Philip Philipovich turned red and his spectacles flashed.
‘Who are you calling “Dad”? What impertinent familiarity! I never want to hear that word again! You will address me by my name and patronymic!’
The man flared up impudently: ‘Oh, why can’t you lay off? Don’t spit… don’t smoke… don’t go there, don’t do this, don’t do that… sounds like the rules in a tram. Why don’t you leave me alone, for God’s sake? And why shouldn’t I call you “Dad”, anyway? I didn’t ask you to do the operation, did I?’ — the man barked indignantly — ‘A nice business -you get an animal, slice his head open and now you’re sick of him. Perhaps I wouldn’t have given permission for the operation. Nor would… (the man stared up at the ceiling as though trying to remember a phrase he had been taught)… nor would my relatives. I bet I could sue you if I wanted to.’
Philip Philipovich’s eyes grew quite round and his cigar fell out of his fingers. ‘Well, I’ll be…’ he thought to himself.
‘So you object to having been turned into a human being, do you?’ he asked, frowning slightly. ‘Perhaps you’d prefer to be sniffing around dustbins again? Or freezing in doorways? Well, if I’d known that I wouldn’t…’
‘So what if I had to eat out of dustbins? At least it was an honest living. And supposing I’d died on your operating table? What d’you say to that, comrade?’
‘My name is Philip Philipovich!’ exclaimed the professor irritably. ‘I’m not your comrade! This is monstrous!’ (’I can’t stand it much longer,’ he thought to himself.)
‘Oh, yes!’ said the man sarcastically, triumphantly uncrossing his legs. ‘I know! Of course we’re not comrades! How could we be? I didn’t go to college, I don’t own a flat with fifteen rooms and a bathroom. Only all that’s changed now — now everybody has the right to…’
Growing rapidly paler, Philip Philipovich listened to the man’s argument. Then the creature stopped and swaggered demonstratively over to an ashtray with a chewed butt-end in his fingers. He spent a long time stubbing it out, with a look on his face which clearly said: ‘Drop dead!’ Having put out his cigarette he suddenly clicked his teeth and poked his nose under his armpit.
‘You’re supposed to catch fleas with your fingersV shouted Philip Philipovich in fury. ‘Anyhow, how is it that you still have any fleas?’
‘You don’t think I breed them on purpose, do you?’ said the man, offended. ‘I suppose fleas just like me, that’s all.’ With this he poked his fingers through the lining of his jacket, scratched around and produced a tuft of downy red hair.
Philip Philipovich turned his gaze upwards to the plaster rosette on the ceiling and started drumming his fingers on the desk. Having caught his flea, the man sat down in a chair, sticking his thumbs behind the lapels of his jacket. Squinting down at the parquet, he inspected his boots, which gave him great pleasure. Philip Philipovich also looked down at the highlights glinting on the man’s blunt-toed boots, frowned and enquired:
‘What else were you going to say?’
‘Oh, nothing, really. I need some papers, Philip Philipovich.’
Philip Philipovich winced. ‘H’m… papers, eh? Really, well… H’m… Perhaps we might…’ His voice sounded vague and unhappy.
‘Now, look,’ said the man firmly. ‘I can’t manage without papers. After all you know damn well that people who don’t have any papers aren’t allowed to exist nowadays. To begin with, there’s the house committee.’
‘What does the house committee have to do with it?’
‘A lot. Every time I meet one of them they ask me when I’m going to get registered.’
‘Oh, God,’ moaned Philip Philipovich. ‘“Every time you meet one of them…” I can just imagine what you tell them. I thought I told you not to hang about the staircases, anyway.’
‘What am I — a convict?’ said the man in amazement. His glow of righteous indignation made even his fake ruby tiepin light up. “Hang about” indeed! That’s an insult. I walk about just like everybody else.’
So saying he wriggled his patent-leather feet.
Philip Philipovich said nothing, but looked away. ‘One must restrain oneself,’ he thought, as he walked over to the sideboard and drank a glassful of water at one gulp.
‘I see,’ he said rather more calmly. ‘All right, I’ll overlook your tone of voice for the moment. What does your precious house committee say, then?’
‘Hell, I don’t know exactly. Anyway, you needn’t be sarcastic about the house committee. It protects people’s interests.’
‘Whose interest, may I ask?’
‘The workers’, of course.’
Philip Philipovich opened his eyes wide. ‘What makes you think that you’re a worker?’
‘I must be — I’m not a capitalist.’
‘Very well. How does the house committee propose to stand up for your revolutionary rights?’
‘Easy. Put me on the register. They say they’ve never heard of anybody being allowed to live in Moscow without being registered. That’s for a start. But the most important thing is an identity card. I don’t want to be arrested for being a deserter.’
‘And where, pray, am I supposed to register you? On that tablecloth or on my own passport? One must, after all, be realistic. Don’t forget that you are… h’m, well… you are what you might call a… an unnatural phenomenon, an artefact…’ Philip Philipovich sounded less and less convincing.
Triumphant, the man said nothing.
‘Very well. Let’s assume that in the end we shall have to register you, if only to please this house committee of yours. The trouble is — you have no name.’
‘So what? I can easily choose one. Just put it in the newspapers and there you are.’
‘What do you propose to call yourself?’
The man straightened his tie and replied: Toligraph Poligraphovich.’
‘Stop playing the fool,’ groaned Philip Philipovich. ‘I meant it seriously.’
The man’s face twitched sarcastically.
‘I don’t get it,’ he said ingenuously. ‘I mustn’t swear. I mustn’t spit. Yet all you ever do is call me names. I suppose only professors are allowed to swear in the RSFSR.’
Blood rushed to Philip Philipovich’s face. He filled a glass, breaking it as he did so. Having drunk from another one, he thought: ‘Much more of this, and he’ll start teaching me how to behave, and he’ll be right. I must control myself.’
He turned round, made an exaggeratedly polite bow and said with iron self-control: ‘I beg your pardon. My nerves are slightly upset. Your name struck me as a little odd, that is all. Where, as a matter of interest, did you dig it up?’
‘The house committee helped me. We looked in the calendar. And I chose a name.’
‘That name cannot possibly exist on any calendar.’
‘Can’t it?’ The man grinned. ‘Then how was it I found it on the calendar in your consulting room?’
Without getting up Philip Philipovich leaned over to the knob on the wall and Zina appeared in answer to the bell.
‘Bring me the calendar from the consulting-room.’
There was a pause. When Zina returned with the calendar, Philip Philipovich asked: ‘Where is it?’
‘The name-day is March 4th.’
‘Show me… h’m… dammit, throw the thing into the stove at once.’ Zina, blinking with fright, removed the calendar. The man shook his head reprovingly.
‘And what surname will you take?’
‘I’ll use my real name.’
‘You’re real name? What is it?’
‘Sharikov.’
Shvonder the house committee chairman was standing in his leather tunic in front of the professor’s desk. Doctor Bormen-thal was seated in an armchair. The doctor’s glowing face (he had just come in from the cold) wore an expression whose perplexity was only equalled by that of Philip Philipovich.
‘Write it?’ he asked impatiently.
‘Yes,’ said Shvonder, ‘it’s not very difficult. Write a certificate, professor. You know the sort of thing — ‘This is
