Don't cry or be sad, Mademoiselle Briquet. You have severely punished yourselves for your disobedience. But I will make you a new body, better than the old one, be patient for a few more days.

And, moving away from Bricke's head, Kern approached Tom's head.

--Well, how is our farmer doing?

Kern suddenly frowned and looked carefully at Tom's head. She looked very bad. The skin darkened and the mouth was half open. Kern examined the pipes and attacked John with abuse.

"I thought Toma was sleeping", John justified himself.

"You overslept yourself, donkey!"

Kern began to tinker around his head.

-- Oh, what a horror!.. - Bricke's head hissed. - He died. I'm so afraid of the dead... I'm afraid to die too... Why did he die?

"Shut the air jet faucet on her!" Kern angrily ordered.

Bricke fell silent mid-sentence, but continued to look fearfully and imploringly into the nurse’s eyes, moving her lips helplessly.

"If I don’t bring my head back to life in twenty minutes, all I have to do is throw it away," Kern said.

After fifteen minutes, the head showed some signs of life. Her eyelids and lips trembled, but her eyes looked stupidly, senselessly. After another two minutes, the head uttered several incoherent words. Kern has already triumphed in victory. But my head suddenly fell silent again. Not a single nerve trembled on his face.

Kern looked at the thermometer:

--Cadaver temperature. It's over!

And, forgetting about Bricke’s presence, he angrily pulled his head by his thick hair, tore it off the table and threw it into a large metal basin.

--Take her out to the glacier... An autopsy will need to be performed.

The negro quickly grabbed his pelvis and walked out. Bricke's head looked at him with eyes widened in horror.

Kern's office rang the phone. Kern angrily threw the cigar he was about to light on the floor and went to his place, slamming the door hard.

Ravino called. He reported that he sent Kern a letter on purpose, which he should have already received.

Kern went downstairs and took the letter out of the door mailbox himself. While climbing the stairs, Kern nervously tore open the envelope and began to read. Ravino reported that Arthur Dowell, having entered his hospital under the guise of a patient, kidnapped Mademoiselle Laurent and fled himself.

Kern stumbled and almost fell on the stairs.

-- Arthur Dowell!.. Professor's son... Is he here? And he, of course, knows everything...

A new enemy has appeared who will not give him mercy. In his office, Kern burned a letter and walked on the carpet, thinking about a plan of action. Destroy Professor Dowell's head? He can always do this in one minute. But he still needs his head. It will only be necessary to take measures to ensure that this evidence does not catch the eye of outsiders.

A search and invasion of his house by enemies is possible. Then... then it is necessary to speed up the demonstration of Bricke's head. Winners are not judged. No matter what Laurent and Arthur Dowell say, Kern will find it easier to fight them when his name is surrounded by an aura of universal recognition and respect.

Kern picked up the phone, called the secretary of the scientific society and asked him to come to him for negotiations on the structure of a meeting at which he, Kern, would demonstrate the results of his latest work. Kern then called the editorial offices of major newspapers and asked to send interviewers.

"We need to make a newspaper fuss about Professor Kern's greatest discovery... The demonstration can be made in three days, when Bricke’s head will recover somewhat from the shock and get used to the thought of losing his body... Well, sir, now..."

Kern went into the laboratory, rummaged through the lockers, took out a syringe, a Bunsen burner, took cotton wool, a box with the inscription "Paraffin" and went to Professor Dowell’s head.

Conspirators

Lare's lodge served as the headquarters of the "conspirators": Arthur Dowell, Lare, Schaub and Laurent. At a general council, it was decided that Laurent was risky to return to his apartment. But since Laurent wanted to see his mother as soon as possible, Lare went to Madame Laurent and brought her to his house.

Seeing her daughter alive and unharmed, the old woman almost lost her feelings of joy: Lara had to grab her arm and sit her in a chair.

Mother and daughter fit into two rooms on the third floor. Madame Laurent's joy was only overshadowed by the fact that Arthur Dowell, her daughter's "savior", was still lying ill. Fortunately, it was not exposed to asphyxiating gas for too long. He took his own and his exceptionally healthy body.

