“I am too well known in Moscow, Professor. What am I to do?”
“Gentlemen!” cried Philip Philipovich with indignation. “This is impossible. You must control yourselves. How old is she?”
“Fourteen, Professor … you understand, it will be the end of me if this comes out. In a day or two I should be going abroad on a business trip.”
“But I am not a lawyer, dear Sir… Well, wait a couple of years, then marry her.”
“I am married, Professor.”
“Oh, gentlemen, gentlemen!”
Doors opened, one face succeeded another, the instruments rattled in the cupboard and Philip Philipovich worked on without a break.
What a brothel of a flat, thought the dog, but what comfort! What the hell did he need me for, though? Will he let me live here? What an eccentric! He could have a breathtaking dog at the drop of a hat, anything he wanted. But there, perhaps I am good-looking. My luck, when you come to think of it! But that owl is trash… Cheeky.
The dog eventually came to late that evening when the bell had ceased tinkling and at the precise moment when the door opened to admit some special visitors. There were four of them all at once. All young men and all very modestly dressed.
What are those ones after? thought the dog in some surprise. Philip Philipovich met the guests with considerable hostility. He stood behind his desk and surveyed the intruders as a general the foe. The nostrils of his hawk-like nose expanded. The newcomers shifted from foot to foot.
“We have come to see you, Professor,” said one whose shock of thick, dark hair rose at least six inches above his head, “on a matter of business…”
“You, my good sirs, are most unwise to be going around without galoshes in weather like this,” Philip Philipovich interrupted him reprovingly. “In the first place, you will catch cold and, in the second, you have left dirty footprints all over my carpets, and all my carpets are Persian.”
The one with a shock of hair was struck dumb and all four of them gazed at Philip Philipovich in amazement. The silence lasted for several seconds, only broken by the tap-tapping of Philip Philipovich’s fingers on the painted wooden plate on his desk.
“In the first place, we’re not gentlemen,” pronounced the most youthful of the four who had peach-like complexion and was wearing a leather jacket.
“In the first place,” Philip Philipovich interrupted him, “are you a man or a woman?”
The four of them again fell silent and their mouths fell open. This time the first to rally was the one with the shock of hair.
“What difference does that make, comrade?” he inquired proudly.
“I am a woman,” admitted the youth with the peach-like complexion and blushed brightly. After him one of the other newcomers, a blonde in a high fur hat, for some reason best known to himself, blushed a deep red.
“In that case you may keep your cap on but I would request you, good sirs, to take off your hats,” pronounced Philip Philipovich quellingly.
“Don’t sir me,” said the blonde, taking off his hat.
“We came to you,” the one with the shock of hair began again.
“First and foremost, who are we?”
“We are the new house management committee for this block,” said the black-haired fellow with controlled fury. “I am Shvonder, she is Vyazemskaya, he is Comrade Pestrukhin and that’s Zharovkin. And now we…”
“It was you they settled into Fyodor Pavlovich Sablin’s flat?”
“Us,” replied Shvonder.
“Ah, God, how is the house of Kalabukhov fallen!” the Professor cried out, flinging wide his hands in despair.
“Are you joking, Professor?” Shvonder asked indignantly.
“It’s no joking matter!” cried the Professor, then, in despair. “Whatever will happen to the central heating?”
“Are you making fun of us, Professor Preobrazhensky?”
“What is your business with me? Tell me and make it brief. I am about to go and dine.”
“We, the house committee,” Shvonder began with hatred, “have come to you after a general meeting of the inhabitants of our block at which the question of reallocation of living space stood…”
“Who stood on who?” Philip Philipovich raised his voice. “Be so good as to express yourself more clearly.”
“The question of the reallocation of living space stood on the agenda.”
“Enough! I understand! You know that according to the resolution of 12 August of this year my flat is excepted from any and every reallocation and resettlement?”
“We know that,” replied Shvonder. “But the general meeting, after due consideration of the question, came to the conclusion that, by and large, you occupy too much space. Much too much. You live alone in seven rooms.”
