Собачье сердце (Чудовищная история)

МIKHAIL BULGAKOV

A DOG’S HEART

(A Monstrous Story)

Translated by Antonina W. Bouis

Комментарии и словарь  

М. П. Вальдеррама Сальгадо

УДК 372.8
ББК 81.2 Англ
         Б90

ISBN 978-5-9925-1439-1

Булгаков, Михаил Афанасьевич

Б90      Собачье сердце (Чудовищная история) : книга 

для чтения на английском языке / М. А. Булгаков — [пер. с русск. яз. Антонины В. Буи] — СанктПетербург : КАРО, 2020. — 192 с. — (Russian Modern 
Prose).

ISBN 978-5-9925-1439-1.

Представляем вниманию читателей новеллу  

М. А. Булгакова «Собачье сердце» на английском 
языке. 

УДК 372.8 

ББК 81.2 Англ 

 
Translation Copyright
© Antonina W. Bouis, 2011
Published by Alma Classics Ltd
© Каро, 2020
Все права защищены

МIKHAIL BULGAKOV

A DOG’S HEART 

(A Monstrous Story)

Chapter 1

Aooooo-ooow-ooow! O, look at me, I’m dy
ing! The blizzard in the alley is roaring a dirge for 
me, and I’m howling with it. I’m done for1, gone! 
The bastard in the filthy cap — the cook in the 
normalized nutrition canteen serving the Central 
Economic Council2 — sloshed boiling water at me 
and burned my left side. What a creep, and a proletarian to boot! Lord, God almighty, it hurts! The 
boiling water ate through to the bone. So I howl 
and howl and howl, but how can howling help?

What did I ever do to him? What? Did he think 

I’d eat the Economic Council out of its stores if 
I rummaged in the rubbish? Greedy creature. Take 
a look at his mug some time: fat, broad cheeks. He’s 
a brass-faced thief. People, help! The white-hat gave 
me a taste of boiling water at noon; now it’s dark, 
around four in the afternoon, going by the onion 
smell from the Prechistenka fire station. The firemen get buckwheat groats for dinner, as you well 

1 I’m done for — Я пропал

2 Central Economic Council — Центральный совет 
народного хозяйства

know. But that’s way down on my list, like mushrooms. Dogs I know from Prechistenka told me, 
however, that there’s a place called The Bar on Neglinny Street, where people gobble up the special of 
the day, mushrooms en sauce piquante1, at three 
roubles seventy-five a portion. To each his own — 
for me it’s like licking galoshes… Oooow… My side is 
killing me, and I can see my future career absolutely 
clearly: tomorrow there will be sores and I’d like 
to know how I’m supposed to treat them. In the 
summer you can go down to Sokolniki Park, there’s 
a particularly good grass there, and besides which, 
you can stuff yourself with sausage ends and the 
citizenry litter the place with greasy wrapping paper that’s good to lick. And if not for some old biddy 
who sings in the moonlight — ‘Celeste Aida’* — in 
a way that turns your stomach, all would be fine. 
But now where am I supposed to go? Have you been 
kicked by boots? Yes. Have you ever got a brick in 
the ribs? Plenty of times. I’ve suffered it all, I’ve 
accepted my fate, and if I’m crying now it’s only 
from the physical pain and the hunger, because 
my spirit hasn’t dimmed yet… The canine spirit is 
very tenacious. But my body is broken, battered, 
people have had their fun with it. The worst part is 

1 en sauce piquante — (фр.) в соусе пикан
* См. прим. перев. на с. 174.

this: once he’d poured the boiling water on me, it 
ate through the fur, and now there’s no protection 
for my left side. I could easily get pneumonia, and 
if I do, citizens, I will starve to death. When you 
have pneumonia, you’re supposed to lie under the 
main stairs inside, and who’s going to run around 
the bins in search of food except me, a bedridden 
bachelor dog? If my lung is affected, I’ll be crawling 
on my belly, weakened, and any guy with a stick 
can finish me off. And then the street-cleaners with 
their badges will grab me by my legs and toss me 
into their cart…

Of all the proletarians, street-cleaners are the 

vilest scum. Human dregs, the lowest category. 
You get different kinds of cooks. Take the late Vlas 
from Prechistenka. How many lives he saved! The 
most important thing when you’re sick is to get 
a bite. And there were times, the old hounds say, 
when Vlas would toss a bone and it would have an 
ounce of meat on it. May he rest in peace for being 
a real human being, the personal chef to the Count 
Tolstoys, and not from the Council of Normalized 
Nutrition1. What they do in the name of normalized nutrition is beyond a dog’s mind to understand! Those bastards use rotten corned beef to 

1 Council of Normalized Nutrition — Cовет нормального питания

make cabbage soup, and the poor customers know 
nothing about it. They come, eat, guzzle it down!

