Screenplay "Five Spoons of Elixir" by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky, summary Automatic translate

This science fiction screenplay, created in 1984, expands on the novel "Lame Fate" and addresses the philosophical question of achieving physical immortality at the cost of human life. The text was written specifically for cinema.

In 1990, director Arkady Sirenko made a feature film based on this script, "The Temptation of B." The film received rave reviews from Boris Strugatsky, who praised the acting.

A neighbor’s mysterious request

Writer Felix Aleksandrovich Snegirev leads a measured life in a large regional center. On a rainy spring day, he’s about to recycle his empty bottles. On the landing, he encounters orderlies with a stretcher. Lying on it is his neighbor, the little-known poet Konstantin Kurdyukov, showing signs of severe poisoning. The sick man begs Felix to go to the institute on Bogorodskoye Highway, find the local committee chairman, Ivan Davydovich Martynyuk, and ask for a few drops of the drug "Methuselah."

Snegirev rushes to the institute’s lab. The hulking Martynyuk greets his request with obvious hostility. Upon hearing the patient’s name and the brand of the drug, he sends his guest away, promising to look into the matter personally. On his way back, Snegirev notices a strange presence. On a crowded tram, an unknown man in a checkered jacket with bulging light eyes stares at him.

A series of frightening incidents

The writer’s daily routine turns into disasters. During a public speech at the House of Culture, a stranger from earlier asks from the audience what immortals think about death. Felix laughs it off, but senses a catch. A little later, he narrowly escapes being run over by a massive dump truck. The vehicle was barreling toward him and rammed a glass recycling center.

Snegirev drops by his old acquaintance Natalya Petrovna’s foreign language course to ask for credit for a friend. She strikes him with her unfading, almost mystical beauty. That evening, Felix tries to return some bottles, but an unknown assailant throws a heavy rock into his string bag. At the Kavkazsky restaurant, the writer orders takeout from the imposing maitre d’, Pavel Pavlovich. Visiting Kurdyukov in the hospital, Snegirev is confronted by a violent fit of hysteria. The poet aggressively denies his morning request and tells him to take care of himself.

Returning home, Felix makes a horrific discovery: an awl stuck in his coat. The tip was two centimeters from where his left kidney is located.

Night visit

At three in the morning, a familiar group breaks into the writer’s apartment. Ivan Davydovich appears on the threshold, carrying a medical bag, the beautiful Natasha, the maitre d’ Pavel Pavlovich, and a man in a checkered jacket. The latter turns out to be a professional enforcer of force. The uninvited guests corner Felix at a table and begin a brutal interrogation. They find out who he’s been in contact with throughout the day and to whom he’s passed on classified information.

Soon, Kurdyukov, who had escaped from the hospital, appears in wet slippers. He brandishes a blunt chisel and accuses Snegiryov of blackmail. The poet lies that Felix has learned their secret and plans to seize the source of the elixir. The neighbor attacks the writer, trying to hit him in the back, but Snegiryov kicks him away. The group ignores the scuffle, and Natasha calls the poet a pathological coward.

The Mystery of the Cave in Krapivkin Yar

Martynyuk gets to the heart of the matter. Hidden in a karst cave is a lone red stalactite. It drips a unique hormonal regulator into a stone niche, halting biological aging. Exactly five spoonfuls of the liquid are collected every three years. This amount is enough to maintain the eternal youth of five people. Revealing this secret threatens to lose access to the cave due to an influx of miracle seekers.

The writer is given a harsh ultimatum. Since he has learned the secret, he must either die today or join the secret society. If he chooses immortality, the sixth candidate must be eliminated. He is offered a sword duel or the secret poisoning of Kurdyukov. While the conversation is going on, the maitre d’ brings fresh coffee and coolly adds poison to one of the cups. Panicked, Kurdyukov throws the cups against the wall.

The price of eternal youth

Felix refuses to kill for personal gain. Pavel Pavlovich is struck by his integrity. The maitre d’ paints a tempting picture of eternal hedonism, describing the impeccable functioning of his taste buds. The man in checkered clothes recalls how, in the early nineteenth century, he served as a gendarme and forcibly extracted the secret of the cave from one of its then guardians.

Realizing Snegiryov’s intransigence, the syndicate finds itself at a dead end. Killing him now is too risky. The noise of the struggle, the body on the seventh floor, and recent open meetings with Natasha will attract police attention. Ivan Davydovich asks the writer to carefully consider the offer. Felix declares that the source is lucky to be in the hands of lazy, incompetent people. If he fell into the hands of an energetic and power-hungry scoundrel, it would be disastrous. He promises to keep his secret.

Early in the morning, the immortals leave the apartment. Felix watches from the window as they get into the car and drive away. His daughter, Lisa, enters the ransacked office with her two young grandsons, Foma and Anton. Snegirev calls them to help clean up the mess left by the strange guests.