Madame Laurent and her daughter took turns on duty at the bedside. During this time, Arthur Dowell became very friendly with the Laurentians, and Marie Laurent looked after him more than carefully; Unable to help her father's head, Laurent transferred her worries to her son. That's what she thought. But there was another reason that made her reluctant to give up her mother's place as a nurse. Arthur Dowell was the first man to capture her girlish imagination. I met him in a romantic setting - he, like a knight, kidnapped her, freeing her from Ravino’s terrible house. The tragic fate of his father also left a stamp of tragedy on him. And his personal qualities - masculinity, strength and youth - completed a charm that was difficult not to succumb to.

Arthur Dowell greeted Marie Laurent with an equally affectionate gaze. He understood his feelings better and did not hide from himself that his affection was not only the duty of the patient towards his attentive nurse.

The tender glances of the young people did not escape those around them. Laurent's mother pretended not to notice anything, although she apparently fully approved of her daughter's choice. Schaub, who was contemptuous of women in his passion for sports, smiled mockingly and felt sorry for Arthur in his soul, and Lare sighed heavily, seeing the dawn of someone else’s happiness, and involuntarily recalled Angelica’s beautiful body, and now on this body he more often imagined Bricke’s head, and not Guy. He even annoyed himself for this "treason," but justified himself by the fact that only the law of association plays a role here: Bricke’s head followed Guy’s body everywhere.

Arthur Dowell could not wait for the doctor to allow him to walk. But Arthur was only allowed to speak without getting out of bed, and those around him were given orders to take care of Dowell's lungs.

He had willy-nilly to assume the role of chairman, listening to the opinions of others and only briefly objecting or summarizing the "debate".

And the debate was heated. Lara and Schaub were especially passionate.

What to do with Ravino and Kern? For some reason, Schaub chose Ravino as a victim and developed plans for "robbery" against him.

"We didn’t have time to finish off this dog.". And it must be destroyed. Every breath of this dog desecrates the earth! I will only calm down when I strangle him with my own hands. "So you say," he got excited, turning to Dowell, "that it is better to leave this whole matter to the court and the executioner.". But Ravino himself told us that he has power at his mercy.

"locals," Dowell inserted the word.

"wait, Dowell," Lara intervened in the conversation. -It’s harmful for you to talk. And you, Schaub, are not talking about what is needed. Ravino and I will always be able to settle accounts. Our immediate goal should be to solve Kern's crime and discover Professor Dowell's head. We need some way to get to Kern.

"But how will you get in?" asked Arthur.

-- How? Well, how hackers and thieves get in.

--You're not a burglar. This is also a lot of art. - Lare thought, then slapped himself on the forehead. - We will invite Jean on tour. After all, Bricke revealed to me, as a friend, the secret of his profession. He will be flattered! For the only time in his life he will break into door locks not for selfish reasons.

--What if he's not so disinterested?

--We'll pay him. He can only pave the way for us and escape from the theater stage before we call the police, and we will, of course, do this.

But here Arthur Dowell cooled his ardor. Quietly and slowly he began to say:

'"I think all this romance isn't necessary in this case. Kern probably already knows from Ravino about my arrival in Paris and participation in the kidnapping of Mademoiselle Laurent. So, I have no reason to remain incognito anymore. This is the first one. Then, I am the son of... the late Professor Dowell and therefore have the legal right, as lawyers say, to intervene in the case, to demand a judicial investigation, a search...

"Again judicial," Lara waved his hand hopelessly. - The judicial hooks will confuse you, and Kern will twist.

Arthur coughed and involuntarily winced from chest pain.

"you talk too much", said MaDame Laurent, who was sitting beside Arthur, with care.

"nothing", he replied, rubbing his chest. -It's going to pass now...

At that moment, Marie Laurent entered the room, very excited about something.

"here, read", said she, handing Dowell the paper.

The first page was printed in large print:

PROFESSOR KERN'S SENSATIONAL DISCOVERY

The second subtitle is in smaller print:

DEMONSTRATION OF A LIVELY HUMAN HEAD

The note reported that Professor Kern was giving a talk at the scientific society tomorrow evening. The report will be accompanied by a demonstration of a lively human head.

