"Michail Bulgakov. The heart of a dog" - читать интересную книгу автора

Michail Bulgakov.

The heart of a dog


Copyright 1968 in the English translation by Michael Glenny
Collins and Harvill Press
London, and Harcourt, Brace World Inc, New York.
OCR:Scout



One
Ooow-ow-ooow-owow! Oh, look at me, I'm dying. There's a snowstorm
moaning a requiem for me in this doorway and I'm howling with it. I'm
finished. Some bastard in a dirty white cap - the cook in the office canteen
at the National Economic Council - spilled some boiling water and scalded my
left side. Filthy swine - and a proletarian, too. Christ, it hurts! That
boiling water scalded me right through to the bone. I can howl and howl, but
what's the use?
What harm was I doing him, anyway? I'm not robbing the National
Economic Council's food supply if I go foraging in their dustbins, am I?
Greedy pig! Just take a look at his ugly mug - it's almost fatter than he
is. Hard-faced crook. Oh people, people. It was midday when that fool doused
me with boiling water, now it's getting dark, must be about four o'clock in
the afternoon judging by the smell of onion coming from the Prechistenka
fire station. Firemen have soup for supper, you know. Not that I care for it
myself. I can manage without soup - don't like mushrooms either. The dogs I
know in Prechistenka Street, by the way, tell me there's a restaurant in
Neglinny Street where they get the chef's special every day - mushroom stew
with relish at 3 roubles and 75 kopecks the portion. All right for
connoisseurs, I suppose. I think eating mushrooms is about as tasty as
licking a pair of galoshes . . . Oow-owowow . . .
My side hurts like hell and I can see just what's going to become of
me. Tomorrow it will break out in ulcers and then how can I make them heal?
In summer you can go and roll in Sokolniki Park where there's a special
grass that does you good. Besides, you can get a free meal of sausage-ends
and there's plenty of greasy bits of food-wrappings to lick. And if it
wasn't for some old groaner singing '0 celeste Aida' out in the moonlight
till it makes you sick, the place would be perfect. But where can I go now?
Haven't I been kicked around enough? Sure I have. Haven't I had enough
bricks thrown at me? Plenty . . . Still, after what I've been through, I can
take a lot. I'm only whining now because of the pain and cold - though I'm
not licked yet ... it takes a lot to keep a good dog down.
But my poor old body's been knocked about by people once too often. The
trouble is that when that cook doused me with boiling water it scalded
through right under my fur and now there's nothing to keep the cold out on
my left side. I could easily get pneumonia - and if I get that, citizens,
I'll die of hunger. When you get pneumonia the only thing to do is to lie up
under someone's front doorstep, and then who's going to run round the