Mikhail Bulgakov was born in Kyiv, Russian Empire (today part of modern Ukraine) on 3/15 May 1891. He studied and briefly practised medicine and, after indigent wanderings through revolutionary Russia and the Caucasus, he settled in Moscow in 1921. His sympathetic portrayal of White characters in his stories, in the plays The Days of the Turbins (The White Guard), which enjoyed great success at the Moscow Art Theatre in 1926, and Flight (1927), and his satirical treatment of the officials of the New Economic Plan, led to growing criticism, which became violent after the play, The Purple Island. His later works treat the subject of the artist and the tyrant under the guise of historical characters, with plays such as Molière, staged in 1936, Don Quixote, staged in 1940, and Pushkin, staged in 1943. He also wrote a brilliant biography, highly original in form, of his literary hero, Molière, but The Master and Margarita, a fantasy novel about the devil and his henchmen set in modern Moscow, is generally considered his masterpiece. Fame, at home and abroad, was not to come until a quarter of a century after his death in Moscow in 1940.

Chapter 1

Oo-oo-oo-woo-woo-woo-hoo-oo! Look at me, look, I’m dying. The wind under the archway howls at my departing, and I howl with it. I’m done for, done for. That villain in a cook’s hat—the chef at the canteen of Normative Nourishment for the employees of the Central Council of the People’s Economy—splashed boiling water at me and scalded my left side. Swine that he is, and him a proletarian. Oh, my God, how it hurts. That boiling water’s seared me to the bone. And now I howl and howl, but what’s the use of howling...

What harm did I ever do him? Surely I won’t eat the Council of the People’s Economy out of house and home just by poking around in the rubbish? The greedy, grudging beast! Just take a look at his face some time; it’s wider than it’s long. A thief with a mug like copper. Ah, good people! It was midday he gave me the boiling water treatment and now it’s dark, four o’clock in the afternoon or thereabouts, to judge by the smell of onion from the Prechistenka fire brigade. The firemen have buckwheat for supper, as you know. But that’s the pits, as bad as mushrooms. Some dogs I know from Prechistenka, by the way, told me that in the restaurant Bar on Neglinny Alley the plat-du-jour is mushrooms in sauce-piquante at 3 roubles 75 kopecks per portion. An acquired taste—like licking galoshes. Oo-oo-oo-oo-oo...

My side hurts unbearably and my future prospects are only too clear; tomorrow I’ll be all sores and what, I ask, am I to do about that? In summer you can sneak off to Sokolniki Park, there’s a special kind of grass there, very good for you, and apart from that you can stuff yourself for free with salami-ends and lick your fill from the greasy paper folk scatter about. And if it wasn’t for the cattawauler who stands on that round platform in the moonlight and sings Beloved Aida to turn your stomach it would be really first rate. But where can you go now? Have you been booted up the rump? You have. Have you had your ribs dented by bricks? Often enough. I’ve had everything and I’m resigned to my fate and if I’m crying now it’s only because I’m in pain and cold, but my spirit’s not fizzled out altogether... a dog’s spirit dies hard.

This body of mine, though, it’s all broken, all beaten, people have committed just about every outrage you can think of on it. The main thing is that when the boiling water hit me it ate through my coat and there’s absolutely no protection for my left side. I may easily get pneumonia and once that happens, citizens, I’ll die of hunger. The proper thing to do if you have pneumonia is to lie under the main stairway at the front entrance, but then who will go out scavenging for me, a bedridden bachelor? It’ll get on my lung, I’ll crawl about for a while on my stomach getting weaker and weaker, then any tuff who happens along will finish me off with a stick. And those janitors with the badges on their chests will take me by the legs and fling me out on the rubbish cart...