Next, the history of Kern's work was reported, his scientific works and the brilliant operations he performed were listed.

Under the first note was an article signed by Kern himself. It outlined the history of his experiences of reviving heads - first dogs and then people.

Laurent watched with intense attention either the expression on Arthur Dowell's face or the gaze of his eyes, which moved from line to line. Dowell remained outwardly calm. Only at the end of the reading did a mournful smile appear and disappear on his face.

"Isn't it outrageous?" cried Marie Laurent as Arthur silently returned the paper. - This scoundrel does not mention a single word about your father's role in this whole "sensational discovery". No, I can't leave this like that! - - Laurent's cheeks were on fire. - For everything that Kern did to me, to your father, to you, to those unfortunate heads that he resurrected for the hell of a disembodied existence, he must be punished. He must give an answer not only before the court, but also before society. It would be the greatest injustice to allow it to triumph for even one hour.

"what do you want?" asked Dowell quietly.

-- Spoil his triumph! - Laurent answered warmly. - To appear at a meeting of the scientific society and publicly throw in Kern’s face the accusation that he is a murderer, a criminal, a thief...

Madame Laurent was seriously alarmed. Only now did she realize how much her daughter’s nerves were shaken. For the first time, a mother saw her meek, reserved daughter in such an excited state. Madame Laurent tried to calm her down, but the girl seemed not to notice anything around her. She was all burning with indignation and thirst for revenge. Lare and Schaub looked at her in surprise. With her ardor and indomitable anger, she surpassed them. Mother Laurent looked pleadingly at Arthur Dowell. He caught that look and said

"your action, Mademoiselle Laurent, no matter how noble feelings it may be dictated by, is reckless...

But Laurent interrupted him:

--There's a recklessness that's worth the wisdom. Don't think that I want to act as an accusatory heroine. I just can't do otherwise. My moral sense requires this.

-- But what will you achieve? After all, you can’t tell the forensic investigator about all this?

'-No, I want Kern to be put to shame in public! Kern makes a name for himself on the misfortune of others, on crimes and murders! Tomorrow he wants to reap the laurels of glory. And he must reap the glory he deserves.

"I am against this act, Mademoiselle Laurent", said Arthur Dowell, fearing that Laurent's performance might shake her nervous system too much.

"very sorry", she replied, "but I will not give it up, even if there was a whole world against me". You don't know me yet!

Arthur Dowell smiled. He liked this young fervor, and Marie herself, with her flushed cheeks, even more.

"But this will be a rash step," he began again. --You are putting yourself at great risk...

"we will defend her!" cried Lara, raising his hand as if he were holding a sword ready to strike.

"Yes, we will protect you," Schaub loudly supported his friend, shaking his fist in the air.

Marie Laurent, seeing this support, looked at Arthur with reproach.

"in that case, I will also accompany you," he said.

Joy flashed through Laurent's eyes, but she immediately frowned.

--You can't... You are not healthy yet.

--And I'll go after all.

-- But...

"and I won’t give up on this idea if the whole world were against me! "You don’t know me yet," he repeated her words, smiling.

A ruined triumph

On the day of the scientific demonstration, Kern examined Bricquet's head especially carefully.

"that’s what," he told her after finishing the inspection. -Tonight at eight in the evening you will be taken to a crowded meeting. There you will have to talk. Answer briefly the questions you will be asked. Don't talk too much. Got it?

Kern opened the air tap and Bricke hissed:

"I understand, but I would ask you to... allow me...

Kern came out without listening to her.

His excitement grew ever larger. The difficult task ahead was to deliver the head to the meeting room of the scientific society. The slightest push could be fatal for the life of the head.

A specially adapted car was prepared. The table on which the head with all the devices was placed was placed on a special platform equipped with wheels for moving on a flat floor and handles for moving along stairs. Finally everything was ready. At seven o'clock in the evening we set off.

...The huge white hall was flooded with bright light. The stalls were dominated by the gray hair and shiny bald heads of the men of science, dressed in black tailcoats and frock coats. The glasses glistened. The boxes and amphitheater were provided to a select public with some connection to the scientific world.

