Chapter 1
Ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh-woo-woo-woo-hoo-oo! Oh, look at me, I’m dying. The snowstorm in the entryway is howling my death knell, and I’m howling along with it. I’m finished, finished. The scoundrel in the dirty cap—the cook from the Normal Nutrition Dining Hall for the employees of the Central Council of the National Economy—splashed boiling water on me and scalded my left side. What a beast, and a proletarian too. Lord, my God, how it hurts! The boiling water has eaten right through to the bone. Now I’m howling, howling, but what good is howling?
How did I bother him? Will I really ruin the National Economy Council if I root around in the garbage? Greedy creature! Just look at his mug sometime: he’s wider than he is tall. A thief with a copper face. Ah, people, people. The cap treated me to boiling water at noon, and now it’s dark, about four o’clock in the afternoon, judging by the smell of onions coming from the Prechistenka fire station. Firemen, as you know, dine on gruel. But that’s a last resort, like mushrooms. Fellow dogs from Prechistenka, however, said that in the “Bar” restaurant on Neglinny they gorge themselves on the special—mushrooms, sauce piquante, 3 rubles 75 kopecks a portion. That’s for gourmands, like licking a galosh… Ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh…
My side hurts unbearably, and the future of my career is perfectly clear to me: tomorrow sores will appear, and how, I ask you, am I supposed to treat them? In the summer, you can go to Sokolniki, there’s a special, very good grass there, and besides, you can gorge yourself for free on sausage ends; citizens throw away greasy paper, you can lick it up. And if it weren’t for some tiresome woman singing “Milaida” in the meadow by moonlight so that your heart sinks, it would be wonderful. But now where can I go? Have you never been beaten with a boot? I have. Have you been hit with a brick in the ribs? Eaten enough. I’ve experienced everything, I’m resigned to my fate, and if I’m crying now, it’s only from physical pain and cold, because my spirit has not yet faded… The dog’s spirit is tenacious.
But my body is broken, beaten; people have abused it enough. The main thing is—when he hit me with the boiling water, it ate through the fur, and there is no protection left for my left side. I could very easily get pneumonia, and once I get it, citizens, I’ll starve to death. With pneumonia, you’re supposed to lie under the front stairs, but who will run to the garbage cans for food in my place, a lying-down bachelor dog? The lung will catch a chill, I’ll crawl on my belly, weaken, and any specialist will club me to death with a stick. And doormen with badges will grab me by the legs and throw me onto a cart…
Doormen are the vilest scum of all proletarians. Human offal is the lowest category. Cooks vary. For example—the late Vlas from Prechistenka. How many lives he saved. Because the most important thing during sickness is to snatch a bite. And, as old dogs used to say, Vlas would toss a bone, and there would be an eighth of a pound of meat on it. May the kingdom of heaven be his for being a real individual, a count Tolstoy’s barin’s cook, not from the Normal Nutrition Council. What they are doing at Normal Nutrition is incomprehensible to the canine mind. They, the scoundrels, boil soup from stinking salt meat, and the poor wretches don’t know anything. They run, eat, lap it up.
Some typing girl gets four and a half chervonets on the ninth category; well, it’s true, her lover might give her silk stockings. But think how much torment she has to endure for those silk stockings. He subjects her not to some ordinary method, but to French love. S… those Frenchmen, between you and me. Although they eat richly, and everything with red wine. Yes… The typing girl runs up; she can’t go to a bar for 4.5 chervonets. She doesn’t even have enough for the cinema, and the cinema is a woman’s only consolation in life. She shivers, grimaces, but she eats… Just think: 40 kopecks for two dishes, and both dishes aren’t worth a five-kopeck piece, because the other 25 kopecks were stolen by the head of supply. And does she need such a table? Her upper right lung is not well, and she has a woman’s disease on French grounds; she had her wages deducted at work, they fed her rotten meat in the dining hall, there she goes, there she goes…
Running into the entryway in her lover’s stockings. Her legs are cold, the draft hits her stomach because the fur on her is like mine, and the pants she wears are cold, just a lacy appearance. Rags for the lover boy. If she tried wearing flannel knickers, he would yell: ‘How inelegant you are! I’m tired of my Matryona, I suffered enough with flannel pants, now my time has come. Now I’m the chairman, and no matter how much I steal—it all goes on the female body, on crayfish tails, on Abrau-Dyurso [sparkling wine]. Because I starved enough in my youth, that’s enough for me, and there is no afterlife.’ I pity her, I pity her! But I pity myself even more. I don’t say this out of egoism, oh no, but because we really are not on equal terms. At least she’s warm at home, but me, me… Where do I go? Ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh!…
‘Good boy, good boy! Sharik, oh Sharik… Why are you whining, poor thing? Who hurt you?’ The dry witch-snowstorm rattled the gates and swept the young lady’s ear with its broom. It whipped her skirt up to her knees, revealing creamy stockings and a narrow strip of badly washed lace underwear, suffocated her words, and swept the dog with snow. My God… What weather… Ugh… And my stomach hurts. It’s the salted meat! When will this all end?
