Читать книгу Heart of a Dog - Mikhail Bulgakov - Страница 7

II

There is absolutely no necessity to learn how to read; meat smells a mile off, anyway. Nevertheless, if you live in Moscow and have a brain in your head, you’ll pick up reading willy-nilly, and without attending any courses. Out of the forty thousand or so Moscow dogs, only a total idiot won’t know how to read the word “sausage.”

Sharik first began to learn by color. When he was only four months old, blue-green signs with the letters MSPO—indicating a meat store—appeared all over Moscow. I repeat, there was no need for any of them—you can smell meat anyway. But one day Sharik made a mistake. Tempted by an acid-blue sign, Sharik, whose sense of smell had been knocked out by the exhaust of a passing car, dashed into an electric supplies store instead of a butcher shop. The store was on Myasnitsky Street and was owned by the Polubizner Bros. The brothers gave the dog a taste of insulated wire, and that is even neater than a cabby’s whip. That famous moment may be regarded as the starting point of Sharik’s education. Back on the sidewalk, he began to realize that blue didn’t always mean “meat.” Howling with the fiery pain, his tail pressed down between his legs, he recalled that over all the butcher shops there was a red or golden wiggle—the first one on the left—that looked like a sled.

After that, his learning proceeded by leaps and bounds. He learned the letter “t” from “Fish Trust” on the corner of Mokhovaya, and then the letter “s” (it was handier for him to approach the store from the tail end of the word, because of the militiaman who stood near the beginning of the “Fish”).

Tile squares set into corner houses in Moscow always and inevitably meant “cheese.” A black samovar faucet over the word indicated the former owner of Chichkin’s, piles of red Holland cheese, beastly salesmen who hated dogs, sawdust on the floor, and that most disgusting, evil-smelling Beckstein.

If somebody was playing an accordion, which was not much better than “Celeste Aida,” and there was a smell of frankfurters, the first letters on the white signs very conveniently added up to the words “no inde . . .,” which meant “no indecent language and no tips.” In such places there were occasional messy brawls and people got hit in the face with fists, and sometimes with napkins or boots.

If there were stale hams hanging in a window and tangerines on the sill, it meant . . . Grr . . . grr . . . groceries. And if there were dark bottles with a vile liquid, it meant . . . Wwhi-w-i-wines . . . The former Yeliseyev Brothers.

The unknown gentleman who had brought the dog to the doors of his luxurious apartment on the second floor rang, and the dog immediately raised his eyes to the large black card with gold letters next to the wide door with panes of wavy pink glass. He put together the first three letters right away: Pe-ar-o, “Pro.” After that came a queer little hooked stick, nasty looking, unfamiliar. No telling what it meant. Could it be “proletarian"? Sharik wondered with astonishment . . . No, impossible. He raised his nose, sniffed the coat again, and said to himself with certainty: Oh, no, there’s nothing proletarian in this smell. Some fancy, learned word, who knows what it means.

A sudden, joyous light flared up behind the pink glass, setting off the black card still more clearly. The door swung open silently, and a pretty young woman in a white apron and a lace cap appeared before the dog and his master. The former felt a gust of divine warmth, and the fragrance of lilies of the valley came at him from the woman’s skirt.

That’s something, that’s really something, thought the dog.

“Come in, please, Mr. Sharik,” the gentleman invited him ironically, and Sharik stepped in reverently, wagging his tail.

A multitude of objects crowded the rich foyer. He was most impressed with the mirror from floor to ceiling, which immediately reflected a second bedraggled, lacerated Sharik, the terrifying stag’s horns up above, the numerous overcoats and boots, and the opalescent tulip with an electric light under the ceiling.

“Where did you dig him up, Philip Philippovich?” the woman asked, smiling and helping the gentleman to remove his heavy overcoat lined with silver fox, shimmering with bluish glints. “Heavens! What a mangy cur!”

“Nonsense. Where is he mangy?” the gentleman rapped out sternly.

Having removed the coat, he was now seen wearing a black suit of English cloth, with a gold chain gleaming discreetly and pleasantly across his stomach.

“Wait, stop wriggling, whuit . . . stop wriggling, you silly. Hm ! . . . This isn’t mange . . . wait a minute, you devil . . . Hm ! A-ah. It’s a burn. What scoundrel did it to you? Eh? Be still a moment, will you ! . . .”

A cook, a bastard of a cook! The dog said with his piteous eyes and whimpered a little.

