rname will you take?'
     'I'll use my real name.'
     'You're real name? What is it?'
     'Sharikov.*
     Shvonder the house committee chairman was standing in his leather tunic
in  front  of  the professor's  desk.  Doctor Bormen-thal  was seated  in an
armchair. The doctor's glowing face (he had just come in from the cold) wore
an  expression  whose  perplexity  was  only  equalled  by  that  of  Philip
Philipovich.
     'Write it?' he asked impatiently.
     'Yes,' said Shvonder, 'it's not very  difficult. Write  a  certificate,
professor. You know the sort of thing - 'This is to  certify that the bearer
is  really Poligraph Poligraphovich Sharikov . .  .  h'm, born in, h'm . . .
this flat.'
     Bormenthal wriggled uneasily in his armchair. Philip Philipovich tugged
at his moustache.
     'God dammit,  I've never heard  anything so ridiculous in  my  life. He
wasn't born at all, he simply . . . well, he sort of..'
     'That's your problem,' said Shvonder with quiet malice. 'It's up to you
to decide whether he  was born or not ... It was your experiment, professor,
and you brought citizen Sharikov into the world.'
     'It's  all  quite  simple,'  barked  Sharikov  from  the  glass-fronted
cabinet, where he was admiring the reflection of his tie.
     'Kindly  keep  out  of this conversation,' growled  Philip Philipovich.
'It's not at all simple.'
     'Why shouldn't I join  in?' spluttered Sharikov  in an  offended voice,
and Shvonder instantly supported him.
     'I'm sorry,  professor,  but citizen Sharikov is absolutely correct. He
has a  right to take part in a  discussion about his affairs,  especially as
it's  about  his  identity  documents.  An  identity  document  is the  most
important thing in the world.'
     At that  moment  a  deafening  ring from  the telephone  cut  into  the
conversation. Philip Philipovich said into the receiver:
     'Yes . . .', then reddened and shouted: 'Will  you  please not distract
me with trivialities. What's it to do with you?' And  he hurled the receiver
back on to the hook.
     Delight spread over Shvonder's face.
     Purpling, Philip Philipovich roared: 'Right, let's get this finished.'
     He tore a sheet of paper from a notepad and scribbled a few words, then
read it aloud in a voice of exasperation:
     ' "I  hereby certify . . ." God, what am I  supposed to certify?  . . .
let's  see .  . . "That  the  bearer  is  a man created during  a laboratory
experiment by  means of an  operation  on  the  brain  and  that he requires
identity  papers" .  . .'I object in principle to his  having these  idiotic
documents, but still . . . Signed:
     "Professor Preobrazhensky!" '
     'Really, professor,' said Shvonder in  an offended voice.  'What do you
mean  by  calling  these  documents idiotic?  I can't allow  an undocumented
tenant  to  go  on  living in this house,  especially one  who  hasn't  been
registered  with  the police  for military service.  Supposing  war suddenly
breaks out with the imperialist aggressors?'
     'I'm not going to fight!' yapped Sharikov.
     Shvonder  was  dumbfounded, but  quickly  recovered  himself  and  said
politely  to  Sharikov: 'I'm afraid you  seem to be  completely  lacking  in
political  consciousness, citizen  Sharikov. You must  register for military
service at once.'
     'I'll  register,  but  I'm dammed if  I'm  going  to  fight,'  answered
Sharikov nonchalantly, straightening his tie.
     Now it was Shvonder's turn to be embarrassed. Preobraz-hensky exchanged
a look of grim complicity with Bormenthal, who nodded meaningly.
     'I was badly wounded  during the  operation,'  whined Sharikov. 'Look -
they cut  me  right  open.' He  pointed  to  his head. The scar of  a  fresh
surgical wound bisected his forehead.
     'Are  you  an  anarchist-individualist?'  asked  Shvonder, raising  his
eyebrows.
     'I ought to be exempt on medical grounds,' said Sharikov.
     'Well,  there's  no hurry  about it,'  said  the disconcerted Shvonder.
'Meanwhile we'll send the professor's certificate  to the police and they'll
issue your papers.'
     'Er, look here  . .  .'  Philip  Philipovich  suddenly interrupted him,
obviously struck by  an idea. 'I suppose you don't liave a room to spare  in
the house, do you? I'd be prepared to buy it.'
     Yellowish sparks flashed in Shvonder's brown eyes.
     'No, professor,  I  very much regret to say that we don't  have a room.
And aren't likely to, either.'
     Philip  Philipovich clenched  his teeth  and  said  nothing.  Again the
telephone rang as though to order. Without a word Philip Philipovich flicked
the receiver off the  rest  so that it hung down, spinning  slightly, on its
blue  cord.  Everybody jumped.  'The  old  man's getting  rattled,'  thought
Bormenthal. With a glint in his eyes Shvonder bowed and went out.
     Sharikov disappeared after him, his boots creaking.
     The professor and  Bormenthal  were left  alone. After a short silence,
Philip Philipovich shook his head gently and said:
     'On my word of honour,  this  is becoming an absolute nightmare.  Don't
you see?  I swear, doctor, that I've suffered  more these last fourteen days
than in the past fourteen years! I tell you, he's a scoundrel . . .'