The ladies' luxurious outfits and sparkling diamonds resembled the atmosphere of a concert hall when world celebrities performed.

The restrained noise of spectators waiting to begin filled the hall.

Near the stage, newspaper correspondents were busy at their tables with a busy anthill, clearing pencils for verbatim recording.

A series of movie cameras were mounted to the right to capture all the moments of Kern's performance and animated head on the tape. An honorary presidium of the largest representatives of the scientific world was located on the stage. A pulpit rose in the middle of the stage. It has a microphone for radio transmission of speeches around the world. The second microphone was in front of Bricke's head. It rose on the right side of the stage. The skillfully and moderately applied makeup gave Bricke's head a fresh and attractive appearance, smoothing out the heavy impression that the head should have made on unprepared spectators. The nurse and John stood near her table.

Marie Laurent, Arthur Dowell, Lare and Schaub sat in the front row, a stone's throw from the platform on which the pulpit stood. Schaub alone, as if not "deciphered" by anyone, was in its usual form. Laurent appeared in the evening toilet and wearing a hat. She held her head low, covering herself with the brim of her hat, so that Kern would not recognize her by chance. Arthur Dowell and Lare showed up in makeup. Their black beards and mustaches were made artistically. For greater secrecy, it was decided that they "did not know each other.". Everyone sat silently, looking around at their neighbors with an absent-minded gaze. Lare was depressed: he almost lost consciousness when he saw Bricke's head.

At exactly eight o'clock Professor Kern ascended to the department. He was paler than usual, but full of dignity.

The meeting greeted him with continuous applause for a long time.

The movie camera crackled. The newspaper anthill has died down. Professor Kern began a report on his imaginary discoveries.

It was a brilliantly shaped and deftly constructed speech. Kern did not forget to mention the preliminary, very valuable works of Professor Dowell, who died untimely. But, paying tribute to the works of the deceased, he did not forget about his "modest merits.". There should have been no doubt left to the audience that all the honor of the discovery belonged to him, Professor Kern.

His speech was interrupted several times by applause. Hundreds of ladies pointed binoculars at him and lorgnettes. Binoculars and monocles of men rushed with no less interest onto the head of Brique, who smiled forcedly. At Professor Kern's sign, the nurse opened the tap, launched an air stream, and Bricke's head was able to speak.

"How are you feeling?" the old scientist asked her.

--Thank you, all right.

Bricke's voice was dull and hoarse, a heavily launched stream of air made a whistle, the sound was almost devoid of modulation, however, the performance of the head made an extraordinary impression. World artists have not always heard such a storm of applause. But Brique, who once reveled in laurels from her performances in small zucchini, this time only tiredly lowered her eyelids.

Laurent's excitement increased. A nervous fever began to shake her, and she clenched her teeth tightly so that they would not beat off the shot. "It’s time," she told herself several times, but each time she lacked determination. The situation suppressed her. After each missed moment, she tried to calm herself with the thought that the higher Professor Kern was ascended, the lower his fall would be.

Speeches began.

A gray-haired old man, one of the greatest scientists, ascended to the department.

In a weak, cracked voice, he spoke of the brilliant discovery of Professor Kern, of the omnipotence of science, of the victory over death, of the happiness of communicating with such minds that give the world the greatest scientific achievements.

And at that moment, when Laurent least expected it, some whirlwind of long-held anger and hatred picked her up and carried her away. She no longer controlled herself.

She rushed to the pulpit, almost knocking the stunned old man down, almost threw him off, took his place, and with a deathly pale face and feverishly burning eyes, the fury pursuing the killer began her fiery chaotic speech in a suffocating voice.

The whole hall shook up when she appeared.

At the first moment, Professor Kern became embarrassed and made an involuntary movement towards Laurent, as if wanting to hold her. Then he quickly turned to John and whispered a few words in his ear. John slipped through the door.

In the general confusion, no one paid attention to this.

-- Don't believe him! - Laurent shouted, pointing to Kern. -He is a thief and a murderer! He stole Professor Dowell's writings! He killed Dowell! He still works with his head. He tortures and tortures him to continue scientific experiments, and then passes them off as his discoveries... Dowell himself told me that Kern poisoned him...

