Mikhail Bulgakov - Heart of a Dog

I am handsome. Perhaps I’m really a dog prince, living incognito, mused the dog as he watched the shaggy, coffee-coloured dog with the smug expression strolling about in the mirrored distance. I wouldn’t be surprised if my grandmother didn’t have an affair with a labrador. Now that I look at my muzzle, I see there’s a white patch on it. I wonder how it got there. Philip Philipovich is a man of great taste -he wouldn’t just pick up any stray mongrel.

In two weeks the dog ate as much as in his previous six weeks on the street. Only by weight, of course. In quality the food at the professor’s apartment was incomparable. Apart from the fact that Darya Petrovna bought a heap of meat-scraps for 18 kopecks every day at the Smolensk market, there was dinner every evening in the dining-room at seven o’clock, at which the dog was always present despite protests from the elegant Zina. It was during these meals that Philip Philipovich acquired his final title to divinity. The dog stood on his hind legs and nibbled his jacket, the dog learned to recognise Philip Philipovich’s ring at the door — two loud, abrupt proprietorial pushes on the bell — and would run barking out into the hall. The master was enveloped in a dark brown fox-fur coat, which glittered with millions of snowflakes and smelled of mandarin oranges, cigars, perfume, lemons, petrol, eau de cologne and cloth, and his voice, like a megaphone, boomed all through the apartment.

‘Why did you ruin the owl, you little monkey? Was the owl doing you any harm? Was it, now? Why did you smash the portrait of Professor Mechnikov?’

‘He needs at least one good whipping, Philip Philipovich,’ said Zina indignantly, ‘or he’ll become completely spoiled. Just look what he’s done to your galoshes.’

‘No one is to be beaten,’ said Philip Philipovich heatedly, ‘remember that once and for all. Animals and people can only be influenced by persuasion. Have you given him his meat today?’

‘Lord, he’s eaten us out of house and home. What a question, Philip Philipovich. He eats so much I’m surprised he doesn’t burst.’

‘Fine. It’s good for him… what harm did the owl do you, you little ruffian?’

Ow-ow, whined the dog, crawling on his belly and splaying out his paws.

The dog was forcefully dragged by the scruff of his neck through the hall and into the study. He whined, snapped, clawed at the carpet and slid along on his rump as if he were doing a circus act. In the middle of the study floor lay the glass-eyed owl. From its disembowelled stomach flowed a stream of red rags that smelled of mothballs. Scattered on the desk were the fragments of a portrait.

‘I purposely didn’t clear it up so that you could take a good look,’ said Zina distractedly. ‘Look — he jumped up on to the table, the little brute, and then — bang! — he had the owl by the tail. Before I knew what was happening he had torn it to pieces. Rub his nose in the owl, Philip Philipovich, so that he learns not to spoil things.’

Then the howling began. Clawing at the carpet, the dog was dragged over to have his nose rubbed in the owl. He wept bitter tears and thought: Beat me, do what you like, but don’t throw me out.

‘Send the owl to the taxidermist at once. There’s 8 roubles, and 16 kopecks for the tram-fare, go down to Murat’s and buy him a good collar and a lead.’

Next day the dog was given a wide, shiny collar. As soon as he saw himself in the mirror he was very upset, put his tail between his legs and disappeared into the bathroom, where he planned to pull the collar off against a box or a basket. Soon, however, the dog realised that he was simply a fool. Zina took him walking on the lead along Obukhov Street. The dog trotted along like a prisoner under arrest, burning with shame, but as he walked along Prechistenka Street as far as the church of Christ the Saviour he soon realised exactly what a collar means in life. Mad envy burned in the eyes of every dog he met and at Myortvy Street a shaggy mongrel with a docked tail barked at him that he was a ‘master’s pet’ and a ‘lackey’. As they crossed the tram tracks a policeman looked at the collar with approval and respect. When they returned home the most amazing thing of all happened — with his own hands Fyodor the porter opened the front door to admit Sharik and Zina, remarking to Zina as he did so: ‘What a sight he was when Philip Philipovich brought him in. And now look how fat he is.’

‘So he should be — he eats enough for six,’ said the beautiful Zina, rosy-cheeked from the cold.

A collar’s just like a briefcase, the dog smiled to himself. Wagging his tail, he climbed up to the mezzanine like a gentleman.

Once having appreciated the proper value of a collar, the dog made his first visit to the supreme paradise from which hitherto he had been categorically barred — the realm of the cook, Darya Petrovna. Two square inches of Darya’s kitchen was worth more than all the rest of the flat. Every day flames roared and flashed in the tiled, black-leaded stove. Delicious crackling sounds came from the oven. Tortured by perpetual heat and unquenchable passion, Darya Petrovna’s face was a constant livid purple, slimy and greasy. In the neat coils over her ears and in the blonde bun on the back of her head flashed twenty-two imitation diamonds. Golden saucepans hung on hooks round the walls, the whole kitchen seethed with smells, while covered pans bubbled and hissed…

‘Get out!’ screamed Darya Petrovna. ‘Get out, you no-good little thief! Get out of here at once or I’ll be after you with the poker!’

Hey, why all the barking? signalled the dog pathetically with his eyes. What d’you mean — thief? Haven’t you noticed my new collar? He backed towards the door, his muzzle raised appealingly towards her.

The dog Sharik possessed some secret which enabled him to win people’s hearts. Two days later he was stretched out beside the coal-scuttle watching Darya Petrovna at work. With a thin sharp knife she cut off the heads and claws of a flock of helpless grouse, then like a merciless executioner scooped the guts out of the fowls, stripped the flesh from the bones and put it into the mincer. Sharik meanwhile gnawed a grouse’s head. Darya Petrovna fished lumps of soaking bread out of a bowl of milk, mixed them on a board with the minced meat, poured cream over the whole mixture, sprinkled it with salt and kneaded it into cutlets. The stove was roaring like a furnace, the frying pan sizzled, popped and bubbled. The oven door swung open with a roar, revealing a terrifying inferno of heaving, crackling flame.

In the evening the fiery furnace subsided and above the curtain half-way up the kitchen window hung the dense, ominous night sky of Prechistenka Street with its single star. The kitchen floor was damp, the saucepans shone with a dull, mysterious glow and on the table was a fireman’s cap. Sharik lay on the warm stove, stretched out like a lion above a gateway, and with one ear cocked in curiosity he watched through the half-open door of Zina’s and Darya Petrovna’s room as an excited, black-moustached man in a broad leather belt embraced Darya Petrovna. All her face, except her powdered nose, glowed with agony and passion. A streak of light lay across a picture of a man with a black moustache and beard, from which hung a little Easter loaf.

‘Don’t go too far,’ muttered Darya Petrovna in the half-darkness. ‘Stop it! Zina will be back soon. What’s the matter with you — have you been rejuvenated too?’

‘I don’t need rejuvenating,’ croaked the black-moustached fireman hoarsely, scarcely able to control himself. ‘You’re so passionate!’

In the evenings the sage of Prechistenka Street retired behind his thick blinds and if there was no A’ida at the Bolshoi Theatre and no meeting of the All-Russian Surgical Society, then the great man would settle down in a deep armchair in his study. There were no ceiling lights; the only light came from a green-shaded lamp on the desk. Sharik lay on the carpet in the shadows, unable to take his eyes off the horrors that lined the room.