Heart of a Dog. Mikhail Bulgakov
the dog howled mentally. Excuse me, but I won’t, I won’t let you ! Now I understand it, to hell with them and their sausage. They’ve tricked me into a dog hospital. Now they’ll make me lap castor oil, and cut up my whole side with knives, and I cannot bear to have it touched as it is.
“Hey, stop, where are you going?” cried the woman called Zina.
The dog spun around, coiled himself like a spring, and suddenly threw himself at the door with his sound side so that the crash was heard all through the apartment. Then he sprang back and whirled on the spot like a top, turning over a white pail and sending the tufts of cotton it contained flying in all directions. As he spun, the walls lined with cases full of glittering instruments danced around him; the white apron and the screaming, distorted female face bobbed up and down.
“Where do you think you’re going, you shaggy devil?” Zina cried desperately. “Damned cur!”
Where is their back staircase? wondered the dog. He dashed himself at random at a glass door, hoping it was a second exit. A shower of splinters scattered, ringing and clattering, then a potbellied jar flew out, and the reddish muck in it instantly spread over the floor, raising a stench. The real door flew open.
“Wait, you brute,” shouted the gentleman, jumping around, with one arm in the sleeve of the smock, trying to catch the dog by the leg. “Zina, grab him by the scruff, the bastard!”
“My . . . oh, my, what a dog!”
The door opened still wider and another male individual in a smock burst in. Crushing the broken glass, he rushed, not to the dog, but to an instrument case, opened it, and the whole room filled with a sweetish, nauseating smell. Then the individual threw himself upon the dog, pressing him down with his belly; in the course of the struggle the dog managed to snap enthusiastically at his leg just above the shoe. The individual gasped, but did not lose control. The nauseous liquid stopped the dog’s breath and his head began to reel. Then his legs dropped off, and he slid off somewhere sideways. Thank you, it’s all over, he thought dreamily, dropping right on the sharp splinters. Goodbye Moscow! Never again will I see Chichkin’s and proletarians and Cracow sausage. I’m off to paradise for my long patience in this dog’s life. Brothers, murderers, why are you doing it to me?
And he rolled over on his side and gave up the ghost.
When he revived, his head was turning vaguely and he had a queasy feeling at the pit of his stomach. As for his side, it did not exist, his side was blissfully silent. The dog opened his languorous right eye and saw out of the corner of it that he was tightly bandaged across the sides and stomach. So they’ve had their will of me, the sons of bitches, after all, he thought mistily. It was a neat job, though, in all justice.
“From Seville and to Granada . . . on a quiet, dusky night,” a voice sang over him absently, off key.
The dog, surprised, opened both his eyes wide and beheld a man’s leg on a white stool two steps away from him. The trousers and underpants were turned up, and the bare yellow calf was smeared with dried blood and iodine.
Saints in heaven! thought the dog. I must have bitten him. It’s my work. I’m in for a whipping now!
“There are sounds of serenading, and a clashing of bared swords! Why did you bite the doctor, you tramp? Eh? Why did you break the glass?.Eh?”
Oo-oo-oo . . . the dog whimpered pathetically.
“All right, all right. You’ve come to? Just lie there quietly, dumbbell.”
“How did you manage to get such a nervous dog to follow you?” asked a pleasant masculine voice, and the trouser leg was rolled down. There was a smell of tobacco, and the glass jars tinkled in one of the cases.
“By kindness. The only method possible in dealing with living creatures. By terror you cannot get anywhere with an animal, no matter what its stage of development. I’ve always asserted this, I assert it today, and I shall go on asserting it. They are wrong thinking that terror will help them. No—no, it won’t, whatever its color: white, red, or even brown! Terror completely paralyzes the nervous system. Zina! I bought this scoundrel some Cracow sausage, a ruble and forty kopeks’ worth. Be good enough to feed him as soon as he stops feeling nauseous.”
The glass splinters crackled as they were swept out and a woman’s voice remarked coquettishly:
“Cracow sausage ! Heavens, twenty kopeks’ worth of scraps from the butcher shop would have been good enough for him. I’d rather eat the Cracow sausage myself.”
“Just try ! I’ll show you how to eat it ! It’s poison for the human stomach. A grown-up girl, and she’s ready to stuff herself with every kind of garbage, like a baby. Don’t you dare! I warn you: neither I, nor Dr. Bormenthal will bother with you when you come down with stomach cramps. . . . And if anyone says you can be easily replaced . . .”
A soft, delicate tinkling scattered through the apartment, and voices were heard from the distant foyer. The telephone rang. Zina disappeared.
Philip Philippovich threw his cigarette butt into the pail, buttoned his smock, smoothed down the fluffy mustache before the small mirror on the wall, and called the dog:
“Whuit, whuit. All right, all right. Come on, we’ll see our patients.”
The dog rose unsteadily, swayed and trembled, but quickly recovered and followed the flying coattails of Philip Philippovich. Once more the dog crossed the narrow hallway, but now it was lit by a bright rosette on the ceiling. And when the laquered door opened, he entered the office with Philip Philippovich and was dazzled by its interior. To begin with, it blazed with lights: lights burning under the molded ceiling, on the table, on the walls, lights flashing from the glass doors of the cabinets. The lights illuminated a multitude of objects, the most intriguing of which was the huge owl perched on a twig projecting from the wall.
“Lie down,” ordered Philip Philippovich.
The carved door across the room opened, and the man Sharik had nipped on the leg came in. In the bright light he turned out to be young and extremely handsome, with a small, pointed beard. He handed Philip Philippovich a sheet of paper and said :
“The same one . . .”
He disappeared, and Philip Philippovich spread the tails of his smock, sat down at a huge desk, and immediately became extraordinarily dignified and important.
No, this is not a clinic, it’s something else, the dog thought in confusion, stretching himself on the patterned rug near the heavy leather sofa. As for that owl, we’ll have to find out about it. . . .
The door opened softly, and the man who entered was so disconcerting to the dog, that he gave a short, timid bark.
“Quiet! Well, well, but you’re unrecognizable, my friend.”
The visitor bowed with great respect and some embarrassment.
“He-he! You are a wizard, a miracle worker, Professor,” he mumbled with confusion.
“Take off your trousers, my friend,” commanded Philip Philippovich, getting up.
Jesus Christ, thought the dog, what a queer bird !
The hair on the visitor’s head was completely green, and at the nape it had a rusty, tobacco-brown tinge. His face was covered with wrinkles, but its color was baby-pink. His left knee did not bend, and he had to drag his leg over the carpet, but his right foot jumped like a jumping jack’s. In the lapel of his magnificent coat a precious stone gleamed like an eye.
The dog was so excited and curious that he forgot his nausea.
Tiaw, tiaw ! . . . he yipped tentatively.
“Quiet! How do you sleep, my dear?”
“He-he. Are we alone, Professor? It’s indescribable,” the visitor spoke with embarrassment. “Parole d’honneur, I remember nothing like it for twenty-five years,” the queer individual pulled at his trouser button. “Will you believe me, Professor, every night it’s flocks of naked