"I say, watch your step, that's a chamber pot once used by Empress Catherine," said the man, no longer young but still spry, bouncing up and down, the very picture of a skittish monkey.
"Where exactly are we moving this to?" grumbled the movers who had been ordered about. Drenched with sweat, they complained, "There's something wrong with you, insisting on rearranging everything in the house during the New Year, and every year at that. Isn't it exhausting for us."
The middle-aged man giving the orders was none other than the director of this research institute. He had worked there for three decades in this nominal, yet concrete institution, which had been operated by his forebears and had now come into his hands, maintaining its meager existence.