     From a distance  came the faint tinkle of breaking glass, followed by a
stifled woman's  scream,  then  silence.  An  evil  spirit dashed  down  the
corridor, turned into the  consulting-room where it produced  another  crash
and immediately turned  back. Doors slammed and Darya Petrovna's low cry was
heard from the kitchen. There was a howl from Sharikov.
     'Oh, God, what now!' cried Philip Philipovich, rushing for the door.
     'A  cat,' guessed  Bormenthal and  leaped  after him. They ran down the
corridor into the  hall, burst  in, then  turned into the passage leading to
the bathroom and the kitchen.  Zina came dashing  out of the kitchen and ran
full tilt into Philip Philipovich.
     'How many times have I told you not to let cats into the flat,' shouted
Philip Philipovich in fury. 'Where is he? Ivan Amoldovich, for God's sake go
and calm the patients in the waiting-room!'
     'He's  in  the  bathroom,  the  devil,'  cried  Zina,  panting.  Philip
Philipovich hurled himself at the bathroom door, but it would not give way.
     'Open up this minute!'
     The only answer from  the locked  bathroom  was the sound  of something
leaping up  at  the walls,  smashing glasses, and  Sharikov's  voice roaring
through the door: 'I'll kill you . . .'
     Water  could be heard gurgling through the pipes and pouring  into  the
bathtub. Philip Philipovich leaned against  the door and  tried to break  it
open. Darya  Petrovna, clothes torn and face distorted with anger,  appeared
in the kitchen doorway. Then  the glass  transom window, high up in the wall
between the  bathroom and the kitchen, shattered  with a multiple crack. Two
large fragments crashed into the kitchen followed by a tabby cat of gigantic
proportions with a face like a  policeman and  a blue bow round its neck. It
fell on to the middle  of the  table, right  into a long  platter,  which it
broke in half. From there it fell to  the floor, turned round on  three legs
as it waved  the fourth in  the air as  though executing  a dance-step,  and
instantly  streaked out through the  back door, which  was slightly ajar.The
door opened wider  and the cat was replaced by the face of an old woman in a
headscarf, followed by her polka-dotted skirt. The old woman wiped her mouth
with her index and second fingers, stared round the kitchen with  protruding
eyes that burned with curiosity and she said:
     'Oh, my lord!'
     Pale, Philip Philipovich crossed the kitchen and asked threateningly:
     'What do you want?'
     'I wanted to have  a look at the  talking dog,' replied the  old  woman
ingratiatingly and  crossed herself.  Philip  Philipovich  went even  paler,
strode up to her and hissed: 'Get out of my kitchen this instant!'
     The old woman tottered back toward the door and said plaintively:
     'You needn't be so sharp, professor.'
     'Get  out, I  say!' repeated Philip  Philipovich and  his eyes  went as
round as the owl's. He personally slammed the door behind the old woman.
     'Darya Petrovna, I've asked you before . . .'
     'But  Philip  Philipovich,'  replied  Darya  Petrovna  in  desperation,
clenching  her  hands, 'what can I do?  People keep coming in all  day long,
however often I throw them out.'
     A  dull, threatening roar of water  was still coming from the bathroom,
although Sharikov was now silent. Doctor Bormenthal came in.
     'Please,  Ivan Amoldovich ... er... how  many patients are there in the
waiting-room?'
     'Eleven,' replied Bormenthal.
     'Send them all away, please. I can't see any patients today.'
     With a bony finger Philip Philipovich knocked on the bathroom door  and
shouted: 'Come out at once! Why have you locked yourself in?'
     'Oh . . . oh . . .!' replied Sharikov in tones of misery.
     'What on earth ... I can't hear you - turn off the water.'
     'Ow-wow! . . .'
     'Turn off the water! What has he done? I don't understand  . . .' cried
Philip  Philipovich, working himself into a frenzy.  Zina and Darya Petrovna
opened  the  kitchen door  and peeped  out.  Once again  Philip  Philipovich
thundered on the bathroom door with his fist.
     'There  he  is!'  screamed  Darya  Petrovna from  the  kitchen.  Philip
Philipovich rushed in. The distorted  features  of Poligraph  Poligraphovich
appeared  through  the broken transom and  leaned out  into the kitchen .His
eyes were tear-stained and there was a long scratch down his nose, red with
     fresh blood.
     'Have you gone out of your mind?' asked Philip Philipovich.  'Why don't
you come out of there?'
     Terrified and miserable, Sharikov stared around and replied:
     'I've shut myself in.'
     'Unlock the door, then. Haven't you ever seen a lock before?'
     'The blasted thing won't open!' replied Poligraph, terrified.
     'Oh, my God,  he's shut the  safety-catch too!' screamed Zina, wringing
her hands.
     'There's  a sort of  button on the lock,'  shouted  Philip Philipovich,
trying to  out-roar  the water. 'Press  it downwards  .  . .  press it down!
Downwards!'
     Sharikov vanished, to reappear over the transom a minute later.
     'I can't see a thing!' he barked in terror.