Of all the proletariat janitors are the most vile filth. Human refuse of the basest sort. Chefs vary. Take Vlas—the late Vlas from Prechistenka Street. The lives he saved! Because the most important thing when you are ill is to get hold of a bite to eat, and it could happen, or so the old dogs say, that Vlas would throw you a bone, and with 50 grammes of meat on it. God rest his soul for the real character that he was, a gentleman’s cook from the establishment of the Counts Tolstoy, not from the Council of Normative Nourishment. The things they get up to there in Normative Nourishment—it’s beyond the mind of dog to understand. They put putrid salt meat in the cabbage soup, you know, and those poor wretched customers of theirs know nothing about it. They come running, gobble it, lap it up.

There’s one typist, for instance, gets a category 9 salary of 45 roubles and if you must know her lover gives her Persian thread stockings. But what she has to put up with for those stockings! He doesn’t do it the normal way but subjects her to French-style lovemaking. Nasty bits of work, those Frenchmen, between you and me. Even if they do eat well, and everything with red wine. Yes... that little typist comes running. You can’t afford the Bar on 45 a month, you know. She hasn’t even enough for the cinema and the cinema is woman’s one comfort in this life. She shudders, screws up her eyes, but she eats... And just think of it. Two courses for 40 kopecks and both courses aren’t worth more than 15 as the other 25 kopecks have been syphoned off by the senior catering officer. And is that the sort of thing she should be eating? The top of her right lung isn’t all that it should be, she has some female disease because of all that French business, they docked her wages at work and now they’re feeding her rotten meat at the canteen, there she goes, there she goes... running under the archway in her lover’s stockings. Her legs are cold, there’s draughts all around her stomach because she’s got no more hair on it than I have and those panties of hers have no warmth in them, pure illusion, lace-trimmed. Tatters for the lover-boy. If she tried wearing flannel knickers he’d yell: “You’re so inelegant. I’m sick of my Matryona, I’m fed up with flannel knickers, from now on things are going to go my way. Now I’m Chairman and however much I steal it all goes on the female body, on chocolates, on Crimean champagne. Because I did my stint in the hungry brigade when I was young, enough is enough, and there is no life beyond the grave.”

I’m sorry for her, very sorry! But not so sorry as I am for myself. I’m not being selfish, oh, no, but there really is no comparison. At least for her it’s warm at home, but for me, for me... Where can I go? Oo-oo-oo-oo-oo!

“Pup-pup-pup! Sharik, hey, Sharik... why are you howling, poor thing? Who’s been unkind to you? Ooh!...”

That witch, the blizzard, rushed clanging into the gates and caught the young girl over the ear with her broom. It whirled up her brief skirt to show her knees in their cream-coloured stockings and a narrow strip of ill-washed, lacy underclothes, swept away her words and powdered the dog with dry snow.

Good Lord... what weather... Ooh... and what a pain in the stomach. It’s the salt meat, the salt meat! And when will all this end?

Lowering her head, the girl went over to the offensive and battled her way out through the gates. Once in the open street she was whirled around and around, thrown this way and that, sent spinning in snow-spiral—and vanished.

But the dog remained under the archway and, in pain from his mutilated side, pressed up against the cold wall, scarcely breathing and firmly resolved not to move from this place but to die where he lay, under the entrance-arch. Despair had brought him low. He felt so miserable and bitter, so lonely and afraid, that small canine teardrops like white spots welled from his eyes and dried without falling. His disfigured side was all cavernous hollows and frozen lumps, between which showed the ugly red patches of scalded skin. How unthinking are chefs, how dull-witted and cruel. “Sharik,” she had called him... Like hell he was a “Sharik”. A Sharik is something round and well-nourished, stupid, eats porridge, the son of distinguished parents, whereas he was shaggy, lank and tattered, a skinny vagrant, a homeless cur. Still, thanks for the kind words.