“Zina,” commanded the gentleman, “take him to the examination room at once, and get me a smock.”

The woman whistled, snapped her fingers, and the dog, after a moment’s hesitation, followed her. They came into a narrow, dimly lit hallway, passed one laquered door, walked to the end, turned left, and found themselves in a dark little room which the dog immediately disliked for its ominous smell. The darkness clicked and turned into blinding daylight, and he was dazzled by the glitter, shine, and whiteness all around.

Oh, no, 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 girls. I am positively enchanted. You are a magician.”

“Hm,” Philip Philippovich grunted thoughtfully, peering into the guest’s pupils.

The latter had finally mastered his buttons and removed the striped trousers. Under them the dog beheld a pair of the most unique underpants. They were cream colored, embroidered with black cats, and they smelled of perfume.

The cats proved too much, and the dog gave such a bark that the individual jumped.

“Ai !”

“I’ll thrash you ! Don’t be afraid, he doesn’t bite.”

I don’t bite? the dog thought with astonishment.

A little envelope dropped out of the visitor’s trouser pocket, with a picture of a beauty with loose, flowing hair. He jumped up, bent down, picked it up and flushed darkly.

“Look out, though,” Philip Philippovich warned gloomily, shaking a finger at him. “After all, don’t overdo it!”

“I don’t over . . .” the visitor mumbled in confusion, continuing to undress. “It was only as a sort of experiment, my dear Professor.”

“And? How did it go?” Philip Philippovich asked sternly.

The odd visitor only raised his hands in ecstasy.

“I swear, nothing like it for twenty-five years, Professor. The last time was in 1899 in Paris, on Rue de la Paix.”

“And what made you turn green?”

The visitor’s face clouded over.

“That damned liquid! You can’t imagine, Professor, what those good-for-nothings stuck me with instead of dye. Just look at it,” he muttered, searching for a mirror with his eyes. “They ought to get their teeth bashed in!” he added, suddenly furious. “What am I to do now, Professor?” he asked tearfully.

“Hm, shave it off.”

“Professor,” the visitor exclaimed piteously, “but it’ll grow back gray again. Besides, I won’t be able to show my face at the office. I haven’t gone in for three days as it is. Ah, Professor, if you would only discover a method of rejuvenating the hair as well!”

“Not all at once, my friend, not all at once,” mumbled Philip Philippovich.

He bent down and examined the patient’s naked stomach with glittering eyes.

“Well—charming, everything is in perfect order. To tell the truth, I really didn’t expect such results. New blood, new songs. Get dressed, my friend!”

“My love is the most beautiful of all! . . .” the patient sang out in a voice that quavered like a frying pan struck with a fork, and began to dress, his face beaming. Then, bobbing up and down and spreading the odor of perfume, he counted out a bundle of large bills, handed them to Philip Philippovich, and tenderly pressed both his hands.

“You need not report for two weeks,” said Philip Philippovich, “but I must repeat, be careful.”

“Professor!” the man’s voice exclaimed ecstastically from behind the door, “you may be quite, quite sure,” and he vanished with a sugary giggle.

The tinkling of the bell spread throughout the apartment, the laquered door opened, the bitten one entered and gave Philip Philippovich another sheet of paper, saying:

“The age is entered incorrectly. Must be fifty or fifty-five. The heart tone is somewhat flat.”

He disappeared, to be replaced by a rustling lady in a hat set at a jaunty angle and with a gleaming necklace on her flabby, wrinkled neck. She had peculiar dark bags under her eyes, and her cheeks were as red as a doll’s. She was very nervous.

“My dear lady! How old are you?” Philip Philippovich asked very sternly.

The lady became frightened and even turned pale under the coat of rouge.

“I . . . Professor, I swear, if you only knew my tragedy!. . .”

“How old are you, madam?” Philip Philippovich repeated still more sternly.

“Honestly. . . Well, forty-five. . .”

“Madam,” roared Philip Philippovich, “people are waiting to see me. Don’t waste my time, please. You’re not the only one!”

The lady’s breast heaved stormily.

“I’ll tell it to you alone, as a luminary of science. But I swear, it is so dreadful.”

“How old are you?” Philip Philippovich squealed in fury and his eyeglasses glinted.

“Fifty-one,” the lady answered, shrinking with fear.

“Take off your pants, madam,” Philip Philippovich said with relief and pointed to a high white platform in the corner.