     'Well, turn the light on then! He's gone crazy!'
     'That damned cat smashed the bulb,' replied Sharikov, 'and when I tried
to  catch  the  bastard by the leg I turned on the tap  and now I can't find
it.'
     Appalled, all three wrung their hands in horror.
     Five minutes later Bormenthal,  Zina and Darya Petrovna were sitting in
a  row on a  damp  carpet that had been  rolled  up against the foot of  the
bathroom  door, pressing  it hard with  their bottoms. Fyodor the porter was
climbing up a  ladder into the  transom window, with the lighted candle from
Darya Petrovna's ikon in his hand. His posterior, clad in broad grey checks,
hovered in the air, then vanished through the opening.
     'Ooh! . .  . ow!' came Sharikov's  strangled shriek above  the  roar of
water.
     Fyodor's  voice was heard: 'There's nothing for it, Philip Philipovich,
we'll have to open the door and let the water out. We can mop it up from the
kitchen.'
     'Open it then!' shouted Philip Philipovich angrily.
     The three got  up  from the carpet  and pushed  the bathroom door open.
Immediately a tidal wave gushed out into the  passage, where it divided into
three streams -  one  straight  into the lavatory opposite, one to the right
into  the kitchen and one to the left into the hall. Splashing and prancing,
Zina shut the door into the hall. Fyodor emerged, up to his ankles in water,
and for some reason grinning. He was  soaking  wet and looked as if he  were
wearing oilskins.
     'The water-pressure was so strong, I only just managed to turn it off,'
he explained.
     'Where  is he?' asked Philip Philipovich, cursing as he  lifted one wet
foot.
     'He's afraid to come out,' said Fyodor, giggling stupidly.
     'Will  you  beat  me.  Dad'  came  Sharikov's tearful  voice  from  the
bathroom.
     'You idiot!' was Philip Philipovich's terse reply.
     Zina and  Darya Petrovna, with bare legs  and skirts tucked up to their
knees, and  Sharikov  and  the porter  barefoot with rolled-up trousers were
hard at work mopping up the kitchen  floor with  wet cloths,  squeezing them
out  into  dirty buckets and into the sink. The abandoned stove roared away.
The water swirled out of  the back door, down the well of the back staircase
and into the cellar.
     On  tiptoe,  Bormenthal  was standing in  a deep puddle  on the parquet
floor of the hall  and talking  through the crack of the  front door, opened
only as far as the chain would allow.
     'No consulting  hours  today,  I'm  afraid, the  professor's  not well.
Please keep away from the door, we have a burst pipe.
     'But when can the professor see me?' a voice came through the door. 'It
wouldn't take a minute . . .'
     'I'm  sorry.'  Bormenthal rocked back  from his toes to his heels. 'The
professor's in bed and a pipe  has burst. Come tomorrow. Zina  dear, quickly
mop up the hall or it will start running down the front staircase.'
     'There's too much - the cloths won't do it.'
     'Never mind,' said Fyodor. 'We'll scoop it up with jugs.'
     While the doorbell rang ceaselessly,  Bormenthal stood up to his ankles
in water.
     'When is the operation?' said an insistent  voice as  it tried to force
its way through the crack of the door.
     'A pipe's burst . . .'
     'But I've come in galoshes . . .'
     Bluish silhouettes appeared outside the door.
     'I'm sorry, it's impossible, please come tomorrow.'
     'But I have an appointment.'
     'Tomorrow. There's been a disaster in the water supply.'
     Fyodor splashed about in the lake, scooping it up  with a jug,  but the
battle-scared Sharikov had thought up a new method. He rolled up an enormous
cloth, lay on his stomach in the water and pushed it backwards from the hall
towards the lavatory.
     'What d'you think  you're doing,  you  fool, slopping it all round  the
flat?' fumed Darya Petrovna. 'Pour it into the sink.'
     'How can  I?'  replied Sharikov,  scooping up  the murky water with his
hands. 'If  I don't push it back into  the  flat  it'll run out of the front
door.'
     A  bench  was  pushed  creaking  out  of   the  corridor,  with  Philip
Philipovich riding unsteadily on it in his blue striped socks.
     'Stop answering the door, Ivan Amoldovich. Go into the bedroom, you can
borrow a pair of my slippers.'
     'Don't bother, Philip Philipovich, I'm all right.'
     'You're wearing nothing but a pair of galoshes.'
     'I don't mind. My feet are wet anyway.'
     'Oh, my God!' Philip Philipovich was exhausted and depressed.
     'Destructive animal!' Sharikov suddenly burst out as he squatted on the
floor, clutching a soup tureen.
     Bormenthal slammed the  door, unable to  contain himself any longer and
burst into  laughter.  Philip Philipovich  blew  out  his nostrils  and  his
spectacles glittered.
     'What are  you talking about?' he asked Sharikov from  the eminence  of
his bench.
     'I  was  talking about the  cat. Filthy swine,' answered  Sharikov, his
eyes swivelling guiltily.
     'Look here,  Sharikov,'  retorted  Philip  Philipovich, taking  a  deep
breath. 'I swear I have never seen a more impudent creature than you.'
