Heart of a Dog. Mikhail Bulgakov
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Название: Heart of a Dog
Автор: Mikhail Bulgakov
Издательство: Ingram
Жанр: Контркультура
isbn: 9780802190031
isbn:
“That will do ! I understand ! Are you aware of the resolution of August 12 which exempted my apartment from any of your consolidations or tenant transfers?”
“We are,” answered Shvonder. “But the general meeting reviewed your case and came to the conclusion that, generally and on the whole, you occupy excessive space. Altogether excessive. You live alone in seven rooms.”
“I live and work in seven rooms,” replied Philip Philippovich, “and I would like to have an eighth one. I need it most urgently for a library.”
The four were stunned.
“An eighth one ! O-ho,” said the blond man who had been ordered to remove his headgear. “Really, that’s a good one!”
“It’s indescribable!” cried the youth who had turned out to be a woman.
“I have a waiting room which, please note, is also a library; a dining room; and my office. That makes three. The examination room makes four, the operating room, five. My bedroom, six, and my servant’s room, seven. And I haven’t enough space. . . . However, all this is beside the point. My apartment is exempt, and that’s the end of it. May I go to dinner now?”
“Excuse me,” said the fourth visitor, who looked like a firm, strong beetle.
“Excuse me,” Shvonder interrupted him, “this is precisely what we have come to talk to you about—the dining room and the examination room. The general meeting asks you voluntarily and by way of labor discipline to give up your dining room. Nobody has a dining room in Moscow.”
“Not even Isadora Duncan,” the woman cried in a ringing voice.
Something happened to Philip Philippovich, as a result of which his delicate face turned purple, and he did not utter a sound, waiting to see what happened next.
“And the examination room too,” continued Shvonder. “The examination room can perfectly well be combined with the office.”
“Uhum,” said Philip Philippovich in a strange voice. “And where am I to take my meals?”
“In the bedroom,” the four answered in chorus.
The purple of Philip Philippovich’s face assumed a grayish tinge.
“Eat in the bedroom,” he said in a slightly choked voice, “read in the examination room, dress in the waiting room, operate in the maid’s room, and examine patients in the dining room. It is very possible that Isadora Duncan does just this. Perhaps she dines in her office and dissects rabbits in the bathroom. Perhaps. But I am not Isadora Duncan ! . . .” he barked out suddenly, and the purple of his face turned yellow. “I shall dine in the dining room, and operate in the surgery! You may report this to the general meeting, and now I beg you to return to your respective business and allow me to take my meal where all normal people take theirs, that is, in the dining room, and not in the foyer or the nursery.”
“In that case, Professor, in view of your obstinate opposition,” said the excited Shvonder, “we shall lodge a complaint against you with the higher authorities.”
“Ah,” said Philip Philippovich, “so?” and his voice assumed a suspiciously polite tone. “I will ask you to wait just a moment.”
That’s a man for you, the dog thought with admiration. Just like me. Oh, but he’ll nip them in a second, oh, but he’ll nip them. I don’t know yet how he’ll do it, but he’ll do a job of it. . . . Get ‘em! That leggy one, he ought to be grabbed just above the boot, right at that tendon behind the knee . . . ur-r-r . . .
Philip Philippovich banged the receiver as he lifted it from the telephone and said into it:
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