"
}
And together with Professor Portugalov and docents Ivanov and Borngart he anatomised and microscopised fowls in search of the plague bacillus and even wrote a brochure in the space of only three evenings, entitled "On Changes in the Liver of Fowls Attacked by Plague". Persikov worked without great enthusiasm in the fowl field, and understandably so since his head was full of something quite different, the main and most important thing, from which the fowl catastrophe had diverted him, i.e., the red ray.
Undermining his already overtaxed health by stealing time from sleeping and eating, sometimes not returning to Prechistenka but dozing on the oilskin divan in his room at the Institute, Persikov spent night after night working with the chamber and the microscope.
By the end of July the commotion had abated somewhat The renamed commission began to work along normal lines, .and Persikov resumed his interrupted studies.
The microscopes were loaded with new specimens, and fish- and frog-spawn matured in the chamber at incredible speed.
Specially ordered lenses were delivered from Konigsberg by aeroplane, and in the last few days of July, under Ivanov's supervision, mechanics installed two big new chambers, in which the beam was as broad as a cigarette packet at its base and a whole metre wide at the other end.
Persikov rubbed his hands happily and began to prepare some mysterious and complex experiments.