“The Heart of a Dog” Bulgakov in brief
The action takes place in Moscow in the winter of 1924-25. Professor Philip Philipovich Preobrazhensky discovered a method of rejuvenating the body by transplanting the glands of internal secretion of animals. In his seven-room apartment in a large house on Prechistenka he conducts patients’ reception. In the house there is a “condensation”: in the apartments of the previous tenants they instill new ones – “zhiltovarisch”. To Preobrazhensky comes the chairman of the house committee Shvonder with the demand to release two rooms in his apartment. However, the professor, calling one of his high-ranking patients on the phone, gets his armor on his apartment, and Shvonder leaves with nothing.
Professor Preobrazhensky and his assistant Dr. Ivan Arnoldovich Bormental have lunch in the dining room with the professor. From somewhere from above comes choral singing – this is the general meeting of “zhilotovarischy.” The professor is
Professor Preobrazhensky picks up a mongrel dog on the street, sick and with a wool torn off, leads him home, instructs the housekeeper Zina to feed him and take care of him. A week later, a clean and well-fed ball becomes a gentle, charming and beautiful dog.
The professor carries out the operation – transplants the gland of the endocrine glands of Klim Chugunkin, 25, three times convicted for theft, playing a balalaika in restaurants, who was killed by a knife. The experiment was a success – the dog does not die, but, on the contrary, gradually turns into a man: adds to growth and weight, his hair falls out, he starts talking. Three weeks later, this is a man of small stature, an unsympathetic
From the old dog’s life, Sharikov still has a hatred for cats. One day, after chasing a cat who ran into the bathroom, Sharikov snaps a lock in the bathroom, accidentally turns out the water tap, and pours the entire apartment with water. The professor is forced to cancel the reception. Yard Fedor, called to repair the crane, embarrassed Philip Philipovich to pay for the window broken by Sharikov: he tried to hug the cook from the seventh apartment, the owner began to drive him. Sharikov responded by throwing stones at him.
Philip Philipovich, Bormental and Sharikov dine; again and again Bormental unsuccessfully teaches Sharikov good manners. Asked by Filip Filippovich that Sharikov is now reading, he replies: “The correspondence between Engels and Kautsky” – and adds that he does not agree with both, but in general “everything must be divided”, or else “one in seven rooms is seated, and another is looking for food in the weasel boxes. ” An outraged professor announces to Sharikov that he is at the lowest stage of development and nevertheless allows himself to give advice on a cosmic scale. The professor orders the harmful book to be thrown into the oven.
A week later Sharikov presents a document to the professor, from which it follows that he, Sharikov, is a member of the housing association and he relies on a room in the professorial apartment. That evening, in the office of Professor Sharikov, he appropriates two chervonts and returns at night completely drunk, accompanied by two unknown persons, who retired only after a call to the police, taking with them a malachite ashtray, a cane and a beaver hat of Philip Philipovich.
That night, in his office, Professor Preobrazhensky talks with Bormental. Analyzing what is happening, the scientist comes to despair from the fact that he has received such a scandal from the dearest dog. And all the horror is that he is no longer a dog, but a human heart, and the most lousy of all that exist in nature. He is sure that before them is Klim Chugunkin with all his thefts and convictions.
One day, when he came home, Sharikov shows Philip Philipovich a certificate, from which it appears that he, Sharikov, is the head of the sub-department of cleaning the city of Moscow from stray animals. A few days later Sharikov brings home the young lady, with whom, according to him, he is going to sign and live in the apartment of Preobrazhensky. The professor tells the young lady about the past of Sharikov; she sobs, saying that he gave a scar from the operation for a military injury.
The next day, one of the professor’s high-ranking patients brings him a denunciation written on him by Sharikov, in which he mentions both Engels, thrown into the furnace, and the “counter-revolutionary speeches” of the professor. Philip Philipovich suggests Sharikov to collect his things and immediately get out of the apartment. In response to this, Sharikov shows Shish to one professor with one hand, and the other takes a revolver out of his pocket… A few minutes later the pale Bormental cuts the wire of the bell, locks the front door and the back door and disappears with the professor in the observation room.
Ten days later, the investigator arrives in the apartment with a search warrant and the arrest of Professor Preobrazhensky and Dr. Bormental on charges of killing Sharipov, the head of the cleaning department, “What is Sharikov?” – the professor asks. “Ah, the dog I was operating with!” And the dog introduces a strange appearance to the visitors: in places he is bald, sometimes with spots of growing hair, he comes out on his hind legs, then stands on all four, then climbs back to his hind legs and sits in a chair. The investigator faints.
It takes two months. In the evenings, the dog sleeps peacefully on the carpet in the professor’s office, and life in the apartment goes on as usual.
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