     Bormenthal giggled.
     'You,' went on Philip  Philipovich, 'are nothing but a lout.  How  dare
you say  that? You caused  the whole thing and you have the  gall  . . . No,
really! It's too much!'
     'Tell me, Sharikov,' said Bormenthal, 'how much longer are you going to
chase cats? You  ought to be ashamed of yourself. It's disgraceful! You're a
savage!'
     'Me - a savage?' snarled  Sharikov. 'I'm no  savage.  I won't stand for
that cat in  this flat. It  only  comes  here to find  what it can pinch. It
stole Darya's mincemeat. I wanted to teach it a lesson.'
     'You should teach yourself a lesson!' replied Philip Philipovich. 'Just
take a look at your face in the mirror.'
     'Nearly scratched my eyes out,' said Sharikov gloomily,  wiping a dirty
hand across his eyes.
     By  the time that the water-blackened  parquet  had dried out a little,
all the mirrors were covered in a veil of  condensed vapour and the doorbell
had stopped ringing. Philip Philipovich in red morocco slippers was standing
in the hall.
     'There you are, Fyodor. Thank you.'
     'Thank you very much, sir.'
     'Mind you  change your clothes straight away. No, wait -have a glass of
Darya Petrovna's vodka before you go.'
     'Thank you, sir,' Fyodor squirmed awkwardly, then said:
     'There is one more thing, Philip  Philipovich. I'm sorry, I hardly like
to  mention  it,  but it's the  matter of the window-pane  in  No 7. Citizen
Sharikov threw some stones at it, you see . . .'
     'Did he throw them at a cat?' asked Philip Philipovich, frowning like a
thundercloud.
     'Well,  no,  he  was  throwing  them  at the owner  of  the flat.  He's
threatening to sue.'
     'Oh, lord!'
     'Sharikov tried to kiss their cook and they  threw  him out. They had a
bit of a fight, it seems.'
     'For God's sake, do you  have  to  tell me all these disasters at once?
How much?'
     'One rouble and 50 kopecks.'
     Philip Philipovich  took out three shining 50-kopeck pieces  and handed
them to Fyodor.
     'And on  top of it  all you have to pay 1 rouble and 50 kopecks because
of  that damned cat,'  grumbled a voice  from  the doorway. 'It was  all the
cat's fault . . .'
     Philip Philipovich  turned  round, bit his  lip  and  gripped Sharikov.
Without a  word  he  pushed  him into the waiting-room  and locked the door.
Sharik immediately started to hammer on the door with his fists.
     'Shut  up!'  shouted  Philip Philipovich  in  a  voice  that was nearly
deranged.
     'This is the limit,'  said  Fyodor meaningfully.  'I've never seen such
impudence in my life.'
     Bormenthal seemed to materialise out of the floor.
     'Please, Philip Philipovich, don't upset yourself.'
     The doctor thrust open the door into the waiting-room.
     He could be heard saying: 'Where d'you think you are? In some dive?'
     'That's it,' said Fyodor approvingly. 'Serve him right . . .a punch  on
the ear's what he needs . . .'
     'No,  not that,  Fyodor,' growled  Philip Philipovich  sadly.  'I think
you've just about had all you can take, Philip Philipovich.'


        Six


     'No, no, no!' insisted Bormenthal. 'You must tuck in vour napkin.'
     'Why the hell should I,' grumbled Sharikov.
     'Thank you, doctor,'  said  Philip  Philipovich gratefully.  'I  simply
haven't the energy to reprimand him any longer.'
     'I shan't allow you to start eating until you put on your napkin. Zina,
take the mayonnaise away from Sharikov.'
     'Hey, don't  do  that,'  said  Sharikov plaintively. 'I'll  put  it  on
straight away.'
     Pushing away the  dish  from  Zina with  his  left hand and  stuffing a
napkin  down  his  collar with  the right hand,  he looked  exactly  like  a
customer in a barber's shop.
     'And eat with your fork, please,' added Bormenthal.
     Sighing long and heavily Sharikov chased slices of sturgeon around in a
thick sauce.
     'Can't I have some vodka?' he asked.
     'Will you kindly keep  quiet?'  said Bormenthal.  'You've been  at  the
vodka too often lately.'
     'Do you  grudge me it?' asked Sharikov, glowering sullenly  across  the
table.
     'Stop talking such damn nonsense . .  .'  Philip  Philipovich  broke in
harshly, but Bormenthal interrupted him.
     'Don't worry, Philip Philipovich, leave  it to  me. You,  Sharikov  are
talking  nonsense and the most disturbing thing of all is that you  talk  it
with  such  complete  confidence.  Of course  I  don't grudge you the vodka,
especially as it's not mine but belongs  to Philip Philipovich. It's  simply
that  it's harmful.  That's for a start; secondly  you behave  badly  enough
without vodka.' Bormenthal  pointed  to where  the sideboard had been broken
and glued together.
     'Zina, dear, give me a little more fish please,' said the professor.
     Meanwhile Sharikov had stretched out his hand towards the decanter and,
with a sideways glance at Bormenthal, poured himself out a glassful.