This little typist of the ninth rank earns forty- 

five roubles but, of course, her lover gives her 
fine cotton stockings. And how much she has to 
put up with for those fil de Perse1 stockings! He 
doesn’t just take her the usual way, he makes her 
do it French style. Real bastards, those French, 
just between you and me. Though they eat well, 
all washed down with red wine. Yes… So the little 
typist will come to eat there, she can’t afford to 
go to The Bar on forty-five roubles! She doesn’t 
have enough for the movies, and movies are the 
sole consolation for women. She shudders and 
winces but eats it. Just think, forty copecks for two 
courses, while both those courses don’t even cost 
fifteen, because the manager steals the remaining 
twenty-five copecks. And is this the kind of food 
she should be eating? The tip of her right lung has 
a spot, and she has women’s troubles thanks to 
that French stuff, they docked her wages at work 
and fed her putrid meat at the canteen, there she 
is, there she is! Running into the alley in her lover’s 
stockings. Her feet are cold, the wind is blowing 
on her belly because her fur’s like mine, and she 

1 fil de Perse — (от фр. «персидская нить») фильдеперс, фильдеперсовый

wears cold undies, just a lacy appearance of underwear. Tatters for her lover. Let her try putting 
on flannel pants. He’ll shout: “Why can’t you be 
sexy? I’m sick and tired of my Matryona, sick of 
her flannel underpants, my time has come. I’m 
a chairman now, and everything I embezzle goes 
to female flesh, chocolates and bottles of AbrauDurso!* I spent my entire youth hungry, I’m done 
with that, and there is no afterlife.”

I pity her, I do. But I pity myself even more. 

That’s not my egoism talking, oh no, but it’s because we truly are in unequal conditions. At least 
she’s warm at home, but what about me? Where 
can I go? Beaten, scalded, spat upon, where can 
I go? Ooooow-ooow!

“Here, boy. Sharik, come on, Sharik! Why are 

you whining, poor thing? Eh? Did someone hurt 
you?… Ooof!”

The blizzard wind, that witch, rattled the gates 

and smacked the young lady on the ear with its 
broom. It lifted her skirt to her knees, revealing 
creamy stockings and a narrow strip of poorly 
laundered lace underwear, stifling her words and 
sweeping away the dog.

My God, what terrible weather… Ooof… And 

my stomach aches. That salted meat! When will 
it all end?

Lowering her head, the young woman 

launched herself into the attack, breaking through 
the gates, and she was spun round and round, 
tossed and then twisted into a snowy funnel, before she vanished.

The dog remained near the alley, suffering the 

pain of his mutilated side, pressed himself against 
the cold wall, held his breath and decided that he 
would never leave this spot again, that he would 
die right there. Despair overwhelmed him. He felt 
such bitterness and pain, such loneliness and fear, 
that tiny canine tears bubbled from his eyes and 
dried on the spot. His fur on the wounded side 
was all in shredded, frozen clumps, revealing 
vicious red burns. How stupid, nasty and cruel 
were cooks. She called him “Sharik”…* What the 
hell kind of “Sharik” was he! Sharik was a fluffball, a round, well-fed, dumb, oatmeal-eating son 
of pedigree parents, and he was a shaggy, bony 
and scruffy stray, a homeless dog. But thanks for 
the kind thought.

The door of the brightly lit shop across the 

road slammed, and a citizen appeared. A citizen, 
not a comrade, and probably a gentleman. As he 
came closer, it was clear he was a gentleman. Don’t 
you think I judge by the overcoat. Nonsense. Lots 
of proles wear overcoats now too. Of course, not 

with collars like that, no way, but still you could 
get confused from a distance. But I judge by the 
eyes — you can’t mistake them either near or far! 
Oh, eyes are a significant thing! Like a barometer. 
You can see everything — who has a vast desert in 
his heart, who can jab you in the ribs with the toe 
of his boot for no reason at all, and who is afraid 
of everything. There’s such pleasure in nipping 
the last type in the calf. Afraid? So there. If you’re 
afraid, you deserve it. Grrrrr… arf!

The gentleman crossed the street confidently 

in the column of blowing snow and moved towards the gate. Yes, yes, I could see everything 
about him. He wouldn’t put away1 that putrid 
corned beef, and if anyone dared serve him some 
he would raise such a fuss and write to the papers 
saying: “They gave me, Filipp Filippovich, rotten 
meat!”

Here he comes, closer and closer. This one 

eats well and doesn’t steal. He won’t kick you, but 
he’s not afraid of anyone, and that’s because he’s 
never hungry. He is a gentleman who does intellectual labour, with a French pointy beard and 
a grey moustache, fluffy and dashing, like French 
knights had, but the blizzard carries his smell and 
it’s a bad one — hospital and cigar.

1 to put away — (зд.) лопать, уплетать

What the hell brings him to the Central Econ
omy Co-op1? Now he’s right there… What’s he 
looking for? Oh-oh… What could he want to buy 
in that crummy little store, aren’t the fancy stores 
on Okhotny Ryad* enough? What is it?! Sausage. 
Mister, if you saw how they made that sausage you 
wouldn’t go anywhere near the store. Give it to me!

The dog mustered what little strength it had 

and madly crawled out from beneath the gate onto 
the pavement. The blizzard thundered like a rifle shot above him, billowing the huge letters on 
a canvas poster: “is rejuvenation possible?”

Of course it is. The smell rejuvenated me, got 

me up off my belly, raising fiery waves in my stomach that had been empty for two days, the smell 
vanquished the hospital, the heavenly fragrance 
of ground mare with garlic and pepper.

I can smell it, I know he’s got sausage in his 

right pocket. He’s standing above me. O, master! 
Look at me. I am dying. We’ve got slaves’ hearts, 
a miserable fate!

The dog crawled like a snake on its belly, stream
ing tears. Note the cook’s work. But you’re not going 
to give me any. Oh, I know rich people very well! Yet, 
essentially, what do you want it for? What do you 
want with rotten horsemeat? You won’t get poison 

1 Central Economy Co-op — кооператив Центрохоза