"Michail Bulgakov. The heart of a dog" - читать интересную книгу автора

dustbins looking for food for a sick bachelor dog? I shall get a chill on my
lungs, crawl on my belly till I'm so weak that it'll only need one poke of
someone's stick to finish me off. And the dustmen will pick me up by the
legs and sling me on to their cart . . .
Dustmen are the lowest form of proletarian life. Humans' rubbish is the
filthiest stuff there is. Cooks vary - for instance, there was Vlas from
Prechistenka, who's dead now. He saved I don't know how many dogs' lives,
because when you're sick you've simply got to be able to eat and keep your
strength up. And when Vlas used to throw you a bone there was always a good
eighth of an inch of meat on it. He was a great character. God rest his
soul, a gentleman's cook who worked for Count Tolstoy's family and not for
your stinking Food Rationing Board. As for the muck they dish out there as
rations, well it makes even a dog wonder. They make soup out of salt beef
that's gone rotten, the cheats. The poor fools who eat there can't tell the
difference. It's just grab, gobble and gulp.
A typist on salary scale 9 gets 60 roubles a month. Of course her lover
keeps her in silk stockings, but think what she has to put up with in
exchange for silk. He won't just want to make the usual sort of love to her,
he'll make her do it the French way. They're a lot of bastards, those
Frenchmen, if you ask me - though they know how to stuff their guts all
right, and red wine with everything. Well, along comes this little typist
and wants a meal. She can't afford to go into the restaurant on 60 roubles a
month and go to the cinema as well. And the cinema is a woman's one
consolation in life. It's agony for her to have to choose a meal . . . just
think:40 kopecks for two courses, and neither of them is worth more than 15
because the manager has pocketed the other 25 kopecks-worth. Anyhow, is it
the right sort of food for her? She's got a patch on the top of her right
lung, she's having her period, she's had her pay docked at work and they
feed her with any old muck at the canteen, poor girl . . . There she goes
now, running into the doorway in her lover's stockings. Cold legs, and the
wind blows up her belly because even though she has some hair on it like
mine she wears such cold, thin, lacy little pants - just to please her
lover. If she tried to wear flannel ones he'd soon bawl her out for looking
a frump. 'My girl bores me', he'll say, 'I'm fed up with those flannel
knickers of hers, to hell with her. I've made good now and all I make in
graft goes on women, lobsters and champagne. I went hungry often enough as a
kid. So what - you can't take it with you.'
I feel sorry for her, poor thing. But I feel a lot sorrier for myself.
I'm not saying it out of selfishness, not a bit, but because you can't
compare us. She at least has a warm home to go to, but what about me? . . .
Where can I go? Oowow-owow!
'Here, doggy, here, boy! Here, Sharik . . . What are you whining for,
poor little fellow? Did somebody hurt you, then?'
The terrible snowstorm howled around the doorway, buffeting the girl's
ears. It blew her skirt up to her knees, showing her fawn stockings and a
little strip of badly washed lace underwear, drowned her words and covered
the dog in snow.
'My God . . . what weather . . . ugh . . . And my stomach aches. It's
that awful salt beef. When is all this going to end?'
Lowering her head the girl launched into the attack and rushed out of