     'You should offer it to  the others first,' said Bormenthal. 'Like this
- first to Philip Philipovich, then to me, then yourself.'
     A faint, sarcastic grin nickered  across Sharikov's mouth and he poured
out glasses of vodka all round.
     'You act just as if you were on parade here,' he said. 'Put your napkin
here, your tie  there, "please",  "thank you",  "excuse me" -why  can't  you
behave naturally? Honestly,  you stuffed shirts act  as if it was still  the
days oftsarism.'
     'What do you mean by "behave naturally"?'
     Sharikov did not answer Philip Philipovich's question,  but raised  his
glass and said: 'Here's how . . .'
     'And you too,' echoed Bormenthal with a tinge of irony.
     Sharikov tossed  the glassful down his throat, blinked, lifted a  piece
of bread  to his nose, sniffed it, then swallowed it as his eyes filled with
tears.
     'Phase,' Philip Philipovich suddenly blurted out, as if preoccupied.
     Bormenthal gave him an astonished look. 'I'm sorry? . . .'
     'It's  a phase,'  repeated  Philip  Philipovich  and  nodded  bitterly.
'There's nothing we can do about it. Klim.'
     Deeply interested, Bormenthal glanced sharply into Philip Philipovich's
eyes: 'Do  you  suppose  so, Philip  Philipovich?'  'I  don't  suppose;  I'm
convinced.'
     'Can it be that . . .' began Bormenthal, then stopped after a glance at
Sharikov,  who  was  frowning  suspiciously.  'Spdter  .  .  .' said  Philip
Philipovich softly. 'Gut,' replied his assistant.
     Zina brought in  the turkey.  Bormenthal poured  out some red wine  for
Philip Philipovich, then offered some to Sharikov.
     'Not  for me,  I  prefer vodka.' His face  had  grown  puffy, sweat was
breaking  out  on  his  forehead  and  he  was  distinctly  merrier.  Philip
Philipovich also cheered up slightly after drinking some wine. His eyes grew
clearer and  he looked rather more approvingly at Sharikov, whose black head
above his white napkin now shone like a fly in a pool of cream.
     Bormenthal however, when fortified, seemed to want activity.
     'Well now,  what  are you and  I  going to  do this evening?'  he asked
Sharikov.
     Sharikov  winked and replied:  'Let's go  to  the  circus. I  like that
best.'
     'Why go to  the  circus every day?'  remarked  Philip Philipovich  in a
good-humoured voice. 'It sounds so boring to me. If I were you I'd go to the
theatre.'
     'I won't  go to the theatre,' answered Sharikov  nonchalantly and  made
the sign of the cross over his mouth.
     'Hiccuping  at   table  takes  other  people's  appetites  away,'  said
Bormenthal   automatically.  'If   you  don't  mind   my  mentioning   it...
Incidentally, why don't you like the theatre?' Sharikov held his empty glass
up to his eye and looked through it as though it were an opera  glass. After
some thought he pouted and said:
     'Hell, it's just rot . . . talk, talk. Pure counter-revolution.'
     Philip Philipovich leaned against his high, carved gothic chairback and
laughed  so hard  that  he  displayed  what  looked  like two  rows of  gold
fence-posts. Bormenthal merely shook his head.
     'You should do some reading,' he suggested, 'and then, perhaps . . .'
     'But I read a lot . . .' answered Sharikov, quickly and surreptitiously
pouring himself half a glass of vodka.
     'Zina!' cried Philip  Philipovich anxiously.  'Clear away the vodka, my
dear. We don't need it any more . . . What have you been reading?'
     He suddenly  had a mental picture of a desert island, palm trees, and a
man  dressed  in goatskins.  'I'll bet  he  says  Robinson Crusoe  .  . .'he
thought.
     'That guy . . . what's his name . . . Engels' correspondence with . . .
hell, what d'you call him ... oh - Kautsky.'
     Bormenthal's  forkful  of  turkey meat  stopped  in  mid-air and Philip
Philipovich choked on his wine. Sharikov seized this moment to gulp down his
vodka.
     Philip Philipovich put his elbows on  the table, stared at Sharikov and
asked:
     'What comment can you make on what you've read?'
     Sharikov shrugged. 'I don't agree.'
     'With whom - Engels or Kautsky?'
     'With neither of 'em,' replied Sharikov.
     'That is most  remarkable. Anybody who says that . . . Well, what would
you suggest instead?'
     'Suggest? I dunno . . . They just write and write all  that rot ... all
about some  congress  and  some  Germans .  .  . makes  my  head reel.  Take
everything away from the bosses, then divide it up . . .'
     'Just  as  I  thought!'  exclaimed  Philip  Philipovich,  slapping  the
tablecloth with his palm. 'Just as I thought.'
     'And how is this to be done?' asked Bormenthal with interest.
     'How  to  do  it?'  Sharikov,  grown loquacious  with  wine,  explained
garrulously:
     'Easy. Fr'instance - here's one guy with seven rooms and forty pairs of
trousers and there's another guy who has to eat out of dustbins.'