In the public, the confusion turned into panic. Many jumped up from their seats. Even some correspondents dropped their pencils and froze in stunned poses. Only the cameraman intensively turned the handle of the device, rejoicing at the unexpected trick that ensured the film's success as a sensation.

Professor Kern has completely mastered himself. He stood calmly, with a smile of regret on his face. After waiting for the moment when a nervous spasm squeezed Laurent’s throat, he took advantage of the pause that came, turned to the audience controllers standing at the door and said to them imperiously:

-- Take her away! Can't you see that she's in a fit of madness?

The controllers rushed to Laurent. But before they could make their way to her through the crowd, Lare, Schaub and Dowell ran up to her and led her out into the corridor. Kern looked at the entire group with a suspicious look.

The police tried to detain Laurent in the corridor, but the young people managed to take her outside and put her in a car. They left.

As the excitement subsided somewhat, Professor Kern ascended the pulpit and apologized to the meeting "for the sad incident.".

-- Laurent is a nervous and hysterical girl. She could not stand the strong experiences that she had to experience, spending day after day in the company of the head of Bricquet’s corpse, artificially animated by me. Laurent's psyche broke down. She's gone crazy...

This speech was listened to in the terrible silence of the hall.

There were a few pops, but they were drowned out by the chipping. It was as if the spirit of death swept over the hall. And hundreds of eyes were now looking at Bricke’s head with horror and pity, as if they were coming from the grave... The mood of those gathered was hopelessly spoiled. Many of the audience left without waiting for the end. Pre-prepared speeches, welcoming telegrams, acts of election of Professor Kern as an honorary member and doctor of various institutes and academies of sciences were hastily read, and the meeting was closed.

A black man appeared behind Professor Kern and, quietly nodding to him, began to prepare Bricke’s head for return shipment, immediately faded, tired and frightened.

Left alone in a closed car, Professor Kern gave vent to his anger. He clenched his fists, gritted his teeth and swore so much that the driver held back the car several times and asked from a hearing tube:

-- Hello?

Last date

The morning after Kern's ill-fated speech at the scientific society, Arthur Dowell appeared before the chief of police, identified himself and stated that he was asking for a search of Kern's apartment.

"The search of Professor Kern's apartment was already carried out last night," the police chief answered dryly. -This search did not yield any results. Mademoiselle Laurent's statement, as one might expect, turned out to be the fruit of her upset imagination. Didn't you read about it in the morning newspapers?

"why did you so easily assume that Mademoiselle Laurent’s statement was a figment of an upset imagination?"

"Because, judge for yourself," answered the police chief, "this is a completely unthinkable thing, and then the search confirmed it...

"Did you interrogate Mademoiselle Bricquet’s head?"

"No, we didn't question any heads", replied the police chief.

In vain! She could also confirm that she saw my father's head. She personally informed me about this. I insist on conducting a secondary search.

"I have no reason to do so", the chief of police replied sharply.

"Is he really bribed by Kern?" - thought Arthur.

"and then", continued the chief of police, "a secondary search can only stir up public indignation". Society is already quite outraged by the performance of this crazy Laurent. Professor Kern's name is on everyone's lips. He receives hundreds of letters and telegrams expressing condolences and indignation at Laurent's actions.

"And yet, I insist that Kern committed several crimes.

"You can’t make such accusations unreasonably," the police chief said morally.

"So give me the opportunity to justify them," Douel objected.

--This opportunity has already been given to you. The authorities conducted a search.

"If you categorically refuse, I will be forced to contact the prosecutor," Arthur said decisively and stood up.

"I can’t do anything for you," the police chief replied, also getting up.

The mention of the prosecutor, however, had an effect. After thinking a little, he said

"I could probably have ordered a second search, but it’s unofficial, so to speak. If the search provides new information, then I will report this to the prosecutor.

--The search must be carried out in the presence of mine, Mademoiselle Laurent, and my friend Lare.

--Isn't it too much?

-- No, all of these individuals can be of substantial benefit.

The police chief threw up his hands and sighed and said

-- Okay! I am placing several police agents at your disposal. I will also invite the investigator.