“I swear, Professor,” the lady mumbled, undoing some snaps on her belt with trembling fingers. “That Maurice . . . I tell this to you as at confessional . . . .”

“From Seville and to Granada,” Philip Philippovich sang absently and pressed the pedal of the marble washstand. The water rushed out.

“I swear by God,” the lady said, and spots of genuine red stood out under the artificial ones on her cheeks. “I know—this is my last passion. But he is such a scoundrel! Oh, Professor! He is a cardsharp, all of Moscow knows it. He’s ready to take up with every nasty little seamstress. He is so fiendishly young!” The lady muttered, kicking off a crumpled bit of lace from under her rustling skirts.

The dog was utterly bewildered, and everything turned upside down in his head.

The devil with you, he thought dimly, putting his head down on his paws and dozing off with shame. I wouldn’t even try to figure it out—I couldn’t make head or tail of it anyway.

He was awakened by a clinking sound and saw that Philip Philippovich had thrown some shiny tubes into a basin.

The spotty lady, her hands pressed to her chest, was looking at Philip Philippovich with anxious hope. The latter frowned importantly, then sat down at his desk and wrote something.

“We’ll do a transplant. A monkey’s ovaries,” he declared, looking at her sternly.

“Ah, Professor, a monkey’s?”

“Yes,” he replied implacably.

“And when is the operation?” she asked in a faint voice, turning pale.

“From Seville and to Granada. . . Uhm . . . on Monday. You’ll come to the hospital in the morning. My assistant will prepare you.”

“Ah, Professor, I’d rather not go to the hospital. Can’t it be done here, Professor?”

“Well, you see, I operate here only in special cases. And it will be very expensive—fifty chervontsy,”

“I am willing, Professor!”

The water clattered again, the hat with the feathers swayed, a head appeared, bare as a platter, and embraced Philip Philippovich. The dog dozed, his nausea gone. His side no longer troubled him, he luxuriated in the warmth, and even caught a quick nap and saw a fragment of a pleasant dream, in which he managed to pull a whole tuft of feathers out of the owl’s tail. . . . And then an agitated voice barked over his head:

“I am too well known in Moscow, Professor. What am I to do?”

“Gentlemen,” Philip Philippovich cried indignantly, “this is impossible. A man must control himself. How old is she?”

“Fourteen, Professor . . . You understand, the publicity will ruin me. I am slated to receive an assignment abroad in a day or two.”

“But I am not a lawyer, my friend . . . . Well, wait two years and marry her.”

“I am married, Professor.”

“Ah, gentlemen, gentlemen!”

The doors opened and closed, faces succeeded one another, the instruments in the cases clattered, and Philip Philippovich worked without a moment’s respite.

What an obscene place, the dog thought, but how pleasant! And what the devil did he need me for? Will he really let me stay here? Such an eccentric! Why, he need only blink an eye and he could have the finest dog in town! But maybe I am handsome? I guess I’m lucky! But that owl is trash . . . . Insolent trash.

The dog came to completely only late in the evening, when the bell ceased ringing, and precisely at the moment when the door opened and let in a special group of visitors. There were four of them at once. All of them young men, and all very modestly dressed.

What do they want? the dog thought with astonishment. Philip Philippovich met his guests with even less cordiality. He stood near his desk and stared at them as a general would at the enemy. The nostrils of his hawklike nose flared out. The visitors shifted their feet on the rug.

“We’ve come to you, Professor,” began the one with a shock of thick curly hair standing up at least six inches above his face, “to talk about . . .”

“You should not go about without galoshes in such weather, gentlemen,” Philip Philippovich interrupted him didactically. “To begin with, you will catch colds. Secondly, you’ve tracked up my rugs, and all my rugs are Persian.”

The fellow with the shock of hair fell silent, and all four stared at Philip Philippovich with astonishment. The silence lasted several seconds, broken only by the tapping of Philip Philippovich’s fingers on the painted wooden platter on his desk.

“To begin with,” the youngest of the four, with a peachlike face, brought out finally, “we are not gentlemen.”

“And secondly,” Philip Philippovich interrupted him, “are you a man or a woman?”

The four lapsed into silence again, gaping with open mouths. This time the fellow with the hair recovered first.

“What is the difference, comrade?” he asked proudly.

“I am a woman,” confessed the peach-faced youth in the leather jacket, blushing violently. And for some unknown reason, another visitor—with blond hair and a cossack hat—also turned a vivid red.