The door leading into the brightly-lit shop across the road banged and from it there emerged a citizen. A citizen, note, and not a comrade—or even, to be still more precise, a gentleman. The nearer he came the more clearly was this to be seen: a gentleman. You think I judge by the coat? Nonsense. Many people, even from the proletariat, wear overcoats nowadays. True, the collars aren’t what they were, there’s no getting away from that, but still it’s quite possible to confuse them at a distance. It’s by the eyes you can tell—from afar and close up. Oh, eyes are very important. Something like a barometer. You can see everything—who has a great drought in his soul, who is likely to put the toe of his boot to your ribs for no good reason, who is himself afraid of everyone and everything. It’s the ankles of the last type one really enjoys taking a snap at. You’re afraid—take that. If you’re afraid—you deserve... gr-r-r... gruff... wuff...

The gentleman walked confidently straight through the pillar of snow whipped up by the blizzard and advanced upon the archway. Yes, yes, it was quite clear the sort of man he was. You wouldn’t catch him eating rotten salt meat, and if anyone should happen to serve him such a thing he would make a real fuss, write to the newspapers: I, Philip Philipovich, have been served indigestible food.

There he came, nearer and nearer. That was a man who ate well and did not have to steal, a man who would not kick you but would not be afraid either, and would not be afraid because he always had enough to eat. He was a gentleman who earned his living by intellectual work; he had a pointed French beard and a grey, downy, dashing moustache such as the French knights of old used to have, but the smell wafting from him on the blizzard was a bad smell: hospitals. And cigars.

What ill wind, one wondered, was blowing him into the Cooperative of the People’s Economy? Here he is, right here... What’s he after? Oo-oo-oo-oo... What could he have bought in that rotten little shop? Weren’t the posh Okhotny Ryad shops enough for him? What was that? Sa-la-mi. Sir, if you had only seen what that salami is made of you would not have gone near that shop! Give it to me.

The dog made one last effort and, in his madness, crawled out from the archway onto the pavement. The stormwind went off like a gun above his head, flapping the huge lettering on a canvas sign. “Is it possible to restore youth?”

Of course it was possible. The smell restored mine, got me up from my belly, the smell that sent hot waves to contract a stomach empty for the last forty-eight hours, the smell that overpowered the stink of hospital, the blissful smell of chopped horse-meat, garlic and pepper. I feel it, I know it—in the left pocket of his fur coat there is a stick of salami. He is above me now. Oh, my sovereign! Look down upon me. I perish. What slavish souls we have, what an ignoble lot is ours!

The dog crept on like a serpent on his stomach, tears raining from his eyes. Take note of what that chef did to me. But of course it will never enter your head to give it to me. Okh, I know very well what rich people are like. But when you come to think of it—what good is it to you? What do you want with a bit of putrid horse? Poison like that’s not to be gotten... from any place but Mosselprom. And you surely breakfasted today, you who are a great man of world importance all thanks to the glands in the male sexual organ. Oo-oo-oo-oo... Whatever is happening to the world? It would seem it’s early days yet to die and that despair really is a sin. Lick his hands, what else can I do.

The mysterious gentleman bent over the dog and, the golden frames of his eyes flashing, pulled from his right-hand pocket a long, white packet. Without removing his brown gloves, he undid the paper, which was immediately seized by the blizzard, and broke off a piece of the salami, known as “Cracow special”. And gave that piece to the dog. Oh, generous personage! Oo-oo-oo!

“Phew-phew,” the gentleman whistled and added sternly, “Take! Sharik, Sharik!”

Sharik again. What a name to give me, still, call me what you will... for such a unique act of kindness.

The dog ripped through the skin instantaneously and with a gasp sunk his teeth into the Cracow delicacy and downed it before you could count up to two. He choked on salami and snow to the point of tears, almost swallowing the string in his avidity. I am ready to lick your hand again and again. I kiss the hem of your trousers, my benefactor!

“That’ll do for now...” the gentleman spoke abruptly, in a tone of command. He bent over Sharik, looked searchingly into the dog’s eyes and unexpectedly passed his gloved hand over Sharik’s stomach in an intimate, caressing gesture.

