Heart of a Dog by Mikhail Bulgakov Page B

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