INTRODUCTION
Belyaev's "Professor Dowell's Head" is a classic of Soviet science fiction, but has a number of textual differences in Russian, it was initially published in 1925 as a short story, expanded in 1928 to novel form under the title "Resurrected from the Dead", and again revised in 1937. The 1937 edition omits a passage from the 1928 edition, which appears at the beginning of the chapter "Victims of the Big City"
DELETED PASSAGE
Twilight was falling. The lab was quiet. Only air with a low hiss flew out of the throat of the head. Laurent sat with her head in her hands. Suddenly she heard the voice of Professor Dowell's head.
"I am haunted by one desire… a crazy desire… I want you to kiss me…"
Laurent shuddered and looked at the head in horror.
A pained smile appeared on the head's face.
"Are you shocked?.. You did not expect to meet such an admirer? Calm down... It's not... not what you think... I know I can only arouse disgust. The reanimated head of a dead man!.. My body has long been in the grave, turned into ashes… But understand me: you cannot live by thought alone, by consciousness alone… Understand what you are to me! You are young, beautiful. You will be loved, and you will give your beloved kisses. But to no one in the world you can give with your kiss what you give me! For me, you are not only a woman. For me you are life, all life in all its fullness. Kissing you, I will touch life, everything that is available to you, everything that I can only hopelessly yearn for. If you recoil from me, I will be unhappy... After all, this is not a kiss of passion! What passion can a head have without a body? Look: my heart beats calmly in a glass vessel. It cannot love. This is a symbolic kiss. A kiss of life, radiant, triumphant, take pity on the small, fading spark that still flickers inside me... Don’t let me completely feel like I’m just a corpse... Have pity on me... Kiss me!..."
During this speech, Marie, pale, sat silently, looking at the head with widely open eyes. Only the crunch of her fingers betrayed her excitement. A mournful wrinkle formed between her brows. A feeling of deep pity struggled in her with an involuntary physical disgust.
After a long pause, she slowly got up, went to the head... kissed it... and suddenly gave a short cry and recoiled.
The head bit her on the lip.
Laurent was so shocked, frightened, and outraged that she almost sank into a chair almost exhausted.
And the eyes of the head looked at her sadly and seriously.
"Thank you… thank you… Don't think I'm crazy… It's not an outburst of madness. Alas! I thought about it for a long time before deciding to do it. You see… I can do nothing, nothing in this world of living people and real things. And I wanted to leave a small mark on this world… a mark of my will… and I could only do it the way I did… I'll think about how you'll go home with this sign, walking along noisy streets, among people. Maybe someone will notice this mark in that world far from me, a mark made by me… he'll think that someone…"
The head suddenly fell silent and then whispered: "Sorry… It’s selfish, but it was stronger than me… Maybe, this thought in my mind is beginning to change me."
A pause, heavy and oppressive, as after a blow to the heart that stopped the cry of the victim. With wide eyes, the head looked with an unblinking, greedy gaze at the swollen lip.
All pale, with and cold hands Laurent sat in front of the head, not daring to raise her eyes. Vague, heavy feelings took possession of her. Indignation, fear, pity and disgust struggled in the darkness of the confused consciousness. But the voice of disgust was louder than the others. And half-consciously she tried not to betray this feeling with her face. Why devalue the victim and aggravate the life of the head with the retribution of repentance? According to a strange logic of feelings, the unpleasant impression of kissing the head caused Laurent a storm of indignation against Professor Kern.
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