“Aha,” he pronounced significantly. “No collar, splendid, just what I need. Come with me,” he snapped his fingers. “Phew-phew!”

Come with you? To the end of the world! You can kick me with those felt half-boots and I’ll never say a word.

All along Prechistenka the street-lights were shining. The scalded flank hurt unbearably but Sharik sometimes even forgot about it, possessed by one single thought: how not to lose the wondrous apparition in the fur coat in the bustle and how best to express his love and devotion to it. Seven or more times on the way along Prechistenka to Obukhov Alley he did express it. He kissed his boot. Then, at the corner of Myortvy Alley, where the crowd got in their way, he set up such a wild howling that he frightened a lady into sitting on a rubbish bin, after which he once or twice emitted a small whimper to sustain the compassionate attitude.

A villainous stray cat masquerading as a Siberian sprang out from behind a drainpipe, having caught a whiff of the salami. The world went dark for Sharik at the thought that the rich eccentric with a penchant for collecting wounded dogs in gateways might equally well string this thief along with him, and that then he would have to share the delicacy from Mosselprom. For this reason he gnashed his teeth at the cat to such effect that it shinned up the drainpipe as far as the third floor, hissing like a leaking hose. Fr-r-r... Wuff! Be off! The whole of Mosselprom can’t provide enough to feed all the tramps on Prechistenka.

The gentleman appreciated this show of devotion and, just by the fire station, beneath a window from which issued the pleasant murmuring of a clarinet, he rewarded the dog with another piece, not quite so big this time.

Funny fellow! Luring me on. Don’t worry. I’m not going anywhere. I’ll follow you wherever you say.

“Phew-phew-phew! Here! Here!”

Down Obukhov? With pleasure. We are very well acquainted with this alley. Phew-phew! Here? With pleas... Oh, no, you don’t! No. There’s a uniformed porter at the door. And there’s nothing worse than that in the whole world. Many times more dangerous than a janitor. An altogether loathsome breed. More repulsive even than cats.

“Don’t be afraid, come on.”

“Good day, Philip Philipovich.”

* * *

“Good day, Fyodor.”

Now that is a Somebody. My God, who have you landed me onto, me and my dog’s life. What kind of a Somebody is this who can lead dogs from the street past a porter into a block of cooperative flats? Just look at him, the creep—not a word, not a movement! True—his eyes are a bit threatening, but on the whole he’s indifferent under that cap with the gold braid. Just as if it were all in the nature of things. He’s full of respect, gentlemen, and such respect! All right then, I am with him and following him. See? Put that in your pipe and smoke it. It would be good to take a snap at that proletarian horny foot. For all the times the likes of you have tormented me. How many times have you made a mess of my muzzle with your broom, eh?

“Here. Here.”

We understand, we understand, pray do not worry. Where you go, we will follow. Just lead the way and I’ll keep up somehow, in spite of my injured flank.

Down from the stairway:

“No letters for me, Fyodor?”

Respectfully, from below stairs: “No, Sir, no, Philip Philipovich.” (Confidentially in a soft voice after him.) “There’re new residents—comrades from the house management committee been put into Flat Three.”

The distinguished benefactor of stray curs spun round on the stair and, leaning out over the banister, inquired on a note of horror:

“Well?”

His eyes grew round and his moustache bristled.

The porter below threw back his head, raised his palm to his mouth and confirmed:

“Yes, indeed, Sir, four of them, no less.”

“Good God! I can imagine what will happen to the flat now. What are they doing there?”

“Nothing special, Sir.”

“And Fyodor Pavlovich?”

“Gone to get screens and bricks. Going to make partitions.”

“I don’t know what the world’s coming to!”

“They’re going to put people in all the flats except for yours, Philip Philipovich. There’s just been a meeting. They’ve elected a new committee and thrown out the old one.”

