The Garnet Bracelet and other Stories / Гранатовый браслет и другие повести. Книга для чтения на английском языке

Now and again their lean, wiry hands scooped up a shovelful of coal and thrust it into the blazing orifice with a swift, deft movement. Another two workmen, standing above, were kept as busy shovelling down fresh coal from the huge black piles round the boiler house. There was something depressing and inhuman, Bobrov thought, in the stokers’ endless work. It seemed as if a supernatural power had chained them for life to those yawning maws and they must, under penalty of a terrible death, tirelessly feed the insatiable, gluttonous monster.

“Watching them fattening your Moloch, are you?” said a cheerful, good-humoured voice behind Bobrov’s back.

Bobrov started and all but fell into the pit. He was staggered by the unexpected coincidence of the doctor’s facetious exclamation with his own thoughts. For a long time after he regained his composure he could not stop wondering at the strange coincidence. He was always interested and mystified to hear someone beside him suddenly bring up what he had just been reading or thinking about.

“Did I frighten you, old chap?” said the doctor, looking closely at Bobrov. “I’m sorry.”

“Yes – a little. You came up so quietly – it was quite a surprise.”

“Andrei Ilyich, you’d better look after your nerves. They’re no good at all. Take my advice: ask for leave of absence and go somewhere abroad. Why worry yourself here? Enjoy six months or so of easy life; drink good wine, ride a lot, try l’amour.

The doctor walked to the edge of the furnace pit and glanced down.

“A regular inferno!” he cried. “How much would those little samovars weigh? Close to fifteen tons each, I should think?”

“A bit more than that. Upwards of twenty-five tons.”

“Oh! And suppose it occurred to one of them to – er – pop? It would make a fine sight, wouldn’t it?”

“It certainly would, doctor. All these buildings would probably be razed to the ground.”

Goldberg shook his head and whistled significantly.

“But what might cause such a thing?”

“Oh, there may be many causes; but more often than not this is what happens: when there’s very little water left in the boiler, its walls grow hotter and hotter, till they’re almost red-hot. If you let water in at a moment like that an enormous quantity of steam would form at once, the walls wouldn’t be able to stand the pressure, and the boiler would blow up.