“Then, Professor, in view of your stubborn resistance,” said agitated Shvonder, “we will file a complaint against you higher up.”
“Aha,” Filipp Filippovich said, “is that so?” His voice took on a suspiciously polite tone. “I’ll ask you to wait a minute.”
“That’s some guy,” thought the dog delightedly. “Just like me. Oh, he’s going to nip them now, oh, he will! I don’t know how yet, but he’ll nip them!.. Hit them! Take that long-legged one right above the boot on his knee tendon. Grrrrr.”
Filipp Filippovich picked up the telephone receiver with a bang and said this into it: “Please. yes. thank you. Vitaly Alexandrovich, please. Professor Preobrazhensky. Vitaly Alexandrovich? Very glad to find you in. Thank you, I’m fine. Vitaly Alexandrovich, your operation is being cancelled. What? No, cancelled completely, just like all the other operations. Here is why: I am stopping work in Moscow and in Russia in general. Four people just came in to see me, one of them is a woman dressed as a man and two are armed with revolvers, and they terrorized me in my apartment with the goal of taking part of it away-”
“Excuse me, Professor,” Shvonder began, his expression changed.
“Sorry. I do not have the opportunity to repeat everything they said, I’m not interested in nonsense. It is enough to say that they proposed I give up my examining room, in other words, making it necessary to operate on you where I have been slaughtering rabbits until now. In such conditions I not only cannot work but I do not have the right to work. Therefore, I am ending my activity, closing up the apartment, and moving to Sochi. I can turn over the keys to Shvonder, let him perform the operations.”
The foursome froze. Snow melted on their boots.
“What else can I do?… I’m very unhappy about it myself. What? Oh, no, Vitaly Alexandrovich! Oh no! I will not continue this way. My patience has run out. This is the second time since August. What? Hm… As you wish. But at least. But only on this condition: from whomever, whenever, whatever, but it must be a paper that will keep Shvonder and everyone else from even approaching the door to my apartment. A final paper. Factual. Real. A seal. So that my name is not even mentioned. Of course. I am dead to them. Yes, yes. Please. Who? Aha. Well, that’s better. Aha. All right. I’ll pass the phone over. Please be so kind,” Filipp Filippovich said in a snake-like voice, “someone wants to speak to you.”
“Excuse me, Professor,” Shvonder said, flaring up and then fading, “you perverted our words.”
“I will ask you not to use such expressions.”
Shvonder distractedly took the receiver and said, “I’m listening. Yes. chairman of the BuildCom. We were acting in accordance with the rules… the professor is in a completely exceptional situation as it is. We know about his work. we were going to leave an entire five rooms. well, all right. if that’s the case. all right…”
Completely red, he hung up and turned.
“He really showed him! What a guy!” the dog thought in delight. “Does he know some special word? You can beat me all you like now, but I’m not ever leaving here!”
Three of them, mouths agape, stared at the humiliated Shvonder.
“This is shameful,” he muttered diffidently.
“If we were to have a discussion now,” the woman began, excited and with flaming cheeks, “I would prove to Vitaly Alexandrovich…”
“Forgive me, you’re not planning to open the discussion this minute, are you?” Filipp Filippovich asked politely.
The woman’s eyes burned.
“I understand your irony, Professor, we will be leaving. Only. As chairman of the cultural section of the building-”
“Chair-wo-man,” Filipp Filippovich corrected.
“I want to ask you,” and here the woman pulled out several bright and snow-sodden magazines from inside her coat, “to buy a few magazines to help the children of France. Half a rouble each.”
“No, I won’t,” Filipp Filippovich replied brusquely, squinting at the magazines.
Total astonishment showed on their faces, and the woman’s complexion took on a cranberry hue.
“Why are you refusing?”
“I don’t want to.”
“Don’t you feel sympathy for the children of France?”
“I do.”
“Do you begrudge the fifty copecks?”
“No.”
“Then why?”
“I don’t want to.”
A silence ensued.
“You know, Professor,” said the girl after a deep sigh, “If you weren’t a European luminary and you weren’t protected in the most outrageous manner (the blond man tugged at the hem of her jacket, but she waved him off) by people whom, I am certain, we will discover, you should be arrested!”
“For what exactly?” Filipp Filippovich asked with curiosity.
“You hate the proletariat!” the woman said hotly.
“Yes, I don’t like the proletariat,” Filipp Filippovich agreed sadly and pressed a button. A bell rang somewhere. The door to the hallway opened.
“Zina,” Filipp Filippovich shouted. “Serve dinner. Do you mind, gentlemen?”
The foursome silently left the study, silently went through the reception, silently through the entrance, and behind them came the sound of the front door shutting heavily and resoundingly.
The dog stood on his hind legs and performed a kind of prayer dance before Filipp Filippovich.
Chapter 3
The dishes, painted with paradisaical flowers and a wide black rim, held thin slices of salmon and marinated eel. On the heavy board was a chunk of sweating cheese, and in a silver bowl, surrounded by snow, was caviar. Among the plates stood several slender shot glasses and three crystal decanters with vodkas of different colours. All these objects resided on a small marble table cosily nestled up against the enormous carved oak sideboard, erupting with bursts of glass and silver light. In the centre of the room stood a table, as heavy as a gravestone, under a white cloth, and on it were two settings, napkins folded into bishops’ mitres and three dark bottles.
Zina brought in a covered silver dish with something grumbling inside. The fragrance coming from the dish made the dog’s mouth fill with watery saliva instantly. “The Gardens of Semiramide!”[29] he thought and started banging his tail like a stick on the parquet floor.
“Bring them here!” Filipp Filippovich commanded with the air of a predator. “Doctor Bormental, I tell you, leave the caviar be! If you would like to take some good advice, have the ordinary Russian vodka, not the English.”
The handsome bitten one (he was no longer wearing the lab coat but was in a decent black suit) shrugged his broad shoulders, chuckled politely, and poured himself the clear vodka.
“The newly blessed?”[30] he enquired.
“Bless you, dear fellow,” the host replied. “It’s spirit alcohol. Darya Petrovna makes excellent vodka herself.”
“You know, Filipp Filippovich, everyone says that it’s quite decent now. Sixty proof[31].”
“But vodka must be eighty proof, not sixty, first of all,” Filipp Filippovich interrupted with a lecture. “And secondly, God only knows what they may have added to it. Can you predict what they could come up with?”
“Anything at all,” the bitten one said confidently.
“I am of the same opinion,” added Filipp Filippovich and tossed the contents of his glass as a single lump into his throat. “Eh… Mmm… Doctor Bormental, I entreat you: take this thing instantly, and if you say it’s not… then I will be your mortal enemy for life. ‘From Seville to Granada…’”
With those words, he hooked something resembling a small dark loaf of bread on his palmate silver fork. The bitten one followed his example. Filipp Filippovich’s eyes glowed.
“Is this bad?” Filipp Filippovich asked, chewing. “Is it? You tell me, esteemed doctor.”
“It’s exquisite,” the bitten one replied sincerely.
“Of course. Please note, Ivan Arnoldovich, that only the remaining landowners not yet slaughtered by the Bolsheviks use cold hors d’oeuvres[32] or soup as zakuski for vodka.[33] Any even slightly self-respecting person operates with hot zakuski. And of the hot zakuski of Moscow, this is number one. They used to be prepared marvellously once upon a time at the Slavyansky Bazaar. Here!”