“In that case, you may keep your cap on. As for you, dear sir, I must ask you to remove your headgear,” Philip Philippovich said weightily.

“I’m no dear sir to you,” the blond man answered sharply, removing his hat.

“We have come to you,” the dark one with the shock of hair began once more.

“First of all, who is ‘we’?”

“We are the new house management committee,” the dark one said with controlled rage. “I am Shvonder, she is Vyazemskaya, he is Comrade Pestrukhin, and this is Sharovkyan. And so, we . . .”

“Are you the people they’ve moved into Fyodor Pavlovich Sablin’s apartment?”

“We are,” confirmed Shvonder.

“Good God, the Kalabukhov house is finished!” Philip Philippovich exclaimed in despair, clapping his hands together.

“Are you joking, Professor?”

“Joking? I am in total despair,” Philip Philippovich cried. “What’s going to happen to the steam heat now?”

“You’re mocking us, Professor Preobrazhensky?”

“What business brought you to me? Make it short, I am just going to dinner.”

“We are the house management,” Shvonder spoke with hatred. “We’ve come to you after a general meeting of the tenants of this house which went into the question of consolidating the tenancy of the apartments. . . .”

“Who went into whom?” Philip Philippovich shouted. “Be kind enough to express yourself more clearly.”

“The question of consolidation.”

“That will do ! I understand ! Are you aware of the resolution of August 12 which exempted my apartment from any of your consolidations or tenant transfers?”

“We are,” answered Shvonder. “But the general meeting reviewed your case and came to the conclusion that, generally and on the whole, you occupy excessive space. Altogether excessive. You live alone in seven rooms.”

“I live and work in seven rooms,” replied Philip Philippovich, “and I would like to have an eighth one. I need it most urgently for a library.”

The four were stunned.

“An eighth one ! O-ho,” said the blond man who had been ordered to remove his headgear. “Really, that’s a good one!”

“It’s indescribable!” cried the youth who had turned out to be a woman.

“I have a waiting room which, please note, is also a library; a dining room; and my office. That makes three. The examination room makes four, the operating room, five. My bedroom, six, and my servant’s room, seven. And I haven’t enough space. . . . However, all this is beside the point. My apartment is exempt, and that’s the end of it. May I go to dinner now?”

“Excuse me,” said the fourth visitor, who looked like a firm, strong beetle.

“Excuse me,” Shvonder interrupted him, “this is precisely what we have come to talk to you about—the dining room and the examination room. The general meeting asks you voluntarily and by way of labor discipline to give up your dining room. Nobody has a dining room in Moscow.”

“Not even Isadora Duncan,” the woman cried in a ringing voice.

Something happened to Philip Philippovich, as a result of which his delicate face turned purple, and he did not utter a sound, waiting to see what happened next.

“And the examination room too,” continued Shvonder. “The examination room can perfectly well be combined with the office.”

“Uhum,” said Philip Philippovich in a strange voice. “And where am I to take my meals?”

“In the bedroom,” the four answered in chorus.

The purple of Philip Philippovich’s face assumed a grayish tinge.

“Eat in the bedroom,” he said in a slightly choked voice, “read in the examination room, dress in the waiting room, operate in the maid’s room, and examine patients in the dining room. It is very possible that Isadora Duncan does just this. Perhaps she dines in her office and dissects rabbits in the bathroom. Perhaps. But I am not Isadora Duncan ! . . .” he barked out suddenly, and the purple of his face turned yellow. “I shall dine in the dining room, and operate in the surgery! You may report this to the general meeting, and now I beg you to return to your respective business and allow me to take my meal where all normal people take theirs, that is, in the dining room, and not in the foyer or the nursery.”

“In that case, Professor, in view of your obstinate opposition,” said the excited Shvonder, “we shall lodge a complaint against you with the higher authorities.”

“Ah,” said Philip Philippovich, “so?” and his voice assumed a suspiciously polite tone. “I will ask you to wait just a moment.”

That’s a man for you, the dog thought with admiration. Just like me. Oh, but he’ll nip them in a second, oh, but he’ll nip them. I don’t know yet how he’ll do it, but he’ll do a job of it. . . . Get ‘em! That leggy one, he ought to be grabbed just above the boot, right at that tendon behind the knee . . . ur-r-r . . .

Philip Philippovich banged the receiver as he lifted it from the telephone and said into it: