Михаил Булгаков - A Country Doctor's Notebook

‘ “I am Doctor Yashvin. I am escaping from Petlyura’s men. Where are they?”

‘They told me:

‘ “They ran away during the night. A revolutionary committee has been set up in Kiev.”

‘I noticed one of the men of the patrol looking closely at me, then he shrugged sympathetically and said:

‘ “You can go home, doctor.”

And off I went.’

After a pause I asked Yashvin:

‘Did he die? Did you kill him or only wound him?’

Yashvin answered with his odd smile:

‘Oh, don’t worry—I killed him all right. Trust my experience as a surgeon.’

“This book has a freshness and liveliness … an epic quality because of the background of Russia’s vastness, the great distances, the weight of the ignorance, the need.”

—DORIS LESSING

“These straightforward yet extraordinary sketches gain their strength from also being the account of a young man’s growth. One begins to see that he became a novelist not because he had material but because he was storing up passion and temperament.”

—V.S. PRITCHETT, NEW STATESMAN

“Stories as keen and bright as a scalpel … Courage shines from every angle of this profoundly human collection by the greatest of modern Russian writers.”

— SUNDAY TIMES

“Bulgakov casts a wonderfully wry, self-deprecating humour. His compassion for human folly is unfailing … These stories stand testament both to human resilience and a remarkable literary talent.”

—THE INDEPENDENT

A COUNTRY DOCTOR’S NOTEBOOK

(Записки юного врача)

First published posthumously in 1975 by Collins & Harvill, London

© 2013 Melville House Publishing

Translation and translator’s introduction © 1975, 2013, the estate of Michael Glenny

Design by Christopher King

First Melville House printing: December 2012

Melville House Publishing

145 Plymouth Street

Brooklyn, NY 11201

www.mhpbooks.com

The Library of Congress has cataloged the paperback edition of this book as follows:

Bulgakov, Mikhail, 1891-1940.

[Zapiski iunogo vracha. English. 2013]

A country doctor’s notebook / Mikhail Bulgakov; [translated by Michael Glenny].

pages; cm

eISBN: 978-1-61219-191-1

I. Glenny, Michael, translator. II. Title.

PG3476.B78A2 2013

891.78’4203–dc23

2012041223

v3.1

A partly-qualified medical assistant.

Russian examinations, which are generally oral, are marked on a scale of 1 to 5. ‘5’ indicates ‘distinction’, ‘4’ is ‘good’, ‘3’ is usually a bare pass.