“The things that go on. Dear me, dear me... Phew! Phew!”

I’m coming as quick as I can. My flank is so sore, you see. Permit me to lick your boot.

The porter’s gold braid disappeared below us. There was a draft of warm air from the central heating on the marble landing, we took one more turn and there we were on the landing of the first floor.

Chapter 2

There is absolutely no call to learn to read when one can smell meat a mile off. Nevertheless, if you happen to live in Moscow and you have any brains at all, you are bound to pick up your letters, even without any particular instruction. Of the forty thousand dogs in Moscow there can only be the odd idiot who doesn’t know the letters for “salami”.

Sharik had begun to learn by colours. When he was only just four months old they hung out blue-green signs all over Moscow bearing the legend MSPO—the meat trade. As we said before, all that was quite unnecessary because you can smell meat anyway. It even led to some confusion when Sharik, whose sense of smell had been disorientated by the stink of petrol from a passing car, took his cue from the caustic blue-green colour and made a raid on Golubizner Bros, electric goods shop. There at the brothers’ shop the dog made the acquaintance of isolated electric cable, something to be reckoned with even more seriously than a cabby’s horse-whip. That occasion should be considered the beginning of Sharik’s education. Already out on the pavement it occurred to Sharik that “blue” did not necessarily mean “meat” and, tail tucked between his legs, he recalled, howling from the burning pain, that at all butchers’ signs the first letter on the left was a golden or reddish curlicue shaped something like a sleigh.

As time went on he improved his knowledge still more. “A” he learned from the legend “Glavryba” on the corner of Mokhovaya Street and, after that, from the same source, “B”—it was easier for him to sneak up from the tail of the word ryba (fish) because there was a militiaman on duty at its head.

Square tiles on the corners of houses in Moscow always, unfailingly meant “Cheese”. The black samovar-tap at the head of the next word stood for the ex-owner of a chain of cheese shops whose name was Chichkin, for mountains of red Dutch cheese and ferocious shop assistants, the brutes, dog-haters to a man, and sawdust on the floor and that repulsive, evil smelling cheese...

If there was someone playing the harmonica, which was really not much better than Beloved Aida, and at the same time there was a smell of sausages, then the first letters on the white hoardings could be comfortably deciphered as “impro” which meant “improper language and tipping are strictly forbidden”. In such places fights would suddenly boil up like whirlpools and people would hit each other in the face with their fists, though to be honest this did not happen often, whereas dogs were always catching it either from napkins or boots.

If slightly off hams or tangerines were on show in the window, the letters read gr-gr-ro-ocers. If there were dark bottles with a nasty liquid content... Wer-wi-ner-er-wine... Eliseyev Bros., ex-owners.

The unknown gentleman who had enticed the dog to the door of his luxurious first floor flat rang the bell, and the dog immediately raised his eyes to the large black card with gold lettering hanging to one side of the wide door panelled with rosy, ribbed glass. The first three letters he made out straightaway: “P-r-o—Pro”. But after that came a paunchy two-sided trashy sort of a letter which might mean anything: surely not “Pro-letariat”? thought Sharik with surprise...

“Impossible!” He raised his nose, took another sniff at the fur coat and thought with conviction: No, not so much as a whiff of the proletariat. A learned word and God knows what it means.

Unexpectedly, a cheerful light came on behind the pink glass, showing up the black card even more vividly. The door opened without a sound and a pretty young woman in a white apron and a lace cap materialised before the dog and his master. The former was conscious of a divine wave of warmth and from the woman’s skirt there wafted a scent like lily-of-the-valley.

This is life, thought the dog, I really fancy this.

“Do us the honour, Mister Sharik,” the gentleman ironically ushered him over the threshold, and Sharik reverently did him the honour, wagging his tail.

The rich entrance hall was full of things. A full-length mirror impressed itself on the dog’s memory with an immediate reflection of a second shaggy, ragged Sharik. There were a terrifying pair of antlers high up on the wall, endless fur coats and galoshes and an opalescent tulip with electricity hanging from the ceiling.