“I live alone and work in seven rooms,” replied Philip Philipovich, “and I should very much like an eighth. It is quite essential to house my books.”
The four were lost for words.
“An eighth room! O-ho-ho,” said the blonde, stripping off his hat. “That’s cool.”
“That’s indescribable!” exclaimed the youth who had turned out to be a woman.
“I have a reception room and note that it serves also as a library, a dining room, a study — 3. A consulting room for the examination of patients — 4. An operation theatre — 5. My bedroom — 6 and the maid’s room — 7. On the whole — it’s not enough. My flat is exempt and that is all there is to it. May I go and dine?”
“Excuse me,” said the fourth who looked like a sturdy beetle.
“Excuse me,” Shvonder interrupted him. “It is precisely about the consulting room and the dining room that we are here. Our general meeting requests you voluntarily, in the interest of labour discipline, to give up your dining room. Nobody in Moscow has a dining room.”
“Not even Isadora Duncan,” the woman affirmed in ringing tones.
Something came over Philip Philipovich as a result of which his face became a delicate crimson and he did not pronounce another word, waiting for further developments.
“And also that you should give up the consulting room,” continued Shvonder. “Your study can double perfectly well as a consulting room.”
“I see,” Philip Philipovich murmured in a curious voice. “And where am I supposed to partake of food?”
“In the bedroom,” all four replied in chorus.
Philip Philipovich’s crimson flush took on a tinge of grey.
“To partake of food in the bedroom,” he began in slightly muffled voice, “to read in the consulting room, to get dressed in the reception room, to perform operations in the maid’s room and to examine people iii the dining room. I can well believe that Isadora Duncan does so. Possibly she has dinner in the study and dissects rabbits in the bathroom. But I am not Isadora Duncan!” he roared suddenly, and the crimson turned yellow. “I will continue to dine in the dining room and operate in the operating theatre. Pray inform the general meeting of this and I would humbly request you to get back to your own business and leave me to go on partaking of my meals where all normal people do so, that is in the dining room and not in the hall and not in the nursery.”
“In that case, Professor, in view of your stubborn resistance, we shall complain of you to higher authorities.”
“Aha,” said Philip Philipovich. “Is that so?” and his voice took on a suspiciously courteous tone. “May I ask you to wait just one moment?”
What a fellow, the dog thought with enthusiasm. Just like me. Oh, he’ll bite in a moment, how he’ll bite. I don’t know how yet, in what way, but he’ll bite all right. At ’em! I could take that one with the bulging leg just above his boot in the tendons behind the knee … gr-r-r…”
Philip Philipovich tapped the telephone, took off the receiver and spoke into it as follows:
“Please … yes … thank you … give me Pyotr Alexandrovich, if you please. Professor Preobrazhensky. Pyotr Alexandrovich? So glad that I found you. Thank you, quite well. Pyotr Alexandrovich, your operation will have to be postponed. What? Indefinitely, I’m afraid, just like all the other operations. This is why. I am giving up my practice in Moscow, in Russia in general… Four people have just come in to see me, one of them a woman dressed as a man, two armed with revolvers, and are terrorising me in my own flat with the idea of taking part of it from me.”
“Professor, what are you saying?” began Shvonder, his face changing.
“Pray hold me excused. I cannot bring myself to repeat everything they said. I have no taste for nonsense. Suffice it to say that they proposed that I should renounce my consulting room or in other words should perform operations in a room hitherto devoted to the dissection of rabbits. In such conditions it is not only that I cannot work, I have no right to do so. And so I shall cease my activities, close down the flat and leave for Sochi. I can leave the keys with Shvonder. Let him take over the operations.”
The four stood rooted to the spot. The snow melted on their boots.
“Well, what can one do… I’m very distressed myself…
How? Oh, no, Pyotr Alexandrovich! Oh, no. I can’t go on like this. My patience is at an end. This is already the second attempt since August. How? Hm… As you wish. At the least. But on one condition. I don’t mind who, or where or what, but it must be the kind of paper the existence of which would keep Shvonder or whoever from even approaching the door of my flat.
