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

can't help learning to read -and without going to night-school either. There
are forty-thousand dogs in Moscow and I'll bet there's not one of them so
stupid he can't spell out the word 'sausage'.
Sharik had begun by learning from colours. When he was just four months
old, blue-green signs started appearing all over Moscow with the letters
MSFS - Moscow State Food Stores - which meant a butcher and delicatessen. I
repeat that he had no need to learn his letters because he could smell the
meat anyway. Once he made a bad mistake: trotting up to a bright blue
shop-sign one day when the smell was drowned by car exhaust, instead of a
butcher's shop he ran into the Polubizner Brothers' electrical goods store
on Myasnitzkaya Street. There the brothers taught him all about insulated
cable, which can be sharper than a cabman's whip. This famous occasion may
be regarded as the beginning of Sharik's education. It was here on the
pavement that Sharik began to realise that 'blue' doesn't always mean
'butcher', and as he squeezed his burningly painful tail between his back
legs and howled, he remembered that on every butcher's shop the first letter
on the left was always gold or brown, bow-legged, and looked like a
toboggan.
After that the lessons were rather easier. 'A' he learned from the
barber on the comer of Mokhovaya Street, followed by 'B' (there was always a
policeman standing in front of the last four letters of the word). Corner
shops faced with tiles always meant 'CHEESE' and the black half-moon at the
beginning of the word stood for the name of their former owners 'Chichkin';
they were full of mountains of red Dutch cheeses, salesmen who hated dogs,
sawdust on the floor and reeking Limburger.
If there was accordion music (which was slightly better than 'Celeste
Aida'), and the place smelted of frankfurters, the first letters on the
white signboards very conveniently | spelled out the word 'NOOB', which was
short for 'No obscene language. No tips.' Sometimes at these places fights
would break out, people would start punching each other in the face with
their fists - sometimes even with napkins or boots.
If there were stale bits of ham and mandarin oranges in the window it
meant a grrr . . . grrocery. If there were black bottles full of evil
liquids it was . . . li-li-liquor . . . formerly Eliseyev Bros.
The unknown gentleman had led the dog to the door of his luxurious flat
on the mezzanine floor, and rang the doorbell. The dog at once looked up at
a big, black, gold-lettered nameplate hanging beside a pink frosted-glass
door. He deciphered the first three letters at once: P-R-O- 'Pro . . .', but
after tliat there was a funny tall thing with a cross bar which he did not
know. Surely he's not a proletarian? thought Sharik with amazement... He
can't be. He lifted up his nose, sniffed the fur coat and said firmly to
himself:
No, this doesn't smell proletarian. Some high-falutin' word. God knows
what it means.
Suddenly a light flashed on cheerfully behind the pink glass door,
throwing the nameplate into even deeper shadow. The door opened soundlessly
and a beautiful young woman in a white apron and lace cap stood before the
dog and his master. A wave of delicious warmth flowed over the dog and the
woman's skirt smelled of carnations.
This I like, thought the dog.