and in their depths lurked something mean and nasty, even criminal. Scowling at him, the dog slunk into a comer.
‘Collar, Zina,’ said Philip Philipovich softly, ‘only don’t excite him.’
For a moment Zina’s eyes had the same vile look as Bormenthal’s. She walked up to the dog and with obvious treachery, stroked him.
What’re you doing… all three of you? OK, take me if you want me. You ought to be ashamed… If only I knew what you’re going to do to me…
Zina unfastened his collar, the dog shook his head and snorted. Bormenthal rose up in front of him, reeking of that foul, sickening smell.
Ugh, disgusting… wonder why I feel so queer…, thought the dog as he dodged away.
‘Hurry, doctor,’ said Philip Philipovich impatiently. There was a sharp, sweet smell in the air. The doctor, without taking his horrible watchful eyes off the dog slipped his right hand out from behind his back and quickly clamped a pad of damp cotton wool over the dog’s nose. Sharik went dumb, his head spinning a little, but he still managed to jump back. The doctor jumped after him and rapidly smothered his whole muzzle in cotton wool. His breathing stopped, but again the dog jerked himself away. You bastard…, flashed through his mind. Why? And down came the pad again. Then a lake suddenly materialised in the middle of the consulting-room floor. On it was a boat, rowed by a crew of extraordinary pink dogs. The bones in his legs gave way and collapsed.
‘On to the table!’ Philip Philipovich boomed from somewhere in a cheerful voice and the sound disintegrated into orange-coloured streaks. Fear vanished and gave way to joy. For two seconds the dog loved the man he had bitten. Then the whole world turned upside down and he felt a cold but soothing hand on his belly. Then — nothing.
The dog Sharik lay stretched out on the narrow operating table, his head lolling helplessly against a white oilcloth pillow. His stomach was shaven and now Doctor Bormenthal, breathing heavily, was hurriedly shaving Sharik’s head with clippers that ate through his fur. Philip Philipovich, leaning on the edge of the table, watched the process through his shiny, gold-rimmed spectacles. He spoke urgently:
‘Ivan Arnoldovich, the most vital moment is when I enter the turkish saddle. You must then instantly pass me the gland and start suturing at once. If we have a haemorrhage then we shall lose time and lose the dog. In any case, he hasn’t a chance…’ He was silent, frowning, and gave an ironic look at the dog’s half-closed eye, then added: ‘Do you know, I feel sorry for him. I’ve actually got used to having him around.’
So saying he raised his hands as though calling down a blessing on the unfortunate Sharik’s great sacrificial venture. Bormenthal laid aside the clippers and picked up a razor. He lathered the defenceless little head and started to shave it. The blade scraped across the skin, nicked it and drew blood. Having shaved the head the doctor wiped it with an alcohol swab, then stretched out the dog’s bare stomach and said with a sigh of relief: ‘Ready.’
Zina turned on the tap over the washbasin and Bormenthal hurriedly washed his hands. From a phial Zina poured alcohol over them.
‘May I go, Philip Philipovich?’ she asked, glancing nervously at the dog’s shaven head.
‘You may.’
Zina disappeared. Bormenthal busied himself further. He surrounded Shank’s head with tight gauze wadding, which framed the odd sight of a naked canine scalp and a muzzle that by comparison seemed heavily bearded.
The priest stirred. He straightened up, looked at the dog’s head and said: ‘God bless us. Scalpel.’
Bormenthal took a short, broad-bladed knife from the glittering pile on the small table and handed it to the great man. He too then donned a pair of black gloves.
‘Is he asleep?’ asked Philip Philipovich.
‘He’s sleeping nicely.’
Philip Philipovich clenched his teeth, his eyes took on a sharp, piercing glint and with a flourish of his scalpel he made a long, neat incision down the length of Sharik’s belly. The skin parted instantly, spurting blood in several directions. Bormenthal swooped like a vulture, began dabbing Sharik’s wound with swabs of gauze, then gripped its edges with a row of little clamps like sugartongs, and the bleeding stopped. Droplets of sweat oozed from Bormenthal’s forehead. Philip Philipovich made a second incision and again Sharik’s body was pulled apart by hooks, scissors and little clamps. Pink and yellow tissues emerged, oozing with blood. Philip Philipovich turned the scalpel in the wound, then barked: ‘Scissors!’