Head bowed, the young lady rushed into the attack, broke through the gate, and in the street, she began to spin, spin, scatter, then was screwed up in a snowy whirlwind, and she vanished.
And the dog remained in the entryway, suffering from his mutilated side, pressed against the cold wall, gasping, and firmly decided that he wouldn’t go anywhere else from here, he would die right here in the entryway. Despair overwhelmed him. In his soul, it was so painful and bitter, so lonely and terrifying, that small canine tears, like tiny bumps, squeezed out of his eyes and immediately dried up. The damaged side stuck out in matted, frozen clumps, and between them glared the ominous red spots of the scald. How senseless, dull, and cruel cooks are. ‘Sharik’ she called him… What the hell is he ‘Sharik’? Sharik means round, well-fed, stupid, eating oatmeal, son of noble parents, but he is shaggy, lanky, and torn, a skinny tramp, a stray dog. However, thanks for the kind word.
The door across the street in the brightly lit shop slammed, and a citizen appeared from it. Specifically a citizen, not a comrade, and even—most likely—a gentleman. Closer—clearer—a gentleman. And you think I judge by the coat? Nonsense. Many proletarians wear coats now. True, the collars aren’t like that, there’s no comparison, but still, from a distance, you can get confused. But by the eyes—there’s no confusing them up close or far away. Oh, eyes are a significant thing. Like a barometer. You can see everything—who has a great drought in his soul, who can kick you in the ribs with the toe of his boot for no reason at all, and who is afraid of everyone and everything himself. It’s the ankles of the latter kind that it’s pleasant to nip at. You’re afraid—take that. If you’re afraid—you deserve it… R-r-r… Bow-wow…
The gentleman confidently crossed the street in the pillar of the snowstorm and moved toward the entryway. Yes, yes, everything is visible with this one. This one won’t eat stinking salted meat, and if it’s served to him anywhere, he’ll raise such a scandal, he’ll write to the newspapers: “I, Filipp Filippovich, have been underfed.” Here he is, closer and closer. This one eats plentifully and doesn’t steal, this one won’t kick you with his foot, but he isn’t afraid of anyone either, and he isn’t afraid because he is eternally well-fed. He is a gentleman of intellectual labor, with a French pointed goatee and gray, bushy, dashing whiskers, like those of French knights, but a nasty smell, a hospital smell, wafts from him through the snowstorm. And cigar smoke. Why the hell, one might ask, was he dragged into the Centrokhoz cooperative? Here he is next to me… What is he waiting for? Ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh… What could he be buying in that shabby little shop? Isn’t the Okhotny Ryad market enough for him? What is it? Sausage. Sir, if you saw what they make that sausage from, you wouldn’t go near the shop. Give it to me.
The dog gathered the rest of his strength and, in a frenzy, crawled out of the entryway onto the sidewalk. The snowstorm clapped over his head like a gun, whipping up the huge letters of the canvas poster: “Is Rejuvenation Possible?” Naturally, it is possible. The smell rejuvenated me, lifted me from my belly, burning waves compressed my stomach, which had been empty for two days—a smell that defeated the hospital, the heavenly smell of chopped mare meat with garlic and pepper. I feel it, I know—he has sausage in the right pocket of his fur coat. He is above me. Oh, my master! Look at me. I’m dying. Our slavish soul, our wretched lot! The dog crawled like a snake on his belly, weeping. Pay attention to the cook’s work. But you won’t give it to me for anything. Oh, I know rich people very well! But essentially—why do you need it? Why do you need rotten horse meat? You won’t get poison like that anywhere else but at Mosselprom. And you had breakfast today, you, a figure of global significance, thanks to the male sex glands. Ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh… What is happening in the world? It seems it is too early to die, and despair is truly a sin. Licking his hands is all that remains.
The mysterious gentleman bent down to the dog, his gold-rimmed eyes flashing, and pulled a white oblong parcel from his right pocket. Without removing his brown gloves, he unwrapped the paper, which the snowstorm immediately seized, and broke off a piece of sausage called “Special Krakov.” And that piece went to the dog. Oh, a selfless individual! Ooh-ooh!
