“There he is!” yelled Darya Petrovna from the kitchen.
Philip Philipovich rushed to her side. From the broken window under the ceiling had appeared and was now protruding the face of Polygraph Polygraphovich. It was all awry, the eyes brimming with tears and a freshly bleeding scratch flaming the length of the nose.
“Have you lost your wits?” asked Philip Philipovich. “Why don’t you come out?”
Sharikov, himself thoroughly upset and frightened, looked round and replied:
“I’ve locked myself in.”
“Draw back the bolt. What’s the matter with you, you’ve seen a bolt before, haven’t you?”
“The damned thing won’t open!” answered Sharikov in some alarm.
“Oh, heavens! He’s put it on double lock!” cried Zina and threw up her hands.
“There is a button there!” yelled Philip Philipovich, trying to make his voice heard above the running water. “Press it down … down! Press it down!”
Sharikov disappeared and a moment later reappeared at the window.
“I can’t see my paw before my face!” he yapped.
“Turn on the light. He’s run mad!”
“That filthy great torn smashed the bulb,” replied Sharikov, “and when I tried to seize the blighter by the legs I pulled out the tap and now I can’t find it.”
All three threw up their hands and froze where they stood.
Five minutes later Bormental, Zina and Darya Petrovna were sitting in a row on a wet carpet rolled up against the bottom of the bathroom door, pressing it against the crack with their behinds, and the porter Fyodor was clambering up a wooden ladder to the high window, holding a lighted wax candle with a white bow, a memento of Darya Petrovna’s wedding. His bottom, clad in bold grey check, stuck in the opening for a moment — then vanished.
“Do-hoo-hoo!” Sharikov’s voice sounded through the rush of water.
Then Fyodor’s:
“Philip Philipovich, we’ll have to open the door anyway. Let it run out, we’ll pump it from the kitchen.”
“Open, then!” cried Philip Philipovich angrily.
The three sentries rose from the carpet, someone pushed the door from inside the bathroom and, immediately, the water flooded out into the small corridor. Here it divided into three streams: straight ahead into the lavatory opposite, to the right into the kitchen and to the left into the hall. Paddling and jumping, Zina reached the door and closed it. Fyodor emerged ankle deep in water and, for some reason, with a broad grin on his face. He was all wet, like a seaman in his oilcloth.
“Only just managed to get the tap back in, the pressure’s very strong,” he explained.
“Where’s that…?” Philip Philipovich raised one leg with a curse.
“Afraid to come out,” explained Fyodor with a stupid grin.
“You going to beat me, Dad?” came Sharikov’s tearful whine from the bathroom.
“Idiot!” responded Philip Philipovich succinctly.
Zina and Darya Petrovna, their skirts tucked up to the knees and bare-legged, Sharikov and the porter both with rolled up trousers and bare feet, worked away mopping up the kitchen with sopping rags, wringing them out into dirty buckets or the basin. The abandoned oven hummed. The water seeped away under the door onto the echoing staircase and plunged into the stairwell, right down to the basement.
Bormental stood on tiptoe in a deep puddle on the parquet and conversed with someone through a crack in the front door from which he had not unlatched the chain.
“There will be no reception today. The Professor is unwell. Be so kind as to move away from the door, we’ve had a burst pipe.”
“But when is the reception?” the voice behind the door insisted. “I would only take up one minute…”
“I can’t,” Bormental rocked from toes to heels. “The Professor is in bed and we have a burst pipe. I’ll try to arrange it for tomorrow. Zina! My dear! Come and mop the water up from here or it will run out onto the front stairs.”
“The rags aren’t absorbing.”
“We’ll bail it out with mugs,” came Fyodor’s voice. “Coming.”
People kept ringing at the door and Bormental was already standing with the soles of his shoes in the water.
“When will the operation take place?” a voice insisted and someone tried to insert himself into the crack.
“We’ve had a burst pipe…”
“I’d be all right in galoshes…”
Bluish silhouettes appeared beyond the door.
“No, please come tomorrow.”
“But I have an appointment.”
“Tomorrow. There’s been an accident with the water system.”
Fyodor, at the doctor’s feet, was floundering about in the hall scraping with a mug, but the scratched Sharikov had thought up a new method. He had made a roll out of a huge rag, lay on his stomach in the water and swished it back before the roll into the lavatory.
“Why are you spreading it all over the flat, you hobgoblin,” scolded Darya Petrovna. “Pour it down the sink.”
“No time for the sink,” replied Sharikov, scooping up the cloudy water with his hands. “It’ll get out into the front staircase.”
A small bench slid out from the corridor with a rasping sound. Very erect and superbly balanced, Philip Philipovich propelled it along, his feet clad in blue striped socks.
