It was quite clear that the dog had drawn the winning ticket in the dogs’ lottery. No less than twice a day now his eyes filled with tears of gratitude to the wise man of Prechistenka. Apart from this, all the glass-fronted cupboards in the drawing-room reflected a successful, handsome dog.
I am a beauty. Perhaps an unknown canine Prince, incognito, thought the dog, surveying the shaggy coffee-coloured hound with the contented face strolling about in the mirrored distances. It is very probable that my grandmother had an affair with a Newfoundland. That’s it, I see I have a white patch on my face. Where did that come from, I wonder? Philip Philipovich is a man of excellent taste, he would not take in any old mongrel stray.
In the course of a week, the dog had devoured as much food as in the whole course of his last, hungry month-and-a-half on the street. Only by weight, of course. As to the quality of food in Philip Philipovich’s house, there was simply no comparison. Even if one did not count the 18 kopecks worth of scrap meat which Darya Petrovna bought every day from the Smolensk Market, one only need mention the titbits from dinner at 7 o’clock in the dining room, which the dog always attended in spite of the protests of the elegant Zina.
During these meals Philip Philipovich had been finally elevated to divine status. The dog sat up and begged and nibbled his jacket; the dog learnt Philip Philipovich’s ring at the door (two sharp authoritative stabs at full pitch), and rushed out barking excitedly to meet him in the hall. The master was all wrapped in silver fox fur, glittering with a million tiny snow-flakes, he smelt of tangerines, cigars, scent, lemons, petrol, eau-de-Cologne and cloth, and his voice sounded like a trumpet through the whole flat:
“Why did you tear up that owl, you scoundrel? What harm did it ever do to you? What harm, I’m asking you? Why did you break Professor Mechnikov?”
“Philip Philipovich, he should be given a good hiding, even if only once,” Zina declared indignantly. “Or he’ll get completely spoilt. Just look what he’s done to your galoshes.”
“Nobody should ever be given a hiding,” Philip Philipovich said warmly. “And don’t forget it. People and animals can only be worked upon by suggestion, admonition. Did you give him his meat today?”
“Heavens, he’s eating us all out of house and home! How can you ask, Philip Philipovich? I’m surprised he hasn’t burst.”
“Well, let him eat, bless him… But what did that owl ever do to you, hooligan?”
“Oo-oo!” the toady-dog whimpered and crept up on his stomach, paws spread.
Then he was dragged willy-nilly by the scruff of the neck through the hall into the study. The dog yelped, snapped, dug his claws into the carpet, slid along on his behind as though performing in a circus. In the middle of the study on the carpet lay glass-eyed owl with red rags smelling of mothballs hanging out from its torn stomach. On the table lay the shattered portrait.
“I haven’t cleared up on purpose so that you could see for yourself,” Zina informed him, thoroughly upset. “He jumped up on the table, you see, the villain! And got it by the tail — snap! Before I knew where I was he’d torn it to bits. Push his face into the owl, Philip Philipovich, so that he knows not to spoil things.”
A howl went up. The dog was dragged, still clinging to the carpet, to have his nose pushed into the owl, shedding bitter tears and thinking: Beat me if you like, only don’t turn me out of the flat.
“Send the owl to the taxidermist without delay. Besides, here, take 8 roubles and 16 kopecks for the tram, go to the central department store and buy him a good collar and a chain.”
The next day the dog was arrayed in a broad, shiny collar. To begin with he was very upset when he saw himself in the mirror, tucked his tail between his legs and went slinking off to the bathroom, meditating on how to rub it off on some chest or crate. Very soon, however, the dog understood that this was simply foolish.
Zina took him for a walk on the lead along Obukhov Alley and the dog burnt with shame as he walked like some felon under arrest but, by the time he had walked the length of Prechistenka as far as the Church of Christ the Saviour, he realised what a collar meant in a dog’s life. Furious envy was clearly to be seen in the eyes of all the curs they encountered and at Myortvy Alley, a lanky stray who’d lost part of his tail barked ferociously, calling him a “bloody aristo” and a “boot-licker”.