“Hush-hush,” whistled the gentleman, and added in a strict voice: “Take it!” Sharik, Sharik! Sharik again. Named. Well, call me whatever you like. For such an exceptional act of yours. The dog instantly tore off the skin, bit into the Krakov with a sob, and devoured it in two seconds. In doing so, he choked on the sausage and snow until he cried, because in his greed he almost swallowed the string. Again, again I lick your hand. I kiss your trousers, my benefactor!
“That’s enough for now…” the gentleman spoke so abruptly, as if giving a command. He bent down to Sharik, looked searchingly into his eyes, and unexpectedly ran his gloved hand intimately and affectionately over Sharik’s stomach. “Aha,” he said meaningfully, “no collar, well that’s perfect, you are the one I need. Follow me.” He snapped his fingers. “Hush-hush!”
Follow you? Yes, to the ends of the earth. Kick me with your felt boots, I won’t say a word.
All along Prechistenka, the streetlights shone. His side hurt unbearably, but Sharik occasionally forgot about it, absorbed in one thought—how not to lose sight of the miraculous vision in the fur coat in the crowd, and how to express his love and devotion to him. And he expressed it about seven times along the stretch of Prechistenka to Obukhov Lane. He kissed his boot at Dead Lane, and by clearing the way, he so terrified some lady with a wild howl that she sat down on a curbstone; he howled twice to encourage pity for himself.
Some scummy tomcat, styled after a Siberian, darted out from behind a drainpipe and, despite the snowstorm, caught the scent of the Krakov. Sharik saw red at the thought that the rich eccentric, who picked up wounded dogs in the entryway, might also take this thief with him, and he would have to share the Mosselprom product. Therefore, he gnashed his teeth at the cat so loudly that it scrambled up the pipe to the second floor with a hiss resembling a leaky hose. “F-r-r-r… bow-wow! Get lost! There’s not enough Mosselprom for every piece of trash wandering Prechistenka.” The gentleman appreciated the devotion and right near the fire station, at the window from which a pleasant bassoon grumbling could be heard, rewarded the dog with a second, smaller piece, about five zolotniks [~21 grams].
Oh, eccentric. Luring me. Don’t worry! I won’t leave by myself. I will follow you wherever you command.
“Hush-hush-hush! Here!” To Obukhov? By all means. This lane is very well known to us. Hush-hush! Here? With plea… Oh, no, hold on. No. There’s a doorman here. And there’s nothing worse in the world than that. Much more dangerous than a yard keeper. A completely despicable breed. Worse than cats. An executioner in gold braid.
“Don’t be afraid, come on.”
“Greetings, Filipp Filippovich.”
“Hello, Fedor.”
Now that’s a personality. My God, upon whom have you bestowed me, my dog’s fate! What kind of person is this who can bring dogs from the street past doormen into a housing cooperative building? Look, that scoundrel—not a sound, not a movement! True, his eyes are cloudy, but generally, he is indifferent under his cap with gold galloons. As if this is how it should be. He respects him, gentlemen, how much he respects him! Well, then, I’m with him and behind him. What, did I touch you? Too bad. I’d like to nip that proletarian calloused foot. For all the abuses of your kind. How many times have you mutilated my face with your brush, huh?
“Go, go.”
We understand, we understand, please don’t worry. Where you go, we go. Just show the way, and I won’t fall behind, despite my desperate side.
From the stairs down: “Were there any letters for me, Fedor?”
From below to the stairs respectfully: “No, Filipp Filippovich (intimately in an undertone, following up), — but they have moved housing cooperative members into the third apartment.”
The important canine benefactor turned sharply on the step and, leaning over the railing, asked in horror: “Well?” His eyes widened and his whiskers bristled. The doorman below tilted his head back, cupped his hand to his mouth, and confirmed: “Exactly so, four of them.”
“My God! I can imagine what will happen in the apartment now. And what are they doing?”
“Nothing.”
“And Fedor Pavlovich?”
“They went for screens and bricks. They’re going to put up partitions.”
“The devil knows what’s going on!”
“They’re going to move people into all the apartments, Filipp Filippovich, except yours. There was a meeting just now, they elected a new association, and the old ones—out the door.”
“What is happening. Ay-ay-ay… Hush-hush.” Coming, sir, I’m catching up. My side, if you please, is making itself felt. Allow me to lick your boot. The doorman’s braid disappeared below. Warmth from the pipes wafted onto the marble landing, they turned once more, and here—the mezzanine.
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