Like a conjuring trick the instrument materialised in Bormenthal’s hand. Philip Philipovich delved deep and with a few twists he removed the testicles and some dangling attachments from Sharik’s body. Dripping with exertion and excitement Bormenthal leapt to a glass jar and removed from it two more wet, dangling testicles, their short, moist, stringy vesicles dangling like elastic in the hands of the professor and his assistant. The bent needles clicked faintly against the clamps as the new testicles were sewn in place of Sharik’s. The priest drew back from the incision, swabbed it and gave the order:
‘Suture, doctor. At once.’ He turned around and looked at the white clock on the wall.
‘Fourteen minutes,’ grunted Bormenthal through clenched teeth as he pierced the flabby skin with his crooked needle. Both grew as tense as two murderers working against the clock.
‘Scalpel!’ cried Philip Philipovich.
The scalpel seemed to leap into his hand as though of its own accord, at which point Philip Philipovich’s expression grew quite fearsome. Grinding his gold and porcelain bridge-work, in a single stroke he incised a red fillet around Sharik’s head. The scalp, with its shaven hairs, was removed, the skull bone laid bare. Philip Philipovich shouted: ‘Trepan!’
Bormenthal handed him a shining auger. Biting his lips Philip Philipovich began to insert the auger and drill a complete circle of little holes, a centimetre apart, around the top of Sharik’s skull. Each hole took no more than five seconds to drill. Then with a saw of the most curious design he put its point into the first hole and began sawing through the skull as though he were making a lady’s fretwork sewing-basket. The skull shook and squeaked faintly. After three minutes the roof of the dog’s skull was removed.
The dome of Sharik’s brain was now laid bare — grey, threaded with bluish veins and spots of red. Philip Philipovich plunged his scissors between the membranes and eased them apart. Once a thin stream of blood spurted up, almost hitting the professor in the eye and spattering his white cap. Like a tiger Bormenthal pounced in with a tourniquet and squeezed. Sweat streamed down his face, which was growing puffy and mottled. His eyes flicked to and fro from the professor’s hand to the instrument-table. Philip Philipovich was positively awe-inspiring. A hoarse snoring noise came from his nose, his teeth were bared to the gums. He peeled aside layers of cerebral membrane and penetrated deep between the hemispheres of the brain. It was then that Bor-menthal went pale, and seizing Sharik’s breast with one hand he said hoarsely: ‘Pulse falling sharply…’
Philip Philipovich flashed him a savage look, grunted something and delved further still. Bormenthal snapped open a glass ampoule, filled a syringe with the liquid and treacherously injected the dog near his heart.
‘I’m coming to the turkish saddle,’ growled Philip Philipovich. With his slippery, bloodstained gloves he removed Sharik’s greyish-yellow brain from his head. For a second he glanced at Sharik’s muzzle and Bormenthal snapped open a second ampoule of yellow liquid and sucked it into the long syringe.
‘Shall I do it straight into the heart?’ he enquired cautiously.
‘Don’t waste time asking questions!’ roared the professor angrily. ‘He could die five times over while you’re making up your mind. Inject, man! What are you waiting for?’ His face had the look of an inspired robber chieftain.
With a flourish the doctor plunged the needle into the dog’s heart.
‘He’s alive, but only just,’ he whispered timidly.
‘No time to argue whether he’s alive or not,’ hissed the terrible Philip Philipovich. ‘I’m at the saddle. So what if he does die… hell… “…the banks of the sa-acred Nile”… give me the gland.’
Bormenthal handed him a beaker containing a white blob suspended on a thread in some fluid. With one hand (’God, there’s no one like him in all Europe,’ thought Bormenthal) he fished out the dangling blob and with the other hand, using the scissors, he excised a similar blob from deep within the separated cerebral hemispheres. Sharik’s blob he threw on to a plate, the new one he inserted into the brain with a piece of thread. Then his stumpy fingers, now miraculously delicate and sensitive, sewed the amber-coloured thread cunningly into place. After that he removed various stretchers and clamps from the skull, replaced the brain in its bony container, leaned back and said