     'I suppose that remark about the seven rooms is a hint about me?' asked
Philip Philipovich with a haughty raise of the eyebrows.
     Sharikov  hunched his  shoulders and  said  no  more. 'All  right, I've
nothing against fair shares. How  many patients did you turn away yesterday,
doctor?'  'Thirty-nine,'  was Bormenthal's immediate reply. 'H'm  .  . . 390
roubles,  shared  between us  three. I won't  count Zina and Darya Petrovna.
Right, Sharikov  -  that  means your  share  is 130  roubles. Kindly hand it
over.'
     'Hey, wait  a  minute,' said  Sharikov, beginning to be scared. 'What's
the idea? What d'you mean?'
     'I  mean the  cat  and the tap,'  Philip  Philipovich  suddenly roared,
dropping  his  mask  of   ironic  imperturbability.  'Philip   Philipovich!'
exclaimed Bormenthal anxiously. 'Don't  interrupt.  The  scene  you  created
yesterday  was  intolerable, and  thanks  to you I had  to turn  away all my
patients. You were leaping around in  the bathroom like  a savage,  smashing
everything and jamming the taps. Who killed Madame Polasukher's cat? Who . .
.'
     'The  day  before  yesterday, Sharikov,  you bit a lady  you met on the
staircase,' put in Bormenthal.
     'You ought to be . . .' roared Philip Philipovich.
     'But she  slapped me  across  the mouth,' whined Sharikov 'She can't go
doing that to me!'
     'She  slapped  you  because you  pinched  her  on the  bosom,'  shouted
Bormenthal, knocking over a glass. 'You stand there and . . .'
     'You belong  to  the  lowest  possible  stage  of development,'  Philip
Philipovich shouted him down. 'You are still in the formative stage. You are
intellectually  weak,  all your actions are purely  bestial. Yet  you  allow
yourself  in  the  presence of two  university-educated men to offer advice,
with  quite intolerable familiarity, on  a cosmic scale  and of quite cosmic
stupidity, on the redistribution of  wealth . .  . and at the same time  you
eat toothpaste . . .'
     'The day before yesterday,' added Bormenthal.
     'And now,' thundered Philip Philipovich, 'that you have nearly got your
nose scratched off - incidentally, why have you wiped the zinc ointment  off
it? - you can just shut up  and listen to what you're told. You are going to
leam to  behave and try to become a marginally acceptable member of society.
By the way, who was fool enough to lend you that book?'
     'There  you go  again  -  calling everybody  fools,'  replied  Sharikov
nervously, deafened by the attack on him from both sides.
     'Let me guess,' exclaimed Philip Philipovich, turning red with fury.
     'Well, Shvonder gave it to me ... so  what? He's not  a fool ... it was
so I could get educated.'
     'I  can see which way your education  is going  after reading Kautsky,'
shouted Philip  Philipovich, hoarse and turning faintly yellow. With this he
gave the bell a furious jab. 'Today's incident shows it better than anything
else. Zina!'
     'Zina!' shouted Bormenthal.
     'Zina!' cried the terrified Sharikov.
     Looking pale, Zina ran into the room.
     'Zina,  there's  a  book  in  the  waiting-room   ...  It  is  in   the
waiting-room, isn't it?'
     'Yes, it is,' said  Sharikov obediently. 'Green, the  colour  of copper
sulphate.'
     'A green book . . .'
     'Bum it if  you  like,'  cried  Sharikov in desperation. 'It's  only  a
public library book.'
     'It's called Correspondence . .  . between,  er, Engels  and that other
man, what's his name . . . Anyway, throw it into the stove!'
     Zina flew out.
     'I'd like to  hang that Shvonder,  on my word  of honour, on  the first
tree,' said  Philip  Philipovich, with a  furious  lunge at  a  turkey-wing.
'There's a  gang  of poisonous  people  in  this  house - it's just like  an
abscess. To say nothing of his idiotic newspapers . . .'
     Sharikov gave  the  professor  a  look  of  malicious  sarcasm.  Philip
Philipovich in his turn shot him a sideways glance and said no more.
     'Oh,  dear,  it  looks  as  if  nothing's  going  to  go  right,'  came
Bormenthal's sudden and prophetic thought.
     Zina brought in a layer cake on a dish and a coffee pot.
     'I'm not eating any of that,' Sharikov growled threateningly.
     'No  one has offered  you  any.  Behave  yourself.  Please  have  some,
doctor.'
     Dinner ended in silence.
     Sharikov pulled a crumpled cigarette out  of  his  pocket and  lit  it.
Having drunk his coffee, Philip Philipovich looked at  the clock. He pressed
his  repeater and it gently  struck  a quarter past eight.  As was his habit
Philip Philipovich leaned  against  his gothic chairback and  turned  to the
newspaper on a side-table.
     'Would you like to go to the circus with him tonight,  doctor?  Only do
check the programme in advance and make sure there are no cats in it.'
     'I don't know how they let such filthy  beasts into the circus at all,'
said Sharikov sullenly, shaking his head.
     'Well never mind what filthy  beasts they let  into the circus for  the
moment,' said Philip Philipovich ambiguously. 'What's on tonight?'
