A dog's heart (A Monstrous Story) / Собачье сердце (Чудовищная история). Книга для чтения на английском языке

A dog's heart (A Monstrous Story) / Собачье сердце (Чудовищная история). Книга для чтения на английском языке

Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov

Russian Modern Prose

Представляем вниманию читателей новеллу М. А. Булгакова «Собачье сердце» на английском языке.

Михаил Булгаков

A dog's heart (A Monstrous Story) / Собачье сердце (Чудовищная история). Книга для чтения на английском языке

В© Antonina W. Bouis, 2011

© Каро, 2020

Chapter 1

Aooooo-ooow-ooow! O, look at me, I’m dying! The blizzard in the alley is roaring a dirge for me, and I’m howling with it. I’m done for[1 - I’m done for – Я пропал], gone! The bastard in the filthy cap – the cook in the normalized nutrition canteen serving the Central Economic Council[2 - Central Economic Council – Центральный совет народного хозяйства] – 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 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 piquante[3 - en sauce piquante – (фр.) в соусе пикан], 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.