from birth. Beside it is a photograph of myself with the caption: ‘Prof. Preobrazhensky performing a Caesarian operation on the mother.’ The situation is getting out of hand… He can now say a new word — ‘policeman’…
Apparently Darya Petrovna was in love with me and pinched the snapshot of me out of Philip Philipovich’s photograph album. After I had kicked out all the reporters one of them sneaked back into the kitchen, and so…
Consulting hours are now impossible. Eighty-two telephone calls today. The telephone has been cut off. We are besieged by child-less women…
House committee appeared in full strength, headed by Shvonder — they could not explain why they had come.
January 8th Late this evening diagnosis finally agreed. With the impartiality of a true scholar Philip Philipovich has acknowledged his error: transplantation of the pituitary induces not rejuvenation but total humanisation (underlined three times). This does not, however, lessen the value of his stupendous discovery.
The creature walked round the flat today for the first time. Laughed in the corridor after looking at the electric light. Then, accompanied by Philip Philipovich and myself, he went into the study. Stands firmly on his hind (deleted)… his legs and gives the impression of a short, ill-knit human male.
Laughed in the study. His smile is disagreeable and somehow artificial. Then he scratched the back of his head, looked round and registered a further, clearly-pronounced word: ‘Bourgeois’. Swore. His swearing is methodical, uninterrupted and apparently totally meaningless. There is something mechanical about it — it is as if this creature had heard all this bad language at an earlier phase, automatically recorded it in his subconscious and now regurgitates it wholesale. However, I am no psychiatrist.
The swearing somehow has a very depressing effect on Philip Philipovich. There are moments when he abandons his cool, unemotional observation of new phenomena and appears to lose patience. Once when the creature was swearing, for instance, he suddenly burst out impulsively: ‘Shut up!’ This had no effect.
After his visit to the study Sharik was shut up in the consulting-room by our joint efforts. Philip Philipovich and I then held a conference. I confess that this was the first time I had seen this selfassured and highly intelligent man at a loss. He hummed a little, as he is in the habit of doing, then asked: ‘What are we going to do now?’ He answered himself literally as follows:
‘Moscow State Clothing Stores, yes… “from Granada to Seville”… M.S.C.S., my dear doctor…’ I could not understand him, then he explained: ‘Ivan Arnold-ovich, please go and buy him some underwear, shirt, jacket and trousers.’
January 9th The creature’s vocabulary is being enriched by a new word every five minutes (on average) and, since this morning, by sentences. It is as if they had been lying frozen in his mind, are melting and emerging. Once out, the word remains in use. Since yesterday evening the machine has recorded the following: ‘Stop pushing’, ‘You swine’, ‘Get off the bus — full up’, ‘I’ll show you’, ‘American recognition’, ‘kerosene stove’.
January10th The creature was dressed. He took to a vest quite readily, even laughing cheerfully. He refused underpants, though, protesting with hoarse shrieks:
‘Stop queue-barging, you bastards!’ Finally we dressed him. The sizes of his clothes were too big for him.
(Here the notebook contains a number of schematised drawings, apparently depicting the transformation of a canine into a human leg.) The rear lialf of the skeleton of the foot is lengthening. Elongation of the toes. Nails. (With appropriate sketches.)
Repeated systematic toilet training. The servants are angry and depressed.
However, the creature is undoubtedly intelligent. The experiment is proceeding satisfactorily.
January 11th Quite reconciled to wearing clothes, although was heard to say, ‘Christ, I’ve got ants in my pants.’
Fur on head now thin and silky; almost indistinguishable from hair, though scars still visible in parietal region. Today last traces of fur dropped from his ears. Colossal appetite. Enjoys salted herring. At 5pm occurred a significant event: for the first time the words spoken by the creature were not disconnected from surrounding phenomena but were a reaction to them. Thus when the professor said to him, ‘Don’t throw food-scraps on the floor,’ he unexpectedly replied: ‘Get stuffed.’ Philip Philipovich was appalled, but recovered and said: ‘If you swear at me or the doctor again, you’re in trouble.’ I photographed Sharik at that moment and I swear that he understood what the professor said. His face clouded over and he gave a sullen look, but said nothing. Hurrah — he understands!
January 12th. Put hands in pockets. We are teaching him not to swear. Whistled, ‘Hey, little apple’. Sustained conversation. I cannot resist certain hypotheses: we must forget rejuvenation for the time being. The other aspect is immeasurably more important. Prof. Preobrazhensky’s astounding experiment has revealed one of the secrets of the human brain. The mysterious function of the pituitary as an adjunct to the brain has now been clarified. It determines human appearance. Its hormones may now be regarded as the most important in the whole organism — the hormones of man’s image. A new field has been opened up to science; without the aid of any Faustian retorts a homunculus has been created. The surgeon’s scalpel has brought to life a new human entity. Prof. Preobrazhensky — you are a creator. (ink blot)
But I digress… As stated, he can now sustain a conversation. As I see it, the situation is as follows: the implanted pituitary has activated the speech-centre in the canine brain and words have poured out in a stream. I do not think that we have before us a newly-created brain but a brain which has been stimulated to develop. Oh, what a glorious confirmation of the theory of evolution! Oh, the sublime chain leading from a dog to Mendeleyev the great chemist! A further hypothesis of mine is that during its canine stage Sharik’s brain had accumulated a massive quantity of sensedata. All the words which he used initially were the language of the streets which he had picked up and stored in his brain. Now as I walk along the streets I look at every dog I meet with secret horror. God knows what is lurking in their minds.
Sharik can read. He can read (three exclamation marks). I guessed it from his early use of the word ‘delicatessen’. He could read from the beginning. And I even know the solution to this puzzle — it lies in the structure of the canine optic nerve. God alone knows what is now going on in Moscow. Seven black-market traders are already behind bars for spreading rumours that the end of the world is imminent and has been caused by the Bolsheviks. Darya Petrovna told me about this and even named the date — November 28th, 1925, the day of St Stephen the Martyr, when the earth will spiral off into infinity… . Some charlatans are already giving lectures about it. We have started such a rumpus with this pituitary experiment that I have had to leave my flat. I have moved in with Preobrazhensky and sleep in the waiting-room with Sharik. The consulting-room has been turned into a new waiting-room. Shvender was right. Trouble is brewing with the house committee. There is not a single glass left, as he will jump on to the shelves. Great difficulty in teaching him not to do this.
Something odd is happening to Philip. When I told him about my hypotheses and my hopes of developing Sharik into an intellectually advanced personality, he hummed and hahed, then said: ‘Do you really think so?’ His tone was ominous. Have I made a mistake? Then he had an idea. While I wrote up these case-notes, Preobrazhensky made a careful study of the life-story of the man from whom we took the pituitary.
(Loose page inserted into the notebook.)
Name: Elim Grigorievich Chugunkin. Age: 25.
Marital status: Unmarried.
Not a Party member, but sympathetic to the Party. Three times charged with theft and acquitted — on the first occasion for lack of evidence, in the second case saved by his social origin, the third time put on probation with a conditional sentence of 15 years hard labour.
Profession: plays the balalaika in bars. Short, poor physical shape. Enlarged liver (alcohol). Cause of death: knife-wound in the heart, sustained in the Red Light Bar at Preobrazhensky Gate.
The old man continues to study Chugunkin’s case exhaustively, although I cannot understand why. He grunted something about the pathologist having failed to make a complete examination of Chugunkin’s body. What does he mean? Does it matter whose pituitary it is?
January 17th Unable to make notes for several days, as I have had an attack of influenza. Meanwhile the creature’s appearance has assumed definitive form:
(a) physically a complete human being.