“Ivan Arnoldovich, there’s no need to answer the door. Go to the bedroom. I’ll give you a pair of slippers.”
“Don’t bother, Philip Philipovich, it’s not worth troubling your head.”
“Then put on galoshes.”
“It doesn’t matter, honestly. My feet are wet anyway.”
“Oh dear me!” Philip Philipovich was upset.
“What a nasty animal!” Sharikov unexpectedly chimed in and hopped out in a squatting position with a soup bowl in one hand.
Bormental slammed the door, unable to contain himself any longer, and burst out laughing. Philip Philipovich’s nostrils expanded and his spectacles glinted.
“Who are you speaking of?” he asked Sharikov from his superior height. “If I may ask.”
“I’m talking about the cat. Filthy brute,” said Sharikov, failing to meet the Professor’s eye.
“You know, Sharikov,” remarked Philip Philipovich, taking a deep breath, “I have never seen a more brazen creature than you.”
Bormental giggled.
“You,” continued Philip Philipovich, “are an insolent fellow. How dare you say such a thing? You are the cause of all this and you … but no! It’s beyond everything!”
“Sharikov, tell me, please,” said Bormental, “how long are you going to go on chasing cats? You should be ashamed of yourself! It’s a disgrace! You’re a barbarian!”
“Why am I a barbarian?” muttered Sharikov sulkily. “I’m no barbarian. There’s no bearing with him in the flat. Always on the lookout for something to steal. He ate all Darya’s mince. I wanted to give him a good hiding.”
“It’s you who should be given a good hiding,” said Philip Philipovich. “Just look at your face in the mirror.”
“He almost scratched my eyes out,” Sharikov responded glumly, dabbing at his eye with a wet, dirty hand.
By the time the parquet, which had turned black from the damp, had dried out somewhat, and all the mirrors were covered with a veil of steam, the doorbell had ceased to ring. Philip Philipovich, in red Morocco slippers, stood in the hall.
“There you are, Fyodor.”
“Many thanks.”
“Go and get changed at once. Ah, I know: go and ask Darya Petrovna to pour you a glass of vodka.”
“Thank you very much indeed,” Fyodor hesitated, then said: “There’s another thing, Philip Philipovich. I do beg pardon, I feel it’s really a shame to trouble you — only — for a pane of glass in flat No. 7… Citizen Sharikov threw stones.”
“At the cat?” asked Philip Philipovich, frowning like a thundercloud.
“That’s the trouble — at the owner of the flat. He’s threatened to go to law.”
“The devil!”
“Sharikov was cuddling his cook, so he chased him. And they had an argument.”
“For goodness sake always tell me about such things at once. How much?”
“One and a half.”
Philip Philipovich produced three shiny 50 kopeck pieces and handed them to Fyodor.
“Fancy paying one and a half roubles for such a filthy swine,” a hollow voice sounded from the door. “He himself…”
Philip Philipovich swung round, bit his lip and silently bore down on Sharikov, pressing him into the reception room where he immediately turned the key on him. From inside Sharikov immediately started banging on the door with his fists.
“Don’t you dare!” exclaimed Philip Philipovich in a clearly sick voice.
“Well, if that doesn’t beat all,” remarked Fyodor significantly. “Never in all my born days have I seen such an impertinent brute.”
Bormental appeared as if from under the earth.
“Philip Philipovich, please don’t upset yourself.”
The energetic young doctor opened the door into the hall and from there you could hear his voice:
“Where do you think you are? In a pub, or what?”
“That’s the way,” the decisive Fyodor added. “That’s the way … and a clip over the ear…”
“Ah, Fyodor, how can you say such things?” muttered Philip Philipovich gruffly.
“But I’m sorry for you, Philip Philipovich.”
Part VII
“No, no and no!” said Bormental insistently. “Be so good as to tuck in your napkin.”
“What’s wrong now, for God’s sake,” growled Sharikov crossly.
“Thank you, Doctor,” said Philip Philipovich gratefully. “I’m tired of making critical remarks.”
“I will not allow you to eat till you tuck it in. Zina, take the mayonnaise from Sharikov.”
“What do you mean ‘take’?” Sharikov was upset. “I’m tucking it in.”
With his left hand he hid the dish from Zina and with his right put the napkin into his collar which at once made him look like a client at the barber’s.
“And please use your fork,” added Bormental.
Sharikov gave a long sigh and began to fish for pieces of sturgeon in the thick sauce.
“Another glass of vodka?” he announced on a tentative note.
“Don’t you think you’ve had enough?” asked Bormental. “You’ve been making rather free with the vodka lately.”
“Do you grudge it?” Sharikov inquired, darting a glance at him from under his brows.
“Nonsense…” declared the austere Philip Philipovich, but Bormental interrupted.
“Don’t trouble yourself, Philip