“Where did you find such a creature, Philip Philipovich?” asked the woman, smiling and helping him take off the heavy coat with its silver-fox lining. “Good heavens! He’s covered in mange!”

“Nonsense. Where do you see mange?” demanded the gentleman with abrupt severity.

Having taken off his coat he turned out to be dressed in a black suit of English cloth and a golden chain glinted joyfully but not too brightly across his stomach.

“Wait now, don’t wiggle, phew... don’t wiggle, stupid. Hm!... That’s not mange... stand still, you devil!... Hm! Aha. It’s a burn. What villain scalded you, eh? Stand still, will you?...”

“That jail-bird of a chef, the chef!” the dog pronounced with pathetic eyes and whimpered.

“Zina,” the gentleman ordered. “Into the consulting room with him this instant and bring me my smock.”

The woman whistled and snapped her fingers and, after a moment’s doubt, the dog followed her. Together they proceeded along a narrow, dimly-lit corridor, passed one varnished door, went on to the end and then turned left into a dark cupboard of a room to which the dog took an instant dislike because of the ominous smell. The darkness clicked and was transformed into blinding day; sparkling, shining white lights beaming in at him from every side.

Oh no, you don’t, the dog howled inwardly. Thanks very much, but I’m not putting up with this. Now I understand, may the devil take you and your salami. You’ve brought me to a dog’s hospital and now you’ll pour castor oil down me and chop up that flank of mine which is too sore to be touched with your knives!

“Hey, where are you off to?” cried the woman called Zina.

The dog twisted away from her, gathered himself together and suddenly struck the door with his good side so violently that the thud could be heard all over the flat. He rebounded and began to spin round and round on the spot like a whipped top, overturning a white basket with chunks of cotton wool. As he spun the walls revolved around him with their glass cupboards full of shiny instruments and he kept getting glimpses of a white apron and a distorted woman’s face.

“Where are you going, you shaggy devil?” yelled Zina in desperation. “You hellhound, you!”

Where’s the back stairs? wondered the dog. He rolled himself up into a ball and dashed himself against the glass in the hope that this might be a second door. A cloud of splinters flew out, clattering and tinkling, a fat jar leapt out at him full of nasty red stuff which immediately spilt all over the floor, stinking. The real door opened.

“Stop, you b-brute!” shouted the gentleman struggling into his smock which was half on, half off and seizing the dog by the leg. “Zina, get him by the scruff, the blighter.”

“H-heavens alive, what a dog!”

The door opened wider still and in burst another person of male gender in a smock. Crushing the broken glass underfoot, he made a dive not for the dog but for the cupboard, opened it, and immediately the room was filled with a sweet, sickly smell. Then this person flung himself on the dog from above, stomach first, and Sharik enthusiastically sunk his teeth into his leg just above the shoe laces. The person grunted but did not lose his head. The sickly liquid set the dog gasping for breath, his head spun and his legs gave way and he keeled over sideways. Thank you, it’s the end of my troubles, he thought dreamily as he collapsed onto sharp fragments of glass. This is it. Farewell, Moscow! I’ll never see Chichkin again, nor the proletarians, nor Cracow salami. I’m on my way to heaven for the dog’s life I bore with such patience. Brothers, murderers, why did you do this to me?

And with that he finally keeled over on his side and breathed his last.

* * *

When life returned, his head was still spinning gently, he felt slightly sick and it was as though he had no sore side, it had sunk into sweet oblivion. The dog opened a sleepy right eye and out of the corner of it perceived that he was tightly bandaged round the side and stomach.

So they did me after all, the sons of bitches, he thought vaguely. But they made a good job of it, I’ll say that for them.

“From Seville to Granada... in the still of the night,” an absent-minded, out-of-tune voice struck up from above.