When they crossed the tram track the militiaman glanced at the collar with pleasure and respect and, when they returned home, the most incredible thing happened: Fyodor the porter opened the front door himself to let in Sharik. At the same time he remarked to Zina:
“My-my, what a shaggy dog Philip Philipovich has acquired. And remarkably fat.”
“Not surprising, he eats enough for six”, explained Zina, all pink and pretty from the frost.
A collar is as good as a briefcase, the dog joked to himself and, wagging his tail, proceeded on up to the first floor like a gentleman.
Having discovered the true worth of the collar, the dog paid his first visit to the main department of paradise which, up to now, had been strictly forbidden him — to the realm of Darya Petrovna, the cook. The whole flat was not worth one square yard of Darya’s realm.
Every day flames crackled and threw off sparks in the tiled stove with the black top. The oven crackled. Between crimson pillars burnt the face of Darya Petrovna, eternally condemned to fiery torment and unslaked passion. It shone and shimmered with grease. In the fashionable hair-do—down over the ears, then swept back into a twist of fair hair on the nape of the neck — gleamed 22 artificial diamonds. About the walls golden saucepans hung on hooks and all the kitchen was loud with smells, bubbling and hissing in’ closed pots.
“Out!” yelled Darya Petrovna. “Out, you thieving stray! You were all I needed! I’ll take the poker to you…”
What’s wrong? Now why are you scolding? Ingratiatingly, the dog smiled up at her with half-closed eyes. Now why should you think I’m a thief? Haven’t you noticed my collar? And poking his muzzle through the door he crept sideways into the kitchen.
Sharik the dog knew some kind of secret to win people’s hearts. In two days’ time he was already lying next to the coal-scuttle and watching Darya Petrovna at work. With a long, narrow knife she chopped off the heads and claws of defenceless partridges then, like a furious executioner, cut meat off the bones, gutted the chickens, passed something through the mincing, machine. Meanwhile Sharik was worrying the head of a partridge.
From a bowl of milk Darya fished out soaked white bread, mixed it with mincemeat on a wooden board, poured on some cream and then set about shaping meat balls on the same board. The oven hummed as though there was a regular furnace within it and from the saucepan came a great grumbling, bubbling and spitting. The stove door opened with a bang to disclose a terrifying hell in which the flames leapt and shimmered.
In the evenings, the gaping stone jaws lost their fire and, in the window of the kitchen above the white half-curtain, there was a glimpse of the dense and solemn Prechistenka night with a single star. It was damp on the floor of the kitchen, the pots and pans gleamed balefully, dully, and on the table lay a fireman’s cap. Sharik lay on the warm stove like a lion on a gate, one ear cocked from curiosity, and looked through the half-open door to Zina’s and Darya Petrovna’s room where a black-moustached, excited man in a broad leather belt was embracing Darya Petrovna. Her face burned with anguish and passion, all of it, that is, but the indelibly powdered nose. A ray of light illumined a portrait of a man with a black moustache from which was suspended a paper Easter rose.
“Like a demon, you are,” Darya Petrovna murmured in the half dark. “Leave off! Zina’ll come any moment now. What’s got into you, you been having your youth restored too?”
“Don’t need to,” the man with the black moustache answered hoarsely, almost beside himself. “You’re so fiery!”
In the evening, the star over Prechistenka hid behind heavy curtains and, if Aida was not playing at the Bolshoi and there was no meeting of the Àll-Russian Society of Surgeons, the divinity took his place in a deep armchair in the study. There were no ceiling lights. Only one green lamp shone on the table. Sharik lay on the carpet in the shadow and, fascinated, observed terrible things. Human brains floated in a repulsive, caustic and muddy liquid. The divinity’s arms, bare to the elbows, were in reddish-brown rubber gloves and the slippery, unfeeling fingers poked amongst the convolutions. Sometimes the divinity armed himself with a small shining knife and carefully cut through the rubbery yellow brains.
“To the sacred shores of the Nile,” the divinity hummed quietly to himself, biting