     'At Solomon's,' Bormenthal began to read out, 'there's something called
the Four. . . . the Four Yooshems and the Human Ball-Bearing.'
     'What are Yooshems?' enquired Philip Philipovich suspiciously.
     'God knows. First time I've ever come across the word.'
     'Well in that case you'd better look at Nikita's. We must be absolutely
sure about what we're going to see.'
     'Nikita's . .  . Nikita's . . . h'm . . . elephants and the Ultimate in
Human Dexterity.'
     'I see. What is your attitude to elephants, my dear Sharikov?' enquired
Philip Philipovich mistrustfully. Sharikov was immediately offended.
     'Hell  - I don't  know. Cats are a special  case. Elephants are  useful
animals,' replied Sharikov.
     'Excellent.  As long  as you think they're useful you  can go and watch
them. Do as Ivan Arnoldovich tells  you. And  don't get talking to anyone in
the bar! I beg you, Ivan Arnoldovich, not to offer Sharikov beer to drink.'
     Ten  minutes later  Ivan  Arnoldovich and Sharikov, dressed in a peaked
cap  and  a raglan overcoat with turned-up  collar, set  off for the circus.
Silence descended  on  the flat. Philip Philipovich went  into his study. He
switched  on the lamp under  its heavy  green shade,  which gave the study a
great sense of calm, and began to pace the room. The tip of his cigar glowed
long and hard with its pale green fire. The professor put his hands into his
pockets and deep thoughts racked his balding, learned brow. Now and again he
smacked  his lips,  hummed  'to  the banks of the sacred  Nile  .  . .'  and
muttered something. Finally he put his cigar into the ashtray, went over  to
the glass cabinet and  lit up the entire study with the three powerful lamps
in the ceiling. From the  third  glass  shelf Philip Philipovich took  out a
narrow jar and began, frowning, to examine it by the lamplight. Suspended in
a transparent, viscous  liquid there swam a little white blob that had  been
extracted from the depths  of Sharik's brain. With a shrug of his shoulders,
twisting his lips and murmuring  to himself, Philip  Philipovich devoured it
with his eyes as though the floating white blob  might unravel the secret of
the  curious events  which had  turned  life  upside  down  in that flat  on
Prechistenka.
     It could  be  that this  most  learned man  did succeed in divining the
secret. At  any rate,  having gazed his full  at this cerebral appendage  he
returned the  jar to the cabinet, locked it, put the key into his  waistcoat
pocket and  collapsed,  head pressed down between  his  shoulders and  hands
thrust  deep into his jacket pockets,  on  to  the leather-covered couch. He
puffed  long  and  hard  at another cigar,  chewing  its  end to  fragments.
Finally, looking  like a  greying  Faust in the  green-tinged  lamplight, he
exclaimed aloud:
     'Yes, by God, I will.'
     There  was  no one  to reply.  Every sound in  the flat was  hushed. By
eleven o'clock the traffic  in  Obukhov  Street always died  down. The  rare
footfall of a belated walker echoed in  the distance,  ringing out somewhere
beyond  the lowered blinds, then  dying away. In  Philip Philipovich's study
his repeater chimed gently beneath his fingers in his waistcoat pocket . . .
Impatiently the  professor  waited for  Doctor Bormenthal  and  Sharikov  to
return from the circus.

        Seven


     We do  not know  what  Philip Philipovich  had  decided  to  do. He did
nothing in particular during the subsequent week and  perhaps as a result of
this things began happening fast.
     About six days after the affair  with  the bath-water  and the cat, the
young person from the house committee who had turned out to  be a woman came
to Sharikov and  handed him some papers. Sharikov put  them  into his pocket
and immediately called Doctor Bormenthal.
     'Bormenthal!'
     'Kindly address me by my name and patronymic!' retorted Bormenthal, his
expression  clouding.  I should mention that  in the past six days the great
surgeon had managed  to  quarrel eight times with his  ward Sharikov and the
atmosphere in the flat was tense.
     'All  right, then you  can call me  by  my  name and  patronymic  too!'
replied Sharikov with complete justification.
     'No!'  thundered  Philip Philipovich from the doorway. 'I forbid you to
utter such an idiotic name  in my flat. If you want  us  to stop calling you
Sharikov, Doctor Bormenthal and I will call you "Mister Sharikov".'
     'I'm not mister - all the "misters" are in Paris!' barked Sharikov.
     'I see Shvonder's been  at  work on you!'  shouted  Philip Philipovich.
'Well, I'll fix that rascal. There will only be "misters" in my flat as long
as I'm  living in it! Otherwise either I or  you will get out, and it's more
likely to be you. I'm  putting  a "room wanted" advertisement in the  papers
today and believe me I intend to find you a room.'
     'You  don't think  I'm  such a  fool  as to leave  here,  do  you?' was
Sharikov's crisp retort.
     'What?'   cried  Philip  Philipovich.  Such  a  change  came  over  his
expression that Bormenthal rushed anxiously to his side  and gently took him
by the sleeve.