At eleven o'clock in the morning Arthur was already ringing at Kern's door.

Negro John opened the heavy oak door slightly without removing the chain.

--Professor Kern doesn't accept.

The police officer who spoke forced John to let unexpected guests into the apartment.

Professor Kern met them in his office, taking on the appearance of an insulted virtue.

"I beg you", he said in an icy tone, opening the doors of the laboratory wide and glancing at Laurent in a breathless manner.

The investigator, Laurent, Arthur Dowell, Kern, Lare and two police officers entered.

The familiar environment, with which so many painful experiences were associated, excited Laurent. Her heart was very clogged.

Only Bricke's head was in the laboratory. Her cheeks, devoid of blush, were the mummy's dark yellow. Seeing Laurent and Lara, she smiled and blinked her eyes. Lare turned away with horror and shudder.

We entered the room adjacent to the laboratory.

There was the bald-shaven head of an elderly man with a huge fleshy nose. The eyes of this head were hidden behind completely black glasses. The lips twitched slightly.

"The eyes hurt..." Kern explained, "That's all I can offer you", he added with an ironic smile.

Indeed, upon further inspection of the house, from the basement to the attic, no other heads were found.

On the way back, I again had to go through the room where the thick-nosed head fit. The disappointed Dowell was about to go to the next door, and the investigator and Kern followed him to the exit.

"wait!" Laurent stopped them. Approaching her head with a thick nose, she opened the air tap and asked: "Who are you?"

My head moved my lips, but my voice did not sound. Laurent let out a stronger stream of air.

A hissing whisper was heard:

--Who is it? You, Kern? Open my ears! I can not hear you...

Laurent looked into her head and pulled out dense pieces of cotton wool.

"Who are you?" she repeated the question.

"I was Professor Dowell.".

"But your face?" choked Laurent with excitement.

-- Face?.. - my head spoke with difficulty. -- Yes... I was deprived of even my face... Small operation... paraffin injected under the skin of the nose... Alas... only my brain remained mine in this mutilated skull... but he also refuses to serve... I'm dying... our experiments are imperfect... although my head lived longer than I theoretically expected.

"Why do you have glasses?" asked the interrogator, approaching.

"I’ve been distrusted by my colleague lately," and my head tried to smile. "He’s depriving me of the ability to hear and see... The glasses are opaque... so that I do not give myself away to visitors he does not want... Take off my glasses...

Laurent took off her glasses with trembling hands.

-- Mademoiselle Laurent... you? Hello, my friend!.. But Kern said that you left... I feel bad... I can't work anymore... Colleague Kern only graciously announced an amnesty to me yesterday... If I myself do not die today, he promised to free me tomorrow...

And suddenly, seeing Arthur, who stood aside, as if numb, without a speck in his face, his head said joyfully:

-- Arthur!.. Son!..

For a moment her dull eyes cleared.

"-Father, my dear!" - Arthur stepped to his head. -What did they do to you?.

He staggered. Lare supported him.

--Here... well... Once again we met with you... after my death... - Professor Dowell's head sizzled.

The vocal cords hardly worked, the tongue moved poorly. During pauses, the air whistled out of my throat.

-- Arthur, kiss my forehead... if you... don't... unpleasant...

Arthur leaned over and kissed.

--Like that... now good...

"Professor Dowell", said the investigator, "can you inform us of the circumstances of your death?

The head turned a fading gaze towards the investigator, apparently not understanding well what was going on. Then, realizing it, she slowly squinted her eyes at Laurent and whispered:

"I told her... said... she knows everything." - The lips of the head stopped moving, and the eyes became clouded with haze.

"-The end!.." said Laurent.

For some time everyone stood silently, depressed by what had happened.

"Well", - interrupted the painful silence of the investigator, and turning to Kern, he said: "Please follow me into the office!" I need to take the interrogation off you.

When the door slammed behind them, Arthur leaned heavily onto a chair near his father's head and covered his face with his palms.

--Poor, poor father!

Laurent put her hand gently on his shoulder. Arthur stood up impetuously and shook her hand firmly. A shot was heard from Kern's office.