Free Heart of a Dog by Mikhail Bulgakov Page A

knows what is now going on in Moscow. Seven black-market traders are already behind bars for spreading rumours that the end of the world is imminent and has been caused by the Bolsheviks. Darya Petrovna told me about this and even named the date - November 28th, 1925, the day of St Stephen the Martyr, when the earth will spiral off into infinity. . . . Some charlatans are already giving lectures about it. We have started such a rumpus with this pituitary experiment that I have had to leave my flat. I have moved in with Preobrazhensky and sleep in the waiting-room with Sharik. The consulting-room has been turned into a new waiting-room. Shvender was right. Trouble is brewing with the house committee. There is not a single glass left, as he will jump on to the shelves. Great difficulty in teaching him not to do this.
        Something odd is happening to Philip. When I told him about my hypotheses and my hopes of developing Sharik into an intellectually advanced personality, he hummed and hahed, then said: 'Do you really think so?' His tone was ominous. Have I made a mistake? Then he had an idea. While I wrote up these case-notes, Preobrazhensky made a careful study of the life-story of the man from whom we took the pituitary.
        (Loose page inserted into the notebook.)
        Name: Elim Grigorievich Chugunkin. Age: 25.
        Marital status: Unmarried.
        Not a Party member, but sympathetic to the Party. Three times charged with theft and
    acquitted - on the first occasion for lack of evidence, in the second case saved by his social origin, the third time put on probation with a conditional sentence of 15 years hard labour.
        Profession: plays the balalaika in bars. Short, poor physical shape. Enlarged liver (alcohol). Cause of death: knife-wound in the heart, sustained in the Red Light Bar at Preobrazhensky Gate.

        The old man continues to study Chugunkin's case exhaustively, although I cannot understand why. He grunted something about the pathologist having failed to make a complete examination of Chugunkin's body. What does he mean? Does it matter whose pituitary it is?

        January 17th Unable to make notes for several days, as I have had an attack of influenza. Meanwhile the creature's appearance has assumed definitive form:
    (a) physically a complete human being.
    (b) weight about 108 Ibs.
    (c) below medium height.
    (d) small head.
    (e) eats human food.
    (f) dresses himself.
    (g) capable of normal conversation.
    So much for the pituitary (ink blot).
        This concludes the notes on this case. We now have a new organism which must be studied as such. appendices: Verbatim reports of speech, recordings, photographs. Signed: I. A. Bormenthal, M.D.
        Asst. to Prof. P. P. Preobrazhensky.

    Five

        A winter afternoon in late January, the time before supper, the time before the start of evening consulting hours. On the drawing-room doorpost hung a sheet of paper, on which was written in Philip Philipovich's hand:

    I forbid the consumption of sunflower seeds in this flat.
    P. Preobrazhensky
    Below this in big, thick letters Bormenthal had written in blue pencil:
    Musical instruments may not be played between 7pm and 6am.
    Then from Zina:
    When you come back tell Philip Philipovich that he's gone out and I don't know where to.
    Fyodor says he's with Shvonder.
        Preobrazhensky's hand:
        How much longer do I have to wait before the glazier comes?
        Darya Petrovna (in block letters):
        Zina has, gone out to the store, says she'll bring him back.
        In the dining-room there was a cosy evening feeling, generated by the lamp on the sideboard shining beneath its dark cerise shade. Its light was reflected in random shafts all over the room, as the mirror was cracked from side to side and had been stuck in place with a criss-cross of tape. Bending over the table, Philip Philipovich was absorbed in the large double page of an open newspaper. His face