     'Don't you  be  so  impertinent,  Monsieur  Sharikov!' said Bormenthal,
raising his voice. Sharikov  stepped back and pulled  three pieces  of paper
out  of his pocket -  one green, one yellow and one  white, and  said  as he
tapped them with his fingers:
     'There. I'm now a member of this residential association and the tenant
in charge of flat No.  5, Preobrazhensky, has got to give  me my entitlement
of thirty-seven square feet .  . .' Sharikov  thought for a  moment and then
added  a  word  which  Bormenthal's mind automatically  recorded  as  new  -
'please'.
     Philip Philipovich bit his lip and said rashly:
     'I swear I'll shoot that Shvonder one of these days.'
     It was obvious  from  the  look  in Sharikov's  eyes  that he had taken
careful note of the remark.
     'Vorsicht, Philip Philipovich . . .' warned Bormenthal.
     'Well,  what do you expect? The gall  of  it  .  .  .!' shouted  Philip
Philipovich in Russian.
     'Look here, Sharikov  ... Mister  Sharikov ...  If  you commit one more
piece  of impudence I shall deprive  you of your dinner, in fact of all your
food. Thirty-seven square feet may  be all very well, but there's nothing on
that stinking little bit of paper which says that I have to feed you!'
     Frightened, Sharikov opened his mouth.
     'I can't go without food,' he mumbled. 'Where would I eat?'
     'Then behave yourself!' cried both doctors in chorus. Sharikov relapsed
into  meaningful silence and  did  no  harm  to anybody that  day  with  the
exception of himself - taking advantage of Bormenthal's brief absence he got
hold of the  doctor's razor and cut  his  cheek-bone  so badly  that  Philip
Philipovich and Doctor Bormenthal had to  bandage the cut with much  wailing
and weeping on Sharikov's part.
     Next evening two men sat in the green twilight of the professor's study
-  Philip Philipovich  and the faithful, devoted Bormenthal. The  house  was
asleep.  Philip Philipovich was wearing his sky-blue dressing gown  and  red
slippers, while  Bormenthal was  in his shirt and blue braces. On  the round
table between the doctors, beside a thick album, stood a bottle of brandy, a
plate of sliced lemon and a box of cigars.  Through  the smoke-laden air the
two scientists were heatedly  discussing  the  latest  event:  that  evening
Sharikov had  stolen  two  10-rouble  notes  which  had been lying  under  a
paperweight in Philip Philipovich's study, had disappeared from the flat and
then returned later  completely drunk. But that  was not  all. With him  had
come two unknown characters who  had created a great deal  of  noise on  the
front staircase and expressed a desire to spend the night with Sharikov. The
individuals in question were  only removed after  Fyodor,  appearing  on the
scene  with  a coat  thrown  over his  underwear,  had telephoned  the  45th
Precinct  police  station. The  individuals  vanished instantly as  soon  as
Fyodor  had replaced the receiver. After they had  gone it was  found that a
malachite ashtray had mysteriously vanished from a console in the hall, also
Philip  Philipovich's  beaver  hat  and his walking-stick with a  gold  band
inscribed: 'From the grateful hospital staff to Philip Philipovich in memory
of "X"-day with affection and respect/
     'Who were  they?' said Philip  Philipovich aggressively, clenching  his
fists. Staggering and  clutching the fur-coats,  Sharikov muttered something
about  not knowing  who they  were,  that they were a couple of bastards but
good chaps.
     'The strangest thing of all was that they were both drunk . . . How did
they manage  to lay  their  hands on the stuff?' said  Philip Philipovich in
astonishment, glancing at the place where his presentation walking-stick had
stood until recently.
     'They're experts,' explained Fyodor as he  returned home  to bed with a
rouble in his pocket.
     Sharikov  categorically  denied having stolen the 20  roubles, mumbling
something indistinct about himself not being the only person in the flat.
     'Aha, I  see - I suppose  Doctor Bormenthal  stole the money?' enquired
Philip  Philipovich  in  a voice  that  was  quiet  but  terrifying  in  its
intonation.
     Sharikov staggered, opened his bleary eyes and offered the suggestion:
     'Maybe Zina took it . . .*
     'What?'  screamed  Zina,  appearing  in  the  doorway like  a  spectre,
clutching an unbuttoned cardigan across her bosom.
     'How could he . . .'
     Philip Philipovich's neck flushed red.
     'Calm down, Zina,' he said, stretching out  his arm  to her, 'don't get
upset, we'll fix this.'
     Zina immediately burst into tears, her  mouth  fell wide  open  and her
hand dropped from her bosom.
     'Zina  -  aren't you  ashamed? Who could imagine you taking it? What  a
disgraceful exhibition!' said Bormenthal in deep embarrassment.
     'You silly girl, Zina, God forgive you . . .' began Philip Philipovich.
     But at that moment Zina stopped crying and the others froze in horror -
Sharikov  was feeling unwell.  Banging his  head  against the  wall, he  was
emitting a moan that was pitched  somewhere between the vowels 'i' and 'o' -
a sort of 'eeuuhh'. His face turned pale and his jaw twitched convulsively.
     'Look out - get the swine that